“Nice.”
“Hell yeah, my baby bought it for me with her pin money and, as she put it, ‘If you drink good shit, I won’t have to worry too much about your liver.’”
That has me laughing because it makes no sense, none at all. But then again, what the heck do I know about relationships? I think morosely, snorting silently. I’ve had one, and the fool was an ass. Not that he still isn’t an ass, but at least now I’m older and strong enough to see him clearly instead of hoping for—
“So, you and the dick, how’s that situation going?” Jericho asks, throwing his booted feet up onto the desk and leaning back to focus on me.
“Okay, I guess. He wants the whole dating thing. And get this, he wants me to live with him. Did you know he’s planning on sticking around?”
“Sure, spoke to us all about it way back when before we came after your little butt. Now, I may not be okay with the shit that he’s done or that whole faking his death thing, but you and I both know what it is to be owned by Uncle Sam and his evil minions, Jess. So yeah, I know he’s planning to stick around, and I’m glad because—despite everything—he’s still one of us. He may not be Gunny anymore, but he’s ours and we stand by our family.”
The whole speech takes less than a minute, but it hits me deep, very deep, because I do know what it is like to be a pawn in this political and military soup that our country has become, and dammit, I get it.
Trace, Gunny—shit, whoever he is—got a raw deal; one much worse than I, or any of the Watchers, got—and that’s just a fact. The rest of us got to walk away, as he became nothing more than a killer who stalked countless prey.
I don’t want to understand, but I do—and for some reason, Jericho’s blunt talk, whatever, I find myself so much more willing to just let things go. Maybe because what’s coming for us is so bad that I’ll just be happy to survive, and yes, I want the life I live—if I do live through this—to be happy. Starting with getting a certain spook to fall for me.
Shit, I so should have learned the art of seduction and flirting because honestly, I have no clue how to manage the guy besides using my CIA mind-fuck skills, and they won’t work on him. Maybe on his male side, but eventually he’ll cop to it and nail my ass for duping him.
Dammit.
“Jess.”
“I get it, Evans, okay? Cut him some slack, yadayadayada. Fine, but you have to admit I have reason here, lots of reason, to cut his balls off and not let him play games with me,” I grumble, glaring at the screen, cursing when it keeps sorting through the dross with no visible end in sight.
Jericho grins and clinks glasses with me.
“Didn’t say you had to make it a cakewalk, darlin’, just said you should let the past go and try to build something with the man. You loved him enough to fuck up your life with Storm once, so that must mean you’re still hot for him. No, don’t get pissy, missy, I ain’t trying to mess with you, just saying that for people like us, love don’t come easy and once you find it you hang on.”
“I did. I hung on for as long as I could and lost in the end. Storm hated me. You guys wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire, and dammit, my sister—”
“Is an asshole, so don’t even go there. She used you when it suited her purposes and then screwed you over. Far as I can tell if you can forgive her for that shit, you can get over Gunny and try to build a life with Trace. If we all live through this fuckery,” he snorts, as I sip at the smooth drink and sigh loudly.
“I have no idea how to seduce a man into loving me,” I admit finally, blushing like a virgin at a porn convention.
He laughs and shakes his head.
“You have tits, a vagina, and you smell good, nothing else required, girl. As far as the love part goes? In my experience, all it takes is putting it out there, babe. Trace wouldn’t have fucked up a four-year op to save you if there wasn’t something there.”
“Obligation.”
“My ass. The man almost lost his shit when you weren’t breathing in that shithole we found you in. I’ve never seen a man go that nuts unless he was losing the only thing worth living for.”
I highly doubt that. I mean Trace? He’s cold. Even way back when, as hot as we were together, the guy could detach so fast it scared me and left me cold at times. Love? I have this dream where he could love me, but the bigger part of me still doubts he is capable of it.
“Shit.”
“In a nutshell,” Jericho chuckles. “Look, do what I did when I wanted to keep my Cleo: go at it like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. Don’t hold back. Throw sex at him, cuddle, even if he tries to play it cool. Be open and honest and, babe, just be you—not Rachel or whoever the heck else you were back then. Be Jess and just go for it. If Trace doesn’t take what you’re offering, he’s a fool and you’re better off without him. But if he does, don’t muck it up with shit that’s dead and buried and should stay that way.”
Yeah, because the past is so easy to let go of when you lose more than your family and the man you love. These people have no idea what I lost back in that desert, and the truth is that while I won’t let the memory of it or the pain stop me from having the family I want, I won’t ever forget that I lost so much.
“There’s more to the past than just losing in love, Jericho. Sometimes the things that are taken leave more damage than is reparable,” I say softly, looking away when his eyes become too intent.
“True, but they’re still gone and there’s no sense in letting them haunt you in the here and now. King was the worst of us all, and look at him now. Married and looking at starting a family.”
“No shit,” I gasp, my mouth dropping open. “She’s pregnant?”
I like King’s crazy wife a lot, but I never would have pegged those two lunatics as wanting babies and the whole happily-ever-after thing.
“Yup. Very early still, so not blabbing.” He grins, looking so happy it makes my heart ache.“Just found out a few days ago, but don’t blab because they’re not telling until the first trimester is passed.”
“Scouts honor,” I vow, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Now, about Seduction 101…you gonna help a girl out, or what?”
***
I feel like an idiot as I tiptoe through my door and out into the darkened hallway, my feet not making a sound as I move down the thick carpet and make my way down the hall and closer to Trace’s room.
I look like a Vicky’s Secret model gone rogue after a night of wrestling with alligators, and I feel naked in the little nightgown Lenny loaned me. It’s fire engine red and so bright yet sheer that I feel like a hooker with my wares on display.
Men respond to visual cues.
That’s what Jericho and Lenny told me after an extensive and failed session of “how to bag your man.” It was damned embarrassing, listening to the two of them rehash some of their more randy sexual adventures with their significant others, I’ll tell ya, but they’re right.
I think.
God, this is killing me. Trace isn’t normal, and I have no way of knowing how he’ll react to me slipping into his bed, offering the goods so freely. Not after the rejection in Storm’s office earlier.
I have to do it though, because it seems that everyone is aware of my failings as an intelligent human being, and they all know that I can’t abide running from a dare.
Basically, Lenny and that smug jerk Jericho bet me I wouldn’t have the nads to seduce Trace. I want to rail at the injustice as I reach his door and stand trembling, my hand shaking on the doorknob. I should have laughed at them and gone upstairs to my bed and some self-loving. Instead, I’m opening the door and slipping into the dark confines of the room, about to either embarrass myself or get the loving I need so badly.
A click stops me dead in my tracks just as the door closes behind me and I freeze, very aware that right now I have a gun trained on me. I can feel it, my instincts so honed that I can say with ninety percent accuracy that the target is right between my eyes.
“Cut it
out, Trace. You want to fight or fuck?” I snarl, proud when my voice only quavers a little.
“Christ! Are you insane, woman? I could have shot you,” he growls and I hear a shuffling just before bright light blinds me, my eyes blinking rapidly.
When my vision finally clears, I see Trace on the bed, scowling at me and it makes me want to laugh for some reason. What a letdown having him look at me that way when I know that any male with a working penis would take one look at this travesty of a nighty and start drooling. Real confidence booster that.
“Calm down and keep the lead in soldier.It’s just lil ol’ me, not Terrorists R Us sneaking into your room,” I mutter, shuffling closer, though Lord knows I want to run right now.
Don’t be a chicken. You can do this.
Oh, but can I? I wonder, as I slide onto the bed and he doesn’t so much as blink, those caramel-colored eyes taking me in with so much disinterest it’s insulting.
I have good boobs! And I shaved my junk. Come on man, be…a man.
But he doesn’t move, not even to let his eyes wander down my front. He just keeps looking at me with no expression, his eyes giving nothing away.
“What are you doing, Jess?”
Seriously? Is he brain damaged from inhaling his own ego?
“What the hell do you think I’m doing, Trace? God, isn’t it obvious, you idiot?” I gasp, coming to my feet, all hot indignation and smarting pride.
In the past, I could have worn a freaking nun’s habit and he’d have seen it as an invitation and ripped it off. Now I’m wearing so little that Victoria’s angels could color match my labia and…nothing.
Trace shifts slightly and finally lets his eyes wander, and they darken when they reach my crotch where the outline of my mound is clearly visible.
“You’re here for sex?”
“No, I just thought we could knit, braid each other’s hair, and share our deepest secrets! Of course, I’m here for sex. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was your hard dick trying to drill a hole in my belly earlier,” I rage, feeling ten types of stupid for doing this.
I can’t believe I took that “be open” bullshit advice from those yahoos. And I can’t believe I’m hurt that my body no longer has the power to turn Mr. Sex Crazed Maniac into an animal.
Sure, I wasn’t expecting declarations of love, but come on, a little drooling and eye popping isn’t too much to ask since I braved getting caught in the hallway looking like Candy Cum Get Me.
“It was. And believe me, babe, he’s still hard and spitting curses at me for turning you down—”
“Then don’t,” I whisper, silently pleading with him. “This is hard for me, harder even than before, but I promised us both that I’d at least try, so here I am, laying myself bare.”
That has him going completely still and I see him shudder before dropping the mask and showing me every bit of pent up lust and animalistic need hiding there.
The sight scares me a little, I have to admit, but the fear disappears instantly as Trace grabs me and pulls me back to the bed, coming over me in one swift move.
Just like that, I forget that I just begged him, instead losing myself when his head lowers and a ravenous kiss steals my breath, making me groan and push closer to the arousal pressing into the crease of my thighs.
It happens so fast that I don’t just get wet, I flood my thighs, my body pleading for an end to the agony of the arousal that’s held me in its grip since I first saw him again.
Trace, as he was so long ago, is so attuned to me that he breaks the kiss with a growl and rears up, separating our hips to take a long, loud sniff of the air.
“I can smell you, baby. I can smell all that hot, smooth honey. Want to taste it again so bad. Want to eat it all and have you all over my face.”
The growl is hard, his face tense as he shoves down and pushes his face into the skin at the top of my mound, his groan sending puffs of air over my pulsing clit.
“Please do it.”
I almost scream my head off at the way he uses his thumbs to open me, and I do wail, long and loud, when instead of sucking on me like I need him to, he licks a slow path from the ultra-wet hole of my entrance all the way to my throbbing clit, pausing to wiggle his tongue into the end of my slit just above it.
He does it, over and over again, ignoring my pleas and moans, ignoring my outright filthy curses and goes on tasting as if the act itself is the culmination of his need.
He doesn’t pleasure me, eat me, lick me as foreplay. No, what Trace does can only be called worship, as he slowly and thoroughly reacquaints himself with my sex, growling at every taste and release of my fluids.
I’m almost mindless by the time he pulls away, swiping at the sheen of my juices coating his chin, and I lose it even more when he proceeds to run his right thumb over my slit, top to bottom before pressing his thumb into me.
The orgasm takes me by surprise, and I let out a silent scream as I contract and go blind to everything but the pleasure.
“Yeah, ride my hand, baby. Squeeze me so hard,” he groans, palming my sex, as I release into his hand before dropping into a near faint.
That was…nothing at all what I expected, I think, dazed, as I watch him pull his hand away and lick it clean, his eyes drooping with his own pleasure.
I want….
Him, I realize. My body is hot again, fast, intensely, so much so that I can’t stop a blush when I feel more moisture pool in my groin. I just came. I just had an eye-crossing orgasm from his teasing, and I feel like my bones are liquefied, and yet it’s not enough.
Trace grins at my silent agony and licks his lips.
“What do you want, baby, hmmm?”
Tease. The man is a tease, I mutter silently, scowling as he chuckles and pushes down his underwear, giving me a shock as all that silky hardness meets my eyes.
He’s always been big, bigger than any other man—excluding Storm, but that man is just a beast, and anyone who sees him should know he’s loaded for Polar bear.
“You miss him, baby?”
“Ass.”
“Maybe later,” he snorts, making me blush and giggle. “You want me inside you, Jess? Be sure, be very sure because once I’m in, I ain’t going anywhere. I fuck you now and you’re mine,” he warns, giving me pause.
Am I ready for things to move so fast? Can I honestly say that I can handle what he’s throwing at me when really part of me was holding back, playing with the idea of making him fall for me.
I could say yes right now and keep going, sure of the fact that eventually I may be more to him than a friend, a sex partner and someone to sleep beside at night, but there’s no out, and I realize that part of me was inching a toe out the back door just in case I needed to run.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jess, and the answer is no. We do this and you can’t go back and change your mind. It’ll be me, coming inside you every night from now on, trying to do more than just get off. I want it all. You, babies, the whole lot. I told you what I want, and you can be damn sure that if you give it to me now, I’ll take it all. I’ll own you.”
Shit. I want to run, and yet as the thought forms, I see Trace reach down to palm his shaft, his large hand stroking seductively, milking pre-cum from the slit crowning his head.
The sight makes me clench and contract, my sex gasping, grasping and empty. So empty I swear it hurts not to have him inside me, filling the emptiness I’ve carried for so long.
I want him, and after a brief pause to evaluate, I realize that I want everything with him, not just sex or the brief pleasure but the whole nine, just as he said.
“Come and get it, soldier.”
Chapter Ten
Trace
I’m holding my breath and praying for fortitude as Jess keeps me hanging. My dick is pounding so hard right now I can count my heartbeats through the bastard.
Going down on her was so good that I could have happily spent hours just licking and sucking at her pink treat, but it’s been so lon
g that I swear I almost came all over the sheets I hurt so bad.
She’s everything I remember and so much more. Gone is the whipcord strength she once possessed from working out every day, and in its place is a softness that makes me want to pound into her like a beast.
Her tits are fuller; her ass is a work of art, all soft and toned at the same time. But it’s her sex that still has me by the balls. She’s no longer open, telling me that she’s been without a man for a long time, something I already knew but still find arousing just seeing that shit for myself.
And she tastes…sweeter somehow. Not that frou-frou romance shit where the guy calls his woman sweet as sugar—it’s a vagina, not a sugar bowl—but sweet in the way that she tastes clean and unique, like only she can.
Maybe I’m just an asshole with an overly poetic mind, but I swear to God when her taste hit me I could have sworn it filled up the hunger that’s been gnawing at me for years, as if my body has been craving the drug that is Jess.
“Come and get it, soldier.”
The words release the little control I’ve been clinging to for the last half hour, and I’m on her so fast I should be embarrassed. I’m not though, no, I need to be inside her now, always…
I’m not a gentleman, not gentle in any sense of the word, as I throw her legs over my shoulders, bend her almost double and drive into her hard, going so deep my eyes cross at the relief that hits me.
Her warm sex is slippery, tight, and so hot I almost blow when I hit the end of her and feel my crown brush at the mouth of her womb. Jess lets out a choked gasp, and I still, holding there because frankly the thought of pulling out even a little makes me want to go crazy.
“Shh, just hold still and relax, baby. It’ll get better in a bit,” I croon, leaning down to sip at her lips.
It feels like an eternity passes before I feel her sheath relax, releasing the stranglehold she’s got on my dick, the warm tissues rippling and softening around me.
I keep still though, gritting my teeth against the pain and wait it out, groaning my thanks when she starts rotating her hips experimentally before giving me the green light.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 83
