Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13)

by Irish Winters

  Tears brimmed even as she pushed her hips upward, relishing the heat between them and wanting every last inch of him inside of her. “Prove it.”

  And he did. He barely moved, yet he moved all the way. Slowly. Carefully. Inside of her body. Inside her soul. His eyes never left hers as her world deliberately changed from empty to full. She succumbed to the tender loss of virginity, gently impaled and claimed by a deeper, greater reason to live. Wanting this man with every last throbbing beat of her life’s blood.

  Eden matched his rhythm, her fingernails imbedded in the muscles of his back as he branded and claimed. As he filled her up. As he sweated and took and gave. And she flew. Into a universe of pleasure and ecstasy she’d not known before. Higher. Still higher, until Ky ground out, “Come for me, Eden.”

  With those ragged words spoken, with the amber light of his love spilling down upon her, Eden’s world exploded into warm, quivering fireworks of blues and reds and golds and whites that took her, breath by shuddering breath. She shattered. She flew. She cried. Throbbing ecstasy pushed her higher still. She grabbed him close and clung to him, a wild symphony of emotions singing through her body. Pleasure. Trust. The purest joy. Unselfish freedom.

  With two strokes more, Ky joined her, and they flew together. The power of that moment burned them into one heart, melted them into one soul. Joined them forever.

  She arched into him one last time and fell back to earth, their hearts pounding in sync. Two halves rejoined. Two lost souls found. She clung to him as aftershocks swarmed up her body, her cheek to his cheek, her lips to his ear. “I’m touching you,” she murmured thickly. Oh snap, am I ever touching you.

  He growled another “I love you” in her ear, and there was nothing better than their two sweating bodies clamped together in the same place at the same time. Every last measure had been given and eagerly received. Their hearts were entwined, and they were wrapped up inside each other’s hands and arms and legs. This was all she’d wanted since that long-ago day. To be mated with the only one brave enough to reach through the universe for her.

  Just her. Just him.

  Eden lost track of time after Ky wrapped her against his hard body. She had what she wanted—his arm around her and her back to his front. So what if they were wrapped in a sleeping bag? She understood the reasoning behind his austere furnishings. The day might come when he’d explain his humble home, but what woman in her right mind cared about what didn’t matter? She didn’t need a fancy bed when she had the perfect man to sleep on. They’d survived so much together. Could endure anything together. That much she knew.

  He breathed hotly, his nose buried at the back of her neck and tucked in her hair. He seemed to like that part of her body when he wasn’t roaming over others. The man had skills. He’d taken her through three orgasms and went with her each time until they’d tired each other out. Still, the solid shaft of velvet steel pressed against her backside promised another round of pleasure in her very near future.

  The Canadian operation that had started so miserably had ended in an unexpected happily-ever-after. Eden breathed a deep sigh of contentment. There would be no unborn children for Mrs. Bick to steal, no embryos for her to decide which would live and which would die. No level-ten psychic monster child to rule the world. No cybernetic terminators, either. But best of all, Eden had ended her harrowing run from terror in the protective arms of her very own Prince Charming.

  He murmured a sleepy rumble. “Don’t go. Stay.”

  No problem.

  After all, claiming went both ways.

  Eden rolled out of his arms and onto his hips. Straddling him, her blonde hair a silken drape to wake him with. To tease. To tantalize.

  “You want more?” he asked, a cute, tired little hitch in his voice. “Already?”

  “I want you,” she breathed, seductively blowing a warm breath down the centerline of his sexy body. Who cared about those scars? She didn’t. They weren’t the real Ky. None of those scars had reached his heart. If anything, they’d made him the man he was today. The hero.

  Besides, he still had all ten fingers, ten toes, and that very thick, very hard other body part that she craved. The one poking at her behind. Eden eased forward onto her knees enough to adjust her position. To take Ky back inside of her where he belonged. She moaned at the pleasant friction of a good tight match. The thrill. The crush of her internal ridges against him. The exquisite beauty and contrast of the male and female sexes. Soft against hard. Tough against gentle. The slow, sensual ride of give and take.

  He groaned, a delicious rumble that vibrated all the way to his toes and spiked her need for him into overdrive. Planting her palms to the wall of his muscular chest, she began again. A sexy tango with dips and bows, mouthwatering thrusts and mind-blowing anticipation. Ky took over the lead, his fingertips digging into her backside, holding tightly to the rhythm, increasing the beat as his hips bucked into her. Castanets clacked somewhere in the distance of her steaming mind, urging her on. Driving her up.

  “Open your eyes,” he ordered, his hands still on her ass. “I want to watch you watching me.”

  She obeyed, his voice velvet magic as she teetered on the edge of another swan dive into paradise. “I love you, Ky,” she breathed, needing him to know. Needing him to be sure.

  He blinked once. Twice. The moment froze as a raging fire shivered up her thighs into her core, her gaze locked on Ky. He held her tight and Eden fell, even as the world vanished into night and stars exploded around her. She clenched him into her with her whole body, needing him to fly with her.

  “Now,” she commanded, lighting a match to his torch. No sooner said than done. Their coming together rippled through them, an incoming riptide of desperate, eager need. Of out of control desire. Of lust and love and the promise of forever in his dreamy caramel eyes.

  The man beneath her looked so tired, but oh, so pleased with himself. A smug, masculine smiled tugged at his lips. “I knew you had it in you,” he teased.

  “I certainly do now,” Eden teased him right back.

  But she wanted to cry. Not every man could’ve survived what Ky had. She dropped to one elbow, her hair to one side while she traced the laugh lines at the corners of his eye, then the right angle scar when his orbital bone had been repaired. Even in the dim light, the tiny lines where skillfully placed stitches crossed the split skin still showed. His poor nose was a tiny bit crooked. Another scar left a dimple on one side of his chin.

  Eden tipped forward and kissed every one of those scars, her heart filled to overflowing for this gentle warrior. She wasn’t sure she deserved him, but she knew one thing for certain. She would spend the rest of her life loving him. Pleasing him. Living for him.

  The tears came softly, running down her cheek to drop onto his neck.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her into his side and under his arm. Ky wiped an index finger under her eye, catching the tears she couldn’t stop.

  Eden honestly didn’t know. One second she was happy, the next, she was shivering with foreboding. A slither of unease slid down her bare back. “I could’ve lost you, Ky. Back there. Back then. They would’ve killed you. How could I have lived without you? Not one day,” she answered her own question. “I mean it. There I was, dying along with you, only I was sitting in the middle of my nice clean kitchen while you were going through heck in that disgusting cell. I would’ve died right then and there with you. I knew it then. I know it now. You’re my light and my life, Ky. I honestly don’t think I can live without you. I don’t want to. I can’t. I just… can’t.”

  He bowed his forehead to hers, kissing her cheek and breathing hard. “Oh, Eden,” he said quietly. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  Eden wrapped her arms around his head, holding her to him, needing to feel his heartbeat and his breath against her skin. Suddenly aware of all she stood to lose. This man. This tremendous connection. This—now. “Don’t ever leave me, Ky Winchester.”

  He n
odded, his face in her neck. “Leaving you was never on my mind, honey. Only staying. Loving. Building a family and a real life.” Ky lifted out of her stranglehold. “You probably noticed that I could use some furniture. Maybe a bed. A mattress. Sheets. A real home.”

  He made her smile. The irrational vision of him suffering faded. The skulking shadow on unexplained unease dissolved. Eden nodded, composing herself, not sure why she’d gotten so emotional. “Things are a little sparse around here.”

  Ky tangled his fingers in her hair, tilting her face upward to his. “Help me shop?”

  “That I can do,” she admitted, sniffing, hoping she hadn’t just made too big of a fool of herself.

  “Oh, Eden,” he breathed, his eyes glowing with love. He molded her body to his, cradling her, one big manly hand on her ass, right where she liked it. “The world can wait. Let’s buy a big bed and stay in it for a week.”

  She let the contentment in his voice soothe the rough edges away. Maybe she was just tired. “I can do that, too.”

  The gloom crept up on him. The warmth was gone. Ky was alone and fighting for his life. It was hard to breathe. The monsters were back. The Taliban. He thrashed, searching for his lifeline. For her. For Eden. Again. The nightmare took hold like it always did, strangling the life out of him. Suffocating. Until...

  His sixth sense roared to threat level Delta.

  “Eden!” He flung himself up from the flannel bag tangled around his head and arms. His empty home was too quiet. Too cold. He pushed the sleeping bag to his bare feet. Hell, his bare everything. He hadn’t needed clothes with her, but now...

  “Eden?” he called again, his heart a jackhammer climbing up his throat. Where is she?

  He edged down the hall with full-blown panic in his veins, and his heart sank. His front door stood wide open. Not caring what the world saw, he charged naked onto his concrete steps. She wouldn’t have left. Not after the love they’d just made. Not after the promises. The tears.

  God, she couldn’t. Could she?

  The hollowness of his empty house screamed the answer at him. She’s gone!

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Three long months later

  A man would do a helluva lot for his family. There was no fiercer warrior, no more dangerous beast on the planet than a man hunting for the woman who’d been ripped out of his life.

  Ky Winchester was no more a junior agent working for Alex Stewart and his TEAM. He was hell incarnate, and he plain didn’t have time to run covert operations for his boss, not stateside nor on foreign soil—not when he was on the toughest op of his life. Alex could take a number and wait.

  It had been three long months since Eden Stark had vanished from his home after their first intimate encounter. Encounter, nothing. They’d jumped each other’s bones like love-crazed bunnies until they’d collapsed at the end of a very satisfying, steamy night. He’d still had the smell of her on his fingertips, the taste of her honey in his mouth when he’d awakened to an empty house the next morning. The sucking chest wound of what he’d initially thought was abandonment followed dead on its heels.

  Her leaving took everything out of him. It made sense she’d run out after she’d finally understood the half-man he was. But common sense and a slap in the face from his most annoying nemesis, Tucker Chase, set him straight later the same morning. Over hot black coffee. Tucker had called a meeting with Ky and Sam Becker to go over what they knew. It went something like this...

  “She didn’t leave you,” Tucker hissed. “Someone took her, you moron. I know Eden. She’s not petty like that.”

  Tucker looked a little rough after surviving what Ky had originally thought was a gunshot to the head in Canada. It turned out the younger Zaroyin had been tortured into working some mind control mumbo-jumbo on Tucker. When Tucker went off on Eden, she’d cold-cocked him with a hefty chuck of ice to the side of his hard head. No big deal. He might’ve lost a little blood, but that skull of his was plenty dense. He could take it.

  “Then why didn’t I hear anything when they took her?” Ky tried hard not to bellow. “God, I was right there.”

  “Because you’re stupid!” Tucker had no problem raising his snarky voice. “Shit, I don’t know why you didn’t hear anything, Winchester. Maybe you were tired. You were a Marine, weren’t you?”

  Again with the nasty, sarcastic insinuation. The perpetual Navy SEAL bullshit. Of course he’d been tired. He’d barely slept on the Canada op, then made sweet love to the woman of his dreams all night. That meeting with Chase and Becker would’ve nearly came to blows if not for the intervention of one mad-as-hell alpha wolf named Alex Stewart.

  “You called your boss?” Tucker had snarled when he’d caught sight of Alex fast-tracking toward their table.

  “Why wouldn’t I? He’s got my back. You never did.” Ky had wanted to knock the arrogant FBI agent on his ass. Tucker thought he was the smartest, toughest, baddest ass on the planet. Well, he’d gotten one thing right. He was an ass.

  Alex had to have overheard the hostile volley, but you never would’ve guessed it the way he’d sat down and ordered a coffee, black, like he’d owned the place. Good thing he’d showed when he did. Until then, Tucker had spent more time railing on Ky about letting someone kidnap Eden than strategizing to get her back.

  “Sit rep,” Alex had barked, and damned if Tucker suddenly didn’t straighten up, snap to, and spout off an answer before Ky could open his mouth. Maybe it was the business suit Alex had worn. Maybe it was something else.

  “Agent Stark’s been kidnapped, sir.” Tucker had leveled an accusing glare Ky’s way. “I’ve already contacted Director Strong. He has a team on site at Winchester’s place looking for evidence and clues.”

  You do? That was a surprise to Ky, but good to know. Tucker could be helpful. Ky should’ve asked Tucker why he’d waited so long to share that info-byte, but time was precious in those first few hours. Ky had let a lot of shit go. The urgency to get Eden back had ruled all.

  “What else?” Alex had snapped, his hands clenched on the table in front of him, his fingers locked together as his stern gaze scrolled from Tucker, to Ky, and ended at Sam.

  “Sorry, Alex. No. FBI satellite surveillance was not overhead at the time of her abduction,” Sam had offered calmly. He’d always seemed the yin to Tucker’s yang, the calm eye in the middle of a friggin’ hurricane. “No traffic cams. No home security cameras, either. Ky lives in the middle of starter-home America, where most kids don’t have the money for fancy extras like security systems.”

  Alex jerked his cell phone up from his inner jacket pocket and stabbed his thumb to one number. Who would’ve thought he’d have the FBI Director on speed dial? “Zachary? Anything yet?” He’d paused and shot a dark eye to Ky. “I see. Count on it.”

  He’d disconnected the call, his next words only for Ky. “Zachary’s men found a note in your mailbox.”

  The common mail receptacles at the end of the street? Ky hadn’t given them a thought. “And?”

  “It’s not Eden’s handwriting, but whoever put it there wants us to think it is.” Alex pursed his lips as if he needed to couch the next words with care. He’d paused a moment too long.

  “What’d it say?” Ky demanded.

  “It said you’re not to look for her. That last night was a mistake. That it will never happen again. That—”

  “Bullshit!” Of all people, Tucker roared. “You should’ve seen these two in Kenora, Stewart. They couldn’t keep their hot little hands off each other. Eden didn’t write that crap.”

  Ky took a second look at Tucker than. It had almost sounded as if the arrogant FBI hotshot defended Ky’s and Eden’s dalliance while on a mission. As if he’d known how much they cared for each other. Yes, their coming together had happened fast, but did Tucker also know how they’d first met? Did he know where and when? Did he know about the psychic link that welded Ky to Eden in the middle of the blood, sweat, and tears of a madman’s torture chamber?

/>   “Didn’t I just say it was bullshit?” Alex had retorted. Those cold blues of his had drilled Tucker with razor-sharp disdain. It seemed to be one of those alpha wolf traits. Growl before you rip a guy’s jugular out.

  Tucker got the hint. He’d backed off. He might have been a wolf, but the stronger alpha male ruled the pack.

  Alex turned his back on Tucker and addressed Ky directly. “There’s more. The note also said she could never love a man like you.”

  Again Tucker went off half-cocked. “Lies!”

  Alex hadn’t wasted a breath on him that time. “It’s a poor attempt to rile you, but you need to know it was signed with a bloody thumbprint, Ky. Zachary confirmed. It’s Eden’s blood and her print.”

  “They hurt her!” And Ky hadn’t been able to sit still any more. He’d jumped to his feet, needing to fight the world. Needing a cigarette. Needing Eden!

  Until Alex barked a throaty command to, “Sit, Junior Agent.”

  Ky had taken his place, but honestly, a hive of angry hornets had just taken up residence in his head and up his butt. He couldn’t focus, much less sit still enough to strategize. There he’d been with the owner of the most elite surveillance team on the East Coast, two savvy ex-Navy SEALs, and a direct line to the FBI director, but he’d never felt more useless. Shouldn’t they already have Eden back if they were so smart? Why didn’t they? They had all the best resources. What was the goddamned problem?

  It was all he’d been able to do to wait on Alex to speak. “We will find her, Ky.”

  That was all? A promise? A line of BS? It wasn’t enough. Ky had lifted his tired ass up off the chair in that mom-and-pop diner. Eden didn’t have that kind of time, and neither did he. Furious to the bone, he’d walked away from his boss, his job, and the tough guys who thought they owned the world, but didn’t know squat.

  Which brought Ky right back to where he sat today. Three months later. In that same diner with Alex, Sam, and Tucker. On their third carafe of coffee. Strong and black. Back with the three men who’d stood by him through every failed effort, every dead-end over the last ninety days, and every accompanying meltdown and double shot of booze to numb the pain.