by Liliana Hart
“Right, easy for you to say,” she muttered under her breath.
She took a deep breath and relaxed, her breasts pressing into his back. And then she placed her hands at his waist like he’d told her and said, “Holy cow.”
“What was that?” he called back.
“Nothing.”
The seat vibrated beneath her, and the heat from the engine rebounded off the driveway and surrounded them. It was louder than she’d thought it would be, and she restrained herself from reaching farther around to cop a proper feel of the hardest abs she’d ever touched in her life. Sitting behind him on his motorcycle was the biggest sensual rush she’d ever experienced with a man.
“And isn’t that a damn shame,” she whispered. “Lame ass.”
Henry would have a cow if he could see her now. She held on a little tighter just because she could.
She didn’t know how long they rode. Once they got on the road and picked up speed, the temperature dropped drastically and she was more grateful than ever that she’d changed clothes. He drove up and down the streets of Last Stop and around the outskirts of town. He finally turned the bike onto a narrow, graveled road and then walked it up to a metal gate that said “No Trespassing” and had a keypad. He typed in a code and they waited as the gate swung inward. Then he revved the engine once and they took off down the graveled lane, dust flying behind them.
She recognized the area they were in, though she hardly ever came out this direction. It was nothing but fields with tall amber wheatgrass that blew in the wind and a small lake that had been used as a fishing tank when she was a kid. It was an area that had once been used for carnivals when they passed through town, but that had been a long time ago. She hadn’t realized Eve had purchased the land along with the funeral home.
He took them all the way down, between the tall grasses and toward a bank of trees that hovered over the lake. Her ears rang as he cut the engine, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
“You might be a little stiff,” he said over his shoulder. “Can you get off?”
She held onto his shoulders and swung a leg over, keeping her hand on him to maintain her balance. And then she pulled her helmet off and took a deep breath.
“Holy cow,” she said. “That was intense.”
“What do you think? You going to get your own in the big city?”
“The jury is still out. We might have to do more riding first.” Her hair was damp at the temples from the helmet, and her arms and neck were pink from the sun. She hadn’t thought about that part.
“Whose property is this?” she asked.
“Eve purchased it when she bought the funeral home.” He took off his helmet, and a couple of strands hung loose, and the look in his eyes was so intense it almost took her breath away. “There’s no one here but us.”
The late afternoon sun gleamed off the water and filtered through the trees, and the tall wheatgrass blew softly. The smell of mud and ozone was heavy—the lake water had been stirred up by all the rain, and it was murky. There was a small breeze, but the air was humid and the dark clouds in the distance showed there’d be more rain to come.
He dismounted the bike and took her helmet, hooking it to the back of the bike with his. And then he came toward her and heat spread like wildfire low in her body. She’d always had such great self-control. She could compartmentalize her needs and be satisfied without ever feeling . . . enough . . . sexually.
But Deacon made her a liar. She would never be able to compartmentalize again. She knew what need was now. What it was to want something so desperately that the body physically ached for it.
“I’ve got some things to tell you,” he said. “Do you want me to tell you before or after I kiss you?”
“After,” she said without hesitation. “Long after.”
He pulled her to him, and his mouth was suddenly on hers. Hot and wet, and there was a desperation he hadn’t let slip through when he’d kissed her before. She clung to him, her body molding to his, and her fingers tangled in his hair. She kissed him recklessly, as if she were dying and he was the elixir of life.
Light danced across her closed eyelids, and everything around her faded away in a whoosh as the blood drummed in her ears. Every sound was distant—the leaves as they rustled in the wind, the water as it lapped against the land, and the low rumble of thunder growling in warning in the distance.
He tasted of something dark and dangerous. Something she hadn’t known she’d wanted until she’d sampled the power of it. She’d never been so aroused in her entire life. Not with just the touch of lips. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, hard and aching for more.
She’d never thought of her breasts as an erogenous zone. She always thought them too small to feel pleasure. But now they felt full and heavy, and each time her sensitive nipples scraped across his chest she could feel the echoing sensation between her thighs.
His erection pressed against her stomach, hot and hard, but it wasn’t where she wanted it. She wrapped her leg around his waist and his hands cupped her ass, lifting her so the hard length of him notched exactly where she needed it to.
He spun her and she went dizzy at the sensation, her pulse pounding and her body throbbing. She barely noticed when he sat her on the cushioned seat of the motorcycle. But the second he tried to pull away, her eyes snapped open, wild with lust.
“Lean back on the seat,” he ordered. “And grab onto the handlebars.”
She did as he asked and then waited. His face was dark, almost angry in its intensity, and his eyes blazed with desire as his gaze traveled down her body. He tugged at her boots, pulling each one off and letting it drop to the ground, and then he did the same with her socks.
“I’ve got a confession to make,” he said.
Another rumble of thunder sounded, low and lazy, and his hands trailed up her legs to the button on her jeans.
“What?” she said, barely able to get the word past her lips. She couldn’t think. Didn’t want to think. There was too much to feel.
He tugged at her jeans and pulled them past her hips, down to her knees, and then past her ankles. She’d never felt so exposed, even though she was still wearing her tank top and white bikini panties. She’d also never felt so desired.
His fingers danced up her legs and teased at the edges of her underwear. His thumb traced just over the swollen bud of her clit. Her back arched off the motorcycle and her legs hooked around his waist, trying to pull him closer.
“Don’t you want to know my confession?” he asked, his voice hoarse and low.
“It seems there could be a better time for it,” she panted.
He choked out a laugh and then tightened his hold on her underwear, ripping it off with one tug. She squeaked in surprise and her eyes widened as he bent and kissed the inside of her knee.
“I heard you earlier. When you said you’d never had an orgasm with a man.” He kissed his way up her thigh and maneuvered her legs so they were wrapped around his neck.
She knew that what he’d said was significant somehow, but her brain wasn’t functioning well enough to figure out why it was significant. And then his mouth was between her legs, kissing and suckling the taut ball of nerves. His finger slipped inside of her, and then a second finger joined it, and he curved them up inside her, pressing against something she hadn’t even known was there, but that felt so good she almost melted off the back of the motorcycle.
“Ohmigod,” she called out.
“Mmhmm,” he said against her, the vibration adding yet another sensation to the storm brewing inside her body.
Her heels pressed against his back and her thighs were like a vise around his head. Her hips moved rhythmically against his mouth, and tension built and twisted inside of her. Cool droplets of rain splashed against her heated skin, but it didn’t bring relief. She was on fire, burning from the inside out, and the pressure built and built until the first surge of pleasure ripped through her with the force of a lightning bolt
, going on and on until she saw stars and then her body went liquid and pliant.
“Wow,” she said, letting the rain fall against her closed eyelids.
After a few moments, she finally found the strength to open her eyes, and she looked up at the wet shirt molded to his chest. He stood rigidly, his face pointed toward the sky, his breath heaving in and out of his chest. His muscles trembled with restraint, and his erection seemed almost painfully constrained behind the zipper of his jeans.
“Deacon?” she asked, wanting to give him the same pleasure he’d given her.
“Just give me a second,” he said, sucking in a deep breath.
“I want to . . .”
“Not this time, baby. This one was just for you.”
And then she remembered his confession. She rolled awkwardly off the bike and searched for her panties. “You said you heard what I said. About never having had an orgasm with a man. How could you possibly have heard that? It was just me and Miller in the house.”
She pulled on her underwear and then grabbed her jeans. She had a feeling she wanted to be dressed for whatever was coming. The rain was a slow and steady drizzle, so she grabbed her boots and moved under the shelter of the trees. Deacon grabbed something from the saddlebags and followed after her.
He unfolded a couple of blankets and laid one on the ground. “I told you I would tell you whatever I could. That’s what I’m going to do. Maybe you should sit down.”
“I think I need to stand for a little while,” she said, pacing back and forth in front of the blanket. Her jeans were wet and there was no way she was getting the denim over her legs until they dried a little, so she pulled them right side out and lay them flat on the blanket. The canopy of the tree cover was dense enough that water wasn’t seeping through the branches. If it rained a little harder, that might be a different story.
Deacon nodded and folded his long legs as he sat down on the blanket. “None of us are what we seem,” he said slowly, looking up at her. “Four years ago I was a contract agent for the CIA.”
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him as if he’d sprouted two horns. “You’re kidding me.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not. I’d been assigned a mission I didn’t morally agree with, and I refused the job. They decided I was too dangerous to keep around after that, so they disavowed me and sanctioned my death. I didn’t have any family still alive. My dad died of cancer about a decade ago, and my mom died a few months after with undiagnosed ovarian cancer. They’d always thought I was a teacher. My cover was that complete—from the diploma on the wall to pictures of me with some of my students. They never knew any differently.
“I lived a lie my entire time with the CIA. My house was staged to be what people needed to see. And I was always careful not to collect personal items—photographs or heirlooms. I always lived with the assumption that one day I’d have to walk away from it all. And that’s what I did after they sanctioned my death. I packed a duffel bag, torched my house, and went rogue.
“I was on the run for six months before Eve Winter found me.” He leaned his back against a tree and tried to get comfortable. Thinking about his past was never easy. “I was bone tired. The agents they’d sent after me were good. I was better. But I was getting desperate.”
He looked at her and grinned, the cocky expression on his face almost reassuring. Chills pebbled on her as the sky turned brilliant orange with the setting sun, and the slowing raindrops looked like molten fire as they fell from the sky. She moved closer to him, and he handed her the other blanket to wrap around herself. She took a seat across from him, somehow feeling like what he was sharing should be done in whispers.
“I was laying in bed one night in Austin, in a run-down motel that catered to druggies and prostitutes. I’d only been there for a night, and was only planning to stay one more. I’d picked a unit right in the middle of several other units. There was no back exit or window. Just a single door and a small window to get inside. I’d set little traps when I was sleeping. A chair under the knob. Glasses in front of the door. Blackout paper taped on the window. And I’d sleep with my gun under my pillow, with my hand resting on it, just in case.
“I remember when I woke up, knowing something was wrong. I was sleeping on my back and both my hands were crossed over my chest. I opened my eyes and listened, but there was nothing. There’s something about the silence of a room that isn’t empty. A feeling. An intuition. All I knew was that I wasn’t alone. And when I moved my hand back under my pillow, my weapon was gone.
“I moved fast, grabbing the lamp from the bedside table and throwing it as I rolled to the floor. It was then the lights came on and I came face-to-face with Eve. She just stood there like the Angel of Death. And when she told me she was there to recruit me, I thought she was working for the enemy. No one in my own government would touch me. She told me she was there to help me die, but then she’d bring me back from the grave.”
Tess’s head was spinning. It was like one of Miller’s novels. “Who is she really?”
“She’s a troubleshooter for a covert organization, and I’ll spare your life by not telling you the name at this point. It’s so covert not even the president knows of its existence.”
“That seems dangerous,” she said.
“It can be,” he agreed. “But there are a lot of things the president doesn’t know. Knowledge is best used when it’s shared by many people.
“After a surge of domestic terror attacks in 2005, it was created as a counterterrorism unit strictly within the U.S. borders. It was actually spearheaded by a woman name Celia Kyle. She’s the CEO of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. She’s our supplier, from helicopters to scuba gear to submachine guns. She convinced the secretary of defense to come on board. The third party is the assistant attorney general for national defense out of the Justice Department. The three of them make up Neptune.”
He took off his G-Shock watch and turned it over so she could see the trident etched on the back.
“The trident?” she asked.
“It’s our symbol. It stands for the three who allowed us all to live by dying, though I’ve always believed Eve is the real mastermind behind the whole organization. They’d be nowhere without her. But the three of them are called The Directors.
“Only Eve really knows what’s going on between all the moving parts. And she reports what she deems necessary to The Directors. There are two factions within Neptune. The first is called The Shadow. They’re the organizers. They make sure supplies are where they’re needed, when they’re needed. They’re the cleanup team that hides bodies and makes sure everything looks exactly as it did before all hell broke loose.”
“What’s the second?” she asked.
“The Gravediggers,” he said. “That’s what we are. We’re strictly an intelligence strike force. When Eve told me she’d help me die and bring me back from the grave, she wasn’t kidding. The Shadow helped stage my death. The body the CIA recovered was a match for dental and other key indicators.
“I had to disappear completely for a short time in case they weren’t a hundred percent convinced of my death. And the safest place for me to go was underground. I was given a serum, like the one you saw me administer to Levi the other morning. It simulates death, and then we’re buried in a special casket that has a limited supply of oxygen capabilities. We’re then shipped to an undisclosed location and given a serum to bring us back from the dead, so to speak. We’re given new lives and new missions, and as long as we serve Neptune we can live for real.
“Eve and The Directors scouted locations for a long time before they decided Last Stop was the perfect place for headquarters.”
“Why?’ she asked, hoarsely. “Why is it the perfect place?” Tess shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cool summer rain. She’d known somewhere in the recesses of her mind that she wasn’t going to like whatever he told her.
“The setup was perfect. We’re close enough to Dallas for t
here to be a legitimate reason for unusual aircraft to be in the area, and the funeral home provided the perfect cover for the bodies we’d be bringing in. The land in Last Stop was ideal. Almost every town around us is built on limestone, but Last Stop has a soft soil that can be easily excavated for different things. There’s also a lot of land. We needed space, a funeral home, and a good location, with easy access to anywhere we needed to be if there was a terror strike. We can be anywhere in the country in a matter of a couple of hours.
“When we checked into Jessup’s background and then yours, Eve knew you’d stay on if she bought him out. She didn’t think you’d ever leave your grandmother, and she knew even though you weren’t owner, that you’d like running the place as if it was your own. And then there’s the fact that you’re descended from Russian Mafiya.”
Her eyes widened at that and a chill went down her spine. “So what? What does that have to do with anything at all?”
“Nothing that Eve’s been able to find. And believe me, she’s looked. She’s always looking for ways she can use people. You serve a double purpose for her. You’re a fixture in the community and have an established place in the funeral home. And you speak Russian. Not just Russian, but you speak Old Russian. It’s like a lost language.”
“Really?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“You didn’t know?”
“Why would I?” she countered. “I’m an American. It just so happens that my grandparents were Russian. I knew about their connection to the Mafiya, but I didn’t realize there was a language difference. From what I understand, my grandmother’s father was the head of the organization until his death. He married my grandmother off to his next in command when she was only sixteen, things started getting unstable in Russia, my great-grandfather died, and the whole Mafiya fell apart. My grandparents came to the United States and changed their name from Syomin to Sherman. Russian was the language they used at home. As far as I knew that was the only Russian there was. Why such a big interest in the Russians?”
