The Men of Elite Metal: Platinum, Zinc, & Francium

by Rebecca Royce

  He stopped where he’d been making love to her neck. She missed the warmth, even if she didn’t regret the question. “I hate you needed to ask me.”

  “Not an answer.”

  Elijah breathed against her neck. “No one. I can’t think about anyone else. Imagining you is the only way I can jerk off, and still, it’s completely dissatisfying.”

  “Well, that was vivid.”

  He laughed, and she felt it all the way to her toes. “You did ask.”

  “True. I’m going to. I’m going to want answers.”

  “Unless something is classified, I’ll always make sure you understand what’s going on.”

  She supposed his response constituted the best she could ask for. “Fair enough.”

  “What about you? Do I need to kill some bastard for having his hands on what is mine?”

  “I think you’re only half kidding.”

  “Sweetheart.” He held her gaze in his. “I’m not kidding at all. I imagined you had moved on. Told myself you must have. But now I find I want to kill anyone you were with.”

  “No one.” And she’d never been so glad to be able to answer in the negative and really mean it.

  He walked away from her to the closet and came back holding a purple rope. It had been her favorite, he’d bought it because she said she liked the color. The Eli she’d known was always doing things to make her happy.

  Without a word, he took off her shirt, followed by her bra. Although his eyes gazed down for a moment with heat at her naked breasts, his attention was unsurprisingly elsewhere.

  “Give me your wrists.”

  She did as he asked and extended her hands in the way he’d shown her many times. He folded the rope in half. It had always impressed her how meticulous he became when he handled the rope.

  “You’re so careful with it.”

  “No.” He shook his head, not looking at her when he spoke. “I’m careful with you. The more I pay attention, the surer I can be you’re fine. You trust me.” He raised his eyes. “Don’t you? Color?”

  They hadn’t done anything yet except look at the rope. “Green, tough guy, green.”

  He smirked. “Good.”

  Elijah continued on with his work, wrapping the rope around her wrist, twisting and turning it as if he was a man who knew what he was doing. She knew for a fact he did. He’d twisted it three times before he pulled it in the opposite direction to secure the rope.

  His hands moved steadily. Was this way he handled his sniper rifle? Come to think of it, she’d never watched him do anything he hadn’t completely invested in. Even making spaghetti.

  Her man finally knotted it. She was fully secured. A calmness she’d forgotten happened when he tied her, filled her up. Her toes tingled, and she let herself take a deep breath.

  “Color?”

  She looked up at her face. He’d gone unreadable. Was he nervous? “Green, Eli.”

  “Good.” He tugged her with the remaining length of the rope, bringing her over to the bed.

  “Lay down, sweetheart. And close your eyes.”

  As he’d instructed, she did. He finished undressing her, and then she heard him removing his own clothing. It was weird laying there on his bed with her eyes closed. He’d not asked her to before.

  Her face must have betrayed something she thought, because he questioned her, “Color?”

  “Green, although I’ve never particularly liked anticipation.”

  “Then I won’t make you wait any longer.” He kissed the top of her knee cap, and she shivered. Who knew she was sensitive there? Well, Elijah, apparently. “Usually when I tie up your hands, I strap them up to the headboard. I think we’ll try something else tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “Good girl, keeping your eyes closed.”

  She smiled. “You know me, I love to be compliant.”

  “Sure. Ha.”

  She shook her head. “Sarcasm, Elijah. It doesn’t become you.”

  “Open your eyes.” She lifted lids. He lay on the bed next to her, completely naked in his masculine glory.

  “You’re so muscular.”

  He shrugged, showing off a muscle set. “Lots of sexual frustration. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym.”

  With her hands tied by the wrists, she didn’t have motion with them, even though her hands were free. She let herself touch his pecs. “Lots of hard work.”

  “Climb on top of me, sweetheart.”

  “What?” Did she miss a set of instructions because she’d been so preoccupied looking at the way his body looked sculpted?

  Elijah put his hands under his head. “You. On top.”

  “We’ve never done it with me on top.”

  “I know.”

  Her hands were tied, yet she could still move them. He wanted her to be on top? “What’s going on?”

  “Trust.”

  “Oh, I see.” She felt she actually did. Elijah was never out of control, and this time, he was giving it to her.

  She reached for him with her hands, and although it was challenging with them tied, she stroked his hard cock. He groaned and closed his eyes. Knowing the chance to stroke him was a rarity, she let herself indulge in it for a while. His hardness lengthened more, and her mouth watered.

  Eli opened an eye. “I’d really love to come inside of you. Too much more of any of your gentle torture, and I’m going to be over before it gets really going.”

  “How do you like the rope rubbing against you?”

  “Seeing you in it is my kink. On my own skin, it’s an extension to how I feel about you.”

  His words made sense. “Elijah?”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  He always asked her. It would be her turn. “Color?”

  “Green, my Rose. Totally green.”

  “Good.”

  She climbed on top of him and rubbed his bare cock against the outside of her pussy. Shivers travelled through her, but she wasn’t on the pill, and they weren’t going to go there. “Condom?”

  He leaned forward and grabbed a condom off the side table. In a few seconds, he had himself sheathed.

  With exquisite torture in mind, she moved over him slowly, until she’d put him deep inside of her, balls to tip. “You’re going to kill me. Aren’t you?”

  “Would be a great way to die.”

  She moved, inch by inch, until he was almost out of her, then she pressed back down. His hips danced with hers, and before she knew it, they’d started their hot caresses with his cock hitting her clit with each stroke, sending pleasure surging through her body. He’d said it wouldn’t take much for him, and she could feel him lengthening inside of her.

  “Shit, baby. So good.” His words sounded strained. She looked down at his sweet face, the one she’d thought she’d lost forever, to see the muscles in his strong neck clenching.

  Elijah was hanging on by a thread. She knew the feeling. Maybe it was seconds, or perhaps hours went by, and finally, she came in a surge of heat and wetness as she never had before.

  He called out her name, his hips rising and falling in a spasm of movement which extended her own pleasure further.

  She collapsed on top of him, and as the passion cooled, the tears she hadn’t known she held back fell from her eyes. Rose couldn’t have stopped them if she tried. Elijah wrapped his arms around her and curled his body around hers in a protection of love and security.

  He didn’t ask her to stop crying, which was good because she wasn’t certain she could have if he’d wanted her to.

  She closed her eyes and listened to his heart beat. “Rose? Can you do something for me please?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t have the strength to do much more than breathe.

  “Tomorrow, I want you to tell me all about the new season of Doctor Who.”

  His words were so surprising, she actually woke up enough to look at him. “What?”

  “The whole season. Start to finish. Could you talk to me for hours?”
<
br />   Rose lost him once, and though it might take a long time to really believe they were fine, she wouldn’t trade a moment with this man for anything in the universe.

  “Sure thing, Elijah. Whatever you want.”

  Always.

  Zinc

  1

  From behind the hood he had worn for three years to hide himself from the world, Zachery ‘Zinc’ Daniels watched Adam Steele. The man had once been more brother than friend. He stroked Alayna Steele’s face. The former spook had become the love of Adam’s life. She smiled and laughed at something he said. Zinc narrowed his eyes, studying them. Funny what a difference three years made.

  Once, it had been Zinc planning a wedding, touching the love of his life, and making future plans while his best friend laughed and denied he would ever have any interest in doing the same.

  The dreams died the same way Zinc had—on an icy stretch of road in Russia when a hail of bullets and a detonation dropped him. Dying hadn’t been so bad. Then Adam had left Zinc’s body behind. And never looked back.

  “It’s time,” Titanium announced.

  Time? Zinc regarded the man who had been both his commander and kidnapper. Titanium had once been a commander in the Marines, although the same FUBAR night which had taken Zinc’s life, had also stolen Titanium’s legs and his eyesight. Yet Titanium, hidden behind the kind of power only the very rich enjoyed, still led men into battle, whether they agreed to be on his teams or not.

  For three years, the former Elite Recon commander dictated all the terms of Zinc’s life. Where he would live, how he would act, who he would talk to. And with no warning, he wanted them to reveal themselves to the friends Titanium’s Ghosts left behind? To the people who thought them dead?

  Time. It was a funny concept. Years could fly by in what felt like days, while minutes could become hours, seconds feeling as long as decades. Every minute Zinc had spent hiding beneath his hood on Titanium’s command had been akin to centuries.

  There had been a time when he had been young, filled with life, and sure of his place in the world. He’d known who he was and who would always be there for him.

  And all of his best memories involved Adam Steele. His best friend. His brother. His fellow Marine. Oorah.

  Funny really, if Zach hadn’t pulled Steele from the wreck of twisted metal when they were fifteen, they probably wouldn’t be standing in the room at all. They’d been out racing their father’s cars. Neither of them had licenses. Though Steele’s father hadn’t been in love with a bottle of gin like Zach’s, both men knew how to wield a belt on their son’s behinds when needed. Of course, his punishments tended to go on a little longer, too. Not that he’d ever shared what happened at home. Men didn’t whine about silly things such as pain.

  The sound of Adam’s car slamming into a tree echoed with the frame’s unnatural crumpling and the shattering of glass—time had slowed as Zach rushed to the smoking pile of metal.

  He didn’t remember getting out of his own car and getting to his friend. Yet, there he had stood, in front of the wrecked vehicle. Blood flowed freely from the gash across Adam’s forehead. Amazingly, his eyes had been open.

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. That was bad. Shit, I thought you were dead.” Adam lived. He could breathe again.

  “I can’t move my legs.” Steele had grimaced. “There’s glass everywhere, and I can’t move to make it to the door. Pretty sure I’m screwed.”

  The situation was screwed, but not Adam. Although he wasn’t going to tell his friend how bad he looked. Not then, not ever. “Don’t worry, my man, we’re good. I’m going to haul you out of the car.”

  “My dad’s going to kill me.”

  “He won’t.” Adam’s father would be mad, for sure. He’d also be relieved his son hadn’t died. Steele’s father was cool for a parent. He loved his children, put their welfare first. Someday when Zach had kids, he’d be the same way—take after Adam’s father and not his own. No gin. No pills. No bullshit.

  In the distance, sirens wailed. The cops were on their way.

  “You should go.” Adam groaned. “You don’t have to be in trouble.”

  “I’ll never leave you,” Zach promised, and meant it. “Hold on. I’m getting you out of there. Take my hand.” He reached through the window, cutting himself on some of the shredded glass when he did. “We’ll make it out of here together.”

  His friend grinned. “You’re my brother, Zach.”

  “Hold on, Adam. I’ve got you.”

  Zinc blinked, returning to the present. He was a Ghost. Every record of Zachary Daniels listed him as deceased.

  Only he hadn’t died. Knowing things had the potential to go FUBAR in Russia, and believing there was a traitor on their mission, Titanium had made arrangements to have his own men rushed out to a secret medical facility if things went to hell. Too bad Titanium failed to indicate to his hired mercenaries who was a member of his team and who wasn’t.

  Nearly dead on the ground, Zinc had been swept in by the so-called rescue without so much as a by your leave and woken three months later into a world of hell.

  For three long years, he had been stuck. For three long years, he had watched his former brothers and sister-in-arms move on with their lives. Like Adam Steele. The man who should have stood at his side, been his best man when Zinc married. His brother. Buddy. Confidante. The guy who had abandoned Zinc on the cold ground in Russia to be drafted into a secret mission he would never have willingly joined.

  Steele had a choice. Chrome had a choice. Copper had a choice. Platinum. Adamantium. Sterling. Silver. Hell, even poor dead Cobalt. They’d all had a damn choice. They might argue they hadn’t, they’d been relocated, forced to move on. But Zinc knew differently. The second Poppy brought them in, she offered them a choice never given to Zinc.

  No one asked Zinc if he wanted his hell. They’d left him to it while they all moved on with their fucking lives.

  He gritted his teeth.

  After holding him hostage to the mission, Titanium decided it was time for a reveal without giving any of the Ghosts a choice to stay hidden. When did he ever give anyone an out?

  “Does it bother you?” Tungsten asked him one afternoon when they patrolled the compound. Tungsten’s real name was Brad, but Zinc barely remembered it most days. “Steele looks right at you. Last week, he bumped into you when he wasn’t watching where he went. He has no idea who you are. Don’t you think, sometimes, they should know, these people who loved us. Shouldn’t they know?”

  His friend had lost everything, and Zinc knew the feeling. Exactly the same as Zinc, Brad had been manipulated by Titanium when he’d not been part of his team. Together, he and Zinc were in their unasked for hell together.

  Unlike Zinc, however, who had distance from the woman he lost, Brad had to watch Copper fall in love. At least Zinc had been spared that special kind of hell.

  “No. We’re under hoods,” he’d answered at the time. Only he did, in his worst moments, think how fucked it was none of his team, his friend, the people he thought of as family, recognized him at all. Adam Steele should have known him anywhere.

  And he shouldn’t have left his body on the ground.

  With his fists clenched and his breaths coming out in hard puffs, he took off his hood. Then waited. Gasps sounded in the room, and someone cried out. But not Steele. Copper took off running, and behind him, Brad tried to move. Zinc couldn’t take his eyes off Steele.

  Say something, he willed his friend, tell me you understand what has happened here. What you did to me when you left me there on the ground, when you didn’t bring my body home.

  Nothing. Not a single reaction from the man he would give—and hell—had given his life for in Russia. Steele didn’t seem surprised. Zinc stalked forward. It was the silence which was his undoing, the non-reaction. Steele’s woman let out a cry, and Zinc’s best friend did nothing.

  Zinc couldn’t take it anymore.

  “How could you have left me there
for these fuckers to take?” His whole body vibrated as he waited for any response, any reaction. Nothing came.

  Crack. He whacked Steele’s nose, and the room exploded into sound. Who gave a shit? He wasn’t done yet. He swung at him again, hitting him harder. “Why? Fuck you, why? Why did you leave me there, Steele? How could you have let them do what they did to me? I pulled you from the car. All I wanted from you was to bring my body home when it was over. Why? Why? Why?”

  Blood sprayed Zinc, and the front of Steel’s shirt went red.

  Good. Let him bleed. Let him hurt. Let him…

  Whack. Zinc punched Steele again, slamming Steele square in the eye. Zinc’s hand burned. Training had taught Zinc years ago how to hit without hurting himself, only fuck it, Zinc didn’t care. Beating the bastard who left him behind felt too good. Years spent waiting for his moment, keeping quiet, staying in the shadows while his whole fucking world fell apart.

  Strong arms hauled him backwards, holding him still as only a trained operative would know how to do. He knew for damn sure it wasn’t any of the Ghosts stopping him, they all had their own battles to fight, and it took him a moment to recognize Merc as the guy halting his much needed assault.

  “Merc, you let me at him. You’ll never know, man. You’ll never get it.” Steele lay on the floor, gripping his beaten face as he continued to stare silently at Zinc. Why the fuck didn’t he say something? Why hadn’t he uttered a sound? “Why? You tell me why you let this happen, Steele. Why you didn’t make sure I was dead? Why would you have left me to my fucking hell when I would never have done the same shit to you?”

  Merc hissed an answer instead of Steele. “Put a sock in in this shit, asshole. He’s your brother, and you just came back from the dead. So you need to give us a damn minute.”

  His words were meaningless. Another indication they were never going to understand what happened to him for the last three years. Zinc quit struggling. If Merc didn’t want to let him go, he wasn’t going to be let go. “I’m good. I won’t hit him again.” He waited a beat, and still, he didn’t receive use of his arms back. “I swear it. No more punching.”