“Why didn’t I know? All those years?” His voice hitched. “You were there, and I didn’t know what it could be between us.”
She had to find her footing before she really fell apart. “To be fair, I said nothing, and I’m not exactly a shy retiring flower. I didn’t think I’d be your type. Now? I don’t give a shit if I am or not. You were dead, and now you’re here. I’m taking what I want. Yes, I get it. I was Adam’s sister. Still am, except it seems to bug you less.”
“Doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Good.” She pointed to the bed. “Sit. Feet on the floor in front of you, hands in front of you clasped.” She demonstrated how she wanted his hands, fingers linked together. “Like me.”
He nodded and did exactly as she asked. His eyes met hers expectantly. “I’m allowed to talk, right? I mean, I told you no yes ma’aming, or whatever.”
“You better, Zach. How else am I going to know what you do and don’t want?” She stood in front of him, still fingering the tie. He was really going along. “We need a safe word.”
“I actually thought of one. Well, I need three, right? One for yes, for maybe, for no?”
He’d been to clubs, he wasn’t totally virginal at kink, she reminded herself. “Three is always a good idea. However, tonight I think we’ll assume the yes unless you say maybe or no. I’m not going to be doing anything too pushy. So, let’s be very simple. Yellow for maybe, red for stop.”
A slight smirk crossed his lips. “Yellow. Red. Look, I can say those words.”
“I kind of thought you could.” She stroked the side of his face. “Give me your hands.”
He raised them to her. “Kind of hot, you telling me what to do.”
“Only kind of?” She took the tie. “I’m going to keep the knot loose today. Any panic, you take it off, except if you say red, I’ll take it off for you.”
“Not going to freak out about having my hands restrained. Not if it makes you happy.”
She smiled. His words confirmed her thoughts. He’d never see it as a kink, and his thoughts were fine, only if Zach wanted to make her happy to the point he’d try anything for her—it was how he got off.
When she’d restrained his hands, she winked at him. “Lay back.”
He obeyed without question, and her whole body softened. “You can’t believe what your compliance does to me. Seeing you tied. With your hands wrapped because I wanted them to be. I think I’m going to reward you. We good?”
“Excellent.”
When he’d gotten into the position she wanted him in, flat on his back, arms over his head, restrained, it was a thing of beauty. “I wish I could really capture our moment.”
He lifted his head and glared at her. “Don’t you dare.”
“I won’t. Making a mental photo.”
Sarah tugged at his pants until they were off and followed with his boxers. She ran her hands on his strong legs to feel him shudder. The night before, she had conked out before she had gotten to do all the things she wanted.
She wasn’t tired, and they had all night.
Sarah took his cock in her hands. He’d barely let her touch him the last time. Zach seemed more in control, and she certainly felt similarly. The rush, the need was different, slower, easier.
“Sarah,” he whispered her name.
“Stay where you are. Don’t try to touch me.”
Zach groaned, yet didn’t move from the position where she placed him. “You’re so hard, and you’re all mine.”
She leaned over him, taking him into her mouth. He tasted salty and all male. Zach hissed, and she raised her eyes to look at him. He’d kept his hands where she put them. Good job.
His listening to her made very happy. So pleased, in fact, she took him deeper down her throat. He was long, thick, and all male. No way would she ever take all of him, and she wasn’t going to try. Sucking on his cock made her wet and hot. Where she couldn’t throat him, she stroked with her hands in unison. Bobbing her head, she moaned. Giving Zach pleasure fueled her own.
Minutes passed, lost in her own desire, she heard only the hiss of his breath and the moments he would moan. He got harder and harder, until she knew he was close. She increased her pressure, moving faster. She wanted heat for Zach, needed to give him pleasure as much as he wanted to make her happy.
He came hard in her mouth, and she moaned with pleasure, soaking her own panties as she sucked him dry.
When he finished, she lifted her head, swallowing the last of him. She met his eyes staring back at her own. They were hooded, hot, and filled with male satisfaction.
“Happy?”
“Damn, Sarah.” He laughed. “You are so fucking cool.”
She was.
7
Zinc’s head throbbed. The pain started the second they drove away from the lake house. He’d been amazingly headache free for the hours they’d spent there. Coming three times in a night probably had something to do with the temporary relief from the pain. Not that he could count on orgasming as a remedy for what ailed him.
It was nice to have had the reprieve, although not having the pain made him more aware of the constant ache.
Sarah pulled at her drink. They’d been driving for nine hours, and the silence in the car—unlike the day before—felt comfortable. He hadn’t done anything stupid to piss her off.
“What happened to your motorcycle?”
Her question caught him by surprise. What was the last thing they’d talked about before they’d fallen quiet? Oh, Great Danes. Sarah loved those dogs. How had she gone from there to his long gone bike?
“The thing about dying is all of your stuff goes away. I imagine when someone stays dead, it isn’t as much of a problem.”
She shook her head. “I hate when you make jokes about it. You forget, I was at your funeral. I heard the words spoken and watched when they lowered what I wrongly assumed was you into the ground.”
“Going to have to start checking coffins, aren’t you, sweetheart? Opening it? Making sure the deceased is inside?”
She pinched him on the arm before groaning dramatically. How was it possible he could enjoy everything about her? Ally, who he had wanted to spend his whole life with, bugged the shit out of him sometimes. Sarah was so damn fascinating. He’d be glad to listen to her talk about anything.
Sarah asked a question, he’d give her an answer.
“I’ve remotely tried to locate some of my stuff or at least, to know what happened to it. As you know, after my parents split, my sisters went to live with my mom in Florida, and I stayed with dad in Northern California, where you guys were. Well, your brother anyway. You were in your fancy finishing school having experimental sex with hot girls in your dorm room.”
“I was what?” Her voice squeaked. “Zach.” She pinched him again. “I can promise you, there was nothing so exciting going on.”
“Too bad. I kind of liked imagining you and the hot co-eds in your dorm room.”
“Your bike…” She let her voice trail off.
He nodded and sighed dramatically. Teasing her was fun, and it relieved the ache in his head. “If I had known Ally was going to go so quickly on to her next fiancé, I would have left my stuff to Kerry and April in Miami. They stayed after Mom died. Dad never wanted anything to do with me, he wouldn’t have liked getting left with my stuff. Ally and I were engaged, so I named her next of kin.”
“She has your bike.” Her voice sounded tight.
“I know she sold my house. I followed the transaction online fairly easily. My car went next, through an online reseller. I’ve been waiting on the bike to pop on the Internet somewhere. I have Google alerts. There aren’t many blue 2005 H-D FLSTFSE Screamin’ Eagle Fat Boy’s on the market. I’d find a way to buy it without her knowing it was me. Nothing yet. So, she either gave it away to someone, did a cash deal in person, or is still holding on to my bike. She hated the thing. Told me it made her feel dizzy to sit on the back. I don’t know why she’d still have it.”
Of all the things he lost, the bike bugged him the most. Fucking missed it.
“I’m sorry.” Her face fell, and he hated to see her unhappy. Reaching out, he stroked the side of her cheek.
“Don’t worry. I’m good. My turn for the question asking. How did you end up in the Agency?”
“I’m really smart.”
“I know, baby. Lots of really smart people out there are not recruited to such covert branches of the CIA. Titanium doesn’t know they’re Agency until he has to research them off surveillance video.” Or one of the Ghosts did. Titanium couldn’t see anything anymore. Although he still seemed to know whenever Zach rolled his eyes at him.
“I went to law school at Harvard. At every major law school in the country, there are professors who are paid by the Agency to seek out talent. Most years, they won’t contact anybody. Something about me triggered their alert. I was approached and recruited. Spent a year at Langley while I was also clerking for a federal judge. I’ve never been so busy. Afterwards, as they say, the rest was history.”
“And all that time, we had no clue.”
She smiled, which he would swear lit the whole world. “You not knowing constituted the general idea.”
“Right.”
Another nine hours passed before they hit his target, Edgewater, New Jersey. The commuter town had a ferry boat, and the parking lot would be the perfect place to ditch the car, though it opened them to more security cameras than he’d prefer. The ferry terminal boasted a second plus—it still had payphones.
Zinc had spent time there when, in his role as a Ghost, he’d had to help kidnap Platinum from New York City to bring him to the Elite Metal compound. They’d transported him from the truck where they held him to the ferry boat, and then taken a whole other car to the airport before flying home. It had been a long day. None had been as awful as the mission to kidnap Adam. Zach had frozen, and if Tungsten hadn’t been there to basically shove him into action, the whole thing might have gone to hell.
He didn’t want them to pull up together, and they were blocks from the ferry terminal. The time had come to cue Sarah in to his plan.
“You’re really exceptional, and I’m not going to hover over you. In fact, I’m going to count on you to manage when another victim in your situation would fall apart. It goes against every protective instinct in my body.”
Sarah handled herself on the island, she’d be able to travel through New York City by herself.
She came alert, her attention turning to him. “What are we doing?”
“I’m going to let you out here.” He pulled out his wallet where he had the rest of the money Tungsten had left them in Miami. “I’m probably being over cautious. Most likely no one is looking for us. In case, we’re going to split up. Walk the half a mile down the road. Carefully, please.” The traffic on River Road was busy. Zach eased the car into one of the condo parking lots lining the area and drew the car to a stop.
“I think I can manage.”
“Good.” He reached into the back. “Put my hooded sweatshirt on. Keep your face covered and your head down. You’re really interested in the ground.”
“I know how to be lost.”
“Excellent.” His pulse skyrocketed. Separating fucking sucked. “Buy a ticket. Go on the ferry. Be lost in New York for the next three hours. Then meet me at the Marriot Marquis Hotel in Time Square. It’s huge, and they’ll probably have rooms. I’ll have gotten us one. Go to the front desk. Use the name Daniels. They’ll have a key for you. Wait for me there. Listen, what I’m about to say is important, no matter what happens, you go there and wait. If I don’t show, someone else will. Do not leave the fucking room, Sarah.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime? I’m really more equipped to help than to simply get lost and go to a hotel.”
“You’re a target. They’ve taken you once. They either know you’ve escaped the island and everyone there is dead, or they don’t. I’d hope for the latter, I plan for the former. I’m going to track your handler. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
She shook her head. “How will you know where to find him?”
“I’m going to count on my people to have worked a lot of info. If not, I’ll improvise.” He shrugged. “I need you to be there. I need to know you will be.”
“If the best way I can help you is to go lose myself in New York City and then wait at a hotel, then I guess I’m going damsel in distress.” Sarah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He turned his head because he needed to more than breathing and caught her lips. He felt her smile over his mouth before she closed her eyes and kissed him deeply. When she withdrew, she barely moved before she spoke close to his mouth, “Wasn’t sure if we had moved into a zone where kissing you wasn’t going to be allowed.”
He brushed the hair off her forehead. “I plan to kiss the fuck out of you tonight in the hotel after I’ve dealt with the people who hurt you. If you see me by the ferry, on the payphone, or on the boat, don’t acknowledge me, I’ll try not to be on the boat with you.”
“Got it.” She stroked both his cheeks with her hands. “I’ll be fine, Zach. All getting kidnapped to the contrary, I’m really good at staying alive.”
“I know. It feels as if I’m slamming the car into myself over and over again. I’m letting you out.”
She opened the door. “I’ve got it.”
He was sure she did. Without looking back at her, because it might kill him, he pulled the car back into traffic and headed to the ferry. He quickly took a ticket, which would let him pay for parking later if he was ever to return for the car, which he wasn’t.
After parking, Zinc jumped out of the car and headed toward the ticket office. He’d buy his passage across the Hudson River to Manhattan first and then use the pay phone to check in back at the compound.
There were three people in line ahead of him, which gave him ample opportunity to keep his head from view and make note of all the video cameras he was going to avoid. There were three he spotted right away. He should have made notes of the security system when they extracted Platinum. Of course then, no one looked for him. David had cameras on his island, and Zinc hadn’t gotten to disconnect them before he got Sarah out.
Was his face on some machine where the enemy might be looking for him?
He paid for his ticket and meandered over to the pay phones. It had been such a long time since he’d used a pay phone, it felt downright surreal.
Zinc dialed Chrome’s number. It rang once before the other man answered. “I’ve been waiting for you all day.”
“Took me a little while to arrive where I wanted to be.” He wasn’t going to explain about the lake and the need to see Sarah by the water. Or the blowjob he’d gotten with his hands tied.
“Edgewater, by New York City. I thought you’d head there. That’s where I’d have gone. We have some information on Sarah. Steele is going crazy, his lady called in favors, and we have the name of her handler.”
He took a steadying breath. Talking to Chrome about a mission felt so damn normal. “I already have it. What I need is a location.”
“You’ll know it when your backup arrives.”
Zinc took a moment to digest his instructions. “Are you fucking kidding?”
“No.”
He banged his hand on the side of the payphone, of all the pain in the ass orders. He didn’t need to wait, he wanted to get his job done. All he needed was an address. How fucking hard was it to give him what he needed?
“Maybe I should be talking to Titanium. I’ve been dead to you for years.”
A long pause greeted his purposeful dig. When Chrome got quiet, it was never good news. “You and I are going to talk about your attitude and some truths you might want to consider when you return back. Shut the fuck up and wait for your backup. Are you headed for the Marriot Marquis?”
“Yes.” Damn it. He wouldn’t say sir. He had to take orders. However, his years of blindly believing were behind
him. After he took care of Sarah, he’d have to figure out who was in charge. “All I need is an address. I won’t do anything. I’ll wait.” He closed his eyes. “At least let me do what I do. Let me recon.”
Chrome rattled off an address on the Upper West Side, and Zinc committed it to memory.
“Before you hang up, you know what you uttered was a shitty thing to say to me. We’ve all been scrambling around here to help you. Titanium blew a gasket. Two of his contract pilots are officially no longer a plague on the world. And we’ve all been pulling intel for days. Missed the fuck out of you. Put your head on straight.” A pause. “I’m not done. We’re going to keep our conversation going later. And if you think you’re going to take a blow at my face like you did Steele, you have another fucking thing coming.”
He’d missed the fucker too, although he might never be ready to say so. “Thanks.”
He meant it, so he said it before he hung up the phone. All he’d ever wanted was a simple life. Serve his country, marry a pretty girl, raise a couple of kids, vacation in the sunshine. How he’d ended up as Zinc the Ghost on a payphone in Edgewater was beyond him.
Zinc only knew he’d see Sarah to safety. The rest of it he’d figure out. His head pounded, and he looked up in time to see Sarah heading for the boat. Good girl.
Sarah stepped off the ferryboat and pulled her hoodie closer around her head. It was a little hot and humid to be wearing such thick clothing. What the hell, safety trumped fashion and comfort at the moment. By the end of the day, she’d be glistening with sweat. Maybe she’d have to take a shower with Zach. Hopefully, they wouldn’t almost fall on their asses again.
She grinned at the memory as she hailed a taxi and told it where to go. New York usually invigorated her, the sounds, the noise, the constant motion. She worried about Zach and what he had planned, which took the edge off her joy at returning home.
He’d not looked at all when she crossed by him to reach the bus. He’d been standing so tall and stiff while he spoke, it hadn’t been hard to picture him in fatigues in a war zone. He appeared a man who could handle quite a lot on his broad shoulders.
The Men of Elite Metal: Platinum, Zinc, & Francium Page 17
