She took a step toward him, until she was well within arm’s reach. “Your ta moko, you said it was done in New Zealand, when you were redefining yourself. What do the symbols mean?”
He held out his hand. She looked at his open palm for a moment and placed her hand in his.
“This.” He lifted her hand until her fingertips brushed a central symbol with a double twist. “This is a pikorua. It’s for growth and the joining together of two different things in life. For me, it was growth but I’m hoping it will be a joining moving forward.”
She parted her lips. The edges of the marking were raised on his skin, permanent and purposeful scarring of the skin as part of the tattoo. The texture fascinated her, the same way it did whenever she ran her hands over his body. Her fingertips wandered, and he let her explore. She traced a repeating angular pattern. “And this?”
“Pakati.” Adam’s voice was turning husky. “It represents a warrior, past battles, the courage and strength it took to survive.”
Her fingertips continued, the layers of meaning in his ta moko revealing a story to her that she’d already learned. “This?”
“Ahu aha mataroa. For new challenges, because I decided I still have a lot of living to do.”
Yes. She sighed, happy. “New challenges. Will you be with me? Try staying with me as a new challenge?”
He lifted his hand to cover hers, pressing her palm over the entirety of his complex story. “It would be an honor.”
She smiled up at him, and words scattered from her brain as she met his gaze. This man, he did everything to her.
Stepping forward, he leaned close until his forehead and nose touched hers, both at the same time. He stood still with her for a long moment as they breathed in each other. “This is the hongi. We exchange the ha, the breath of life, as we share our souls. It’s a greeting among the Maori, and Victoria Ash, I am very glad to have met you.”
She reached up to cup his face in her hands. He leaned into her palms for a long moment before she closed the small distance between their mouths and pressed her lips against his. They both took their time, enjoying the warm pressure and hint of sweetness between them. Then he growled low in his throat and nipped the corner of her mouth. She opened for him, savoring the moment his tongue swept in to explore before letting her own dance with his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her as his arms circled her waist.
Heat ignited between them. Not that it had ever been gone since the first time they’d met. It’d been there, banked smoldering coals of desire and mutual attraction, burning deeper as they’d fallen more and more for each other. She wanted to gasp for air and be consumed by what they ignited in each other, over and over again.
He lifted her, burying his face in her cleavage as he did. She held on as he walked the few steps to her bed and dropped her on it. She was unbuttoning her pants as she landed, gratified to see him getting out of his clothes with the same haste. Buttons undone, zippers down and fabric was tossed aside until she lay naked in front of him and he stood by the bedside gloriously nude.
“You are a beautiful man.” She couldn’t help it. She wanted him to cover her like a blanket. Then, maybe later, she wanted to climb overtop of him.
“I’m an impatient man.” He loomed over her, his hands coasting over her body, caressing and gently squeezing all along the way.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, enjoying the rush of sensation as he explored the surface of her body. The slight roughness of his calloused palms, his strong grip, his achingly gentle touch as his hands skimmed over her more sensitive parts.
She bit her lip as he coaxed her knees apart. He paused for a moment, long enough for her to open her eyes and look down her own body to see him poised just between her thighs, staring up at her. Their gazes clashed, and he ran his tongue along her slit in a long lick.
She’d never heard the noise she made. He didn’t give her a chance to think about it. He feasted on her, licking and nibbling at her, and she watched. He drove her insane and she watched him do it. When he clamped his mouth over her clit and sucked, she gasped and almost lost it, but he released her, lifting his head. “Where else do you want me to put my mouth? What else do you want to feel?”
She swallowed hard. “I want to feel you inside me.”
He leaned down, angling his head, and darted his tongue inside her.
She bucked. She couldn’t help it. Tease. Two could play. She lifted her hand and cupped her breast, squeezing just a little. “And I want your mouth here too.”
He grinned at her. “I love when you tell me what you want me to do.”
Climbing onto the bed, he leaned over her. As his mouth closed over her nipple, wet and hot, he slid two fingers inside her.
She cried out.
He sucked her nipple with the same rhythm he used to pump his fingers inside her, and she writhed. She moaned. She grabbed his head and held him to her. He kept up the suction and the pressure until her entire body convulsed with the power of her orgasm.
She sucked in air as he stroked her through the aftershocks, prolonging the exquisite pleasure. When she could see past the stars again, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You are a dangerous man.”
He pressed between her legs, reaching down to take himself in hand. He pressed the tip of his cock against her, sliding it up and down her slit and circling her sensitized clit with his tip. “You drive me beyond temptation.”
She reached down and grasped his hips. “Come inside me.”
He pressed into her, stretching her in the best way as he sank in balls-deep. They both groaned. He shook his head and planted one hand on the bed just above her shoulder, bracing her. With his other arm, he hooked her leg high up. The position opened her wider to him and tilted her hips for even deeper access.
“Hang on,” he muttered.
She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to him but she tightened her grip on him.
He thrust into her then, and she shouted. It was good. So good. He picked up the pace, pounding into her and they were both calling out. Over and over until her lower entire body tightened, ready to crash over the edge again.
“Adam!”
He groaned. “Say my name again. Louder.”
She did.
They both came, hard and intense, holding on to each other through it all.
It took forever to come back to themselves. Or maybe it only took the better part of an hour. It could’ve been a few minutes. She had no sense of the time, and really, she didn’t care, because the minute they both recovered, she planned to be on top of him to send them back into the same state again.
He leaned over her, his voice only barely unsteady, tracing idle patterns on her skin with his free hand. “So we’ll stay here?”
“For a few days of earned rest and to orient you with the facilities here.” She smiled up at him. “Then it’s back to Seattle. We’ll have to see what the next contracts will be.”
“That’s the business side of it. What about us?” He dropped a kiss on the bridge of her nose.
She tipped her head to one side. “Well, we’ve never seen each other’s flats. It could be fun to spend some time in each.”
He nodded. “Could be an adventure.”
She smiled. “I would like to share, eventually. We’ll see what our time is like between assignments.”
“I’d like to take you back to New Zealand too. I’m betting it’s been forever since you took a vacation.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you just started working with the team. We might hold off on a vacation for at least a few months.”
He chuckled. “True. It’ll be fun, working all of this out.”
“Seeing what works for us.” She drank in the sight of him, leaning over her. This was right. Felt so incredib
ly, fundamentally right. The two of them were vibrantly alive and so much more than the existence she’d led before she’d met him. “I love you.”
He paused, startled. Then his smile warmed even further. “I love you.”
He bent to kiss her, stealing her breath away as he drank from her lips. When he lifted his head again, he gave her a wink. “I’m glad I said it first.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books by Piper J. Drake, please visit her website at piperjdrake.com.
Now available from Carina Press and Piper J. Drake
Meet the men of Centurion Corporation—an elite group of mercenaries who will go to any extreme to complete a mission...even risk their hearts. A new high-stakes series by Piper J. Drake.
He’s not the hero she’s looking for.
As part of the elite Centurion Corporation team, military-veteran-turned-mercenary Gabriel Diaz is a natural defender. He’ll do anything to ensure a mission is successful. Anything but get emotionally invested—he learned the hard way that can be deadly. Easy bodyguard jobs in between the more challenging missions are all he’s interested in now.
Maylin Cheng is desperate and running out of time. Her younger sister has gone missing, but no one seems to take her concern seriously. Her last hope lies in asking an aloof bodyguard for help. He dismisses her outright, but all that changes when she is almost killed in a not-so-accidental hit-and-run right before his eyes.
As Maylin leans on Gabriel, she begins to rely on him for more than just her safety. But as their attraction grows, so does the danger surrounding them. When the elaborate web they’re trapped in unravels, Gabriel will do anything to protect them. Even if that means putting his heart in the crosshairs.
Book one of the Safeguard series
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Philippa Ballantine for your advice regarding New Zealand culture and language. Also for late-night video fun with kakapos. Any mistakes in this story are completely mine.
Thank you to Angela James and Courtney Miller-Callihan for your understanding, encouragement and support.
Also available from Piper J. Drake and Carina Press
Hidden Impact
Deadly Testimony
Also available from Piper J. Drake
Extreme Honor
Ultimate Courage
Absolute Trust
About the Author
Piper J. Drake (or “PJ”) began her writing career as PJ Schnyder, writing award-winning sci-fi and paranormal romance and steampunk. She has received the FF&P PRISM Award for her work as well as the NJRW Golden Leaf Award and Parsec Award.
Now Piper writes romantic suspense, incorporating her interests in mixed martial arts and the military into her writing.
Play Find the Piper:
PiperJDrake.com
Facebook.com/AuthorPiperJDrake
Twitter, @PiperJDrake
Instagram.com/PiperJDrake
Introducing the Carina Press Romance Promise!
The Carina Press team all have one thing in common: we are romance readers with a longtime love of the genre. And we know what readers are looking for in a romance: a guarantee of a happily-ever-after (HEA) or happy-for-now (HFN). With that in mind, we’re initiating the Carina Press Romance Promise. When you see a book tagged with these words in our cover copy/book description, we’re making you, the reader, a very important promise:
This book contains a romance central to the plot and ends in an HEA or HFN.
Simple, right? But so important, we know!
Look for the Carina Press Romance Promise and one-click with confidence that we understand what’s at the heart of the romance genre!
Look for this line in Carina Press book descriptions:
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!
Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise.
Find out more at CarinaPress.com.
Read more high-stakes stories from Piper J. Drake in the Safeguard series.
HIDDEN IMPACT
Limited time and high stakes. Elite team member Gabriel will go to the extreme and risk everything for Maylin when the elaborate web of danger they are trapped in unravels.
DEADLY TESTIMONY
The stakes have never been higher as an elite team member must outwit a dangerous killer and save the man she’s sworn to protect.
“HIDDEN IMPACT by Piper J. Drake is everything I live for in romantic suspense.”
—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Order your copies now!
Connect with us for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers and much more!
Visit CarinaPress.com
Other ways to keep in touch:
Facebook.com/CarinaPress
Twitter.com/CarinaPress
CarinaPress.com/newsletter
More thrilling and suspenseful romances are just a click away!
The Black Ops: Automatik series by Nico Rosso
COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR
Former Special Forces agent “Art” Diaz is tattooed, muscular and undeniably dangerous. He’s also deep undercover, posing as mob muscle for a deadly bratva boss. His mission: gain the Russians’ trust. But when innocent Chef Hayley Baskov is thrown into the mix, Art has a new objective—to protect Hayley from the men who’d see them both dead.
ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT
Former navy SEAL Ben Jackson knows that sexy Mary Kuri is a stone-cold super-soldier no one ever gets close to. Until her kiss hits him like one of her sniper rounds. But Morris Flats is no place for a hookup—menace hums through the town, and the more the two operators keep pushing for answers, the more deadly the current seems to run.
SECONDS TO SUNRISE
Automatik gave former SAS agent James Sant a way to protect the innocent again. He thinks life in the shadows is all he deserves...until he meets his newest assignment, April Banks. She’s everything James has never let himself want. But keeping things professional while hunting the hackers with the gorgeous widow is going to be the hardest job he’s ever taken on.
The Wounded Warrior series by Anna Del Mar
THE ASSET
Ash Hunter knows what it is to run. A SEAL gravely injured in Afghanistan, he’s gone AWOL from the military hospital. When he finally returns, he finds a beautiful, haunted stranger in his grandmother’s isolated cottage. Hiding from the cartel that Lia Stewart barely escaped alive, she knows helping the wounded warrior on her doorstep is the right thing to do. When Ash realizes he’s not the only one tormented by the past, he knows he’ll push through his limits to protect Lia until his last breath.
THE STRANGER
The scars of the past have left their mark, both physical and emotional, on former military pilot Seth Erickson. Although off the grid in the far reaches of the bitter Alaskan wilderness, he can’t ignore a woman in need—beautiful, stranded and nearly frozen with fear. Summer Silva’s search for her missing sister left her abandoned on a wintry back road. Now, hiding out in the isolated cabin of the secretive wounded warrior who saved her, Summer must put her trust in the stranger. Seth, reawakened by desire, knows there is no sacrifice too great, no memory too dark to prevent him from keeping Summer safe.
Order your copies now!
Connect with us for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers and much more!
Visit CarinaPress.com
Other ways to keep in touch:
Facebook.com/CarinaPress
Twitter.com/CarinaPress
CarinaPress.com/newsletter
We think you have a good book in you!
Do you write in the below genres? Harlequin’s Carina Pr
ess wants to see your manuscript.
• Contemporary Romance
• Romantic Suspense
• Historical Romance
• Paranormal Romance
• Mystery
• Erotic Romance
• LGBT
• Science Fiction & Fantasy Romance
Submit today!
All manuscripts receive a thorough evaluation by a Carina Press editor and a decision within 12–16 weeks. What do you have to lose?
To learn more about our submission guidelines, visit us at CarinaPress.com/WriteForUs.
Don’t miss out!
Sign up for our editorial newsletter and stay in the loop on the latest submission calls and editorial news:
http://bit.ly/CarinaSubmit
Get the latest on Carina Press by joining our eNewsletter!
Don’t miss out, sign up today!
CarinaPress.com/newsletter
Sign up and get Carina Press offers and coupons delivered straight to your inbox!
Plus, as an eNewsletter subscriber, you’ll get the inside scoop on everything Carina Press and be the first to know about our newest releases!
Visit CarinaPress.com
Other ways to keep in touch:
Facebook.com/CarinaPress
Twitter.com/CarinaPress
ISBN-13: 9781459290518
Contracted Defense
Copyright © 2017 by Piper J. Drake
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
Contracted Defense Page 20
