Anew: Book Three: Entwined (17 page)

“Easy,” Ian murmurs. He lowers his
head and breathes lightly over the swollen cones of my breasts. I moan softly
but that turns quickly into a cry as his tongue suddenly swirls around one
hyper-sensitive nipple before he sucks it into his mouth and pulls hard. The
jolt of pleasure-pain goes straight to my groin. I cry out again and try to
twist away but he won’t allow it.

He continues, sucking and lightly
biting each of my nipples even as his hands are busy elsewhere. Before I can
realize it, I am tied, ankle to thigh, my legs spread wide and my pussy fully
exposed to him. With my arms bound behind my back, I am truly helpless.

He sits back and eyes me with
unmistakable satisfaction.

“You look exquisite like this,” he
murmurs.

His fingers trace a path from the
base of my throat between my breasts aching for his touch and over my belly. Beneath
his caress, my muscles clench and ripple. Crouched beside me, he lightly
strokes my pubic mound. My hips, the only part of my body besides my head that
I can still move, rise reflexively.

“Do you want something,
sweetheart?” he murmurs. His gaze is fixed on my sex. I can feel how wet I am
becoming and know that he must be able to see as well as smell my arousal.

But I didn’t absorb the beauty of
the kinbaku exhibition to no good purpose. Despite the almost overwhelming need
to tell him exactly what I want, I remain silent, waiting for him to decide.

My reward is his smile
followed--thankfully!--by his fingers parting the lips of my sex. Cool air
touches me there but it can’t compete with the heat that is building in me. At
the first stroke, I all but combust. Incredibly, I’m so close already.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “Come too soon
and I won’t let you come again.”

At my shocked look--he wouldn’t
really do that, would he?--he relents, if only slightly.

With a smile, he says, “Not for
awhile, at least.”

Oh, good…I think. ‘Awhile’ is such
a nebulous term. How do I know how long he means--a few minutes…more. Not too
much more, please--

“Aaaahhhh!”

The soft, urgent cry breaks from me
despite my best efforts to repress it. The tip of his finger flicks over my
clit. Primed as I am, the sensation is exquisite. My entire back bows away from
the platform.

Ian’s hands press me down again. He
moves between my bound thighs, spreading me even wider.

“You’re so wet,” he murmurs. “So
beautiful.”

For long moments, he continues
tormenting me with his touch. In the passion-hazed back of my mind, I have to
admit that he’s a virtuoso, knowing exactly when to apply pressure, how much,
when to stop…wait a beat…and begin again…

Bound as I am, I can’t do anything
but absorb the full impact of every teasing swirl, every tantalizing flick,
thinking of what his tongue would feel like instead of his finger…what it has
felt like when he--

“
Ian
!” I come helplessly,
stunned by the speed and force of my orgasm. His name on my lips only serves to
make it even more intense. I’m gasping for breath, writhing against the ropes
as he watches me, smiling.

“You’re exquisite when you come,”
he murmurs.

His palms press against my inner
thighs, spreading me yet further and his mouth… Oh, god, his mouth!

I turn my head away, unable to
watch but there is nothing I can do to stop the relentless climb that begins
again in me almost before the first has ebbed. Desperately, I stare out toward
the moon as his tongue and lips move over my sex, sucking, tasting, biting
gently, until--

“No more, please!”

Our eyes meet across the length of
my bound body. His mouth, glistening with my juices, curves in a smile.

“Sweetheart, we’ve barely gotten
started.”

Ian

M
y balls feel as though they’re about to explode but I
can’t even manage to care. All my attention is focused on Amelia. I thought I
knew her, thought I got how passionate and giving and amazing she is but the
truth is I’d barely scratched the surface.

That changed in the
furo
when I finally understood what she’s endured. The memory of that claws at me,
inciting violence against those already dead. Lucky bastards to have gone to
their maker in a vaporizing flash of light when I would have done so much more.

But that’s not for now or even
later. I have to let it go. Only Amelia matters and this gift she is giving to
me, to us both.

The ropes, white against her pale
skin, make my throat tighten. Her trust in me is humbling even as it makes my
blood run thicker and hotter than ever before. She’s innocence and carnality
personified, igniting all my senses. I want to taste her, suck her, sip from
her, take everything she has and give everything in return.

She’s gazing at me out of those
aquamarine eyes that I’ve imagined drowning in, happily so. But what I really
want is to drown in her body, to draw from her all the passion and ecstasy
she’s capable of feeling and make it my own.

Make her mine. Utterly and
completely. Forever.

Nothing in my life has prepared me
for this. I’ve yearned for things, yearned desperately--a different father, a
happy mother, a peaceful life, although to be fair I’m not sure that last one
could have ever worked for me. I’m not like Edward, content with guiding the
world from behind a desk in between long bouts of running and blood-curdling
games of polo. I’ve always needed the adrenaline rush of potential calamity.

But this…

I give in finally to overwhelming
temptation and lower my head. The silky smooth skin on the inside of her thighs
is slick with her moisture. The scent of her fills my breath. She squirms under
my touch. I grasp her hips and murmur, “Still, be still.”

She obeys and in return, I stroke
my tongue up the length of her sex. She tastes…beyond bearing. Like the essence
of coming home. What does it say about me that the one place I most want to be
always and forever is inside her? Being with Amelia, being in her blows away
all the barriers and frees me in a way I’ve never known before.

On the cusp of the intense orgasms
she’s already experienced, I can feel her fighting to hold off another. Like
I’ll let that happen. A few more strokes and the long, swirling thrust of my
tongue into her cunt is enough. I hold her through the spasms, smiling at her
soft, helpless cries.

They’re getting a little weaker. I
should ease up, let her rest if only briefly but I think we both know that
isn’t in the cards. Not tonight. Not while there are still limits to be pushed.

But first I need some relief.

I stand, kick off my shoes and
strip off my T-shirt but leave my jeans on. I just unzip those, freeing my
cock. Stroking it, I move to her head and meet her gaze.

“Open your mouth.”

Her eyes are wide, dark, still
dazed. Holding my cock in one hand, I brush the tip across her lips.

“Wider.”

She gasps. I palm the back of her
head and move her into position. My cock slips easily between her lips. A little
tug on her hair and she rouses from her carnal stupor.

Obediently, she begins to suck. The
hot, wet suction sends a jolt straight up my spine. I’m closer even than I
thought but I still want to savor this. Gritting my teeth, I bear it as long as
I can but when she tips her head back so that she can take me even deeper, I’m
gone.

This is a patented Amelia-induced
orgasm, as I’ve come to know them. Hard, fierce, arriving in long, rolling
waves of pleasure so intense that it’s almost painful. I jet into her mouth,
again and again, half-afraid I’m going to choke her and knowing at the same
time that I’m not. She takes everything I have and when I’m finally done, wrung
out and all but staggering on my knees beside her, the little tip of her tongue
sneaks out to clean the corners of her mouth.

Bound, spread wide, helpless
against our combined desires, she has more power than she will ever know.

My hand fumbles for the bottle of
lube. The jade dildo is clean, I made sure of that. Briefly, I speculate when
it was last used, if it ever was. It would have been hundreds of years ago in a
world that has long vanished, the last lingering traces of it locked away in
display cases.

If Davos and his kind have their
way, the fate of this world will be even worse. I know which side I’m on; I’m
going to kill him. Soon.

I glance out the window at the
captured view. Rising, the moon has shrunk. Soon it will pass out of sight
entirely.

And then morning will come.

He’s in the north, the sneaky
bastard. I’d guessed the redoubt in Lucerne but I was wrong. It’s the mines
then, the cold and dark, where Amelia fears we’ll be trapped. As amazing as she
is, she still doesn’t know what I’m capable of.

She gasps when my finger circles the
puckered rosette of her anus. I persist until she begins to relax before I ease
just the smallest part of the jade stalk into her.

Against the curve of her ear, I
murmur, “This is the closest you’ll ever get to feeling another man’s cock in
you. You’re mine, only mine.”

“Yours,” she responds as her eyes
flutter closed and a low sigh escapes her.

I sit back, studying her. Porcelain
skin kissed by the sun, her paleness accentuated by the whiteness of the ropes.
Her breasts, engorged, the nipples hard, begging to be sucked. The long,
graceful line of her torso leading to her slick, pink cunt, glistening with
silken juices. The stalk of jade is the most vivid splash of color.

Abruptly, I stand. Without taking
my eyes from her, I strip off the rest of my clothes and toss them away. Once
more on my knees beside her, I lean forward, twisting the dildo slightly,
watching the sudden increase in her breathing. My fingers move unerringly to
her cunt, thrusting into her, stroking first lightly but then, in tandem with
the pulse I can feel throbbing deep inside her, faster and faster, pumping into
her, ravenous for her response.

She comes with a deep, shuddering
cry, her body straining against the ropes until all the will goes out of her and
she sags, her resistance gone. Before she can draw a breath, I turn her,
lifting her hips as I do. I arch over her, above and around her. Her back is
pressed to my chest, skin to skin. Mindful that her breasts must be very
tender, I hold her above the tatami mat. A single thrust and I’m balls deep in
the sweet, hot sheathe of her cunt.

I’m determined to last this time.
With long, controlled strokes, I fuck her with my cock and the jade stalk
together. Fucking her with everything I’ve got--all the yearning and need, the
passion and hunger, even tenderness as unlikely as that seems. I feel, in the
moment before I come, how vital she is to me and how much I cherish her.

Her soft cries follow me into the
blinding white light of an orgasm that detonates inside me. When I’m next aware
of anything, I’m slumped beside her, my heart trying to hammer its way out of
my chest and my breath coming in labored gasps.

I’m dizzy and more than a little
disoriented but I gather her to me, managing to get the ropes untied even
though I don’t have the strength to remove them entirely. They fall around us
both as my fingers trace the patterns they have left on her skin, a road map
that leads deep inside my own soul to a place only she has ever found.

Amelia turns in my arms. Her skin
is flushed, her lips swollen. Her eyes meet mine. They’re luminous, glowing,
like the moon itself has drowned in them.

Her fingers brush over my mouth.
She sighs deeply and rests her head against my chest. But her gaze still hasn’t
left mine and it doesn’t as she says, “Tell me.”

I sigh deeply and gather her
closer. Of course, she knows. How could I imagine that she wouldn’t?

Softly, I say, “We’ve found Davos.
He’s on the island north of the Arctic Circle.” And then, because I know that I
can’t hold back the rest, I add, “My team and I are leaving in the morning.”

She goes completely still. Moments
pass before I feel the warm moisture bathing my skin just above my heart. Tilting
her head back, I watch her tears, silvered by moonlight, slip silently down her
cheeks.

Amelia

I
go with Ian to the airfield. He tries to discourage
me but I insist and he’s wise enough not to argue. The sun is barely up. On one
level, I’m exhausted, drained by our night of sexual excess. But on another,
I’m filled with brittle energy, as though I’m about to fly apart.

He’s going without me. Every
argument I’ve made to try to convince him otherwise has failed. He is
implacable on the subject, even to the extent of refusing again to run
simulations to discover what effect my involvement would have on casualties.

Walking from the dock to the
airfield, we enter a scene that to my untutored eye looks like controlled
chaos. Dozens of men and women in khakis are streaming onto the two supersonic
transport jets being fueled on the tarmac. The crisp, hard-eyed professionals
are laden with equipment but their spirits appear to be quietly buoyant. From
the snatches of conversation that I overhear as we pass, it’s clear that
they’re relieved the waiting is over and eager for action.

All I can feel is dread.

I keep a foot or more of space
between myself and Ian as he stops to speak with several people. If I so much
as brush against him, I’m afraid that my fragile self-control will shatter.
I’ll either rail at him for his obstinacy or break down and cry again.

I’m determined to do neither but
when the moment comes and he turns to me, everything--fear, anger, pride, all
of it--fades to inconsequence. Amid the roar of revving engines and the stink
of jet fuel, I grip his hair, my body pressed to his so that he can feel the heat
pouring from me, a sudden fever of mingled desire and fear.

Against his ear, I murmur, “Davos
be damned. All I care about is you. Don’t you dare not come back to me!”

He wraps an arm around my waist,
holds me hard against him and, heedless of everyone around us, kisses me
fiercely. My body is melting against his, lost in his scent and touch and taste
when, abruptly, he pulls away.

A long look passes between us
before he says softly, “Nothing will keep me from you.”

Without waiting for a response,
assuming I could manage one, he turns, shoulders the bag waiting for him, and
heads for one of the aircraft.

My lips are still burning from the
fierce, almost savage stamp of his possession when the pair of jets lift off,
climb steeply, and turn north. As they disappear into the sky, leaving behind
only the reverberations of their sonic booms, a strange calm settles over the
compound. The people left on the airfield disperse, returning to their duties.

I remain where I am, my fingers
pressed to my lips, feeling nothing but emptiness inside. I’m at a loss as to
where to go or what to do.

 “Are you okay?” Daphne asks
softly.

She’s come up beside me so quietly
that I don’t realize she’s there until she speaks. Or perhaps I’ve simply been
too lost in my own dark thoughts. With a mental shake, I remind myself that I’m
far from the only person worried about a loved one.

“I’m as okay as you are,” I say.

She glances up where the planes
have disappeared and nods. The bright confidence I’ve always seen in her is
gone, replaced by the same anxiety that hangs like a shroud over me.

“This sucks,” she says, hunching
her shoulders.

“Yeah, it really does.” I drag in
air and find a wan smile. “So what do you want to do? Go pound a punching bag
and pretend it’s Davos?”

She manages a faint laugh. “God,
what I’d like to do to that bastard.” Her gaze sharpens. “But it’s got to be
worse for you, right? I bet you wanted to take him out yourself.”

“Don’t get me started,” I murmur.
“Ian is--”

I can’t talk about him, not without
breaking down. Fortunately, I don’t need to. Daphne understands.

“Ian, Gab, all the rest of them,
they’re as stubborn as they come,” she says. “But you know in the end they’re
just trying to protect us. It’s hard to get too mad about that.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say shakily, “I’m
working on it.”

She grins and puts an arm around my
shoulders. “So what will it be? Ten rounds with a punching bag? Or maybe you’d
rather go for a swim, find a couple of sharks to wrestle? Or--”

She breaks off, eying me.

“Or what?” I ask.

“That depends on what you’re up
for. The Operations Center is tracking the mission real time.”

My stomach clenches. But given the
choice between worrying about what’s happening and actually knowing, I don’t
hesitate. I have only one concern. “Are we allowed in there?”

She shots me a chiding look. “And
who exactly is going to stop a couple of tough-as-nails broads who could be
shark wrestling?”

I blink back the treacherous tears
that have been threatening to form and nod. “Let’s go.”

The Operations Center occupies a
long, low building adjacent to the air field. Entering, I have to pause for a
moment to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light, necessary given the equipment
in use. Monitors are everywhere, both flat screen and those projecting 3-D
holographic images. People are clustered around them, watching the constant
flow of information.

Daphne and I find a place to sit
toward the back. Our arrival doesn’t go unnoticed. A young woman with short
dark hair and a no-nonsense air comes over and introduces herself.

“Information Specialist Blakely.
May I help you?”

“Only if you can tell us where the
coffee is,” Daphne says with a we’re here, get used to it air.

“Behind you, to the right,” Blakely
says. Apparently, our presence doesn’t ruffle her. I have a suspicion that she
was expecting us.

“Coffee, food, cots if you need
one,” she adds. “The strike force has reached cruising speed, Mach 9+ and is
under two hours from the landing zone. Currently, we’re monitoring conditions
at the target site. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.
Otherwise, please don’t engage with any personnel. Everyone’s got a job to do
and we need their full attention on it.”

“We don’t want to be in anyone’s
way,” I assure her. “We just want to know what’s happening.”

Blakely’s expression softens. More
gently, she says, “Nothing is, at the moment. No cruise ships are due in today
but a freighter is, although not until this afternoon.” She smiles faintly. “A
polar bear was spotted in town yesterday but it hasn’t come back. Everything’s
peaceful.”

“What about at the mine?” I ask.

Her expression turns more serious.
“We sent a drone in last night. It dropped probes that are giving us a read-out
on how many people are in the shafts below. We’re monitoring their movements.
Apart from that, there’s nothing yet.”

I nod, partly because it seems
appropriate but also because I’m relieved. From what she’s saying, Davos has no
idea that an attack is imminent.

But he’s still bound to be prepared
for it.

“Will we wait for dark?” I ask.

Blakely shakes her head. “There’s
no point, not given that the other side is certain to have ample night scanner
technology. Our people will HALO in directly on top of the target. The
objective is to take the defenders by surprise, at least as much as possible,
and proceed from there.”

I nod as though this all sounds
reasonable when in fact inside I’m quaking. I can’t stop thinking about Ian
being caught in a labyrinth of shafts and tunnels, the haunt of a madman.

Daphne and I get coffee but neither
one of us takes more than a sip. I sit with my hands around the cup, trying to
draw some warmth from it, and listen to the back-and-forth of voices from the
Operations Center and the aircraft carrying the strike force that plays out
over the next couple of hours.

Finally, I hear, “OC, SEAlphaNinerFour
beginning descent.’

“Roger, AlphaNinerFour, copy. You
are clear on heading sigma two point two. Security conditions to drop zone
within parameters.”

“What does that mean?” I ask
Information Specialist Blakely.

“We’re blocking ground- and
satellite-based surveillance on a rolling basis as our aircraft come within range,”
she says. “Any effect should be too discreet to be noticed.”

“But if it is?” I ask.

She frowns. “There’s an outside
chance that some bright junior officer might sound an alarm but in reality
that’s unlikely. Scrambling resources for what could turn out to be nothing
more than a flock of geese can be a career killer.” After a pause, she adds,
“Of course, an AI wouldn’t have any such concern. But we’ve got a backdoor into
all those between here and the target. They won’t give us any trouble.”

“All of them?” Daphne asks. She
looks impressed despite herself.

Blakely nods. “It’s something
Clarence worked out.” She frowns slightly. “I guess we should be glad that he’s
on our side. Anyway, everything’s on track. It won’t be long now.”

True to her word, a few minutes later
a voice coming over the com says, “OC, SEAlphaNinerFour on final approach.”

“Roger, we copy, mufflers
disengaging.”

“Mufflers?” Daphne asks.

“We’re opening ground and sat
surveillance back up,” Blakely says. “The assault force will be seen, just not
yet by anyone at the target zone.”

“Why would you want to do that?” I
demand. Until now, I think I’ve understood what is happening but this
definitely doesn’t sound right.

Blakely shrugs. “Mister Slade’s
orders. He doesn’t want to leave any doubts after the fact about what went down
and who did it.”

As though to confirm what she’s
saying, I suddenly hear Ian’s voice. “Say again, OC, we are clear?”

“Confirm,” another voice says.
“Target zone is still blind but you’re being surveilled five hundred klicks
out.”

“That’s a research installation in
Greenland,” Blakely says. She chuckles. “Bunch of space weather geeks studying
the aurora borealis. They’ll be lit up right now like a Christmas tree. I can
just imagine what they’re thinking.”

I can’t but I don’t care. Later,
I’ll ponder the consequences of Ian publicly declaring his war against Davos.
All that matters now is that he wins.

A hush falls over the OC. For long
moments, the loudest sound seems to be the rapid beating of my own heart. But
then--

“Commencing HALO,” the voice on the
com says. Not Ian, someone else. A pilot maybe?

“Roger, copy. Engaging video.”

The monitors fill suddenly with the
faces of men and women, helmeted, standing close together in the bays of the
two aircraft. As I watch, hardly breathing, the back door of each lowers,
revealing the turbulent sky through which the planes are streaking.

“Ten,” a voice says. “Nine…”

The seconds vanish one by one until
finally, I hear, “Away. Repeat, teams are away.”

The perspective changes to that of
cameras attached to each plane. Human beings are plummeting through the sky,
hurtling toward earth at a speed I can’t begin to imagine. I watch in growing
horror as the ground rushes up to meet them. At the last possible moment, when
it appears that they can’t possibly survive, chutes blossom and maneuver into
position above a rocky promontory. One by one, they fall, striking the ground
and rolling. The chutes are quickly disengaged and within moments, the strike
forces have formed up and are advancing on the entrance to the mine.

Over the monitors, I hear alarms
going off. My hand goes to my throat. “What is that?”

Blakely is focused intently on the
data spooling before her. Without looking at me, she says, “Ground sensors have
picked up vibrations from the landing. They’ve sounded a warning.”

“Then Davos and his people know
that ours are coming?” Daphne asks.

“Yes, but we planned for that.
They’ll have only seconds to react. It won’t be enough.”

I want to ask how she can know that
but I don’t dare. All I can do is pray that she’s right.

Daphne reaches out and grasps my
hand. We stand, side by side, as the shadow figures on the 3-D holographs move
across the ground toward the dark, recessed opening to the mines. Thin, red
bursts of light greet them.

“They’re taking fire,” Blakely says
calmly. She glances at us. “Don’t worry. Their armor will deflect it.”

My chest feels as though it’s in a
vise. I can scarcely breathe but I can’t stop watching as the figures continue
steadily advancing.

“Switching to helmet cams,” a voice
says. In the OC, I think but the voices are intermingling now, here and on the
ground thousands of miles away.

The perspective changes. On
multiple monitors, I see what our people are seeing, the view across tundra, a
few low hills, a glimpse of a finger of water nearby.

“Which one is Ian? What is he
seeing?”

I don’t realize that I’ve spoken
out loud until Blakely says, “This one, right here.” She draws my attention to
one of the 3-D monitors. I look but all I can see is what appears to be the
entrance to the mine. Movement flickers off to the side, other people. But no
one is ahead of Ian.