Hard to Come By (28 page)

Complete and utter crickets
.

Nick’s eyes went wide. “Then I guess that’s settled.”

Smiling, Becca turned her head and kissed him.

“Well, okay. So, the next thing I thought we should discuss—” Nick reached into his pocket and retrieved his phone. “Sorry. Oh, it’s Kyler. Speak of the devil.”

Marz took a deep breath.
Good news or bad?

“Yeah?” Nick answered. Vance apparently had a lot to share because Nick’s side of the conversation was filled with a lot of one-word encouragements and responses.
“What?”
he asked, his tone suddenly urgent. “Are you sure?” Pause. “What are they thinking?”

Shit. What is it now?

“Thank you, Kyler. We are going to owe you. Big-time.” Nick hung up, shaking his head in disbelief. “Miguel had told Kyler about the huge cache of weapons at the storage facility. Kyler managed to get a search warrant for the facility this afternoon, and about an hour ago they raided the place.”

“And?” Marz asked. No doubt just having the storage facility neutralized was good news, but it didn’t seem big enough to have caused Nick’s reaction.

“Jimmy Church was there. He resisted arrest and opened fire on the SWAT team. They took him down. He’s dead.”

Sara gasped the loudest, and then whoops and cheers went up around the room. Marz rubbed his hand over his lips, so surprised and relieved that the major focus of their energies the past few weeks had now been taken out. He turned to Emilie and found her eyes glassy and her body trembling.

Her eyes flashed to his. “Do you think Church had Manny killed? Do you think he died because of that bounty?”

“It’s possible,” Marz said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears. He hated to see her so torn apart. Given how badly Manny had been compromised—both his stability and his anonymity—it was also possible that Seneka had decided he’d outlived his usefulness and become a liability.

“Then is it horrible that I’m glad this Church guy is dead? Is it horrible that I’m feeling less and less guilty about what I did to Jeffers?” Her lip quivered.

“Aw, no, baby. It’s not horrible at all. I’ve been a soldier my whole adult life, but I don’t love violence. Still, sometimes it’s kill or be killed. Church and Jeffers both reaped what they sewed.” He kissed her softly on the lips.

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his for a long moment. “Okay,” she finally whispered.

Nick leaned toward the desk and knocked his fingers against the mouse, drawing Marz’s attention and waking up the computer tied to the various security-camera feeds. “I spent the afternoon watching what happened here this morning from various angles,” he said. “Marz, I’d like you to go through and try to screen capture and enhance any faces, the license plates, and any other clues you see.”

Marz nodded.

“But from my cursory scans, I think we can safely say the following. The attackers were skilled, coordinated, well-equipped, and well-funded. Watching them, I get a serious military vibe. Definitely not just Churchmen. Couple that with the armored vehicles, rocket launcher, unending supply of ammunition, and we’ve got military with deep pockets.”

“Seneka,” Beckett bit out.

Marz couldn’t agree more.

“That’s where my gut’s going,” Nick said. “Which is why I’m hoping Marz can spot something that might nail it down for sure. The other thing the footage reveals . . .”—pale green eyes focused on Emilie and Marz in turn—“ . . . is, uh . . . about Emilie’s brother.”

Emilie didn’t bat an eyelash. “I need to hear it, whatever it is.”

“He was one of the attackers. He came in the second of the three Suburbans. After the rocket launcher fired, he was forced out of the vehicle and shot. The SUVs left immediately afterward,” Nick said.

Marz rubbed Emilie’s back, which trembled from the effort to restrain the emotion inside her. He felt so damn bad. “So he was shot by his own team?” he asked.

“It appears that way,” Nick agreed.

Marz squeezed Emilie’s hand. “So it was either the Church Gang, which was actively hunting Manny but now is largely decimated throughout its top ranks, or Seneka, who no doubt would not appreciate the attention that Garza’s arrest might bring to them. Both had motivation.”

“And access to beaucoup weapons,” Shane said. “Though I don’t recall seeing any rocket launchers in that weapons’ cache.”

“I’d like to propose waiting until after the key search completes overnight or tomorrow morning before I dig in to that footage. The more computing power stays focused on that task, the faster we gain access to the microchip. Can that work for everyone?” Marz got agreement all around.

“I’d urge you men,” Nick said, his gaze indicating the rest of his teammates, “to all watch some of the
footage. Your eyes may pick up something I missed. Otherwise, a shift of Ravens will arrive within the hour to set up security for the night, and Kyler said the Jersey barriers will be installed first thing tomorrow morning. So, everyone, take some well-earned downtime tonight, because tomorrow we’ll get the information we need to determine where to focus next.”

A chorus of amens and about-damn-times rang out.

And,
fuckin’ A
. It
was
about damn time something went their way. And their new allies gave Marz a spark of hope that they actually had a fighting chance to beat whatever the hell it was that they were up against.

As everyone rose and talked, Marz leaned toward Emilie. “What would you like to do?” he asked.

Raucous laughter rang out from where Shane, Katherine, and Jeremy stood.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’m feeling super social right now.”

“Well, we could grab some drinks and snacks and head up to my room. I’m sharing an apartment upstairs. It’s nothing special to look at by any means, but it’s quiet and private.”

A small smile played around her lips. “That sounds more my speed.”

Marz kissed Emilie’s cheek. “Then let’s blow this popsicle stand and not look back,” he said.

An actual grin. It didn’t last long at all, but it felt like a huge victory all the same. Because when you loved somebody, it turned out that their pain was your own, and that nothing mattered more than putting that person at ease. Derek didn’t mind any of this at all.

In fact, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

S
o, welcome to my humble abode,” Derek said, pushing open the door to his bedroom and flicking on the overhead light. He settled bottles of water and a bag of pretzels on the floor near the bed.

“Thanks,” Emilie said. It really was every bit as utilitarian as he’d warned her it was. Cement floors, unpainted drywall, and minimal on furnishings. But right now, Emilie didn’t need five-star luxury. She just needed a place to collect her thoughts. A comfortable bed on which to rest her strung-out body. And Derek.

She definitely needed Derek.

He’d been an absolute rock through the whole nightmare of this day. He always seemed to anticipate what she needed and say just the right thing. Those were rare gifts, especially when things hit rock bottom as they had today.

And it made her realize that Jack hadn’t only denied
her his honesty, he’d also never really been there for her in the unconditional, accept-you-at-your-ugliest, always-have-your-back way that Derek had taught her she could have.

If Jack hadn’t cheated, I’d have never met this amazing man
.

The thought nearly made her gasp as the realization set in. Maybe it had all worked out exactly as it was supposed to. The idea that fate might want her and Derek to be together was fun to contemplate, but what Emilie really wanted to know was what
Derek
wanted.

Could he want her in his life the way she wanted him?

Because she wanted to go all in.

“The bathroom’s just down the hall,” Derek said. “Make yourself at home. If you forget the codes to the doors downstairs, just ask me or anyone.”

“Okay,” she said, his voice jarring her from her thoughts. Which was a good thing, because she had something she had to do before she could think about anything else. She settled her bags in the corner next to her suitcase, and her gaze tripped over three more prosthetic limbs Derek had lined up against the wall. She wanted to ask him all about them, but first things first. “I have to call my mother,” she said, facing Derek.

He heaved a breath and crossed the room to her. “Aw, hell,” he said. “I’m sorry, Em. I know that’s not going to be easy.”

“No,” she said, her throat tightening as she anticipated actually saying the words
Manny’s dead
to her mother. “No parent should ever have to outlive their child. Anyway.” She shook her head. “I hate to do this over the phone, but it’s not like I can see her in person
right now. The last thing I’d want to do is bring any kind of danger to her doorstep.”

Derek nodded. “Take your time. I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Stay?” she blurted, out of instinct more than intention.

“Of course,” he said, and he drew them to sit on the edge of the bed.

Before she could put it off another second, Emilie pressed Dial.

“Emilie?” her mother said by way of answering.

“Hi, Mama,” she said, hating that her grief colored her voice.

“What’s wrong?” Sure enough, her mother had picked up on it, too.

Emilie inhaled a shuddering breath. “I have some bad news.”

“What,
mija
?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“Manny, uh . . .” She shook away the fear and grief that threatened to wash over her. “Manny’s dead, Mama,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“No. Oh, no, Emilie. That can’t be true,” she rasped.

“I so wish it wasn’t,” Emilie said, unable to hold back her own tears. “But I saw him with my own eyes. The criminals he was involved with shot him.”

The only response was a soul-breaking, gut-wrenching wail.

Derek moved on the bed behind her, and placed his legs on either side of hers. And then he wrapped his body around her back and just held her.

And Emilie was pretty damn sure that he was single-handedly responsible for holding her together.

A lot of time passed with Emilie standing vigil to her mother’s grief. And sharing some of her own.

“Where are you, Emilie?” her mother finally said through her tears. “Come home to me.”

Emilie’s stomach squeezed. “I can’t. The bad guys know who I am. It’s not safe for now,” she said. “I’m sorry. I promise I will come as soon as I can, I just don’t know how long that might be.”

“My poor Emanuel really lost his way, didn’t he?” Mama shuddered a shaky breath.

“Yeah, Mama. He did.”

It took them a long time to hang up, and Emilie felt horrible and worried and drained when the line disconnected. She really wished she could be there in person to help her mother through.

She tossed her phone beside her on the bed. As shattered as she felt on the inside, a numbness was settling over her. Right now, she didn’t have more tears to cry.

Derek hugged her and pressed a kiss against her shoulder. “I know that was hard.”

“Yeah,” she said. Even her voice sounded emotionless. She turned in his arms and met his gaze. “I know it’s early, but I would like nothing more than to get out of these clothes and hide under the covers for as long as the world will let me. And I’d really like it if you’d hide with me.”

He smiled that trademark playful grin. “I will never turn down an invitation to hide under the covers with you. That’s a guarantee.”

Too tired to worry about modesty, Emilie stripped down to her purple panties, then fished a pale blue camisole out of her suitcase. With no ceremony at all, she flopped down on Derek’s bed and tugged the covers up to her shoulders.

Wearing only his boxers, Marz sat on the edge of the bed and removed his limb. And then he shifted under
the covers with her. “Now,” he said. “Does hiding under the covers involve covering the head, too? Or just the body?”

Such a sweet, cute man. “Just the body. Covering the head makes it a fort.”

His eyes went wide. “Is that so? Duly noted.”

She pushed herself across the pillow, pressed her lips to his, and then turned over and burrowed her back into his front. “Would you hold me?”

“Baby, I will always hold you,” he whispered as his arm slipped around her ribs. His big palm cupped under her breast.

She took solace at the feeling of them wrapped so tightly together. His warm touch was proof of life—that she’d survived, that she had the choice to live where Manny didn’t. For a long time, she lay awake, her eyelids refusing to close and her mind refusing to shut down.

And then she tuned into the soft, even breaths that marked Derek’s unconsciousness. Focusing on him calmed the storm in her own head. And she appreciated that so much. Right now, it meant everything.

E
MILIE AWOKE INTO
near-blackness, and the only thing that didn’t send her into a terror was Derek’s scent on the sheet, his heat all around her, and the hard press of his erect cock wedged against her ass.

Experimentally, she pressed back into his hips, and they surged forward against her. The small moan she unleashed was entirely involuntary.

The jolt of pleasure in that one small exchange pierced through her numbness and made her want—no,
need
—more. She didn’t just want the sex for the sex. She wanted to lose herself for a long while
and forget the horrors of the past day. She wanted to experience life so boldly that she couldn’t help but believe that she’d survived. And she wanted to connect with Derek so hard and so deep that she’d never again feel alone.

Heart already kicking up inside her chest, she ground back against him again.

He met her thrust with one of his own and his hand massaged her breast.

Reaching down her body, her thumb hooked her panties and she pushed them downward. His hand joined hers in a flash, and together they pushed the scrap of lace far enough that she could kick them off. Derek worked his boxers off next.

“I wasn’t expecting this, Emilie,” he whispered in her ear, setting off chills all over her skin.

“I wasn’t, either,” she said. “But I need it, Derek. I need you to help me lose myself. Just for a while. I don’t want to think at all.”

“You want me to do all the thinking for you?” he asked, rocking his bare cock against her ass, his hands roaming her front.

“God, yes,” she said, arousal already coating her opening and making the tops of her thighs slick.

“Let me get a condom.” He pulled away.

She reached back a hand and grabbed his arm. “Would you feel comfortable doing it without one? I never went off my birth control, silly as that probably was. And I’m clean, I swear. Before you, I hadn’t had sex in over two years.” She was desperate to feel him as much as she possibly could.

“I’m clean, too, Emilie, and you are going to feel every inch of me.” He pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses against her shoulder, her spine, her neck. “Roll
over on your stomach,” he said, shoving the pillows out of the way.

“Oh, yeah,” she said as she removed her tank and he settled over her ass.

“You’re gonna listen to my voice and nothing else. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t have my cock if you don’t listen.” He stroked light, teasing fingertips down her back, and then he softly fucked the cleft of her ass cheeks.

“Derek,” she whined.

“Stop thinking, Emilie. Just feel my cock. That’s all you worry about.” He settled on his knees again, his thighs straddling hers, and pushed his cock between her legs. She cried out when he grazed her opening, and then penetrated her inch by maddening inch. He withdrew halfway and stopped. “Use your body to fuck me. Work yourself on my dick.”

She moaned as she rotated her hips. Bracing her hands by her shoulders, she used the leverage to rock herself back onto him, impaling herself on his length.

“That’s it. Fuck my cock, Em. Get me nice and wet.”

God, his words were like a blowtorch, licking flames over every nerve ending. But as good as it felt, it was making her crazy to not have him driving into her. She wanted to feel his hips slam into her ass so bad she could hardly breathe. “Please move,” she finally cried.

He smacked her ass and pulled out. “Who’s doing the thinking here, Emilie?”

“No!” The emptiness hurt. “You. You are. Please.” She rocked her ass cheeks against his balls, begging with her body for him to return to her.

He slid back into her core. “You need it bad, don’t you, baby?”

“So bad,” she said, groaning in victory when his weight fell heavily over her back.

He wedged an arm under her chest, one hand taking tight hold of a breast, and then he wrapped the other around her head, forcing her face to the side and using his hand to cover her mouth. Just the feel of that alone made her pussy twitch around him.

His hold tightened everywhere, immobilizing every part of her except her calves and feet. And then his hips flew.

It was a frenzied madness. She’d never had a man move so fast inside her in her life.

“You’re going to take me, aren’t you?”

She tried to nod.

“You’re going to feel me own you, control you, cover you.”

A smothered moan ripped from her throat.

His hand tightened against her mouth and around her breast. His hips impacted her ass so hard and fast, she wouldn’t be surprised to find bruises from his hip bones. And she’d fucking love it.

How did he know just what she needed? Because she was so overwhelmed by him she couldn’t do or see or think about anything else but him.

She could think about body parts. Getting enough air to breathe. The way the head of his cock stroked her G-spot. Those were things she could handle.

“Stop thinking, Emilie,” he growled in her ear. “All you need to know is my cock.”

Yesyesyesyes
.

Deep. Hard. Fast. Thick. Filling her over and over until it was her entire world.

Her orgasm crashed over her and she screamed against Derek’s hand as her body bucked under his weight.

“Fuck. You just gushed on me. And you’re going to do it again.” He shifted his hips and legs, changing his angle inside her, and then he removed his hand from her mouth and replaced it with a devouring, claiming kiss. Using a fist in her hair to guide her head, his tongue invaded her mouth so aggressively that all she could do was suck on it as he fucked her.

“Aw, you like your hair pulled, don’t you, Em.” She gulped for air and moaned, his words hitting their mark in her brain and between her legs. Intense pressure built behind her clit. Derek tugged her hair tighter, setting off a low burn in her scalp. “I bet that pull travels right down your spine and makes your pussy clench.”

“Derek, Derek, Derek,” she said in time with his thrusts. When he wrenched his weight off her back, she almost cried.

A big hand landed in the middle of her back, holding her down. His other dragged down her back and his thumb slipped between the cheeks of her ass. He pressed against her anus.

“Oh, God,” she said, jerking under him.

“You want to be filled everywhere, don’t you? You want to feel me in every part of your body?”

“Yes, Derek,” she rasped.

Slowing his hips, he pushed his thumb lower until it slipped into her pussy right alongside his cock. He gently moved it back and forth, and then he slowly fucked her with his thumb wedged inside, making her feel fuller than she’d ever felt.

“Look how good you take two. So fucking sexy.”

She would’ve agreed, except just then, he withdrew his thumb from her pussy and pushed it against the ring of her ass. It took less than a minute before he’d penetrated her all the way up to the second knuckle, and
she wasn’t sure she’d breathed once the entire time. She was on sensation overload.

He settled into a rhythm of withdrawing his thumb from her ass when his cock sank into her pussy, and then fucking her ass deep with his thumb when his cock withdrew.

It took about twenty seconds of that before her body tightened like a corkscrew and then blew apart into a million floating pieces. She buried her face against the sheets and wailed at the freeing force of the release.

“Shit, Emilie. That was too fucking perfect. You’re gonna make me come.” Derek’s hips flew against her, his thumb buried deep. “Oh, God, here I come.” He unleashed a pleasured groan that sounded so damn sexy it made her stomach flutter, and she felt the fast jerking wetness of his come inside her. “Holy fuck,” he rasped as he gently withdrew his thumb and laid his weight atop her again, his cock still deep inside her core.