Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) (27 page)

He pulled slowly out, inch by delicious inch, before entering her again. He repeated the action, moving a tiny bit faster each time. Her weight was barely on her knees. She’d thought the position had been for his viewing pleasure, but the sparks that sizzled with each of his moves made her realize that at the angle he was holding her, as he guided her hips when he thrust, his penis scraped her G-spot with each thrust in, each pull out. After savoring and going slow, he changed speeds, suddenly pounding against her without pause. His breath became deeper and raspier. Deep, intense waves of pleasure rippled through her body, from her toes to her ears, and everywhere in between, and still he kept going, bucking into her at full strength. He had a powerhouse of a muscular body, and he was using all of his strength on her. She came, again, and again, each mini-orgasm fueled by the primal force with which he was using her, building her release to points where she’d never been before.

When she was seeing stars, he stopped. His grip on her hips tightened until his fingers were digging into her flesh. His clench-hold on her should have hurt, but it didn’t. He held onto her hips as though he owned them, and ground her against him so that he was buried to the hilt, his groans becoming deeper, his breaths harsher, as his release built. She felt his spasms deep inside of her, felt a flood of warmth come from him, felt each pulse of his orgasm, and peaked again with him, her screams joining his harsh moans.

When they were through, when nothing but harsh intakes of breath were escaping from both of them, he bent over her back, gently scooped her into his arms and fell with her onto the bed, turning her so that she lay across his chest. Wrapped in his big arms, she was absorbing the warmth from his large body, without enough energy to move even a toe. Her cheek was pressed into his chest, which rose and fell with each of his ragged breaths. After a few seconds where she could do nothing but breathe, she glanced up at him, gave him a smile as his half-opened eyes locked on hers, and whispered, “Best. Sex. Ever.”

A fatigued, but full, smile revealed dimples. His eyes started to close, as he mumbled. “Been waiting all day for that.”

“What?” she whispered, not understanding through the fog in her brain and fatigue in her body.

“That smile,” he said, as he dropped his head on the pillow and shut his eyes.

Strobe lights and beeps emanated from his watchband, which Sebastian had left on the bedside table. 7:15 a.m., wake up. Unless there was a crisis. Shaking off deep, dreamless sleep, the strobe’s flash confirmed what he instantly knew. The bed beside him was empty. On her way out, Skye must have turned off the lamps. The room was pitch dark. He had no idea when she’d slipped from his arms and left the room. He’d fallen into a headache-med induced, fatigue-driven, post-coital hard sleep, as she had snuggled into his chest, given him her gorgeous smile, and whispered her approval. The intervals between the alarms would grow shorter, if he didn’t respond to Ragno’s good morning call, but for now he had a two-minute pause. He needed it.

He’d broken any number of rules by having sex with Skye—Black Raven rules as well as overarching, self-imposed ethical rules. Pushing Skye to the breaking point had been his intent, and that’s why his comments in the kitchen had been unrelenting, but when she’d finally broken down, instead of trying to get information from her, he’d done something different.

Yet another fuck-up on his part.

As he inhaled a deep breath of exasperation, the aroma of almonds and vanilla distracted him. Someone was baking, but that wasn’t unusual. When he was on Black Raven premises, agents cooked for him. What was unusual was that it smelled so good. He savored the aroma, shut his eyes, realized it was the same scent that had greeted him at Creative Confections, and groaned. He chose not to chastise himself—at least for a few minutes—for losing rational thought and acting on lust.

Best sex ever?

Glad she thought so. When he had time to think, without Ragno’s alarm distracting him, maybe he’d remember another woman who he enjoyed being with as much. Right now, none in his memory bank compared. Demanding, yet complaint. Sarcastic, even in bed.

Don’t you know what foreplay’s for?

He chuckled. Off-the-charts responsive. Eyes-open as she watched him, beautiful when she came, arching into him even when he did her from behind. The memory of her body moving with him, her legs winding around him, the sound of her moans and her soft cries, faded when he remembered what she said while they were in the kitchen. He’d barely thought about it. Instead of listening to the words, he had focused only on two facts. One, she was offering sex. Two, he needed it.

Once with me won’t count.

His good-morning-wanting-more erection had him wondering how many more times with Skye wouldn’t count. Yet a part of his brain—the part that had somehow awakened after the hand-grenade slammed him into coma-land in July—made him wonder why. He’d never come face-to-face with a female version of himself, a female who thought of sex as nothing but release. Women either craved emotional attachment or they expected compensation. He’d learned that cash was easier to give, yet even frequent visits to the same high-priced woman could result in emotion-driven expectations on her part.

Why? Why was Skye as fucked up as he was in the intimacy department?

He sat up, suddenly remembering some of the things he’d learned about her in the last few days, things his brain had conveniently forgotten about when all of his blood had rushed to his dick.
Hell.
She was lying.

He’d acted on her vulnerabilities. He should have known better. He did know better. He was just an asshole.

Forget about it, he told himself, as Ragno’s alarm sounded, lights flashed, and the pause between each annoying beep became shorter. Problem was, now that he had crossed the line of never mixing sex with work, he didn’t want to stop. He was used to the feast or famine approach to sex, and right now his body was telling him it was ready for an all-he-could-eat feast. He could go weeks without it, get his fill in one well-planned weekend, and go about his business. Waking up with a hard-on just hours after sex, wanting more, and having no plan to get it was foreign to him.

Thank God he was leaving Last Resort after Minero’s call. Soon, he’d be a few hundred miles from her and able to focus on more important things than satisfying his newly awakened, insatiable libido. He reached for the night table, grabbed the damn watchband as the strobes and beeps started again, and hooked on the earpiece.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, though the grumpy sound of your voice pairs a question mark with that statement,” Ragno said, her voice, as always, fresh and unflappable. “How’s that headache?”

“Gone.”

“Your arm?”

He’d forgotten about it. He sat up, flicked on the bedside lamp, and glanced at his bicep. The bandage was bloodstained. He’d put too much strain on his arms for the stitches. He shrugged. Definitely worth it. “I’ll live. You know, Ragno, I’m not the only one with health concerns here. Weren’t you supposed to have a doctor’s appointment this week?”

“Yes. I cancelled it. Too busy.”

“That’s what you’ve said for the last few weeks.”

“My problem isn’t life threatening,” she retorted. “Your head injury is.”

“You haven’t been outside in-”

“I have too.”

“The rooftop terrace of our building doesn’t count.”

“Drop it. I’m fine. I can go anywhere I want to,” Ragno said. “There just isn’t a need for me to be anywhere but here.”

Her tense tone told him to let it drop. He made a mental note to bring it up again with her in a few days. Hopefully then, the current crisis would be over and he’d be able to persuade her to seek help. “All right. I’m dropping it, but not forgetting it. You slept okay?”

“For a few hours,” she responded, “like a baby.”

“Pete?” He stood, walked to the bathroom, and turned on the water in the shower.

“Doing well. In ICU and stable.”

“How is the interrogation going on the man I left alive at the safe house?”

“Brace yourself. You’re not going to like the report.”

He looked at himself in the mirror as he drew a deep breath, inhaling the steam from the shower, thinking that he needed to put on some muscle mass. “Tell me.”

“Marshals got there at the same time as our interrogator. They took custody. He’s been in surgery for the last six hours. Doctors are busily repairing the kneecaps that you blew out,” she said, “thanks to the never-ending dollars of American taxpayers. No telling when we’ll be able to talk to him.”

He groaned. “Next time I say we need to expand domestic operations, remind me of this.” In the Middle East, Black Raven would have given the man just enough medical attention so that he’d be able to talk. They wouldn’t have coddled him with a comfortable bed, corrective surgery, and good drugs. “With a little persuasion, he could have been a wealth of information.”

“Aside from the Geneva Convention and its requirement that injured enemy combatants receive humane treatment, have you forgotten that you’re operating on domestic soil? The techniques you’ve grown used to in other countries won’t work here. You’re in the land of the United States Constitution. On top of about a million other laws, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment forbids the type of persuasion you’re talking about. Here,” her tone was low and sarcasm was high, “I believe they call what you’re talking about torture.”

“What would the average American call castrating a man while he’s alive? Fuck it. Don’t answer that. A few questions wouldn’t have killed the man,” he said, stifling his thoughts about fighting fire with fire. “What else do I need to know before I get in the shower?”

“Biggest news of the morning is that Minero’s assistant is missing. She was last seen on her way to pick up lunch yesterday afternoon, after she did the organizational work on the safe house.”

“Well, I’m guessing that’s how they found the safe house.” He stripped off the bandage. More than a few of the stitches were popped and where the thread had burst, the edges of his skin were separated. His Raven tattoo was marred through the midsection with a wound that was unevenly caked with dried blood. Fuck. He hated the symbolism. He knew the wound was supposed to be kept dry, but at this point, given the sorry state of the stitches, he didn’t think a bit of water would hurt it. “Find Doctor Schilling. I need her to lay eyes on this cut after I get out of the shower.”

“Will do,” she said. “Interview with Skye is still on at eight. Exactly thirty-seven minutes from now.”

“Make sure lines are secure. No video.”

“Minero’s insisting on it.”

“Fuck him,” Sebastian said. “It’s too dangerous. Tell him video calls are easier to trace, a fact he should know. The profile you’re doing on Minero. Is it turning up anything?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Have you found Root?”

“No. She’s now become a missing person, officially.”

“Give me a few minutes,” he said, placing the watch and ear bud on the granite counter. The devices were waterproof, but he typically spared Ragno the sounds of his morning rituals.

We can act like it never happened.

Skye’s words, not his. Perfect, he thought, as he swished shampoo through his hair. But not. He’d taken advantage of her vulnerable situation, the breaking point to which he had pushed her.

He had to apologize. Before July, he might not have. Inexplicably, now he felt the need to do so, and he didn’t know whether it was because of her or because after his near-death experience, he just felt different.

He’d apologize, and then he was going to act like it never happened.

Ten minutes later, he was pulling on Black Raven-issue cargo khakis that he’d found stocked in the bedroom closet, as Doctor Schilling knocked on his bedroom door. He turned, showing her the arm, even before she stepped across the threshold. “I made a mess of it.”

Large brown eyes gave him an exasperated, questioning glance. She glanced past him and looked at the bed. The comforter was crumpled on the ground and the top sheet was twisted. Pillows, at odd angles, were not where one normally rested their head. She didn’t ask how he managed to wreck her work.

Her job was to fix it.

“I’ll call for the stitch kit. I brought bandages with me, but didn’t think you’d manage to pop most of the stitches I put in as you slept. You’re sitting still for the conference call at eight?”

He nodded.

“I’ll redo the stitches then. Let’s step into the bathroom and get it cleaned before I put on another bandage.” As they stood at the sink, and she poured alcohol on the wound, she said, “Mr. Connelly, may I speak about a medical issue unrelated to this wound?”

He knew from the deadly serious, concerned look in her eyes where this was going. Not wanting to hear it, but knowing that he needed to, he said, “Go ahead.”

She drew a deep breath. “You really should submit to the care of your neurosurgeon. Today. If not today, tomorrow.”

He fought the urge to groan. “Ragno’s working in the background?”

Doctor Schilling nodded as she dried the wound and taped a gauze bandage over it. “And Zeus, and Brandon Morrissey. In this circumstance, they should. Your medical staff needs to be advised of your current status, just in case. The situation is urgent.”

“Whoa,” he said, pulling on a polo shirt from the extra-clothes closet. “No one has said that I’m in imminent danger of dropping dead.”

“No, but that danger will become likely if you wait too long for the surgery. How long is too long? A week? Two weeks? A month? If you’re expecting that kind of exactness from your physicians, your expectations are unreasonable,” she shook her head, “and that shouldn’t be your focus. To put it bluntly, your focus needs to be getting on the table, having the surgery, and getting back on your feet.”

“Do you know the odds of me surviving the surgery?”

She held his gaze. “Well, it comes with more risk than an appendectomy-”

“Based on what the doctors have told me, I’m guesstimating fifty-fifty.”

She frowned, but didn’t say that he was wrong. “Your risk of surviving decreases with each day you wait.”

Unlike the bloodstained clothes he’d worn the day before, the shoes that he’d had on, black-leather tie-ups with semi-hard soles, were fine. He found a pair of socks in the well-stocked closet. He wished that she’d disappear, but she didn’t take the cue. He sat on the bed, slipping on the socks and said, as much as to himself as to her, “Dying doesn’t bother me.”

She held his gaze for a second, then gave a slight nod. “So why are you waiting?”

“What bothers me is leaving a mess for others to deal with,” he said, tying the shoes, “and right now, Black Raven is in one hell of a mess.”

“Black Raven is full of talent. We’ll weather the storm fine.” She drew a deep breath. “You may not weather this head injury fine, if you keep procrastinating. The headaches you’re now experiencing will not go away without the surgery. The scar tissue needs to be removed.”

He stood, found his belt in the pile of clothes that he’d left on the floor of the closet, and slipped it through the belt loops of the khakis. “I don’t have a headache now.”

“You took meds when you arrived. I watched you as I stitched. It was quite a cocktail. Those meds haven’t worn off. Once they do, your head will be pounding again.”

“Good to know,” he said. “Now you can drop it.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.” She gave him a slight smile. “I’m pulling for you, sir.”