Authors: Elle Saint James
Tags: #Romance
She smiled. “I want to talk about…” She trailed off and turned her head to look at him. “Why don’t you tell me what I want to talk about? You’re pretty good at reading my mind with that amazing skill set you have.”
He leaned over her and kissed her lips lightly. “But you sucked out all of my superpowers during our most recent sexual adventure. You’ll just have to tell me.”
“Okay then, I want to discuss anal sex.”
“Excellent topic. Go ahead and start.”
“If I wanted to try it, would it hurt the first time?”
“Possibly. In fact, it might generate a little streak of pain anytime you did it.”
“Really?” Her voice lowered.
Head resting on his palm, Troy leaned closer and lowered his voice, too. “What I
could
do is widen you with my fingers first. Declan already started you with one finger at the motel. So I’d use two fingers next time we want to fuck.” He held up the first two fingers of his free hand. She stared at them as he continued. “I’d start by pushing them deeply into your pussy, getting them good and juicy for rear-entry penetration.” He traced his fingers from her collarbone to her pussy and pushed them into her pussy. He wiggled them inside as he gathered moisture.
Is he about to do this?
A spasm of lust shot down her spine. Her legs fell open to aid his possible impromptu instruction.
“Maybe I’d suck your clit as I gathered pussy juice.” He shifted, kissing a path from her breasts to her pussy. Before she could stop him—and she wouldn’t have—he was licking her clit. His two fingers remained in her pussy, pushing in and out, in and out, and driving her crazy.
His mouth pulled away from her clit. “What if then I worked those two juicy fingers as far as they’d go into your ass?” He pulled his fingers from her pussy and slid them back to the entrance of her virgin space. The ring of muscles seemed to tighten in resistance as he slowly inserted his fingers one by one into her rear channel. Once past her rosette, he resumed sucking her clit, and her focus was taken partly away from the slight burn between her ass cheeks.
She lost track of time as he worked his clever fingers in and out of her butt.
“Now it’s time for three fingers,” his husky voice informed her.
A tight pressure suddenly invaded her ass. More burning ensued. However, he resumed sucking her clit, and again her attention departed to the pleasure building inside. Ava moved her focus to the powerful orgasm that was edging ever closer during his
instruction
.
He whispered against her sensitive clit. “In and out. In and out. My fingers are stretching you, widening you, preparing you for something…
else
. Something
much
bigger.
Much
wider.
Much
longer.” His fingers pushed deeper. The sudden streak of discomfort was quickly overshadowed by the dark, naughty pleasure of his words. She wanted this. Needed it.
A moan escaped her lips. He licked her clit with the tip of his tongue, barely eliciting her arousal. Her hips pushed forward into his mouth, wanting more. Wanting it all. Without warning his mouth closed over her clit. He sucked her bud hard between his firm lips. A sudden flash of pussy-squeezing delight imploded in her core. She almost lost it. Was almost over the edge, but not quite. And she wanted to come. She shuddered. An inarticulate sound escaped her lips. Desperation pushed her hips into his face one last time.
Troy shoved his three fingers even deeper into her tight rear space, and then pushed his other fingers into her pulsing pussy. Her shoulder blades arched off the floor as a tidal wave of pleasure crashed over her. Ava came screaming like she’d been celibate for a year.
She could attest that she’d in fact experienced more climaxes in the past couple of days than in the past couple of years. The heart-palpitating release still thumping through her kept her sailing in ecstasy for several seconds. She felt a little faint, and her lips went numb.
Troy pulled his mouth away from her clit as her pussy clenched his fingers over and over again.
Having his fingers shoved tightly in both her ass and her pussy was nothing short of astounding. He rested his face on her inner thigh and said, “Then and only when you were ready, I’d slather lots of lube inside and out of your ass. Once you were slick enough, then I’d push my thick, broad cock deeply into your rear passage as you braced and readied for my darkly burning, hot intrusion.”
Her mouth had fallen open as he spoke.
I want it now
. She rose to her elbows, weakened and still pulsing in delight. “When will I be ready?”
“Don’t know.” He pulled his fingers gently and slowly from her pussy and ass. “I’m sure you’ll tell me. Or perhaps I’ll read your mind.” He left her there alone to think of an uncertain future where she would probably end up crying and begging him to fuck her ass.
Troy came back into the room and headed back to where she remained flat on her back. Before he got close, a phone started ringing. He detoured to the kitchen counter and grabbed one of the two cellular phones they’d retrieved from inside the glove compartment of the minivan.
“Yes.” He soon frowned. “What if I don’t want to play
good news, bad news
, Clay?”
After getting only three hours of sleep, Clay had been roused by one of many phone calls he expected to receive in the coming hours. He’d put out calls to everyone he knew, pulling in half a lifetime’s worth of favors in order to discover who was trying to kill Ava Campbell.
So far he’d learned nothing. And the call that woke him wasn’t any different. His query to discover any photo of Barkova yielded only that there
wasn’t
a picture of Demetrious Barkova in existence that anyone knew of. That was very annoying.
Not to mention that his general description fit at least one-fourth of the world’s population. He was supposedly of average height, average weight, no scars, birthmarks, tattoos, or even excessive facial hair was listed. He was supposedly unremarkable in a crowd with his dark hair and darker eyes, but no one had ever identified him by his facial features, because no one had dared take his picture.
With the meager description they had, Barkova could be any nationality from Cuban to Canadian or Middle Eastern to Mediterranean. Although they had unsubstantiated information that he’d been born in Russia, there was no proof. His unusual name might have helped, but it wasn’t without precedence that Barkova was as fake as the passports he used to get around the world without ever being caught.
Jake’s almost witness, Sasha, lived in Moscow. Or she had before her death. Had the assassin been chosen because he lived close by or because his reputation said he’d never failed?
Clay couldn’t get back to sleep, so he watched some local Arkansas news footage taken at the scene of Ava’s house explosion. It panned past a surprising number of lookie-loos given that she lived in a country setting far from the crowds of the city.
By the light of day the devastation was even more horrendous. Yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the home and fluttered in the wind as law officers and the crime scene unit combed the area for clues.
Parked in the driveway, Clay noted a group of four men in paint-spattered white work coveralls standing outside a light-tan pickup truck loaded down with construction supplies. Maybe it was Ava’s building contractor and crew.
The man looked briefly but directly into one of the media’s cameras focused on the tragedy. He had an anguished look of despair. An expression not altogether unexpected from someone seeing the destruction of their personal work and creation. Clay felt a pang of understanding and regret for the guy.
He watched the video one more time to commit it to memory and turned it off.
Clay also read the anguish on Jake’s face as easily as if it were printed on a roadside billboard. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It
is
my fault.”
The fax machine started up, and several sheets shot into a tray. Jake picked them up and handed them to Clay, glancing at the front page as he passed them over.
“What is it?”
“Don’t know. Something from your friend Jimmy…and I feel the need to add the words
in Arkansas
to the end of his name each time I say it.”
Clay grinned briefly and scanned the sheets one by one. “I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“Jimmy says the warrant for Ava’s arrest has been cancelled.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s good news, right? So why was it stopped?”
“The man she was accused of killing is alive.”
“Interesting. How did they figure that out so quickly?”
“Mr. White came to the local police station this morning, wanting an update on the assault charge he swore out for the ‘alleged’ shotgun incident involving Ava Campbell on her property the day before.” Clay picked up his phone and thumb-dialed the number from memory. He wanted to call Troy and Declan to let them know. “He still wants her arrested for scaring him. Dumb-ass. He’s been very vocal this morning about them enforcing her ‘assault’ of him, but at least the bogus murder rap is gone.”
Jake pushed out a sigh of relief. “Now if only we could get the bomb-wielding assassin off her tail.”
Clay nodded at Jake. “That would be great.”
Then Troy answered with a very tranquil-sounding, “Yes.”
“Hey, it’s Clay. I’ve got good news and bad news, what do you want first?”
“What if I don’t want to play
good news, bad news
, Clay?”
“Then I’d say, ‘Why are you so cranky when your voice sounds so relaxed?’” Clay suspected, given the way they’d sounded when he called them at the motel, Ava was very important to them in more than just a professional and passing way.
“Fine,” Troy said with a hint of exasperation. “Tell me the good news first.”
“The warrant for first-degree murder has been cancelled. Turns out Mr. White is alive and still whining to anyone who’ll listen that Ava tried to
take him out
with her shotgun the same day that her home was blown up.”
“The guy’s a pussy. But yeah, that
is
good news. At least we don’t have to dodge law enforcement anymore. So what’s the bad news?”
“We’ve figured out who the assassin is. Unfortunately, he’s never been caught. Not once. There is no known picture of him. They call him the Terminator because he absolutely will not stop until his target is dead. And legend has it that he’s never missed a target. Not once. You understand his determination, right?”
“Well, he’s about to lose that nickname. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”
“That’s a great segue into my next thought. We may have to fake her death to get him to stop.” Clay figured Troy would balk at going so far, but he should have known they’d gotten attached. He’d never heard either of them so steadfastly protective about a woman before. “Confirmed bachelors” was the term he’d overheard more than once in regard to Troy and Declan, much like his own brother Kendall, so he understood the tenacity of unwavering bachelorhood.
“Like I said, whatever it takes.”
Clay narrowed his eyes. Troy’s tone was even more adamant than before. “Are you so resolute because you’ve fallen for the woman you’re protecting? Didn’t you used to be adamant about
not
settling down?”
There was a long pause at the end of the phone line. He finally muttered, “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
“What about Declan? Is he going to bite the head off anyone that suggests she’s a danger to the two of you?”
Troy pushed out a long breath. “You know how Declan is, but I do know he wants to protect her.”
Clay shook his head. Having to hide more than just her would be more difficult. “Why
now
do you fall for a woman, Troy? Because it fucking complicates everything.”
“No, it won’t.”
“It will if we have to fake both of your deaths, too.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Not a smart attitude. The guy they refer to as the Terminator is out there looking for you. I don’t know what sort of resources he has, and neither do you. This isn’t your average dumb-ass doing stupid, predictable things. He’s a whole different breed of bad guy.”
“Whatever. We’re safe here for the time being. We’ll lay low and rest up until tomorrow night and then head for the DRMC ranch when it gets dark. He can’t catch us if he doesn’t know where we are.”
“Fine. Let me know if anything changes with regard to her future linked to yours.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t wait by the phone.”
Clay snapped his cell closed and shut his eyes tight. Pushing a fist against his forehead as if the pressure would help him think better, he tried to think of what to do next. Or if he needed to do anything at all. What would help? What wouldn’t? He’d put them in this situation. He’d done it for Jake, and his friend already blamed himself. Admitting fault wasn’t going to change anything. They just needed a viable plan. But Clay wouldn’t feel they were safe until they got to the DRMC property.