Tori ran the tip of her tongue around another quarter-sized scar on Marcus’s belly. The cigar burn that had blistered, leaving another piece of brutal evidence, would never fade.
She hoped that someday she could find the sadists who had captured and tortured this wonderful man, and she would kill them very slowly. They didn’t deserve the easy life of jail. She would oblige them with an eye for an eye, or in this case, burn for burn, slice for slice, punch for punch, kick for kick. Unlike them, though, she would not derive any pleasure from their pain. She would have retribution, though.
While exploring his body with her fingers and her tongue, she stroked his shaft until he rewarded her with the drop of his readiness. With her thumb she smoothed it over the enlarged head, circling and teasing.
Marcus growled.
“You told me I was the jaguar. Cats only mate with other cats, and don’t get along with canines so that means you should be purring, not growling.” She looked up his broad chest to his tight face where he clenched his teeth. Every muscle in his body was hanging on by a thread. She loved this control she had over him.
“I bet I can make you purr.” She gave him a devilish smile. “Or at least moan.” Sliding back down between his open legs, she licked the new drop from the tip of his cock. Teasing him even more, she ran her tongue around the circumference before taking him deeper into her mouth.
His moan was her reward.
“Tori, my little jaguar kitten, although I absolutely love what you’re doing, I…I need you to stop right now.” Marcus sat up in bed and pulled her up until they were chest to chest. “Ride me,” he demanded and dropped his hands to her hips.
She guided him inside her then slowly settled down on his length. He filled her not just physically but in ways she didn’t understand. Or maybe she didn’t want to recognize.
His hips lifted off the bed, pushing deeper into her. She closed her eyes and relished the feeling.
“Tori, either you get moving or I’m going to flip us over and pound into you.” Marcus sounded desperate. Wanting to please them both, she started moving up and down. Leaning forward she placed her hands on his shoulders so she could tighten every muscle from her butt cheeks through her inner walls, making it as tight as possible and the greatest enjoyment for him. He waited for her to come for the second time in less than an hour.
She wanted to make sure he remembered this time together. She needed to be the best he’d ever had. The woman he would measure every other sexual encounter against, previous and future lovers.
But the idea of Marcus with other women was unfathomable. She didn’t want him to take someone else to his bed. What she really wanted was to be able to have Marcus in her life, in her bed, forever.
Looking down into his face, she didn’t see the scar that ran from his eye into his beard, she saw the man who had been willing to give up his life, take any torture they dished out, to save a friend. She saw a very rare, precious, man. She wanted to please him, protect him, and never let him go.
Marcus’s whole body stiffened, and his face looked as though he was in severe pain. “I can’t hold out much longer. Come with me.” He pressed his thumb on her clit and when she rose for the next stroke, she completely fell apart. He arched deep into her, held the position for a long minute as he groaned his release.
Tori collapsed onto Marcus’s chest, her arms too limp to even roll off him. As though he could read her mind, he threw his arms around her and rolled them to their sides, still holding her tight as she drifted off in that glorious post orgasmic bliss.
Awakened by the water running in the bathroom, Tori reached out to the still-warm bed. She was determined that Marcus would crawl back under the covers and stay there. They needed sleep. If she were to admit to herself, she was sore. Maybe they could just snuggle for a while. She couldn’t remember when she’d spent so many hours having sex. She had rarely cuddled afterward, but that’s what she wanted from Marcus.
She smiled as he walked unabashedly naked back to her bed. Crawling in beside her he raked his fingers through the curls at her temple. “Are you okay?”
Hell yes. She was better than okay. She was elated, and excited, and exhausted, all because of him. “Yeah, I’m good.”
He laid down on his back, tucking one hand behind his head and wove the other one around her shoulders. Pulling her to his side, he kissed her temple. She threw a leg over his thighs and placed her hand over his heart. This position just felt right to her.
Without realizing it, she automatically started tracing the scars on his chest.
“Why do you do that?” Marcus’s voice was quiet, tentative.
Without looking up, she asked, “Do what?”
“Touch my scars.” His voice was gravelly.
Tori realized he said this through clenched teeth. She immediately popped her head up and looked at him. Sure enough, he looked angry.
“I’m sorry.” She meant those words from the bottom of her soul. The last thing in the world she ever wanted to do was to hurt him. But she needed him to understand that the marks on the outside of his body meant nothing to her. “You’re very sensitive about your scars. They don’t mean shit to me. All I see is the hero inside. The man I want at my side.” She rolled on top of him, straddling his hips just below his belly button, and took his face in both her hands. “Always.”
She stared at him for a long minute. “Marcus, I think I may be falling in love with you.”
Holy fuck! Tori couldn’t believe she said those words.
He grabbed her and crushed her to his chest. “Don’t say that. You are so beautiful. What would a woman like you want with a man like me?”
She couldn’t believe she’d actually used the L word in conversation with a man. Raising her head, she gave him a satisfied smile. “Great sex?”
Leaning up she placed her hands on his chest. Coyly she tried to explain, “I said I think that I might be falling in love with you.” She had to clarify. “I didn’t say that I was in love with you.” She wouldn’t know what that was like. She’d never been in love before.
His scars were a problem. For him, not for her. Before she let this go any further she had to ask, “Why do your scars bother you so much?”
He took a deep breath and stared off into the distance. This was hard for him. She laid down and stretched out next to him, throwing her leg over his thighs, just like she had before. She wanted to be there to support him, letting him know he could talk to her about anything.
“I never understood why people killed themselves over scars until this happened.” His words made her stomach drop.
Tori bolted upright. “Have you been thinking about suicide?” The thought of Marcus killing himself because his skin was flawed made her heart contract and beat harder at the same time. “Now you listen to me, Marcus Hernandez, these scars are just superficial. They are certainly no reason for you to think about ending your life. You fought your way back to health and to give up now is just ridiculous.” She swallowed hard. “You have so much to live for.”
Shock was written all over his face. “You don’t underst—”
“You have me to live for.” She cut him off. “We haven’t even had a chance at us yet.”
It was Marcus’s turn to hold her face, his palms on her cheeks. She hadn’t realized she was crying until his thumbs swept away the tears, leaving a chill. He smiled and pulled her down for a kiss. His lips were sweet and gentle. “No. I wasn’t thinking about committing suicide. But Hope couldn’t…” He trailed off and looked away. His jaw worked back and forth as he fought emotion.
Was Hope a former girlfriend? Or worse yet, a sister? There was so much she didn’t know about Marcus. Maybe his idyllic childhood wasn’t quite the Rockwell painting she’d imagined.
She bent and kissed his cheek. “You don’t have to—”
“But I do.” He turned and faced her then pulled her back down to the bed and tucked her against his side. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I told you about our neighborhood. It was pretty much middle-class, hard-working parents. Kids were taught to be polite and the difference between right and wrong.” He shifted. Tori thought he was uncomfortable with the subject, not necessarily their position.
He sighed. “I suppose every neighborhood has that house, with those parents who are more than a little bit different. They don’t share the same ideals as the other families.”
He bent his head and looked down toward her, so she lifted her eyes to meet his. “Are you familiar with people who consider themselves sovereign citizens?”
Tori had to think for a minute. “Oh, those crazies who think that they don’t need to pay taxes like the rest of us, and only obey the laws they feel should pertain to them.”
“Yeah. The FBI considers them domestic terrorists. Most law enforcement officers rank sovereign citizens a higher risk group than Islamic extremists, neo-Nazis, and racist militias.” Marcus took in a deep breath as though to fortify himself. “Anyway, Hope’s parents got caught up in that growing movement at the ground level. They had money though. Both worked and had good jobs. The kids were dressed well and had all the latest toys.”
Tori wanted to fall into self-pity once again. Another seemingly perfect family, especially compared to her childhood. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood with a single mother working two jobs was a far cry from the rich suburbs Marcus was talking about. Before she could continue her pity party, she realized he was talking again.
“Hope was such a pretty little thing, and she knew it. Small for her age, and damn smart. Blonde curly hair just barely touched her shoulders and eyes the color of a crisp October sky. She was one of the first to grow breasts in sixth grade. By junior high, she was the heartthrob of every boy in the neighborhood, once we got hormones. We all used to walk home together.” He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “Then everything blew up. Literally.”
“What you mean?” Tori was now quite interested in this story.
“Hope’s father was making bombs for the movement in his basement.” He shrugged. “Supposedly, he hadn’t paid his taxes in years and the IRS called him for an audit. He was kind of a pompous ass to begin with, but when he declared himself a sovereign citizen, seems the IRS really didn’t give a shit. At that point, not only did he owe the government a lot of money, but also a shit ton of penalties and interest. He got even more pissed off when they garnished his pay.”
“So, what did this fucker do?” Tori couldn’t wait to hear more.
The good half of Marcus’s face kicked up. “The leader of the local cult convinced Hope’s father that he needed to do something about it. I’m not sure the jerk wad in charge knew the man was a chemical engineer.”
With her head resting on his chest, Tori listened to Marcus’s lungs expand once, twice. “They were going to go blow up the IRS office. Instead, he blew up his family.”
Marcus swallowed hard. His voice broke on the next word. “Hope…Hope had been out shopping with her mother and had just walked back toward the house. Her mother was gathering groceries from the car. It protected her somewhat from the flying debris.”
There was a long silence before Marcus continued. “That pretty little girl was burned over twenty-seven percent of her body.” His words were so quiet, but Tori had heard.
She felt the small shiver that had ripped through him. “I’ve never been able to get the smell of burning flesh out of my memory.” He shifted once again, readjusting his legs. “She had broken several bones, but it was the burns that took months to heal. Her hair…those soft blonde curls…” Marcus ran his fingers through the hair at her temple. “Right here.” He took a deep breath. “They said some kind of plastic had melted into her face. The boards that had fallen on her arm had been on fire. Thank Christ they had knocked her out. The doctors did skin grafts and put a special gel on the burns, but that kind of damage takes years and years to heal.”
He looked off to the side before he continued. “I went to see her in the hospital, and when she got home, I’d stop in just to check on her. Her mother had moved into a different house, closer to us. She wanted Hope to go to the same school where she’d gone before, believing that she would have friends there.” He huffed. “That didn’t happen.”
Tori could tell just talking about this distressed Marcus. “You don’t have to talk about this unless you want to.”
“I want you to understand.” His beautiful hazel eyes looked so serious. She nodded, giving him permission to keep talking.
“It was almost a year before she came back to school and we were all sophomores in high school then and she was only a freshman. Not everybody was sensitive about her looks. Those of us in the neighborhood who had known her before, we tried to help her out when we could, but our schedules were different.” Marcus was making little circles with his fingers on her bare shoulder.
He paused for a few seconds. “High school girls can be such bitches. There was one clique of older girls who were relentless. They would call her Hope-less and tell her she was fugly. Fucking kids.”
“You never said those horrible things to her, did you?” Tori couldn’t imagine Marcus picking on anyone.
“No. Even though Hope had become bitter when she wasn’t reclusive.” He pulled her in tighter as though he needed the human contact. “I actually thought things were getting better for her after a year so.”
Marcus worked his jaw. “I was wrong.”
It was a long time before he spoke again. “When she didn’t meet us at the bus stop one morning, I jogged back to her house. She’d usually tell us if she had a doctor’s appointment or another surgery. She hadn’t said anything the day before. When I turned the corner, I saw a police car sitting in front of her house, right behind the Coroner’s van. In school that morning, they made an announcement that Hope…” Marcus swallowed hard and worked his jaw. “Hope had killed herself.”
Tori leaned up and looked down until she was two inches from his face. “Those scars didn’t kill Hope. She killed herself. She gave up on her life. You said she was smart. That means she had a lot to offer this world, far beyond a pretty face. And even though I only went to a real high school a few short months, I’m well aware of how acidic, demeaning, demoralizing young girls can be to each other.”
She took a breath. “Hell, there are adults who still act that same way when someone is different. Learning to deal with people like that is part of life experiences that you gain in those teenage years. I can assure you that even if the accident hadn’t happened, she would still have been picked on in high school. Being pretty isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. There are a lot of jealous people in this world who will tear you down if you let them.”
Taking his face in her hands to assure she had his attention, Tori wasn’t finished. “Hope believed the bullshit those bitches were spewing. She gave them the power to decide how she saw herself. Hope’s suicide wasn’t your fault.”
“I know.” He mirrored her position by placing his palms on her cheeks. “And I’m sorry you were picked on, too.” When he kissed her, all the tension that had built up inside her seemed to melt away.
“My beautiful jaguar, I have no intention of committing suicide.” He smiled up at her. “But I love the way you defended me.” He gave her another quick kiss. “Talking about Hope is hard for me because it’s so personal. She’s the reason I joined the ATF and I specialize in bombs. I never want any pretty little girl to be permanently injured by a bomber who doesn’t give a shit about collateral damage.”
Before she could say anything, he kissed her again “You and I are going to get up close and personal with tons of the most dangerous bombs on the whole fucking planet.”
His next kiss was fierce, holding nothing back. “I don’t want you to get hurt. If I had my way, I be doing this alone, backed up by the Delta team. But a young couple can be more believable. Hopefully, they’ll accept our story and we’ll slide right in, find the bombs, deal with them, and get the hell out of there.”
Marcus rolled and cupped her breast, circling her nipple. “And when we get back to D.C., we’ll figure out where the us you mentioned is going to go, besides to bed. In the meantime, we really need to sleep. I have no idea how we’re going to get to Santa Ana, or to this mysterious training camp, but I have complete confidence in all the people who are downstairs working on these problems.”
Tori couldn’t hold back a yawn. She was exhausted. Marcus was right, there were plenty of people working on the problems in developing an operational plan that they would have to put into action…whenever. As she threw her leg over his thighs once again, she took a deep breath and she was out.
At the pounding on her door, Tori came fully awake. She felt like she’d only just fallen asleep.
“Need you downstairs. Reports are in.” Nita’s voice faded down the hallway.