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Brodie kept hold of her neck and used his elbow on her shoulder to guide her through the house to the stairway.
“I love this house,” Zara said when they began to ascend the stairs. Although she wasn’t an expert yet, she was definitely beginning to recognize the route.
He wasn’t really listening. “You, what?” he mumbled.
They got to the top of the stairs and she spun around to press herself against the door before they could go through it. “I’m sorry.”
Reaching around her, Brodie got the door open an inch, but she used her weight to block him. “Sorry for what?” he said, exhaling his impatience.
Saying her piece meant something to her, she just wished he would understand the depth of what she’d gone through. “Tonight. I freaked out. I was ready to walk away and if I had—”
“We don’t leave a man behind,” he said, with his thumb on her chin, he held her face. “It’s cute that you think you had a choice.”
Spiders of awareness crept across her skin, making even the tiniest of hairs stand upright. With her eyes fixed on this man, her man, she opened herself to the possibilities of the night and the achievement she’d made.
This night was a watershed, her acceptance into the team, and she’d done it. She had been useful to the mission, followed orders, kept her cool. All of those stimulants bombarded together in an upsurge of sensation that exploded in her gut and shimmered to each of her extremities.
The sight of him may arouse her. The way he looked at her certainly did. As did the entitlement of his touch, the scent of his skin, and the sound of his husky voice. It all worked for her. Now that she had it, had him, he had become a part of her soul and she didn’t want to live without him.
Brodie was a man to be revered. Modest as he may be about his skills, he had kept her alive tonight and valued her above everything else. That kind of control was intoxicating. Being a priority for a man like Brodie gave her authority and while it was a power she wouldn’t dream of abusing, it was liberating to have the kind of security that only a man like Brodie could offer.
She had influence over him, but whether that clout extended to anything beyond their sexual connection, she couldn’t yet be sure. Resigning herself to existing in the now, Zara lifted her chin and emphasized her bosom with her posture.
He didn’t want to get serious tonight, and forcing him into any admissions or denials would lessen the legitimacy of whatever he said. So to prove her dedication, she chose to needle him with the ultimate ambition of satisfying them both.
“Art said you were attracted to me when you first came to check me out,” she teased, drawing her fingernail up his arm and across his chest to pinch the fabric on his sternum.
“You’d rather I thought you were a dog? I notice women I want to fuck.”
With the goal of rousing him to a state of frenzy similar to that which was taking her over, she pushed on with her tease and let her eyes wander down his body, playing it coy. “The way he said it was like it was unusual, like I was different. I think maybe Art was worried.”
“Like you were trouble?” he asked and pushed her. With a thump, her back hit the wall and the air leaving her lungs made her gasp. In the same breath, he came down to her level for a brief tongue kiss. “He’s a smart guy. He gave me some amount of grief when I spent the night at your place.”
Pleased that she was getting his attention, she toyed with his tee shirt some more. “He told you to leave me that morning, didn’t he? Is that why you were on the phone for so long?”
Keeping his mouth close to hers, Brodie ducked to keep them parallel. With his face so near, she couldn’t leave the trap of his ensnaring eyes. “At first, of course he did, ‘cause you’re a liability,” he said, opening his hands to rub them down her sides and up over her breasts in a coarse perusal of what he was about to gain full authority over. “Women are messy.”
“Sex is messy,” she said. Digging her nails into him, she sucked her lip into her mouth in an attempt to lessen the volume of her shorter breaths. “What you’re talking about are relationships and that’s not what we have, is it?”
It wasn’t clear to her if he understood the importance of this conversation. He seemed preoccupied by her body and the vision of her mouth. But maybe the distraction would aid her in getting to the truth. “You are...”
“I’m what?” she asked when he didn’t finish.
“Hell if I know,” he said and she couldn’t blame him for losing his train of thought because her rational mind was in disarray, jumbled by the tsunami of emotions she’d endured on that night. “You were off limits from the first day, keeping a clear head is the best way to ensure an op goes down without a hitch.”
“I’m part of the team,” she said, touching the corner of his jaw with a fingertip and curving her body into his emboldening touch.
“Part of the team for this mission, you said. I told you that my inner circle was small... no one’s ever been...”
“Excommunicated,” she said, struggling to even out her breathing. “So what will you do with me when this mission is over?”
The more relevant point was what he planned to do with her in the present. They were still in a shared hallway, but her body was prepared for a much more private event. “When this mission is over...” he said, kissing her and trailing his lips along the length of her jaw. “It’s dangerous to make plans beyond tomorrow, baby. Stick with me and you’ll learn that.”
In a brief moment of clarity, her features contorted with the unsettling reality he was presenting. “Does that mean that one day... you don’t plan to come back?”
Opening his hand over her intimate core, he massaged her through her dress and she gratefully forgot about her concern and surrendered to the insistence of his libido. He wanted her ready and she was already there, but that didn’t stop him from urging her closer to the edge. Dragging his hand up her body, he held her chin to lock their focuses on each other.
“Everyone’s headed for that one day,” he said. “All of us have to accept that one day there won’t be any coming back.”
“You’ve lived your life with these clean lines,” she said, watching her fingers play on his chest, tracing the lines of the muscles beneath the material of his tee shirt. “Bad guys and good guys, right and wrong.”
“If you think it’s clean then you haven’t been paying attention. Alliances are flimsy and allegiances spin on a dime. Why do you think I keep my circle small? I can count on one hand the number of fuckers I trust.”
In need of his validation, she tried to kiss him, but he slanted back out of her reach. “Am I on that list?”
“You’re in my house, aren’t you?”
“What does that mean? Taking a woman into your bed doesn’t mean you trust her.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. One of his hands snaked down to her hip. He compelled her along the door to force her against the frame while the other hand clamped around the back of her neck to pull her mouth to his. His fingers dug in and his strength made her submit, but she’d learned that getting rough was safe with him and her favorite way to play.
“Do you trust me?” she asked, but his patience for talking was wearing out. He swooped down to kiss her neck and her lips curled in their own surrender.
“I told you, you’re a natural,” he said and when she resolved herself to him being evasive, she exhaled and drove her nails into his shoulders to jump into his arms. Endorphins commanded their priorities, in times like these a person would struggle to get, or give, a reasonable answer. Zara wasn’t even sure what she wanted him to say, but she knew what he made her feel.
“It’s invigorating,” she said, squeezing her thighs around him while the width of her smile made her cheeks ache. Trying to decipher her mood and meaning, Brodie’s gaze darkened. “It’s like... the danger, the things that could have happened tonight...” Maybe it was inspiration from the wine, but she opened her fingers in his hair and dipped forward to suck his earlobe into her mouth. “I’m ready to be safe now, beau.”
“On your back and under me,” he said, opening the door and carrying her toward the bedroom. “The safest place on earth.”
“On home turf,” she said, rummaging between their compressed bodies to loosen his jeans.
“Desperate to get me naked, baby?” he asked, dropping her onto her feet and crowding her against the bedroom door as he pressed his thumbprint onto the handle.
Her skin fizzed with anticipation, the weight of him pressing her into the door made her wriggle in search of extra stimulation. “You’ve got to catch up, baby. It’s time for the panty check.”
Being part of a gang intent on protecting what was right aroused her. Now that she had recovered from the initial shock, she could replay the evening and comprehend how lucky she was to be alive. The thrumming pulse of renewed life worked her heart and her blood through her veins at an invigorating pace. Relishing this thirst, she dragged her teeth on his jaw. That contact provoked his appetite enough that he grabbed her neck in a vice grip and opened the door.
“Get in there,” he said, propelling her forward into the bedroom. She was still trying to regain her balance when the door slammed and he came over to snatch her again. “I’ve tried to be gentle with you, Zar. I really have.”
Using his clamp on her neck, he bent her over the end of the bed and wrenched up her dress. Tearing away the fabric he found concealing her, he rubbed the length of his fingers through the seam of her until she relaxed enough that the digits could wheedle their way inside.
Curling and straightening the two fingers he had working her lust, he kept stirring them until she was panting. “You’re wet already,” he snapped, withdrawing his hand from her, he brought it to her lips. “What does that taste like?”
Still bent over under the force of his hand on the back of her neck, she parted her lips and he rammed his fingers through her teeth. “Suck,” he demanded and she did. “You know what that is? That’s a dirty, horny girl. You could’ve gotten yourself killed tonight and that got you off!”
Twisting her head away to empty her mouth, she gasped. “I was never in danger.”
“You think those fuckers wouldn’t have taken you out?”
“They might have tried,” she panted. “But they never would’ve succeeded.”
“Tough girl, are you?” he sneered, tracing his fingertips around her mouth. “You couldn’t take guys like that on.”
“You could,” she spat out, groping to the side until her palm hit his torso. “You would never have let them hurt me.”
“So sure of yourself?”
“So sure of you,” she said, massaging the hard muscle under her hand. “It’s such a turn on to have you out there, watching me. You held my life tonight. The only one who could’ve hurt me, was you.”
Swiping her hand away, he curled down around her. She arched her ass into the ridge of his erection, but he ignored that act to growl in her ear. “The night isn’t over yet.”
With his grip tightening, she was crushed further down causing her to fight for breath. The quest for oxygen distracted her so much that she missed the unbuckling of his belt. The next thing she knew, he was fucking her.
“You want to get rough with bad boys? Then they’re gonna get rough with you. You’re not tough,” he said, pulling out and slamming into her. “You’re so fucking wet. You been thinking about my cock all night? Huh? Is this what you wanted? To be bent over and fucked like the naughty girl you are? You want me to teach you a lesson about what you’re best at?”
Withdrawing, he pulled her upright only to then force her onto her knees. Her mouth was already open before he had a hold of himself. But he shoved himself into her mouth and maintained his previous pace. “That pretty pout is good for this right here. I’m gonna fuck your face until you learn that the only time you open it is for this. My cock. You hear me?”
She nodded and he pulled out to haul her up again as she was gasping. The ferocity of his glare made her grab for his arm to steady herself but he whipped her around to bend her over and went back to screwing her. This time he kept her hips and yanked them back every time he surged forward.
“Fucking this pussy deep is the only way to teach you,” he panted out. “You think of this when you go waving my fucking assets around to other guys. The only man you open your legs for is me. Let that tight cunt worship my cock and she better be dripping before you disappoint my dick.”
“Oh, God,” she called. The deep-seated ache in her loins exploded in a tight pinch that made her scream out in a frenzy of pleasure and pain.
This man, this incredible man, owned her exactly as she wanted to be owned. He knew how to play with her, how to take what he wanted. And the pleasure his body got from hers was what got her off.
“That’s all you want,” he said, taking himself all the way back so the throbbing head of his cock was stretching the threshold of her body. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Zar? You wanted my cock to take what it wanted. You wanted me to fill that cunt. I get whatever I want from you, don’t I? You’ll let me use you for this, as a fuck toy, because you’re desperate to please me... is that right?”
“Oh, God, yes, Brodie,” she said, trying to wriggle back to take more of him. But he held steady and grabbed the back of her neck to keep her face down and immobile.
“You’re for me,” he said, squeezing.
While still pinning her, his other hand stroked its way from her ass to her hip, and kept on going until he was toying with her vulva. He rubbed, pinched, and flicked her clit in a series of erratic maneuvers that actually made a sob of bliss come from between her parted lips. Her eyes closed and she tried to concentrate on resisting the abyss of orgasm. He’d already taken her over that precipice while he had achieved no climax himself.
“I’m not wearing a rubber,” he said, bowing his body over hers. “Is your pussy hungry, baby?”
“Mm-hmm,” she managed to whimper while working her hips against his digits and trying to consume more of his cock in her center.
He tutted. “Naughty girl, you know how wrong it is to let a guy screw you without a rubber? You are a horny girl. You’ll let me do whatever I want.” The heat of his breath left her hair and he stood again. Taking his hand from her center, he seized her hips and yanked her back to sink himself into her again.
Using that tight grip that bit deeper with every pull, he forced her back as he came forward and each smack of their colliding bodies grew louder and louder. On another climax, she screamed again and came up enough to reach back for his wrist. He shook her off to deliver a final series of punishing pounds and then he cursed out a sentence filled with her name.
It was while they stood together like this that she realized he had actually come inside her. Smiling, she flopped forward over the end rail of the bed and let herself grow boneless.
“You’re something else, Bandini,” he said and pulled himself out of her body.
From his tone, she couldn’t tell if he was being serious, joking, or scolding her. Making herself stand and turn, she chose to go with the second, although he was already turning away, so she couldn’t find any translation of his tone in his features.
“I’m your something else,” she said, trying to play it cool but realizing that some part of her not-so-subconscious was trying again to gain his view on the validity of their relationship.
Spinning around, he swiped her jaw and pulled her so close that her nose brushed his. “You don’t get it, do you?” he snarled. “I don’t do holidays and birthdays. I don’t do, ‘Good morning, sweetheart’ and ‘hi, honey, how was your day at the office?’ I don’t do nice and sweet and... I've been trying to be something I’m not with you and it fucking tears me apart to know that if you got a glimpse of the real darkness in me, you’d run screaming for your life.”
“Don’t you get it?” she said, pulling his hand down from her face and linking their fingers as she moved in close. “It’s because of the darkness that I want you. I want that danger and that excitement. All my life I’ve craved the adventure you take for granted.”
Shaking his head, he was unconvinced. “You want it because it’s new and you think it’s a game.”
She wouldn’t be patronized. “In that conference room tonight, with those men, those dangerous men, I knew the stakes. I knew there was a chance that they could hurt me. But I wasn’t afraid... I could feel you with me, in me, and you gave me the strength to stand tall without fear.”
His anger grew dominant in the face of what he perceived to be her naivety. But she got it, understood his fear, and it wasn’t enough to scare her away. “One day I might not be there and if you wade into this life now, because of me—”
“We’re all headed for that one day,” she said, quoting him.
Grazing her cheekbone with his fingertips, he bowed to get closer. “I won’t let you give up your life for this, for us.”
On a rush of anger, she slapped his hand away from her skin. “If you don’t want me, then say it. Don’t hide behind feigned virtue.”
Retreating, he spun away while rubbing the back of his head. Zara waited for him to cut her down. When he about-faced, he let his hand fall. “Of course I fucking want it! But I’m a selfish prick who takes what he wants. You need to look out for you and I am not what’s best for you!”
“Maybe being with you is my selfish too,” she said. After the adrenaline of the night and the hype of their lovemaking, she knew this was no time to be making decisions about forever because she was terrified he would veto any chance of a future.
Taking his tee shirt up over her head, she stripped out of it and her dress, before crawling onto the bed and under the covers. Brodie didn’t join her. He leaned on the bedframe she’d been bent over during their fuck-bout.
“We’ve got the morning-after pill downstairs in the—”
Ceasing her smoothing of the covers, she frowned at him. “Why would you have—”
Showing her a palm to quiet her, he shook his head. “It’s part of Zave’s kit.”
“And that should mean something to me?”
“He and Thad, they... it doesn’t matter. But Thad’s a doctor, so he keeps us stocked with all the meds we need.”
Maybe when she was further embedded in the group she would understand what Zave and Thad were into. So far, all she knew was that Zave had a custom-built suite for locking up women and that he worked with Thad who kept the morning-after pill stocked with the first aid kit.
“I’m on the pill,” she said, sitting up to lean against the grand headboard.
With his hands spread wide, he supported his weight on the footboard of the bed. “You stopped taking the pill three months ago.”
“And your investigation skills become even more intrusive,” she said, but was actually impressed by how far reaching their detective work went and how accurate it was. “I had a couple of wheels left and I’ve already called my doctor for a refill.”
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
She would’ve thought that was self-explanatory but she wasn’t averse to letting her actions speak for her. Pulling back the comforter, she kicked it down out of the way and stretched her nude body across the bed. “Because I wanted to be ready for whatever you might throw at me,” she said, wearing a smile.
Zara hadn’t known what would happen between them, but she knew that boundaries were something they would stretch with each other. Having him inside her blurred her lines of sense and being able to cut loose with him was the most exhilarating experience of her life.
