Beck & Call (33 page)

Jake hadn’t lied. He’d never been in love before—not like this anyway. The world seemed golden, every atom in it a blessing. He didn’t want to take a minute with Mia for granted, or cause her a moment’s pain. She’d had enough of that in her life. He let her use the shower first in the morning, and made her coffee, and asked if she wanted anything from the store.

“I can be back in five minutes, in case you’re nervous about being left alone.”

Mia burst out laughing. “Ow,” she said a second later, because her merriment had tugged the healing cut on her lip.

Jake popped up from his chair. “I’ll get you a pain killer.”

“Stop,” she said, taking him by the hands. “I’m okay. I’m just not used to seeing you like this.”

He subsided into his seat. “I don’t know how to do this romance thing.”

“I bet you do.” The glint that entered her eyes made him uncomfortable in a different way.

Holding her last night had pumped up his testosterone, especially since he was post-action. When he woke with her luscious butt snuggled to his groin, his usual morning hard-on had just about killed him. A damned marching band didn’t drum harder than his cock. He’d ignored it for her sake, because she couldn’t be recovered yet.

“You’ve been through an ordeal,” he said unsurely.

Her smile deepened. “But I had a good night’s rest.”

“Your eye is still swollen, and your lip is hurt.”

“I guess you’ll have to find somewhere else to kiss me.”

She swung from her chair and straddled his, rolling like a stripper up the hump in his jeans. She was wearing yoga pants, and the softness of her mons could be felt through them. Jake’s scalp tingled with sensation, his toes curling against her tiny kitchen’s linoleum. He gripped her waist, but somehow his hands didn’t stop her from rolling up him again.

“Mia,” he gasped, his hips rocking up to her. He tried to distract himself with a joke. “Not bad for a someone with no training in lap dancing.”

“Who needs training? I’m just doing what comes naturally.”

He was shirtless. Her warm hands kneaded his bare shoulders like she enjoyed squeezing his muscles. With that to steady her, her pelvis rolled up him more firmly still. Jake lost his self-control. Mia squeaked as he surged onto his feet holding her. Her legs clutched his waist, but he wanted her on her bed, where he could take his time and drive deep inside of her.

Ten long strides took him to his goal.

He lowered her to the covers and began stripping off her clothes. He loved how this was all it took to flush her from her soft cheeks, to her trembling breasts, to the lovely curve of her inner thighs. When he had her naked, she rose up on her elbows.

“Yours too,” she said, nudging his thigh with the ball of her bare foot.

Jake shucked his jeans and underwear in one quick motion.

Mia bit her lip and grinned. “You look … very ready, Mr. Reed.”

He was almost. He climbed over her to retrieve the box of condoms from her bedside drawer.

“Hey,” she said, noting what he’d brought out. “How did those get in there?”

Too impatient to let her play, Jake ripped a packet with his teeth, sat back on his heels, and covered himself quickly. Knowing he was good to go made his hard-on bounce eagerly.

“You slept pretty late,” he said. “And I figured I couldn’t stay hands off forever. I snuck out to the store.”

“So—” Her fingers tiptoed up his thighs. “This morning, when you woke up with the boner to end all boners, they were already there?”

She’d noticed his condition. Jake admitted he liked that. He shivered as her hands crept higher, their tips brushing the curve of his testicles. “I have superhuman restraint. Do I get bonus points?”

“I think you’ve earned them.” She reversed her hands down his thighs then drew them up her own sides and stretched. This put her curvy little body on full display for him. The confidence was new and very appealing. The hungry ache in his cock deepened. “What would you like to trade your points for?”

So many options ran through his mind they were maddening. He rolled onto his hands and knees over her. “How about I trade them for kisses?”

He bent to the tender skin just behind her ears then the column of her neck and her collarbones. He dropped light kisses and little licks, using his lips to tease a long path of nerves awake. When he settled into suckling one tight nipple, she clasped his head to him.

“Jake,” she sighed. Her spine writhed on the rumpled covers. Her legs were restless, her heat rising.

He switched to the other breast, his hands sliding possessively down her sides. When he reached her knees, he pushed them down and apart. A slow shudder rolled through him. Just the thought of restraining her nearly drove him insane. She was everything he’d ever wanted and a few things he hadn’t guessed besides.

Mia seemed to enjoy knowing this. The brown gaze that met his wasn’t so innocent.

“I think my friend from this morning is back,” she purred.

“
Your
friend.”

His voice was ragged. When she slid her hands down his ribs and abs, he breathed even more crazily.

“This friend.” She stroked his painfully erect cock between her thumbs and fingers. Her touch was light, tracing him up and down through the snug latex. Jake’s tip jerked and grew wetter. “He’s kind of new, and there’s still plenty to explore, but I’m getting to know him bit by bit.”

She pushed her stroke to his base and cupped his testicles.

He sucked in air at her just-right squeeze. She was getting to know him, all right. If he wasn’t careful, she was going to make him come from that.

“Maybe,” he suggested a little shakily, “you’d like to learn more about him from the inside.”

“Take my hands off you,” she said, a hint of a dare in it. “Hold them above my head.”

One of his hands was enough to trap both her wrists on the pillow. That she’d invited him to do this pushed him to the edge. He always liked bondage, but somehow doing it to her was larger-than-life intense.

Jake was so wound up he was shaking.

Mia’s eyes gleamed with knowingness. “I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. I really like touching your body.”

“I’ll let you go in a bit,” he promised.

Her body undulated, one knee rubbing his hip—perhaps to compensate for him holding her hands captive. “No hurry. I’ll get mine back when your guard is down.”

She would, and that made everything perfect.

Jake nudged her legs wider with his knees, his free hand steering his cock to her. Her lashes fluttered as the tip touched her.

“I love you,” he said as he pushed in.

She was wet and hot and her long moan of pleasure went to his head like wine.

“That’s so good,” she praised. “I love how you fill me up.”

He couldn’t wait. He was already rocking in and out. As he smiled down into her eyes, he realized he wasn’t holding her wrists anymore. His arm was still above her head, but
she
was gripping it. When he slid one hand beneath her butt, she braced her heel at the top of his ass muscles.

Her strength increased the depth he could go into her. With every stroke, the tension in his groin increased deliciously. God, he wanted to come. He was trying to be careful, but maybe she didn’t need him to.

“Can you take more?” he asked a bit breathlessly.

“Oh yes,” she said, her fingernails digging in. “Please give me everything.”

He gave her more, and more yet, and then they went at it full throttle. Her too-small bed thumped the carpet while erotic cries rang out from her throat. Her hips knocked his, their flesh slapping noisily. It wasn’t enough. Jake pulled his arm from her grip, wanting both hands free for maneuvering her.

Steadying her gave him almost too much of what he craved. Pumping into her so fiercely was unbelievably pleasurable, as if not just his cock but every inch of him participated in taking her. He couldn’t stop what he was doing, despite how impossible the stimulation made controlling his excitement. His nerves were singing, his balls drawing up with need. He stretched his thumb to her clit, working to rub the swollen flesh despite her thrashing and its wetness.

She clutched his back and ground her mons against him, her neck arching off the mattress as she forgot herself. She was so alive. His every thrust shook her body. Her breasts bounced. Her skin flushed. He wanted to see her like this always, to make her unravel so beautifully. He was her slave then, mastered by his desire to pleasure her. He ground his teeth in a desperate bid to restrain his body’s demand that he let go.

“Jake,” she cried. “
Jake
—”

Her pussy tightened, pulling so strongly at his cock that all his sensations surged to the point of no return.

“God,” she groaned.

Jake’s climax rocketed out of him—from his balls and cock and even his tailbone. The merciless bliss tore a growl from deep inside his chest. He choked out her name, one last pulse of seed shooting. A honeyed glow rippled outward from his center. He had just enough strength to hold his weight off her on his elbows.

Mia collapsed beneath him with her arms flung wide and her eyes heavy. “Mm,” she said. “That is
soo
much better.”

She made him chuckle. “You needed that, huh?”

Her mouth curved into a grin. “I wasn’t the only one.”

Incredibly, his spent cock stirred inside her.

“Hm,” she said, her tone of interest making it react more. “Maybe this isn’t over yet.”

“Mia,” he said before she mustered the strength to move. He knew he wanted to be serious.

“Yes, Jake?”

He stroked the skin of her warm shoulders. “What you said on the roof to Damien, that I’d be there for you if someone were trying to kill you …”

Her eyes opened, her gaze focusing on him. “Yes?”

“I want you to know, that isn’t all I’d be there for. I’d be there for everything, big or little. That’s what
I love you
means to me.”

“That’s what it means for me as well.”

His heart settled from its knocking. “Good.”

Her hands found his ribs and rubbed. “We’ll be friends too then?” she said, a tiny bit tentative. He understood better now what that word meant to her.

“Absolutely,” he said firmly.

THE
next two weeks were the best of Mia’s life. Though she returned to Discreet after one more day off, she didn’t feel like she’d rushed. From the start, she’d loved working for Curtis. Knowing she and Jake would go home together made the most mundane tasks feel rewarding. They split their nights between her place and his, his apartment having more elbowroom.

At first, she was surprised how often Jake wanted to make love—definitely every night and often more than once. Sometimes they didn’t get all the way through the door to their apartments before they started tearing at each other’s clothes. When Jake apologized for his sex drive, she laughed at him.

Please,
she’d said.
Haven’t you noticed I can’t get enough of you?

He’d rewarded her for the question by ravishing her especially thoroughly.

She knew this was their honeymoon phase. Undoubtedly, they were both on their best behavior. All the same, the ease with which they accommodated each other felt promising.

Jake was laughing more, and maybe she was as well. Curtis started teasing them for having too much fun around the office. Curtis seemed happier himself. Mia wasn’t sure, but she thought he
might
be dating somebody. She hoped he was. He’d mourned her brother long enough. A great guy like him deserved a nice romance. Everybody did, it seemed to her.

That being the case, she gave herself permission to dream a bit about the future.

One tiny flaw shadowed her happiness, one smidgen of wistfulness.

Damien wasn’t part of it.

~

Damien had spent much of the last two weeks in an endless round of closed-door meetings. The power wrangling in DC was more intense than he was accustomed to, but he thought he’d adjusted. He’d met with individuals from DARPA, the DOJ, and various other government acronyms. He and—interestingly enough—Jake’s crony, Sawyer Hayes, told the story of Raeburn’s felonious behavior more times than they could count. Sawyer wasn’t as rough edged as he’d initially seemed. Damien had developed a reluctant respect for him.

Sawyer might be a savvier dealmaker than Damien.

The final meeting in Damien’s marathon was with Zoe Raeburn and the Genbolt board. He’d braced himself to see her in person, but she’d been as coolly professional as he could wish. Eschewing tears or flirtation, she’d gotten straight to facing the fact that WorldWide had the upper hand in their bargaining. He didn’t go easy on her. He saved his pity for the people Genbolt’s duplicity and corner cutting had put at risk.

Thanks to the unofficial-official backing he’d received, the deal they hammered out was one with which he could live.

Effective immediately, the public would be informed that Sam Raeburn had retired to pursue personal interests. Zoe would guide Genbolt until the board approved a replacement. In reality, Sam Raeburn was being shipped off to one of the CIA’s more comfortable secret “black site” prisons. As long as Damien’s tech proved important to the country’s welfare, he was likely to stay there. A consulting committee comprised in part of senior scientists from WorldWide would scrutinize Genbolt’s current government projects and suggest areas where substance might be substituted for Raeburn’s smoke-and-mirrors shenanigans. Damien didn’t kid himself that all Genbolt’s abuses would be undone. If even a portion were, he’d consider his time well spent.

Overall, he’d achieved more than he hoped when he began. The downside was that in returning to New York, he found little to distract him.

Compared to the wringer he’d just been through, company meetings were too easy. Damien hired competent people. They could accomplish quite a lot without him. He’d had to keep himself together to handle the Raeburn mess. Now it felt like his strings were cut.

He didn’t
want
to do anything. Not go to Audition or Diogenes. Not work out with his trainer. Not dream up new designs or admire those of other folks. He spent far too many hours studying Mia’s copy of the stolen blueprint and pacing his penthouse.