In His Command (26 page)

Her father, Robie Grant—a high-ranking Corps medical officer and chief geneticist—was killed while treating wounded in the Wilderness.
By Nomads
. At least that had been the official story. Now there was a possibility it had all been a Company cover-up, and she needed to get to the truth. A truth that could be found only in Beta Territory, where Grant had last been based.

My face turned sour. “You’re going to Beta. I don’t like it.”

“The war needs me there, Caspar. Don’t go all fucking big brother on me.”

“You’re not just going for the war.”

“I have to find out about my dad. Wouldn’t you want to know?” She stepped away, knee cocked and fingers resting on the butt of her Desert Eagle, where they felt most at home, no doubt.

“I’m going with you.”

She rolled her eyes, and I thought about breaking her neck for her to save her the trouble of getting eyeball deep in Corps and CO espionage up in Beta. “You are staying here, with your man.” She took a step forward, fingers now curled over her sidearm. “Why the hell’d you think I let you get hitched anyway? Nate keeps you out of my hair.”

Anger tightened my throat. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I’m still your superior officer, Lieutenant.”

“And you’re a real sumbitch, sir.” She gave a smart-assed salute.
And
she’d picked up the local lingo. Nice.

It was fucking impossible to love her, yet it was unimaginable how much I did. I rolled my shoulders and blew out a stream of air. “Fine. For now.”

“Thanks for your blessing, Big Papa.” Getting back into my arms, she jerked her chin over to Farrow. “Besides, I got backup. Farrow knows Linc. He just doesn’t know she’s in the underground. It’s fricking perfect. She can get me close to him and the info I need.”

“Foolhardy
and
stupid.” I gave my strategic assessment.

“You ever know me to go off without my head on tight?”

I hugged her close. “No.”

“Not going to start now, sir. Besides, I’m sticking around here a bit longer.”

She’d gotten caught up in the spirit of the place just as I had. The commune with its colors and liveliness reminded me of her bedroom back in Alpha, the sanctuary she had decorated in such a pretty fashion, that she’d kept hidden from everyone. The village may have been shabbier than her paintings and feminine treasures, but this was someplace to share in the fabric of life instead of shying away from desires in fear.

Motioning to Farrow, I asked, “How’s that working out for you?”

“Digging for some dirty details to spice up your love life already?”

I turned red right to my hairline. “I want to know if she’s treating you right.”

At that, she threw her head back and hooted, like a goddamned owl. “Oh yeah. That’s one way of putting it.” Her hair a black ruff on her head, her slim body swayed away from mine. “But I still like dick, and since yours is not now—nor was it ever—an option, I’m gonna go find a new partner.”

I figured that was enough socializing and tried to get back to Blondie, but people kept getting in my way. Every damn time I got close, he was spirited off or I was waylaid. Man, I wished I could wipe them all from the face of the earth, or at least wind the revelers down and send them to bed, so we could get to ours.

I’d just planted my ass on a bench and was keeping an eye on Leon with Darke when Blondie’s arm slid over my shoulders.

“Ain’t he always falling for the wrong fella?”

Darke leaned down to listen to Leon, locking Leon’s hand inside his big brown paw. After Leon pushed up to say something in his ear, the huge man pulled back, a smile glistening on his lips and a hint of russet under the deep ebony of his cheeks.

“Huh.” I sat up straighter.

“Or maybe not.” Blondie knocked against my shoulder. “You sort things out with Lizbeth?”

“Don’t know about sorted out. She’s going off to Beta, and I’m not thrilled about that.”

Propping his head on his hand, he smiled. “You are such a protector.”

I grumbled some more. Probably damn blushed too.

“Mmm-hmm.”
His hand spread around the back of my neck and he drew me near. “Don’t get me wrong. I like it.”

Against his lips, I said, “Of course you do. Got me into your bed, didn’t it?”

Blondie’s slow perusal of my body added a whole lot of pressure in my leathers as my cock hardened. “Sure did. And that’s exactly where I wanna be right now.”

“Hell, yes.” I hopped up, grabbed his hand, and dragged him out of the wide doors before anyone could stop us with more annoying stories about when they got hitched.

“Slow down!”

Slow down?
Not frigging likely. I picked him up in my arms instead.

By the time Blondie figured out I was heading in the opposite direction of the Love Hovel, I was already two thirds of the way to our destination. Dazed from the kisses I’d been laying on his neck and against his ear, he asked, “Not taking me back to the Wilderness, are ya?”

“Just a little farther.”

Rounding a big stand of bushy pines, I stopped when I saw it. Our caravan, lit up like a harlot’s den in a far corner of the meadow where we could still see the votives trailing toward our altar.

“What the—? How did you—? Caspar?”

I laughed, tightening my hold on him as I bounded up the rickety steps.

“You gonna put me down sometime?”

“Not yet.” I nipped his bottom lip. “Did some research of my own, and it’s traditional for the groom to carry his beloved over their threshold.”

After stooping a lot and turning to make it through the skinny doorway, I slid him down my body.

“When’d you do all this?” He fell back against me.

All this was having the fire in the cast-iron stove lit hours in advance. Pillows and food, flowers and fine bourbon all at the ready. As well as a fucking thousand little silver tinker’s bells I definitely hadn’t added laced all over the outside of the caravan. The mind-boggling bullshit the villagers had put up was gonna make me think twice about fucking him hard and fast in case I set off alarms.

“Got some of it sorted this morning, during all those hellish hours when no one would let me near you. Then Micah hitched it up to the tractor and hauled it out here.” I walked across the room burnished in candlelight and smelling of sweet blossoms. “Wanted some privacy.”

Giving me a slow, burning smile, he stalked toward me.
“Hmm.”

I suddenly felt nervy with his seductive approach. I scrubbed my hand over my hair. “Uh, Evangeline helped with the flowers.”

He didn’t spare a glance at the bouquets bursting with colorful winter blooms. “I like ’em.” He had me backed up against the dresser. My hands flew back. I knocked over the whiskey tumblers. “Know what else I like?”

“No.” My breath was trapped in my chest, my chest billowing in and out so fast I cried out when his midriff met mine.

“You.” His lips were hot, his kiss tender, inviting. His tongue a succulent treat stroking into my mouth.

I clasped his face, my cock throbbing when he groaned.

“So damn gorgeous, honey. Can I undress you?”

Nodding like an idiot, I watched every slow move he made. His fingertip trailing from my waist up the middle of my chest, he slid the tie from my neck, whipping it aside. “I’m gonna make you feel so good, so cherished.”

Spending our first night as married—handfasted—men, I already felt cherished. But his hands unbuttoning my shirt and then tickling through the hairs on my chest took that good feeling to a mind-blowing level.

“Love your chest.” He nuzzled against my pecs, his tongue swiping a nipple. A thrill shot down my body and my hips jolted forward at the sensation of his mouth closing over the nub.

“Oh fuck.” Felt like the only solid thing in my body was my dick, and I was about to fall over.

His fingers scratched over my nipples as he spread my shirt and jacket wide. Backing up, he left me like that. “You look good in a suit.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Oh, I won’t. ’Cause you look a thousand times better without a stitch on.” He jerked the buttons on my leathers and I gasped. With the placket open and my cock leaping against my stomach, he slid the shirt and jacket down my arms, returning to caress the heavy muscles of my shoulders. He breathed deeply against my neck before working that pink mouth down my body, nibbling muscles, licking into my belly button, sucking the side of my cock with his hands stuffed down my pants.

“Jesus Christ, baby, please.”

“Mmm.”
The smirk on his face totally erotic, he cast his eyes to mine while he lowered my pants, ridding me of everything below.

Up and down my thighs his fingertips teased, his eyes on my shaft. I was getting close to whining when he leaned forward and rubbed his bristly shadow through my pubic hair to my cock. The groan that came out of me broke off when he sucked the head into his mouth. Leaning on my hands against the dresser, I shifted onto my tiptoes and watched him take me deep.

When my cock was wet all over, when I couldn’t breathe anymore through my moans and my entire body was straining, he lifted up to suckle. Just my cockhead between those lips, his eyes closed, he drifted his tongue around and around and into the slit welling with liquid.

So hot I was sweating, so overcome with lust I was swearing and panting, I pressed him off, my hands in his hair.

“Your turn, before I come all down your throat, baby.” I hauled him up my body, and goddamn it was sexy feeling his clothes rasping against my naked skin. I kissed his luscious lips before setting to work on his coat, making my way through his shirt in record time just so I could get to his strong shoulders and lean chiseled chest.

He wasn’t talking anymore, but I was. “Jesus, look at you.” I sent kisses all over his abdomen, sucking his skin into my mouth to feel his muscles tense against my lips. He gasped when I reached down for his foot, resting it on my thigh as I kneeled before him. Nuzzling my face against his thick shaft inside his pants, I traced the ridge of his head clearly defined against the tight fabric.

His hips jutted out and he grabbed my shoulders, nails biting into my skin.

My tongue wrapped around the indecent length of his penis, I made his pants so nice and wet I could even see the veins standing out against his stiff cock.

“Fuck yes,” I growled, tearing off his boots and socks.

Planting his feet on the floor, I sent his pants buttons flying. His back arched when I squeezed my hands inside against his hard, flexed ass, going at his bared cock, grinding my nose in the soft blond crown curling at the base of his beautiful shaft.

I jerked him nice and slow, running my tongue all around his balls and underneath. The tip of my tongue swirled along the tiny bridge of skin just there until he whimpered above me.

Finishing off his trousers, I stood. “Bed, now.”

I followed, placed him on his knees, and faced him in the same position. Our hands wandered over the landscape of each other’s bodies, our mouths never leaving the other. Overheating, grabbing hair and muscles and cocks, we moaned together.

I placed my palm on his chest and retreated, catching my breath. Retrieving the lube, I snapped it open and poured it into his palm and onto my fingertips. “Lie down, Nathaniel.”

“Like this?” His breathy voice was a massive turn-on, and so was he. On his back, his legs spread for me.

I admired his wide-open body, my hand running up his thigh. “Just like that.”

His cock jumped against my mouth when I snuck down to linger over him with long, moist kisses, and then I straightened over him on my knees. “Get me wet?”

His hand wrapped around me, slick and hot, the sensation of his strong touch ripping through me. I gently kneaded his sacs and dipped below, easing a finger into his passage, smothering his groan with my mouth on his.

Both of us ready, I sat on my heels, shaking to be inside him, but there was one thing I had to do first. “I did some other research.” I pistoned my hand up and down both our cocks in a torturous fist fuck.

“Did ya?”

After a deep kiss, I rubbed my mouth over his. “Found this other ritual I like. Let me show you?”

He plucked my bottom lip between his and let go with a growl. “I’ll do any damn thing you want, anytime you want.”

“That’s dangerous.” My kiss rough, my tongue searched his teeth, the roof of his mouth, devouring his groans. “I’ll be taking you up on that offer.”

I pulled his wrist to my lips, licking the neat pink scar from our earlier rites. “Nathaniel Rice. Blondie.” I kissed that sweet flesh. “Blood of my blood, you honor me with the gift of your heart.”

I smeared the tear from his cheek and leaned over to kiss him again, lying fully on top of him.

He captured my hand and turned it over, meeting my eyes to swear, “Caspar Cannon. Bone of my bone, blood of my blood, I take you into my heart. I give mine in return.”

I let the emotions flow. This moment above all others felt so right and true. “My mate, my match, my love and lover.”

I hovered just outside his entrance, letting him accept me into him.

With a small press toward me, he whispered, “I take you into my body.”

I thrust into him, tipping my pelvis, hitting him wide and deep and long, groaning, “God, yes, you do, baby.”

His laugh was snuffed out when his hips rose to mine. I held his neck in one hand, his ass in the other, and we moved together, one writhing motion, one endless wave. His thighs circled my waist and his arms wound around my back, and we kissed through every lunge and each pulsing withdrawal.

The urge to come hit me hard and fast when his hand moved to my thigh, pulling me forcefully in to him. Locked within Nathaniel, I roared with the release that came from my heart and soul, pouring out, pouring into him.

He reared off the bed in his orgasm, face straining, biting down on his lip and moaning, “Love you. Oh God! I love you.”

Rolling against each other, I pushed the hair off his brow and held him.

Although the red ribbon had been folded and placed in a cushy carved box on the dresser, our hands were bound together. Our hearts tied to each other, linked in love.