In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (32 page)

"She's not my type," I said. We reached the bell tower, and climbed the stairs. Once in the tiny room that had become our apartment, I pulled her into a deep kiss. "You are."

"For that I'm still confused, but very happy," she replied, her soft kiss matching the softness of her skin and body as she molded her body against me. "It has been a while, hasn't it?"

"Four days," I whispered into her ear. "Having a guest up here with us since the club kind of put a damper on doing what I wanted to do."

"Then let's not waste any time," Sophie replied, running her hands down my stomach and cupping my cock through my pants. Her gentle fingers massaged in a wave like fluttering, until I was aching and barely in control. Pushing her back to our mattress, we collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs, touching and stroking each other, Sophie ending up on top, straddling my hips. Sophie had lost a little bit of weight since we moved into the bell tower, but she was just as beautiful, with her long hair thick and silky in my fingers. Pulling her shirt off, I kissed the swells of her breasts, full and round against my face. Sophie was wearing a deep red satin bra that highlighted her skin perfectly. "You always have loved my boobs."

"They're works of natural art," I said, running my thumbs over her nipples. The dark pink skin crinkled and hardened, small little nubs that made my mouth water. Lifting her right breast to my lips, I kissed around her nipple, tickling her until she was moving from side to side, trying to bring it to my mouth and relieve her frustration. "You want more?"

"Dammit, you know what I need," Sophie growled, pushing me back onto the mattress. "And I know what you need." She slid down my legs, tugging at my belt and freeing my cock, which was already painfully hard, wrapping her breasts around my shaft. "Now, are you going to give me what I need, or am I going to have to tease you until your cock explodes and you pass out?"

"Okay, okay," I conceded, smiling and reaching down. "Bring something up here for me to give pleasure to."

I was happily surprised when Sophie almost spun around, swinging herself up and over my face. "Hmm, seems we've both found something the other does well," I joked before reaching out with my tongue, tracing the soft petals of her outer lips. Sophie didn't wax, but she kept herself well-trimmed, leaving just a small triangle of soft dark hair at the top. It left her lips smooth and satiny, beautiful to touch and kiss. Best of all was her flavor, spicy and tangy and exotic. Parting her lips with the tip of my tongue, I dipped at her nectar, relishing her sighs and soft cries as I licked up and down.

"Mark......" Sophie groaned, pumping my cock with her lightly clenched fist. I kept up my licks, delighting in both the sensual stroke of her hand and the beautiful flavor on my lips. I circled her clit and Sophie gasped, bending forward to swallow my cock, sucking hard. I barely held myself under control as Sophie licked and sucked, mirroring her actions to my own.

Our oral play became a game, a loving competition between the two of us. When I licked her clit, she would play her tongue around the head of my cock. When I kissed and licked deeper, Sophie sucked and tongued my shaft, both of us seeing how far we could bring the other.

Neither of us could take the game for too long. Sophie 'lost' only because of the fact she was on top, and could move easier than I could, pulling her hips off of me and sliding down my torso. Looking back over her shoulder as she positioned herself over my cock, her eyes were the sexiest look I'd ever seen in my life. If I live to be a thousand years old I'll still remember the half-open lips, shining in the afternoon light while her eyes shone with love and desire for me. Holding my cock in her hand, she sank down until the two perfect hemispheres of her ass touched my hips, and she settled down. "Hold on, cowboy," she grinned, flashing me a naughty smile. "This is going to be one hell of a ride."

Leaning forward and putting her hands on my thighs right above my knees, Sophie rose up, lifting and riding back and forth on my cock. It was sweet torture, pinned down under her as she pleasured herself. Her body gripped my shaft tightly, each nerve ending sending tingles through my body. "Faster," I said, just barely keeping from begging. I'd never given up so much control in bed to a woman before, but Sophie was like no other woman. "Fast and hard, babe."

Sophie's hips shook with each hard slap of her ass against my hips. We were both soon moaning and gasping, the rising orgasm expected to be loud and messy. Sweat stung my eyes as I bit my lip to keep from coming, the erotic sight of my cock disappearing into Sophie's body with every back and forth movement of her hips adding to the energy, until I lost all control. With a deep growl I grabbed Sophie's hips, planting my heels in the mattress and hammering her, desperate for release. Our cries mixed, and when I heard Sophie's breath catch, I abandoned all restraint, racing towards my climax. "I'm going to come," I warned, my cock aching, so close I could feel it.

"Do it," Sophie screamed as she clamped down on me. Her cry stretched out as her orgasm took over, her hair flying in a beautiful wave as she tossed her head back, her back arching. I pumped in one last time, letting my release rip through me. I could feel my balls actually cramp I was coming so hard, hissing the pain and pleasure together. It felt like it went on forever, until my hips relaxed, and we both sagged back onto the mattress. I was too weak to do anything but lay there while Sophie caught her breath, staying where she was until my softened cock slipped out of her, and she turned around to cuddle against me. "I love you," she whispered, kissing my jawline.

"I love you too," I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. We lay there in the dim afternoon light filtering through the slat sides of the tower for a few minutes before I spoke again. "What do you think about living here?"

"In the city?" Sophie asked. "It's a good city, but we're probably going to be in danger. Why do you ask?"

"I wasn't just thinking about the city," I said, gesturing around the room, "But here. The past few weeks, after we saved Tabby, I've been thinking. You're right, I have a lot of sins to atone for. What about using some of that blood money I've gathered over the years to try and clean up the city? I had five strike bases before, and my condo in the high rise. What if we do something the same, but use this place as our main base?"

Sophie thought about it for a while, running her hand over my chest. The effect was nice, and I could feel my body warming to the idea of another round of sex with the woman I love. "How do you plan on making sure we aren't tracked down? You start showing your face too much around here, and it's liable to get blown off."

I nodded and grinned. "You don't think I didn't plan on faking my own death? While it wouldn't be foolproof, you and I could take a vacation, say to South Korea. They do plastic surgery there all the time, and we'd get a few changes made. Nothing too drastic, mostly I had planned a bit along my jawline and eyebrows, a bit of reshaping. Combine that with a change of hair color, and I'll be able to get by pretty well."

"A vacation to South Korea, huh?" Sophie replied, and I could hear her grin. "I could do that. But there's going to be a couple of rules in all of this."

"What's that?" I asked, rolling us both over so that I could lay on my side and look at her. It also pressed her breasts against me, and I had to fight not to be distracted.

"Rule number one," Sophie replied, running her hands over my lower back and stroking my backbone, a favorite site for her to explore as we spent time together, "is that I'm not going to be some passive little observer. I put a shotgun round into someone last time, and I'm still here. I didn't break down in hysterics. So if you want to turn into some cross between Batman and The Punisher, I'm not going to be your Alfred."

"Deal," I replied, kissing her forehead. "You're a lot cuter than any butler anyway. Although I'd love to see you in a French maid's outfit sometime."

"Maybe for Halloween," Sophie teased before growing serious again. "Rule two. You're going to train me. I damn near broke my wrists shooting that pistol in the club, and I'm not going into a situation so defenseless again. So you're going to train me how to shoot, and we'll work on how to fight."

"That's fine. I also was thinking you are going to want to continue your medical training as well. I'm good, but I'm not invincible. You're probably going to have to patch one or both of us up if you really want us to fight."

Sophie leaned up and kissed me, smiling. "Good. One final rule."

"What's that?" I asked, feeling my cock twitch and start to rise again.

Sophie opened her mouth to say something, then felt my cock poking against her thigh. She glanced down and smiled, wrapping her fingers around it and starting to pump. "I think you don't have to worry about rule three. You seem to be doing a very good job of that without any guidance from me."

Reaching up and cupping her breast, I smiled. "Well, I never went to college, but I do have a knack for learning."

T
he target was
blurry in my sights, so I took a deep breath and readjusted. Pulling my head away, I realigned myself along the stock of the rifle, looking for that spot Mark had taught me was called the 'cheek weld.' It's supposed to be a perfect alignment, where your eye is just far enough from your scope that you can see perfectly, and your cheekbone rests lightly on the stock, reducing your need for muscular tension. Reminding myself of how it felt, I laid my cheek back along the cool hard line of the rifle, and sighted.

My target was almost totally stationary, tiny even in the magnification of my scope. Letting out half my breath, I slid my finger inside the trigger guard, resting the tip of my finger on the smooth curve inside. I stopped then, waiting for that magic moment when the heart would calm and everything would fall into place. At first it rarely, if ever, came but over the past month it had come much more often.

When everything clicked into place, I didn't even notice when my finger contracted the quarter inch needed. The rifle kicked in my hands, the scope going blurry as recoil jerked the rifle a bit. I quickly re-found my target, but a second shot was unneeded. The bottle dangled at the end of its string, swinging back and forth with red colored water shooting out of a hole in the middle, like it was pissing blood or something.

"Good hit!" I put my rifle on safe and set it on the bench in front of me, turning to smile as Mark nodded. "That's five for five today. Great work."

I gave him a quick hug, then we went down the short fifty meters to the target. Mark had hung a half liter bottle that used to contain Pepsi from a frame, letting the bottle swing back and forth in the breeze and with a bit of assistance from him. At the base of the frame were another four similar bottles, each with holes in them. While it wasn't exactly United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper level, for a girl who'd only fired her first real gun three months prior, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. "Still, it's only fifty meters, and I'm shooting bottles."

Mark considered the hole in my bottle and nodded. "Yeah, but the fact is that this bottle, when you consider the scale and the distance, won't be that much different. At three hundred meters, a six-foot man is the same as this bottle at fifty meters. Sure windage, elevation and things like that take a toll, but considering you're also shooting a tiny little .22 round right now, that'll be compensated too."

"And if I have to shoot longer than that?" I asked, untying the bottle and putting up a new one. We'd brought ten that day to use after I had fired another hundred rounds into stationary paper targets. My best so far in the exercise was five out of ten. I was hoping to get seven.

"Then we're in trouble," Mark replied with a grim smile. "Remember, we're going to be living in the city. If we have to start playing long range sniper with someone, either we're no longer in the city, or things have gone to hell. Either way, that's more of a time to run than a time to shoot."

"You forgot one other possibility," I said as we rigged the "wiggle string" that Mark used to make the bottle sway. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and squinted. I couldn't resist my smile any longer. "Zombie apocalypse. You can never forget the zombie apocalypse."

Mark rolled his eyes and turned, but I could hear the chuckle as I watched his back. Training with him had added a lot of depth to our relationship. Before, we were just like any other couple, friends and lovers. But by agreeing to train me in his skills in order to take on the crime that was crippling our city, we'd also become student and teacher. I had to say, Mark was an excellent instructor. He put up with my natural student irreverence very well, while at the same kept it focused and professional.

The education I went through was like nothing I'd ever done before. In addition to learning how to shoot, not just rifles but pistols, shotguns and even submachine guns, Mark had covered the basics of dirty fighting, knives, movement in and around an urban combat environment, surveillance, tracking, and a lot of others. We both knew that two months of training wasn't enough to even scratch the surface on some things, but I was making a lot of progress. The main things Mark focused on were firearms and movement. We'd spent hours running and moving through buildings, using the ideas of Parkour as a base movement. I was honestly in the best shape of my life and I felt incredible.

One of the things that had shocked me at first as Mark walked me through my lessons was the detailed knowledge he had of human anatomy. In some areas he even matched me after all the work I'd done to become a physician's assistant. Mark had explained it to me after I had asked one time. "We both studied, but two different sides of the same coin. You studied how to repair the body. I studied how to break it."

While we trained hard, it wasn't all we did. After the bandages came off of our plastic surgeries, Mark and I spent the rest of the month traveling around South Korea, enjoying the local food and seeing the sights. We even rented a car to go from Seoul to Busan and around the countryside in between. We left South Korea and went to the Balkans, where Mark conducted most of my firearms training. In addition to being able to speak passable Croat, he was fluent in German, and could communicate with almost all of the people we met. He chose the Balkans not because of the language, but because he knew we could cross from one country to another through poorly watched and barely defended national borders. This allowed us to fly into Athens on one set of passports and then use others later to establish histories to our false identities.