Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) (22 page)

“You are in charge of my protection until I get fed up and go to Mullen myself. Or the NSA or the CIA or whoever would be interested in snatching Maldonado. I bet I would have my pick, big narco badass that he is.”

He pulled a bit out and then surged in, ripping a surprised gasp out of her. “You want to leave? Go ahead. See how far away you’d get without me. There’s a compass on top of the fireplace. Whether you like it or not, you need me.”

Suddenly she noticed his finger teasing the rosette of her ass.

“I said I don’t like that,” she bit out, her body clenching around him, discrediting her words.

“I won’t breach it. I’ll stay at the door. If you don’t come explosively, I will never touch you there again.”

Her curt “fuck you” died on her throat as he softly slid in the tip of his finger and massaged her backside, stretching her muscles while he rocked against her, giving her clit all the friction she needed.

“Fucking sweet, pet. You feel like heaven, your pussy wrapped around my cock, your ass flexing around my finger. Trying to suck me in. So hot.”

It was too much. Her ass was spasming, her core too. Fighting for breath, she sank her hands into his hair, spellbound by his intense eyes. He was everywhere, in front of her, inside her, enveloping her. So strong, so masterful.

“Come for me,” he whispered against her lips. “Now.”

She would have loved to disobey him but her body was going solo, imploding into a thousand pieces. Her mind too. All sparkly, bright colors, sending her into a place where there was no room for female pride or outrage. Just pleasure.

Coming down from that high was a long process. When she opened her eyes and saw the satisfied look in Jack’s, all the fuzziness from the orgasm disappeared and anger replaced it.

“You can’t stop pushing, can you, Jack? Or should I call you Alex?” She tried to wrench away, embarrassed that her body had hijacked her mind. “This is a new low for me; I don’t know the name of the man fucking me.”

His expression was fierce, he flipped her on the bed and grabbed both of her hands in one of his over her head, immobilizing her. Once he had her pinned down, he got in her face. “You know who’s fucking you. The same one who has been fucking you for the last week. Jack. There’s no Alex here. This is me. This is real. No pretending. No sugarcoating shit.”

“No kidding,” she retorted. “Alex looked like a charmer. Educated. Exuding sex appeal. Not a rude ass who takes what he wants.”

She tried pulling her arms free, and when she found she couldn’t, an unexpected and rather shameful shiver of excitement jolted through her, her pussy contracting.

He loomed over her, their noses touching. He looked feral. “Alex is a lowlife, cynical son of a bitch who would sell his own mother for money. It’s all a facade. Using women for his benefit. This is real,” he insisted, surging inside her to the hilt. “This is me. And you know me.”

All his restraint seemed to have vanished. He thrust into her, keeping a hard rhythm, touching all her sweet spots, and much to her dismay, and while she was trapped by the powerful grip of his hands, he sent her over again before emptying himself in her.

* * * *

Jack lay on the bed, unable to move. He always made the same mistake with Elle.

Whenever he tried to use sex to reassert his position of power, the end result never changed: she always floored him, leaving him shattered.

Her breath was still labored, but she wasn’t moving either. Good, because he wouldn’t be able to chase her.

With his gaze fixed on the ceiling, he inhaled deeply and started. “Alex Ayala is the fake identity I use when I go undercover. Bulletproof cover with perfect background checks.” That multilayered identity had held up under prolonged scrutiny by major warlords and kingpins without a hitch. Until Elle, who’d blown it to hell and back. Fitting, if one took into account how fast she’d blown his head, his peace of mind, and his emotional detachment.

Hanging out with the Bowens had been a dangerous level of exposure for someone like him. Hanging out with Elle, social butterfly that she was, had been suicide.

He felt her gaze on him, but he refused to meet it.

“What does Alex Ayala do?”

“He brokers deals. Arms deals. Human-trafficking deals. Drug deals.” Alex Ayala was successful enough to socialize with the likes of Exxum at plush fund-raisers, conducting business on private islands, a great entertainer and charmer of powerful women, but ruthless enough to handle the lowlifes, willing to take risks and supervising the business from the ground level, getting his hands dirty to get ahead. “I’ve been after Maldonado for years but I haven’t been able to pin anything on him. He makes every witness disappear.”

“For years? Why the interest?”

“Because I’m the reason Maldonado is who he is. We created him. Cleared his path. Our mission had been to eliminate the head of the Cali cartel. In those days Maldonado had been an up-and-coming lieutenant and we served control of the cartel to him on a platter. We should have killed him when we had the chance, but we didn’t. It was a bad call.” He’d been considered the lesser evil, but time had proven them wrong. Maldonado had been even more sanguinary and vicious than his predecessors. Playing God had backfired on Jack and his team.

“And Exxum?” she asked softly.

“High-profile philanthropist who rubs elbows with the cream of the crop. Fills his mouth with big words and in the meantime smuggles arms into conflict countries disguised as humanitarian help. Totally untouchable. You did well back there, pet.”

“You mean on my back with my legs up?”

He chuckled. “At the gala. When the fucker fished for your name I almost had a heart attack.”

“I’m quick on my feet,” she said with a shrug. After a pause, she added, “Jack, I will not fight you on the small stuff. On who pays for what, or stupidities like that, but in what matters, I will fight you tooth and nail. Never doubt it.”

“What matters?” he asked softly.

“You know very well. I understand the kind of man you are, how you need to make decisions and have control over everything. And I will cut you a lot of slack because of it, but I will not yield to you and lose myself in you. I won’t give up my autonomy or my decision-making skills. I will not change myself for you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to, pet. You need to stay the way you are and it’s my job to protect you and make sure you do.” He turned to her and tipped her chin up. “You do know me. I have told you things I haven’t told anyone. Things very few people know about me. And when you say nothing affects me? You are wrong, pet; you affect me. A shitload. I don’t want you to, I actually hated it, but you do. More than you think.”

He forced his mouth shut, before he said God only knew what. This was temporary, and it was suicide to want more than sex. Wanting something you couldn’t have was a recipe for disaster.

Elle, psychic radar that she was, didn’t poke in that direction. “So you are one of the good guys.”

Fuck, this direction wasn’t much better. “No, I’m not.”

She ignored him. “What are you, a member of some elite, ultrasecret special ops force in the military?”

“I’m not in the army any more, pet. I was dishonorably discharged.”

Elle looked at him, surprised. “What do you mean dishonorably discharged?”

He hadn’t wanted to tell her about it, but he couldn’t let her believe he was something he wasn’t. “I mean arrested, court-martialed, and dishonorably discharged.” From the only place that he’d ever belonged to. The army had been his life; being a Green Beret had defined his existence.

“What? Don’t tell me your cock piercing got you discharged.”

He would have bet good money he couldn’t crack a smile while talking about his dishonorable discharge, but he found himself barking a laugh. “No, you crazy woman.”

She studied him for a second, then shook her head. “They made a mistake.”

“I haven’t told you what happened.”

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, they made a mistake and it was their loss.”

“I disobeyed orders and beat the shit out of a superior.”

She shrugged. “Just that? They court-martial people for nothing nowadays. And I’m sure he deserved it.”

Yes, he did, but that didn’t change the fact that the asshole was his superior. The military tended to take offense at that. It had happened during that same covert operation that had allowed Maldonado’s rise. Everything had gone according to plan until the extraction; then it all had gone to hell. That the asshole had freaked out and gotten half their team killed and that Jack had saved the rest by taking charge hadn’t mattered either. Rules were rules. And his superior had been well connected. Military family, four generations, while Jack was just a mutt with a short fuse and little to no diplomatic skills.

James had backed him up the whole time. In that fucking jungle and later, during the trial, he’d never faltered.

“Just that?” He repeated her words. “What else do you need?”

“Well, it’s not like you killed someone, is it?”

He stilled. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean. But I was a soldier for most of my adult life, so drop those rose-colored glasses you watch me through. I’ve killed many people. I believe most of them deserved it.”

“Most of them?” she asked, cocking her eyebrow.

“Some shot at me before I could confirm their backgrounds, so the jury’s still out.”

That seemed sufficient to her. “Fair enough.”

Jack had never cared two shits what other people thought of him, but for some reason, he needed to explain himself to Elle. “The army offered me the opportunity to leave the hellhole where I grew up. Gave me a profession, a roof over my head. Food. A sense of purpose. Not to mention more salary than I needed, which allowed me to take care of Ronnie. Most of our operations were top secret, but I always believed we were working to keep people safe. One mission went FUBAR and my superior cracked under pressure.” It was obey orders and see every man in his unit die, or take charge.

“So you kicked his ass.”

“After the fact, yes. I never suffer fools gladly.” Much less ones that send others to die to cover their own ass. Getting kicked out of the military while that useless piece of shit retained his position had made a huge dent in his belief of the greater good. Nowadays he preferred to choose his causes.

“That must not have won you many friends,” she murmured.

“No, it didn’t, but it showed me who had my back. James, for example.” Jack had been injured, not up to fighting it out if push came to shove, when he started disobeying orders and improvising. James had stood by his side come hell or high water. Up until then, they had not been the greatest of friends, both being the alpha type.

“Ah, now I get it. That’s why he can do with you what he wants.”

“He doesn’t do with me what he wants,” he grumbled, not sounding that convincing, even to himself.

“Right. If you’re not in the military, then…” Elle asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“You know what a mercenary is?” A private security contractor sounded better. Less…bloody. But he didn’t feel like dressing it up for her. Let her start running away from him. It would be doing them a favor, seeing as he was unable to do it.

He’d moved from spec ops to black ops. The government used private contractors for that, and the agency didn’t seem to have issues hiring people with tattered backgrounds as long as they got the job done. On the plus side, when he fought for money, priorities changed and he took the jobs he wanted. And obeying orders from superiors was relative, especially when working alone.

“You are a mercenary?” she asked, her eyes round.

“Yes.” He’d been one for several years.

“I thought the government didn’t hire mercenaries.”

“For military operations outside the US they do.” They just weren’t called mercenaries; they were called private security contractors. Some of them were on a military contract; others were State Department funded. They were not allowed to carry out combat operations, but they frequently did. Getting intel and results was a nasty, ugly business and the government didn’t like its men getting their hands dirty. At least not the men who could be linked back to them.

“So that’s what a free agent means,” she pondered, taking it all in stride.

“I sell my services to the highest bidder.” A war whore, was how someone had put it.

She had the balls to snort. “No, you don’t.”

“You just said you knew nothing about me.” And now she was defending him? After he confessed to killing people and being a mercenary? No self-preservation skills on her whatsoever.

“I don’t know the particulars, true, but you are not a slime ball. I’ve met my share of those. You have your code and you’re an overbearing Neanderthal, yet in your world money doesn’t trump morals. Manners, on the other hand, don’t rank that high either.”

Jack froze for a second and burst into laughter.

She was right again. He carefully chose the assignments he took. He had more money than he could spend in a lifetime, more than Ronnie could spend either. And manners meant shit to him.

“Why did you stop writing to me?” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “After I came back.” Once he’d resurfaced, he hadn’t gotten a single message from her.

Her smile was all-knowing. “Aw, don’t tell me you missed my e-mails?”

He didn’t answer. “Since we’re on the subject, why did you write to me at all?”

“You were gone and I thought you could use some sort of connection.”

“Now the truth?”

She laughed. “All right. I knew my e-mails would piss you off enough to want to come back in one piece and spank me.”

That sounded more like his Elle.

“Then you dropped by for Max’s wedding and you looked so…gone, I realized it was going to take more than a few e-mails to get you back in one piece. So I stepped up the pace.”

“A few e-mails? By that point I’d gotten well over a hundred.” After that, one popped into his inbox every single day. The constant flow, ironically enough, had kept him sane.

She snuggled against him, leaned her head on his chest and shrugged. “As I said, a few. What were you doing?”