The Missionary (18 page)

Wren curled her hand around the back of his neck, pressed her forehead to his. “But you’re not alone. Just like I’m not alone. We’re in this together. I know I’m not a Navy SEAL, but…I’m here with you.”

Stone dragged in a shuddering breath and blew it out. “Babe, you’re as tough as any SEAL I’ve ever known. I don’t know many trained, battle-hardened soldiers who could have endured what you have.” He kissed her temple, softly, slowly. “And you’re sexy as hell, to boot.”

“Not like this, I’m not. I’m a mess.”

“Shower again?”
 

Wren nodded, then he saw her forehead wrinkle in a frown. “I’m not sure I can, though. It hurts. My side hurts. I’m…weak. Hot, and then cold. Achy.”

Stone brushed her hair away from her eyes. “Together, then. I’ll help you.”

Wren grinned, a smile equal parts shy and eager. “You’ll help me?” A lift of her eyebrow turned it into an innuendo.

Stone narrowed his eyes. “Help you get clean. How can you think that way at a time like this?”

“How can I not? I’m naked, you’re naked. I may feel like shit, but I’m not dead.”
 

Stone scooted toward the edge of the bed, holding on to Wren, helping her into the bathroom. He reached in to the shower stall and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature until it was hot. He nearly yelped when he felt Wren’s hand skate across his ass, a soft touch. He glanced down at her, and she managed to keep an innocent expression on her face even as she palmed his left ass cheek, and then his right. He felt himself responding, hardening.
 

He tried to think about anything other than her hand on his skin, but it was impossible. Especially when she pushed to her feet and stood so she was pressed against him from behind, her breasts on his back, her hand on his ass, now sliding around his hip and brushing his stomach. He stepped into the shower, grabbing her wandering hand and pulling her in after him. The water was almost too hot, but perfectly so, sluicing over her hair and down her chest, between her breasts, over her thighs. She was upright on her own, despite her words. But then he felt her shake, felt her knees give. He turned with her and set her on the seat in the corner of the shower, adjusted the shower head so the water soaked her.
 

Standing in front of her, he opened the shampoo, dumped some on her scalp. Wren closed her eyes and held on to his waist as he massaged the shampoo into her hair, working it down to the tips. When she was lathered, he helped her stand up and rinsed her hair until it was clean once more. Then the conditioner, gobs of it smeared into her thick black hair, working it in from scalp to tips and back again. Then he massaged her scalp with his fingertips, reveling in the blissful expression on her face, the way she sighed in pleasure. Leaving the conditioner to set, he scrubbed a washcloth with soap until it lathered, and then held Wren against his chest, her front to his, forcing his thoughts away from where he’d like to touch her and the sounds he wanted her to make, focusing on scrubbing her dark skin with the soapy white cloth. Her washed her all over, shoulders, arms, back, crouching to scrub her thighs and calves and feet, the water beating on his head like hot rain. Then he turned her to lean back against him and washed her breastbone, between her breasts. As gently as he could, he ran the washcloth over the soft, heavy globes of her full breasts, reverently, tenderly.

When he moved the washcloth away, Wren took it from him, dropped it to the floor of the shower and took his hands in hers, moved them back to her breasts.
 

“Touch me, Stone.” She moved one of his hands down her belly, between her thighs. “Touch me here.”

All this time, Stone had nearly forgotten his own injury. He was reminded when he shifted in place, letting her weight sag against him as he obliged her request, indulging in his own desires. Pain screamed through him, but he ignored it, shifted her weight away just enough to ease the ache. His hands roamed her body, sliding over her soap-slick skin, feeling her nipples harden under his palms as he grazed her boobs with his hands, cupping their weight. Between her thighs, to the heat there, his fingers finding her softness ready for his touch. She moaned when he slid two fingers inside her. She wrapped one arm up over her head to cup his neck, and he bent his head to kiss her shoulder as he found her most sensitive places, found the ways she loved to be touched and brought her to climax, let her fall away from the edge and back up again.
 

He sat down and moved gingerly to his knees, tugged her bottom forward and nudged her knees aside.
 

“Stone? What…what are you doing?”

“This.” He kissed the down-soft skin of her inner thigh, then again closer to her core. She sucked in a breath and held it as he licked at her opening, and he held his own breath as his side protested. The ache was nothing to the pleasure of hearing her moan as his tongue flicked against her slick wetness. He licked again, and Wren pressed toward him, seeking more. He gave her more, found her clit and sucked it into his mouth, suckled it until she couldn’t hold back the moans. She leaned back against the wall, moaning, lifting her hips, pressing her opening to his mouth. He slid his hand beneath her ass and lifted her, lapped her sweetness, set her down and slid a finger inside her, curling to find the perfect spot, high inside, making her groan low in her throat, animalistic sounds of raw pleasure.
 

She came suddenly, arching up and groaning, holding his head in her hands and pressing him against her. “Stone…oh god, Stone!”

He didn’t relent as she came, but increased his pace, licked and suckled and fingered her faster until she pushed him away, gasping and limp in the stream of water. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, rising to his feet. “You’re so sexy when you come.”

She gazed up at him from beneath hooded eyes. “You make me feel things I didn’t know were possible.”

“Good.”

She reached for him, the tightening at the corner of her eyes revealing the ache of movement. Neither of them would let the pain get the better of them. He stood in front of her, let her touch him. She grasped him in her fist, the water on his back now, and her eyes roamed from his face to his chest, to her hand around him. She took him in both hands, slid her fists around him. A smirk crossed her lips, and then she bent her head and pulled him closer, took him in her mouth. He gasped, groaning as the hot wetness of her mouth surrounded him, the sharp tug of pleasure filling him as she moved her mouth up and down, then licked him, worked the base of him with her hands.

A few moments more, watching her take him in her mouth, and then he pulled her up and carried her out of the shower, set her on the bed, both of them dripping wet. He shut off the water and returned, found her waiting, watching. She reached for him as he crawled across the bed toward her, grasped his aching erection in her fist and guided him into her, curling her arm around his neck and murmuring his name as he slid deep.
 

He kissed her breasts as he moved slowly inside her, taking his time finding the perfect rhythm. “Wren…” he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, except that he wanted her to know what this meant to him, how incredible this was, but he couldn’t find the words.
 

She put her palm to his cheek and pushed his face up to meet her gaze. “I know.” She lifted her hips to meet his, clutching his ass with one hand and pulling him against her. “You don’t have to say it. I know. And me too.”

How did she know? But she did. He let it come out in his eyes, in the way he refused to look away as they moved together, refused to even blink as they found a rhythm together, faster and faster, their eyes locked, exchanging roiling emotion, letting the pain and the fear and the worry leach away, all of this known and shared between them as they moved together. She saw it, what he wasn’t saying, what he wasn’t even thinking, but was feeling; what he’d thought impossible. She kissed his chin beneath his lip, the corner of his mouth, her hands on his face, holding him so he couldn’t look away.

And then, in a moment that passed out of time, their worlds came apart in a rapture of bliss, a synchronous detonation, something beyond pleasure, a potency neither of them were prepared for.
 

Wren’s eyes watered, tears leaking down her cheeks, and Stone felt something tight in his chest, heat behind his eyes, words stuck in his throat. He kissed the salty liquid away, and she pressed his face to her breasts.
 

“Don’t say it yet, Stone. Not until we’re home. No matter how many times we do this until then, don’t say it.” Wren whispered the words in a fierce growl. “I need that to look forward to. I know it, I see it. But don’t say it.”

Stone slumped to his side, groaning in pain as the ache he’d denied came to take its due. “I get it, babe. Until we get home.”

Wren rolled into him and nestled in the crook of his arm. They both dozed, and Stone was on the verge of sleep when the room phone rang, a shrill, sudden blast. Stone scooped the handset from the cradle and put it to his ear. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Who is it?”

“Dis José, from hotel desk. Some man, dey look for a girl, and a white man. Talk about it, dey lookin’ for you, I tink. I don’t say nothin’ to dem. But dey lookin’. You maybe go away now. Side door, quick-quick.”

“You know the guys looking for us?”

“Dey work por
him
. You lib in Manila, you know him. I know what he do. My sister, she neber come home one day, she dead now. For her, I tell you. Go away now, quick-quick.”

“Thanks. Check under the mattress, later.” Stone tossed the phone into the cradle and slid off the bed. “Come on, babe. Gotta go. They’re here. They found us.”

Wren didn’t waste time with questions. In seconds she was dressed and repacking the little backpack with the bottles of water. Before leaving the room, Stone stuffed one of his few remaining $100 bills under the mattress, tossed another Vicodin into his mouth and swallowed it dry. Then, hand in hand, he and Wren descended the staircase to the ground floor and escaped out the side door, out into the humid Manila midnight.

14

Wren held onto Stone’s hand for dear life as he led her in a quick walk through the nighttime bustle of Quezon City. The streets were crowded, cars coming and going, busses and jeepneys and three-wheeled rickshaw things, horns honking, voices shouting and laughing in Filipino and English and dialects and languages unknown.

She hurt, still, and she felt the need, still, but it was fading. She didn’t feel as feverish, and the need was distant, manageable. She hoped it would stay that way. She was afraid, deep down, that the need wouldn’t ever go away completely, that she’d always feel the hunger in her bones for a drug she’d never willingly taken. Just like she knew she would never forget the darkness, the heady forgetting euphoria, the pain of a fist against her cheek, a foot against her ribs.
 

Wren pushed those thoughts away as she jogged behind Stone, her bruised ribs aching with every step, hurting with every breath, but she knew she couldn’t stop or slow down, no matter how much it hurt.

She distracted herself with pleasant memories, focusing on the way Stone had held her when the nightmares had taken hold of her, the way he’d never let go and never lost his calm. She ran behind him, watching his broad shoulders shifting. She focused on the memory of his close-cropped head delving between her thighs, the stubble of beard on his cheeks scraping her sensitive skin, his hands spreading her legs apart, his tongue doing wicked, delicious things to her core.
 

She’d never imagined sex could be like that. In the past, it had been pleasant, fun, even hot. But with Stone? It was earth-shaking. Each touch was fire, each kiss was molten, each slide of skin against skin pushed her closer to a volcanic detonation. Her nerve endings seemed hyper-attuned to Stone’s every touch and kiss. But yet…it went deeper than mere physical sensation. She felt his emotions radiating off of him. She knew he wasn’t a vocal man, he wasn’t given to explaining the way he felt, but he didn’t need to. The way he felt was obvious in the way he held her, the way he kissed her. His eyes explained for him, his hands communicated what was in his heart. The odd thing was, that despite his claims, when Stone did start talking, he was actually fairly eloquent.
 

She felt him, felt connected to him. Even now, running for their lives, she could feel him worrying. She knew he was scared for her, worried about her, and that through it all he couldn’t help his desire for her, his need for her. And that was the sweetest thing of all. She wasn’t unaware of how she looked. The guys she’d dated had made it clear they found her beautiful. But with Stone, she felt more than beautiful. Something in the way he looked at her, touched her, kissed her, made love to her—it was like he needed her in a bone-deep way. Like she was his breath, and he’d been denied it for far too long.

It was how she felt, too. Like she’d never really been alive until now. Like she’d never really taken a breath until his kiss imparted oxygen to her starved lungs.

Stone skidded to a stop, and she smacked into his back, disrupting her thoughts. He pulled her to the side, pressed her back against a wall and buried his face in her neck. She felt the tension coursing off of him, sensed the danger in the air.
 

“Focus on me. Don’t look around.” His voice was a barely-audible murmur.
 

Wren pressed her nose to his scalp; he smelled like hotel shampoo and sweat. She let her hands scrape over the inch-long stubble on his head, soft yet prickly against her palm, trying to broadcast the image of heedless passion.
 

She saw them out of the corner of her eye, though. Four men with drawn guns, blocky black automatics. They were spread out across the street, peering at each face, ducking into doorways and hopping onto slow-moving jeepneys. “We can’t stay here,” Wren whispered. “They’ll find us. They’ll see us. They’re coming this way.” She hated the panic in her voice.

“Don’t move.” Stone’s lips moved against her skin, and even the imminent threat of discovery couldn’t stop her from shivering at the touch of his mouth. “Just kiss me.”