"I have to have you, Jesse." The admission was stark and raw, and she dropped to her knees in the wet grass as he scooted his hips forward, bringing some relief to his aching body.
Her entire body was going wild with need, her control nearly gone. She wanted it gone. She wanted this--Jess--his body needing hers, burning for hers. She craved the dark possessive lust building in his eyes and the way his body responded with such heat, growing thick and long and hard with his need. She didn't care about his friends, or what they thought, only Jess and the way he looked at her.
She was hungry for the taste of him. She needed to feel the hard length of him filling her mouth, watch his eyes go opaque and glaze over, hear his breath go ragged and see his chest rise and fall, hear his voice turn hoarse with pleasure. She cupped his tight sac in her hands, ran her fingers in a caress over his hard shaft. Watching his face, she leaned forward and ran her tongue over the mushroom head, tasting sex and lust and love mingled together.
His cock jerked. "Damn it, Saber. We could both be in trouble."
She wanted to be in trouble. She wanted him wild and rough. Still keeping her gaze locked with his, she leaned into him with a long slow lick, curling her tongue under the base of the flared head.
His eyes went hot and his fingers bunched in her hair, forcing her mouth toward him. A muscle ticked in his jaw as she blew warm air over him. She opened her mouth to accept the demands of his body, her tongue moistening her lips in anticipation. He made a sound somewhere between a growl and a groan and dragged her head to him.
Saber took him in, inch by slow inch, deliberately prolonging his agony, her gaze locked with his as she drew his thick shaft into the silken heat of her mouth. He tasted of sizzling passion, rich and male, and she needed more. She watched him as he drew in harsh breaths, as he jerked at the robe, shoving it down until it bunched behind him. All the while his hips thrust in an almost helpless rhythm.
She could feel him pulsing against her tongue, filling her mouth, stretching her lips. The power was incredible--that she could do this to him, this sexy, virile man, that he could trust her and want her so that he couldn't take his eyes from the sight of her, so that groans rumbled in his chest and his body shuddered with pleasure.
She licked at the underside of the broad head, and then sucked hard. His thrusts became more urgent, deeper, the hands in her hair controlling. She drove out his control, so that his hands were rough in her hair, tugging at her scalp, sending delicious little currents of electricity down her breasts to her groin. Her womb clenched every time he thrust deeper, each time a groan escaped. She learned to keep rubbing her tongue on the sensitive spot on the underside at the head of his shaft. The more she did, the more she swallowed him and sucked, the more the reward. His breath hitched in his lungs and his cock jerked and throbbed in anticipation.
"You've got to stop, baby." He used her own hair to pull her away from him. "If you don't, we're going to have a major problem."
She took one last satisfying swipe with her tongue. She loved the look on his face, the raw pleasure, the stark desire. He tugged her to her feet, his hands gripping her hips, urging her to climb on him.
All around them the storm raged out of control. The rain beat down. Thunder crashed and occasional flashes of lightning lit up the sky. The series of storms was just getting started, bringing in winter with a vengeance, but it did nothing to cool the raging heat between them.
Her body slid enticingly over his, soft skin against the hard muscles of his thighs as she wedged her knees on either side of his hips. Deliberately, her gaze locked with his, she lifted her body above his. "I really do love you, Jesse. So much I don't know what to do with it," she whispered.
He loved her with everything in him. Everything that he was. "Don't cry, baby, you're still crying."
He cupped her bottom, thumbs caressing, his body straining, aching, demanding. She was a white-hot, tight sheath urging his possession. He urged her over him, driving up through her feminine channel, wanting to shout as pleasure burst around and through him. Jess forgot everything he had ever learned about control. He matched the fury of the storm, unrestrained, turbulent, fiercely wild. The cool rain, her hot body, the lightning flashes, the crack of thunder, it all became mixed with their union. The storm merged with the wild pounding rhythm of their bodies.
He didn't ever want to see that look on her face again. So torn. So sad. So afraid. "I'm going to love you forever, Saber." He gripped her harder, gave her a little shake even as he surged deep inside her, locking them together. She was fiery hot, gripping him tightly, the slick silken walls rippling, clamping down and milking him. He leaned forward, pressed his mouth against her ear even as his body coiled tightly. "If you never trust anything else, trust in how I love you."
He exploded, the hot release jetting deep inside her while her muscles convulsed around his. She cried out, threw her head back, and wept with the night. He called her name, but his voice was lost in the whipping wind.
When the tremors had subsided, Saber lay against his chest, exhausted, spent, unable to stand, unable to move long enough to separate their bodies. In spite of the cold, the heat rising between them caused little beads of perspiration to mingle with the drops of rain on his skin. Jess's heart pounded with alarming force, and he had to fight to control his breathing.
Still locked deep in Saber's body, Jess spun around and glided out of the storm with sure powerful thrusts on the wheels of his chair. The kitchen door was standing open, evidence of their fast departure. He closed it gently, sliding the bolt in place, the sound very final. Saber hadn't moved, clinging to him, her eyes closed.
As he glided through the house toward the master bath he could feel his body rippling with the aftershocks of her pleasure. He smiled, rubbed his chin on the top of her head, and just held her, thankful to have her. They might have all kinds of things to settle, but she'd committed to him and he couldn't ask for more than that.
Jess rolled the chair right into the wide, specially built shower stall, adjusted the water, and turned on the spray. The warm water felt wonderful, dispelling the cold of the night rain.
Saber slowly, reluctantly untangled her body from his. Jess's hand cupped the side of her face, pushed wet strands of raven hair from her cheek. She couldn't look at him, couldn't believe she had behaved so wantonly, couldn't understand how her body could have felt so much pleasure in such a savage act. She stared down at her bare toes. She was totally nude, no robe, no clothes, in the shower with Jess. His wheelchair was dripping wet, a faint smear of mud being washed away from where her feet had touched the back. His terry cloth robe was soaked and scrunched around his bare thighs and back.
Saber blushed, not quite believing the evidence of their wild, abandoned behavior. Jess caught her chin firmly, his smile infinitely gentle.
"Loving," he whispered, his thumbs caressing her fragile jaw, openly reading her thoughts. He kissed her forehead, skimmed his mouth over hers. "I was loving you."
CHAPTER 16
Jess stared down at Saber's face. She lay curled up, sound asleep, exhausted, one hand flung out toward his pillow--and him, he hoped. The small lamp beside the bed spilled light across her face. Her skin was soft and luminous, her lashes long, lying like fans against her skin. He held her close, his body around hers, his hand under her breast, his cock pressed tight against her buttocks. And God help him, he was as hard as a rock.
He laughed softly, the tightness in his chest finally easing. Patsy was in a hospital being taken care of and Saber was in his bed where she belonged. He bent his head to brush a kiss in her hair before shifting to slide from the bed to his wheelchair. Saber needed the sleep and he needed to get busy and finish the investigation.
He and Logan had tried to recover the data on the recorder and hadn't been successful, but Neil should have been able to do something with it. There were a few GhostWalkers who were very good with sound and Neil should have managed the recovery. Hopefully there was a message
waiting from him.
More importantly, for the first time, he had a positive direction in which to take his investigation. The men who had come after him were definitely army. Ryland Miller and his team would want to know. They were conducting the investigation into their handler, General Rainer. Once they all had the same direction, Jess was positive, they'd make progress.
And he had to do something about the bionics. If he couldn't get his legs moving, he would have to consider the idea of wearing the external pack. Even if he could walk part of the time, he couldn't ever rely on his legs, so they were useless to him in their current state.
"Jesse." Saber turned over, her lashes lifting, her gaze meeting his.
"I'm here, baby. Go back to sleep, I'm going to work for a little while. You're exhausted." And the bruise on her face stood out starkly against her pale skin. He had discovered a few others on her body as well, one particularly bad one on her hip from where she'd been kicked. Every time he thought about the jeopardy he'd inadvertently placed his sister and Saber in, he felt sick inside.
She pulled the sheet closer around her shoulders and smiled at him. "I love the way you look, Jesse."
Her voice was so drowsy and sexy, he felt it vibrate through his body, heating his blood, stirring his senses.
"Go to sleep. I'll come wake you in a few hours."
"You'd better. I have to go to work tonight." She yawned and then smiled at him, her lashes already drifting down. "Or my boss might fire me."
Her boss was already thinking about firing her. He was altogether certain he could not survive her going to work, not after what had been done to Patsy. "A couple of the guys will be over, so don't come walking out in my shirt and nothing else."
"Good tip." Amusement tinged her voice, a slight smile curved her mouth, but she didn't open her eyes.
Jess left her to sleep, showering and dressing, using his racing chair rather than the heavier electric one to take him into the office. It took twenty minutes for Logan and Neil to show up, and he could tell by their faces Neil had managed to extract something from the recorder.
"You're going to hate this," Neil greeted.
Logan glanced around. "Where is she?"
"She?" Jess frowned at him. "You mean Saber? Do you really want to piss me off, Max? Because I just spent a couple of hours looking at the bruises on her face and body. I saw her lying in the fetal position on the ground, from the psychic backlash after firing a gun and killing a man--for me, for Patsy. I wasn't close enough to draw the energy away and you and I both know without an anchor, even a shield won't help. She knew it too, but she still did it."
Logan poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the desk. "I'm going to look out for you whether you like it or not."
"Then let's get this over. Tell me how she's different. Eric Lambert has the same objection to her, but he isn't a GhostWalker. You can kill. I can. All of us do kill. Does it really make a difference how we do it? You have no problems with Mari or Briony."
Logan sighed. "Mari is a soldier and Briony doesn't have a mean bone in her body."
Neil cleared his throat. "What about the other women? Flame and Dahlia?"
Logan swept a hand through his hair. "I know Dahlia. That's different. To be honest, I didn't trust her at first. And Flame--she can kill with sound. So yeah, she makes me a little nervous too."
"I can kill with sound," Neil pointed out.
"It isn't the same thing."
"Why?"
"Because women don't belong in combat. They shouldn't be running around killing people. They're supposed to be the gentle sex. We take care of them. They should be having babies and cooking dinner not killing people. What the hell is going on in the world when we think it's okay for women to have guns?"
"Flame, Dahlia, and Saber don't need nor want guns, bro," Neil pointed out.
"Well that's just a fucking great relief to me," Logan snapped.
There was a stunned silence and then both Neil and Jess burst out laughing.
"I suppose they shouldn't be allowed to vote either," Neil said.
"Would you like her better if I told you she can cook?" Jess asked.
Logan glared at them. "Go ahead and laugh. It isn't right."
"Good God, Max. You're a fuckin' male chauvinist," Jess said.
"So what if I am? What about you? Don't pretend it doesn't freak you out just a little that that woman can kill with one touch. What if she's on her period? You ever see a woman with full-blown PMS? My mom used to lose her mind. I'd go to a friend's house for a week until she'd call and say it was safe to come home."
"Okay, I've gotta go with Max on that one," Neil agreed. "Think about it, Jess. The ability to kill with a touch and a woman with PMS. You gotta have some big balls to live with a threat like that."
Jess let out his breath. "I have to admit, I never thought about it."
"It could be ugly," Logan said. "Really ugly."
"I'll just have to keep her pregnant."
"Yeah. That'll work," Logan rolled his eyes. "Don't you watch movies? Ever see a woman in labor? Or having a baby? One hard contraction, my man, and you are toast. The husband's life is already at risk without the woman knowing how to kill. Seriously, Jess, you've got to think about this long and hard, and think with your brain, not with other portions of your anatomy."
"You're just trying to scare me," Jess said, glaring at them.
Logan and Neil burst out laughing.
"Go to hell, both of you." Jess poured a cup of coffee. "You're a couple of boneheads. Are we working here or what?"
"I brought this for you." Neil pulled a disk from his pocket, the smile fading from his face. "I'm going to let you listen. It took a while to clean it up and get the conversation. There's still some background noise, but I think you'll recognize a couple of voices." He pushed the disk into the computer. "I'm saving the original and you'll see why."
There was a moment of silence and then the sound of footsteps. "We can't afford to let any of them live, Senator, not one. I don't care if they're out of it or not. You've got to shut that program down. The biggest danger to us right now is that megalomaniac, Whitney, and the abominations he creates." The voice was muffled, and a little distorted, but Neil had managed to amplify the sound enough to catch the words.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder. Whitney knows about us. He's going to find a way to bring us down and you'll go down with the rest of us, Senator. We'll all be charged with treason and my guess is, some of us will be taken out and shot before we ever go to trial. Do you think the president is going to want anyone to know that we've been selling secrets to terrorists and funding them for years on his watch? No one is going to want that information made public. They'll kill us all, and Whitney's supersoldiers will be the ones pulling the triggers. The man's mad as a hatter but they won't terminate him. We've got a few people in key places who feed us information, but it isn't enough. You have to find a way to take him down."
"I'm doing my best." The voice was clearer, as if perhaps he was the one with the voice-activated recorder nearest him.
Jess leaned in to pause the recording. "That's Senator Ed Freeman. This had to be made before he was shot. Who's the other man?"
Neil shook his head. "I have no idea. I've been trying to match the voice with voice prints I have, but so far, no luck."
"The senator sounds almost as if he's afraid."
"Listen to the rest of it," Neil suggested and once more activated the sound.
"Whitney's going to keep going until he's killed. There's no other way to stop him. You've got to kill all the women in his breeding program--all of them. We can't have them adding to this mess."
"He doesn't trust me. I think he's trying to have me killed."
"He must know you were instrumental in sending out a couple of his GhostWalkers to the Congo. Get it done. And when I say all the women have to die, I mean all of them."
"Violet is helping us," the senator hissed.
"She's the one who told him about Higgens. If she hadn't tipped him off we would have gotten the bastard then. Instead, Higgens is dead and Whitney is in the wind."
"She didn't..."
There was the sound of a knock on a door, hinges creaking, and then more footsteps. Both men went silent instantly. Chairs scraped.
"No, no, keep your seats."
The recorder went off abruptly. Jess and Logan looked at each other. The tension in the office rose.
"Was that who I thought it was?" Logan asked.
"That was the vice president," Jess said. "He has a very distinctive voice. He just walked into that room. You don't think whoever was talking to the senator is in the White House, do you?"
"Could the rot really go that high up?" Logan took a deep breath. "They're talking about selling out our country from the White House."
"We're dead men," Neil said, "if we don't find these people."
"They're traitors," Jess snapped. "Fucking traitors and we're going to find them. Isn't Higgens the man Ryland had to kill?"
"He must have been part of a much larger ring and we thought we got it, but we didn't even get the tip of the iceberg. When you're talking senators and someone working in the White House..."
"Or the Pentagon. The recording could have been made there as well."
"We know the conversation takes place somewhere the vice president would visit. Neil, can you isolate any background noises?"
"I tried. The recording was damaged. I don't know who could have put the recorder into Louise's private safe."
"The senator's wife? She's a GhostWalker. But she also had made some kind of deal with Whitney to save her husband's life. Whitney put out a hit on him. When she made the deal, she sold out the girls in the breeding program."
"It was one of Whitney's soldiers who put a bullet in his head," Jess confirmed, "although any of us would have been happy to. The senator is responsible for Jack and Ken's capture and torture. He handed them over to Ekabela in the Congo. Prior to that, Whitney had targeted the senator for assassination using Saber. She escaped instead of carrying out the order."
Jess took another drink of coffee, his frown deepening as he tried to puzzle it out. "So we've got two factions. We have Whitney who is a madman, making weapons for his country and thinking he's as patriotic as all get out."