Midnight Man

  “What about your family? Does your father do any sensitive work? Your brother? Sister?”

  Suzanne shook her head. “We’re a small family. I’m an only child. My father is a retired college professor of literature, an expert in Chaucer. My mother is—was—a high school French teacher. She’s half French herself. They retired to Baja California, where Dad is writing what he fondly considers will be the Great American Novel. They’re perfectly pleasant, utterly harmless people.”

  Another dead end. Shit. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Frustration was an unusual emotion for him and he didn’t like it one bit. John pinched the bridge of his nose.

  She’d answered his questions calmly, but he could tell she was upset. He didn’t want her upset.

  What the hell?

  How was it that all of a sudden Suzanne’s serenity was more important to him than information? This had never happened before. He’d never ever had any difficulty in keeping emotion separate from a mission. But there it was—he couldn’t stand to see her unhappy.

  There was no precedent for these feelings in his life. What was going on? He needed to pump her, to push her harder and…he couldn’t.

  There she was, at his table. Heartbreakingly beautiful and forlorn. A unicorn at the edge of the forest. He didn’t want her worried and he didn’t want her sad.

  He’d walked knowingly into danger more times than he could count. He’d faced hostile gunfire. He’d even once defused a bomb. There wasn’t anything he’d back down from, anything he feared—or so he’d thought. And yet seeing Suzanne sitting in his kitchen chair, looking forlorn and frightened was more than he could bear.

  He’d have sworn he didn’t have a heart, but there it was, clenching tightly in his chest.

  Moving fast, he scooped Suzanne up in his arms and placed her on his lap. After an initial cry of surprise, Suzanne slumped in his arms, and put her head on his shoulder. They sat there in the calm quiet morning light. Just the feel of her in his arms, listening to her quiet breathing, pressing her head against his shoulder, calmed down something sore and inflamed deep down inside of him.

  He ran the back of his forefinger down the sleeve of her nightgown, and then fingered it. It was an excuse to keep his hands on her. “That’s a pretty color. You look great in blue.” It was true. But then any color would look good on her.

  “Thank you.” She turned her face up to him and smiled. “But it’s not blue.”

  John looked at the pinch of material in his hand. It was blue. He raised his eyes to hers. She shook her head. Okay. Not blue. He looked back down. Yes, it was. Dammit, it was blue.

  She covered his hand with hers. She was smiling up at him, looking for a moment like the woman he’d first met. Confident. Sexy. He loved seeing her like this. He’d give his right arm to keep that expression on her face.

  “You have problems with colors, John. You need to learn the names, the nuances. For example, this nightgown isn’t blue, it’s robin’s egg. There are so many blues around—powder, peacock, navy, denim, Wedgwood…”

  He was trying not to smile. “Okay, okay, I get it.”

  “The world has a thousand colors.” She ran her hand over his bare chest, down his arm. “Let’s take your skin. You’re very tanned. I’d say your skin color is…” she cocked her head. “Earth. Maybe bark where you get more exposure to the sun. But here…” She traced a finger along his biceps, and then around to the paler skin beneath, “here I’d say you’re more a suede. I can see all sorts of different colors in you, from your hair, which is definitely ebony, with traces of pewter along the temples, to your eyes, which are gunmetal. Mouth.” Shifting in his arms, finger over his lips. The smile had changed and was no longer amused, it was pure temptation. That was the smile that got Adam into so much trouble with the snake. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your mouth is…oh, I’d say cinnamon.” Her finger caressed the outlines of his lips. Her finger dipped into his mouth and he sucked the tip. His tongue swirled around it, exactly as it did to her nipple and he knew that’s what she was remembering by the way her lids lowered over her silvery gray eyes.

  She had pure devil in her expression and he—there was no way to hide it any more—he was excited as hell. She looked down at his lap and—what a witch she was—licked her lips. His hard-on lengthened. It occurred to him that she was going to use sex as a way to forget her troubles.

  Great. Worked for him.

  There wasn’t anything that needed doing that couldn’t be put off for an hour. Or two. Or four. He could get into sex, big time.

  Both her hands were in his hair now, fingers curled around his head. She ran her tongue around his lips and he obediently, eagerly opened his mouth. Her tongue rubbed against his.

  “Mmm,” she whispered, angling her head, kissing him deeply.

  Oh, yeah.

  She pulled away just as he moved to pull her closer.

  “Ah, ah,” she admonished, lips so close to his he could feel her warm breath, running her hands down his arms to pin his hands to his side, “no touching during the color lesson.” She exerted a little pressure on his wrists, as if to say—stay put.

  He let her pin him down. It was ridiculous of course. There was no way she could force him to keep his hands off her, no way she could match his strength, but if this gave her a measure of control, when her life was spiraling out of control, then what the hell.

  So he sat with Suzanne on his lap, his cock in its usual condition whenever this woman touched him, or was close to him, or even looked at him—iron hard.

  The minx knew it, of course. How could she not know it, when she was sitting right over his hard-on? But she ignored it, as she continued playing with his mouth, petting him all over.

  She ran her tongue around the rim of his ear, the tip following the whorls to the center, while her hands caressed his shoulders. It electrified him to feel her small wet tongue delicately probing. The hairs on the nape of his neck rose.

  “Let’s see here,” she sighed. She found his right nipple in the chest hair and rubbed it. Damn, it was like an electric jolt shooting straight to his cock. She breathed in deeply, her breasts rubbing against him, as she fingered his nipple. “I’d say, here…” A pink-tipped finger rubbing around the flat areole, “here you’re brick, with copper tones, but here—“ her head dipped and she licked him, and then suckled gently, “Mm. Vermilion. Definitely.”

  It wasn’t just his cock that was hard. He was hard all over, tense and tight. Clenched like a fist. Each slow, lazy lick, each pull of her mouth on his nipple shot straight to his groin.

  With a smile and a sigh, she slipped off his lap, kneeling at his feet. Reaching up to his pectorals, she ran her hands over his chest, over his abdomen. The witch bit lightly at the muscles of his abdomen.

  “Bay, bronze,” she whispered and her little pink tongue ran over his chest and belly to his belly button. “Sand.” The tip of her tongue fit into his belly button and she bit him, again, not so lightly this time. Her chin rubbed against his cock.

  Oh God.

  A pull of the strings, and the waistband of his sweats opened. She pulled the sweats down and took him in hand.

  “The prize,” she breathed and pulled his cock away from his belly. She ran her fisted hand down it, then back up. Slowly. Again. And again.

  He was dying.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “All sorts of colors,” she murmured. “A rainbow of them. Tea, fudge, cognac.” She cupped his balls then ran her finger up his cock to the tip. He was wet, a second from coming.

  Slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, Suzanne circled the tip, around and around. “And here…” her voice was a seductive whisper as she looked up at him, eyes flashing pure silver, “plum.”

  She bent, took him in her mouth and sucked.

  John exploded out of his chair, pulling her up and carrying her, with every intention of going to the bedroom. He didn’t make it.

  He only got as far as the kitchen
wall, where he shoved his sweatpants down, pulled her nightgown up and plunged into her. She was wet and soft, as if she’d come. Maybe she had, while she’d been sucking his cock. It didn’t make any difference because he had no self-control at all. He didn’t even try to moderate his strokes, just pounded into her. It was so hard and fast and furious it couldn’t last long. She moaned, and then cried. When her cunt began gripping him in long liquid pulls, he slammed into her one last time and held himself deep inside her, grinding into her as he came.

  They stood there, their breathing loud in the room. John hitched her legs higher around his waist, waiting for some strength to return to his legs and some blood to return to his head.

  Her hair shifted on his shoulder as she turned her head into his neck, biting him lightly and sighing.

  She kissed his shoulder and whispered, “You know, John, maybe you should see someone about this wall fetish you have.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “John, I want a tree.”

  It was dusk and John was putting the shopping away, his kitchen organization appalling. He kept flour next to washing detergent and sugar next to Ajax, but Suzanne held her tongue.

  They’d taken a run down to Fork in the Road, which had proved just as cosmopolitan as its name would suggest. A gas station with annexed diner, four houses, a post office and—oddly enough—a well-equipped little supermarket, probably the only one in a hundred square miles. She’d found everything she needed, and now she had to send John out. There were things she wanted to do and he’d just be in the way. Besides, she wanted to surprise him a little.

  The trip to Fork in the Road had been quite an experience.

  He’d morphed immediately into Midnight Man the instant they’d set foot outside the shack. The man who’d groaned and shook as he made love to her disappeared, as if he had never existed. The man who took his place was as cold and controlled as a cyborg. Each movement measured, economical, physical grace in action. He had a knack of being aware of everything that was going on. “Situation awareness” she’d once heard it called and it applied to fighter pilots. To SEALs, too, it appeared.

  He’d been silent on the drive down, concentrated on the driving, constantly checking the rear view mirrors. In the small town, he’d gone into an elaborate ballet every time they moved. It had taken her an hour to realize that he was making sure she was never exposed to gunfire. That, in any attempt on her life, the bullet would go through him first.

  It had brought tears to her eyes, which she’d instantly tried to hide. But the Midnight Man was nothing if not observant, damn him. He’d immediately asked what was wrong and she’d had to make some nonsense up about catching a cold. After which, notwithstanding her protestations, she’d had to walk around all afternoon with his heavy sheepskin jacket around her shoulders, covering her hands and falling to her knees.

  She’d taken her time at the store, filling five shopping bags full of the things she wanted. He’d looked curiously at the bags, then reached for his wallet.

  “Oh no,” Suzanne had protested. This was stuff she wanted to buy, after all. “Let me—“

  He’d shot her a look so appalled at the idea that she should pay, she’d burst out with laughter in the supermarket, a bored checkout clerk looking on.

  So they’d done their shopping, had a late afternoon sandwich and coffee at the diner—with John sitting with his back to the wall, coldly observing everyone who came into the place—and driven back without incident as light drained from the sky.

  Now her bags were waiting in the small kitchen and she needed him to go out for a while. She also needed a tree.

  John stopped his movements and looked at her. “You want a what?”

  “Tree, John. It’s Christmas Eve. We need a tree.”

  He looked so dumbfounded; it was as if he’d never heard the words Christmas and tree together.

  She sighed. “Look, it’s Christmas Eve. We’re tired and stressed and need a little lightness and joy in our lives. I’ve never spent a Christmas Eve in my life without a tree, and I have no intention of starting now. Whatever is going on, I’ve been deprived of my home and my job, and so have you. But I won’t be deprived of Christmas. Or a Christmas tree. I really need one. Don’t you celebrate Christmas?”

  He just stared at her as if he couldn’t understand the words. And maybe he couldn’t. Sad as it sounded, maybe there hadn’t been that many Christmas trees in his life.

  It was a remarkable insight into his character. He seemed so strong and self-sufficient, so beyond the ordinary human being’s fears and desires. So tough, so controlled. Suzanne suspected there hadn’t been much softness in his life. “Where were you last Christmas?” she asked, gently.

  He shrugged indifferently. “OUTCONUS. That’s Outside the Continental US. In Afghanistan, actually. It’s a remarkably treeless country. Christmas is just another day in the military.”

  Something tugged at her heart, hard. John was a man who hadn’t allowed himself much in life. He’d had a hard life of duty and sacrifice. He needed a Christmas celebration perhaps more than she did.

  “Well, this place certainly isn’t treeless,” Suzanne said, with a nod outside the cabin window, where stands of trees stood thick and green in the waning light. “So I’d like you to please dig one up for me—not chop it down. Dig around the roots and put them in a burlap bag if you have one.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he growled.

  She laid a hand on his powerful forearm. It was like touching pure coiled energy. The feel of him beneath her hand excited her so much she almost forgot what she was saying. She looked up into his eyes. “I’ll stay right here,” she said. “And you could get me one of those trees growing right near to the house. You can keep an eye on the cabin all the time.”

  She could not only see him struggle with the idea of leaving her alone, she could feel it in his muscles. His forearm felt like tensed steel under her hand. Maybe it was the intense sex, maybe it was the intense situation, which had thrown them together under pressure, but she felt she knew him so well she could almost read his mind. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to leave her alone for a minute—it suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t left her, not even for a second, since the night of the intruder—but also realized it was a perfectly reasonable request.

  His jaw, bristly now at the end of the day, worked as he struggled with the desire to please her, which required leaving her alone and defenseless. Two mutually incompatible concepts.

  She shouldn’t be putting him through this strain, but she needed the relief of a Christmas celebration and perhaps so did he.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  She needed so desperately to create a little oasis of peace and pleasure, to feel something other than hunted prey. Even if only for a few hours. It was Christmas, her favorite time of year. She’d celebrated Christmas all her life. It was a big event in the Barron family. If she couldn’t celebrate Christmas, her unknown and unseen enemy had already won. He’d stripped her of her humanity and turned her into a cowering animal. She gently squeezed his arm.

  “Please,” she said again, watching him. There was nothing else to say. She didn’t wheedle or try to explain why it was so important to her. Either he understood or didn’t. She knew instinctively that John couldn’t be forced to do something he didn’t want to. Giving in to her entirely reasonable request was something he had to want to do all on his own.

  His muscles bunched and quivered. His jaw clenched hard. She could feel his reluctance in his muscles, see it on his face. She smiled up at him, and then stretched to kiss the corner of his mouth. It was like kissing a wooden statue. She kissed him again. “Come on. You know you don’t have to be out of sight of the cabin. I’ll be perfectly safe. You told me I was safe here, right?”

  “Yeah.” It was as if the word had been wrenched out of his chest with huge red-hot pincers.

  “Well, then. You see? What can happen?”

  His mou
th opened to argue and she decided to whip out the big guns. Pulling his head down, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Open-mouthed, her tongue deep in his mouth, full body frontal. He wasn’t wooden any more, he was male heat and sinew, darkness and power and desire. She ate at his mouth, moving hotly against him as he swelled erect.

  He was so amazingly large. She rubbed her belly against him, feeling him lengthen even further and was surprised that she’d been able to take him. The memory of his heavy penis inside her, thrusting hard, melted her bones. A hot liquid pull of her vaginal muscles made her shudder.

  She was tempted. Very tempted. But there were things to do.

  She pulled her mouth away, a fraction of an inch. Just enough so she could form the word, but close enough for him to feel her breath. “Tree.”

  He looked down at her, face strained. His lips were suffused with blood and wet from her mouth. One big hand on her backside pulled her toward him as he ground against her. She fluttered inside, and looked helplessly up at him. “John.” There wasn’t any air in her lungs. The word came out more as a stirring of the air than a sound.