Chapter Seven
Elizabeth fought to slow her racing heartbeat. Saxon was above her, still in her, and from the way he felt—long, thick, and hard—the guy was more than ready for another round. So was she. Once she managed to uncurl her toes and draw in a normal breath, anyway.
He slowly eased her legs back down to the mattress. Then he withdrew, and she couldn’t help the sound of protest that sprang to her lips.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m just getting a fresh condom.”
He headed into the bathroom, and reality started to come back. Her gaze slid to the box of condoms near the bed. A whole freaking box.
And some of that happy, sensual glow began to fade.
“Now…where were we?” He leaned over the bed.
Her hand pushed against his chest. “How many women have you brought here?”
His dark eyes narrowed.
“Saxon?” Elizabeth pushed. She recognized the emotion eating at her, twisting her guts all up—it was jealousy, and she sure didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit.
“You’re the first.”
Her left eyebrow rose as she stared at the box of condoms. Did he seriously expect her to buy that line? He had a whole box of condoms. A box!
“What? You’re gonna get pissed because I believe in being prepared?” He caught her hand. Brought it to his mouth. He licked the center of her palm and her body seemed to quake.
“I…I…” Oh, hell, she didn’t even know what she’d been going to say. Elizabeth just knew that she didn’t like the idea of Saxon with other women. Not even a bit.
He smiled at her. That sexy grin that made her stomach knot. “I believe in taking care of what’s mine.”
He bit her palm, the little mound of skin there, and her breath hissed out.
“I like the way you look after I’ve had you,” Saxon said. “Didn’t think it was possible for you to become more gorgeous to me, but you are…”
He lowered her hand back to the bed. He reached over for a condom.
“Wait.”
Saxon stilled.
“Not yet.” He’d been the one in charge before. Shouldn’t she get to have some fun, too? “I want you to lay back.”
His gaze seemed to harden. “You don’t want to push me too far.”
“I’m not pushing you anywhere.” Her heart still raced far too fast. “I’m just going to give you pleasure.” The same as he’d done for her.
Because Elizabeth had realized something important. When she left him, she wasn’t going to forget him easily. He’d been right on that note. So now she wanted to make absolutely certain he didn’t forget her, either. The other women that might come into his life—they’d have to compete with her ghost.
Saxon slowly spread out on the bed. He was so big that he filled the space. And his cock—it shot straight up into the air. Heavy and thicker than her wrist. Her gaze was on that cock, and she bent toward him. Her mouth was poised to—
“You think I’m going to hold on to my control once I feel your tongue against me?”
She slanted her gaze up to meet his stare. “Let’s just see how long you can last.”
And she put her mouth on him. Her lips slid over his cock and she put her tongue right against the head of his arousal.
“Fuck!” His hands clamped around her shoulders, but he didn’t force her away from him. His fingers were so tight on her, but he was…
Holding onto his control. Good.
She licked him again. Feathered her lips over him. Took a bit more of his length in her mouth. Then she started moving her head. Taking even more. Sucking him. Enjoying the taste and the texture of his cock in her mouth. He was salty and rich, and he was getting even bigger as she tasted him. A moan worked in her throat and vibrated along his length. She felt wild then, sexy, all alone in this little cabin with Saxon and far away from prying eyes and—
He pushed her back. Lifted her so easily and when she blinked, Elizabeth found herself on her hands and knees in the bedding. Saxon was behind her. His hands were on her hips and he drove into her.
Her head tipped back as she gasped. Her sex felt hyper-sensitive from her last climax, and he pushed in hard. So deep.
“Get wet around me again,” Saxon whispered, his words rough and hot in her ear. His hand curled around her body, moving to press to her clit. “Squeeze even harder…”
She did.
He withdrew, plunged deep, and kept stroking her with his hand. He’d wanted her wet—she was. And with every thrust of his hips, she was surging back wildly against him. Over and over. Again and again. Her knees were shaking, her heart racing, and when he pounded into her once more, the world shattered.
As the climax tore through her, his grip was the only thing that kept her upright. Elizabeth wanted to collapse onto the bedding and let the pleasure consume her, but he wasn’t done. Not close. He was still driving into her, and every thrust made the pleasure burst again, coming in waves that wouldn’t end. Her hands fisted around the covers and her head dropped onto the pillow before her. “Saxon…” His name was a lost whisper.
His mouth was on her throat. Kissing. Licking. Stinging lightly with his teeth. He kept thrusting, kept stroking her clit until she thought that she couldn’t handle any of the pleasure any more. It was too much, too—
He came. Her name tore from him as he surged into her once more. She screamed too, because the pleasure had lashed into her—a release so strong it was almost pain.
And the climax held her in a grip that wouldn’t end, rolling through her even as Saxon filled her sex. He filled her…so completely.
Dominated. Consumed.
When the pleasure finally ebbed, Elizabeth collapsed. She didn’t have the energy left to do anything…but smile.
***
Saxon hadn’t checked in.
Victor glared down at his phone. What the hell? Saxon always checked in. The guy knew better than to leave him hanging.
So something happened. Something that prevented him from calling me.
He’d tried to reach Saxon. Victor had dialed his number a dozen times, but he hadn’t been able to connect with the guy.
Not like Saxon at all. In all of their years, Saxon had never missed a check-in.
He dialed Gary’s number. The line rang once, twice—
“Boss, you must be psychic, because I was just about to call you.”
Victor had gone back to The Blade to scan the bar one more time. He was the only person left at the place then so he had plenty of privacy to talk with Gary. “You been digging into Ms. Ward’s life?” Victor didn’t normally like to bring up a person’s past. Hell, his own past was shady and dark in too many places, but sometimes, the job didn’t give him any choice. He had to discover every secret that he could.
“I didn’t have to dig far.” Gary gave a dramatic pause. The guy did that a lot. Went for the drama. “It seems,” Gary revealed, excitement entering his voice, “that it’s not the first time a hit has been taken out on the Ward family.”
“You’ve got my attention.” Every bit of it.
“Her mother was a criminal defense attorney. She made some enemies in her time, and one of those enemies took out a hit on the woman and her husband. They went out in a fiery car crash that wasn’t an accident, at least not according to the police report I just accessed.”
“Who ordered that hit?”
“The police thought it was Luther Bates. Seemed Elizabeth’s mother refused to defend the guy…and he didn’t exactly like her rejection or the fact that she apparently got a little too chummy with a DA friend and spilled some of Luther’s secrets, legal code be damned.”
Luther Bates. The name instantly rang a bell for Victor—mostly because Bates was big damn trouble. The guy was rotting in a New Jersey prison right then. He’d been tied to the deaths of four of his…associates. And the fact that the guy had been running a drug trade from New Jersey all the way to Florida? Yeah, the authorities had managed to catch him red-handed with that shit, thanks to an anonymous tip.
A tip that came from Elizabeth’s mother?
“I can’t figure why anyone would be protecting Elizabeth,” Gary continued, his voice growing thoughtful, “but the fact that both she and her parents had hits taken out on them? No way is that a coincidence.”
No, it wasn’t. “Never believe in them,” Victor muttered. There were no coincidences in this world.
“Elizabeth Ward cut out from New England after her parents died and moved abroad. She’s been working in Europe, and she just came back to the states and settled here in Miami a few months ago.” Gary was talking faster now. “You think maybe someone from her past found her?”
“I think if you’re Luther Bates…you have a habit of not just taking out your enemies, but their whole damn families.” The FBI had suspected—but not been able to tie—Luther to a few killings just like that. Bates believed in destroying his enemies completely, and that seemed to mean taking out their families. As he mulled over Gary’s revelations, Victor said, “Maybe the original hit wasn’t just on Elizabeth’s mother and father. Maybe she was supposed to be taken out back then, too.”
“Then why is she still living?”
She might not be…not for much longer. Saxon hadn’t answered his phone.
Worry gnawed at Victor. “I’m going to check in with Saxon,” Victor said flatly. “The guy didn’t answer my call, so I have to find out what the hell is going on.”
“You don’t think…he’s all right, isn’t he?” Alarm sharpened Gary’s voice. “I mean, we already lost one FBI agent in the last month—”
And Jenny’s funeral had been brutal. “We won’t lose another,” Victor swore. “I’m going in after him. I’ll call you once the situation is contained.” And contained meant that Saxon wasn’t off playing some lone gunman routine. They’d bring Elizabeth in, put her in a safe house, and go forward from there.
Provided, of course, that he didn’t get out to that cabin and find Saxon’s dead body waiting for him.
He didn’t just walk back to his car. He fucking ran.
***
Gary Warren stepped back into the shadows of the alley and watched Victor rush away. A faint smile curved his lips. The guy was so clueless. He thought he was a big fucking deal at the Bureau. But the guy was all flash. He didn’t look beneath the surface enough, never saw anything without Gary’s help.
And now, you don’t see me.
Gary hadn’t needed to look up Elizabeth’s past. He was already real familiar with it. Intimately so.
But he had needed Victor’s help for one thing…finding her. And Saxon.
Gary waited until Victor had left the lot, then he pulled out his phone again. He’d put a transmitter on Victor’s car, an easy enough placement while the guy had been in The Blade. Now all he had to do was stay within range and follow that guy all the way to Saxon’s hiding spot.
Then, Elizabeth…you die.
Over the years, he’d always prided himself on being a professional. If he took a job, then he got that job done. Period. He’d been hired to kill the Wards—all three of them. But Elizabeth had escaped…vanished for two years.
Until she’d shown up—quite literally—in Wesley Locke’s lap. Wesley had once been part of Luther’s payroll, and when the guy made the connection, he had run straight to the big boss, squealing about how he should get credit for her hit.
No one gets credit for my kills.
But then Wesley had changed his mind. Gone soft. Said that Elizabeth wasn’t hurting anyone, that she should go free.
By then, it had been too late for such foolish talk. And with Wesley waffling, well, he’d had to die, too.
You kill once, and then the dominoes start falling. It was a good thing he’d always been so good at dominoes.
When he’d taken out Elizabeth’s parents two years ago, she’d been at the house when he did his reconnaissance work. He’d gone there, spilled his usual BS about installing a security system, even as he really cased the house and got a good look at the cars while planning his hit.
Since Elizabeth hadn’t died—like she should have—he’d worried for years that she would remember him. That she’d put the puzzle pieces together, and then his secret double life would be exposed. That hell would be brought out into the open.
The hit on the Ward family had been a big one—worth one million dollars. That hit should have set him up for life, but Luther hadn’t paid him. Because I didn’t take out the daughter.
But when Elizabeth died, he’d finally get his big pay day. And he’d finally be able to sleep at night without wondering…
Does she remember me?
Unfortunately, Victor and Saxon would also have to die in the coming battle. Two FBI agents—gunned down while protecting an innocent woman. Ah, he was sure their funeral services would be just lovely.
If he tried hard enough, he figured that he’d even be able to muster up a tear or two. He’d always been such a fine actor.