Impressive kitchen for an unmarried guy…although Ronnie had to root inside an unpacked moving box to find a stock pot big enough to hold a sizeable batch of chicken soup. The décor was very bachelor-y, too, the living room furnished in the mode of who cares what it looks like as long as it’s comfortable, with roomy, cushioned chairs—one black, one bronze—and one brown paisley sofa, nothing matching, but nothing clashing too terribly either.
A four-shelf bookcase was decorated with a Chicago Bears beer cozy, a pair of cleats, a can of Starbucks doubleshot coffee, a bottle of Paco Rabanne cologne—unopened, in the box—and, weirdly enough, a spatula, the flat end of which was shaped into an American flag. There were no paintings on the walls, just framed photographs of friends and family set around on flat surfaces without seeming rhyme or reason. A stunning older woman, the age and resemblance of a mother, was the lone female represented, and didn’t that give Ronnie an unreasonable burst of pleasure.
She was already feeling very Lady-of-the-Manor-Protecting-Her-Wounded-Knight about Tony. Last night, she’d slept in his king-sized bed next to him, attuned to any signs of worsening, like feverish thrashing. But Tony had been almost eerily motionless. Probably his body was using all its energy to heal, which was good.
This morning, Tony had woken briefly, stumbled to the bathroom to relieve himself, then went straight back to sleep.
Now it was the lunch hour, and it was time to feed him.
She carried a TV tray laden with soup, water, and medicine into his bedroom and found him just waking up again. He was pushing into a sitting position and shoving pillows behind himself against the headboard. Besides being rumpled—his hair was under serious siege from its curls—the left side of his jaw looked like it’d been squirted down with octopus ink, and his left eye, though no longer swollen, was a blotchy blue.
“Hungry?” she asked.
If he’d been wearing socks, he would’ve jumped out of them. He followed his startle-jump with a wince—probably from his ribs. Although for every visible bruise, he was no doubt nursing ten more unseen pains, so it could’ve been from anything.
She strode forward. “It doesn’t matter whether you are or not. You’re eating regardless.” She briskly placed the tray on his lap.
He blinked groggily at the soup as if it had magically appeared in front of him instead of her putting it there, even though he just saw her do it. The doctors had assured her—repeatedly, because she made them—that Tony didn’t have a concussion. But he’d still taken one ferocious beating yesterday. Given one, too.
She puttered at his bedside table, allowing him time to gather his bearings. “Your boss came by this morning to check on you. Dan Romeo.” She took the bottle of Vicodin off the tray and set on the nightstand next to his cell phone. “He is one ginormous fellow.”
“Yeah.” Tony grimaced again. “Let’s not talk about ginormous men right now, okay?” He picked up the spoon and slurped up some soup. He made a satisfied sound, and didn’t that give Ronnie more silly pleasure?
“How did everything turn out with Abbot?” he asked.
“Ah. The formula is safe, and all three of the bad guys are handcuffed to their respective hospital beds.”
“So, mission accomplished?”
“That would be correct.”
“Looks like we made a good team.” Tony paused in his eating to give her a warm look. “I never thought I’d want a partner again, but I’d make an exception for you.”
She felt herself blush. Who, me? She flapped a hand. “What did I do?”
“Are you joking?” He straightened and set down his spoon. “You saved the formula, Ronnie. If you hadn’t figured out that Abbot was a lying douchebag, he would’ve locked the cure away in a dungeon.”
“Oh, well… I mean, yes, but…”
“You’re still not getting it, are you?” Tony’s eyes met hers, squarely and directly. “You won the day with your Extraction skills, Agent Cardenas.”
She stilled then abruptly sat down on the edge of his bed. “Lord, I did, didn’t I? So…” She breathed. “I’m good?”
He smiled expansively. “You were before, but, yeah. You’re good.” He reattacked his food. “Damn, this soup is good.” He scraped the bottom of his bowl. “Thank you.”
“You bet.”
Plunking the spoon in the empty bowl, he took a deep sip of water then leaned back. “How are you here, anyway, making me soup? If we’re at Mission Accomplished status, shouldn’t you be home in Philly?”
“I called Baretta Investigations and took a week off to be with you.” Shoving to her feet, she crossed her arms and gave him a stern look. “And don’t do that extremely unattractive male thing where you insist you don’t need to be taken care of.”
“Well, I won’t now.”
“If you were at all thinking about it, I was going to suggest you look in the closest mirror.”
“Better not. If I saw myself, I might doubt my ability to do what I want to do next.”
She narrowed her eyes. What was he up to? Whatever it was, she was ready to pounce, tackle, or force-feed knockout drugs. “My other superpower is that I’m a stopper-of-stupidity—just so you know.”
His lips twitched. “Me finally fucking you for reals isn’t stupid.”
“No, but it’s… Wait, what?”
He set his tray aside.
She whooped out a laugh. “Are you crazy?”
His pupils flared. “Excuse me. But are you laughing at a Sicilian male who wants to fuck?”
“Tony, you’re broken.”
His eyes did a lazy downshift to his crotch. “Clearly not.”
He was naked under the sheet—she ought to know; she was the one who’d put him that way—and the bulge of his erection was plain to see beneath the thin material. “Oh, God.”
He flipped the sheet off his lap, giving her the gift of his full nakedness.
She groaned inwardly. “I’m not looking.” She was looking. A resolve-breaker it was, that there. Perfection in all ways: thick, long, and ridged with a network of fat veins. She groaned out loud. “Is it any wonder you’re always hard? Look at the blood supply you have in this thing.” She wrapped her hand around his sex and gave the satin-encased steel an appreciative stroke.
Tony’s skull clunked back against the headboard. “Get naked. Now.”
“I can’t. I—”
“You’re going to keep arguing now, while you’re practically jacking me off?”
She took her hand away from his cock.
He slit his lids. “Welcher.”
“No fair! Sex will break you even more….add to your pain.”
“Stopping what you’re doing—that’s pain.”
She grimaced then scrunched her brow. “Argh,” she said. She wasn’t going to win this one. Most especially because she really didn’t want to.
“Do a slow ride on me from a straddle position. I’ll be fine.”
Now, see? That sounded wholly reasonable. “Argh,” she repeated and unbuttoned her shirt—quickly, before she came to her senses. “Just promise to tell me if I hurt you.”
He grunted by way of reply, probably only half-listening. He was avidly watching her bare her flesh.
She stripped herself completely naked then paused to let him look at her. “I’m a woman,” she said, gesturing to her small patch of pubic hair. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with the evidence of it.”
“Easily.” He kicked the sheets all the way off.
She climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, and took hold of his cock, aiming him in a direct bull’s-eye for her—
“Ho. Wait up.” He clasped her ass cheeks. “I want you to sit on my face first.”
She snapped her gaze up. “Good God. You’re quoting Carmelo.”
He chortled. “It got your attention, didn’t it?” With his hands on her butt, he nudged her upward. “But I’m not kidding.”
She knee-walked up his body, going where he urged her. He wasn’t leaving her much choice, was he? Especially because, once again, she didn’t want another option.
He scooted down the headboard at the same time, and they met somewhere in the middle.
The sudden softness of his tongue swiping across her clitoris unleashed a staggering surge of need inside her. She expelled a soft “oh” and dropped her head forward, her spine bowing into a tight arc as her labia trembled.
He licked her again then stopped and looked at her. Now here was an erotic sight, his battered fighter’s face peering at her through the vee of her dewy thighs, past her lady parts and the stabbing points of her nipples.
“No holding back the orgasm this time,” he warned her.
“Not on your life,” she breathed.
The translucence in his eyes flared brighter. “Good.” His dark, tousled head disappeared between her thighs.
A broken cry shivered from her throat as he began to take slow, sweet tastes of her, his lips and his tongue sliding with exquisite care over the slit of her sex. She gripped the headboard. A wave of mindless ecstasy seized her, melting her core, swelling her flesh. He licked at the juices she made, his tongue stroking back and forth. Heat rushed over every inch of her skin. She gripped the headboard tighter. Her lungs strained against a trapped moan.
He went deeper with his explorations, tucking his tongue inside her, penetrating her with soft, intimate strokes, then lapping around her clit, then more…more and more…until her nails were gouging the headboard and her inner muscles rippling and pulsing on the verge of a Richter nine earthquake. “Tony,” she whispered raggedly. “I’m going to come.”
An admission of this sort usually sent a man off to the races! into a sucking, lick-lap-smash frenzied rush to achieve his aren’t-I-a-great-lover? gold prize: a complete face-drench female orgasm.
Tony simply continued with his tender ministrations, using his palms on her ass to rock her against his mouth, gently, reverently, almost…
She slowly peeled her eyes open and stared at the tried-and-true beige wall paint.
I’m just forgiven? That’s it. No penance to pay?
So here’s what was going on. No, Ronnie, it’s not enough. This was an act of contrition. He was attending to her the way he hadn’t been able to the night on Gaetano’s desk, everything he did revering her, worshiping her, caring for her. Warmth curled up her spine. God, it was so—
There was no further warning of her orgasm. “Unf-pah-nuh.” The nonsense sounds spilled out of her mouth as she was caught completely off guard by the rushing liquefaction of everything inside her. She felt herself begin to pulse against Tony’s mouth, and she threw her head back, arms stretched taut as she held onto the headboard with a rigid grip.
He quickly shifted only to her clitoris, flittering his tongue lightly and steadily over it while she climaxed.
Ecstasy tore through her. Hard, convulsing. Endless. She screeched.
Screeched?
Rapture spiraled impossibly high, her inner muscles slamming into fiercer contractions. It was so good! “Goodgoodgoodgood,” she babbled at him.
Boy, she was just a bundle of nonsense right now.
She spasmed to an end, and Tony circled his nose against the top of her pubic hair.
“Ooooooh,” deflated out of her. The muscles in her thighs quaked, sending her sagging down to his chest, out of breath. His ribs! She popped back up.
Tony edged himself to a full sitting position—quick-kissing a nipple as he momentarily passed by her heaving breasts—then let her sag down once more, this time to his lap. The length of his erection speared up between them. “Nightstand drawer,” he said next to her ear, his voice thick and husky.
It took a groggy second for her to register what he was asking her to do, then she leaned over and opened the drawer. She found a condom, straightened, and unrolled it over his erection.
He hard-gripped her hips, and a muscle went rigid in his steely jaw as he arranged her over the top of his engorged cock. He urged her down.
She followed his lead, slowly doing the splits out from either side of his hips with her knees, easing herself down until she completely encased him in her lubricated sheath. A monumental presence. A gasp hitched out of her. As prepared as she was for him, it was still a sting and stretch to adjust to his size. “Were you always this big?” she moaned out.
“Were you always this tight?” he countered from between the white clench of his teeth.
Their gazes met in the mellow sunlight, and she was held spellbound by the fierce, raw need she saw in Tony’s expression…because it was a need of the heart as much as the loins. For me, too. She opened her mouth and tried three times to tell him what he’d come to mean to her. She closed her mouth all three times. How could she verbalize that he’d filled the hole inside her?
Eyes never leaving his, she pushed up on her knees, up, up, up to the top of his cock.
But he didn’t let her have control. He took it, locking his hands on her hips, guiding her back down the length of his cock, then back up. He set a deliberate cadence, slowly dragging out, tunneling back in. On each stroke, she didn’t think he could manage to drive any deeper inside her, but he always did, touching a spot of heaven far, far within her body.
Her breath caught with pleasure and tears. Her heart formed into a dreamy, achy little knot. The bedsprings squeaked softly, and sweat misted her body.
He nestled his lips against the crook of her throat and exhaled her name. “Ronnie.” His left arm snugged around her waist while his bandaged right hand took hold of a breast, and with fondling, reverent care, he aimed his penitent attentions there.
She grew slicker, and her walls clamped greedily onto his hardness. She heard his breath grow chaotic. Something simmered within him. With each penetration, his muscles tautened, and the tension in him tottered more precariously on the razor’s edge of something it felt like he barely controlled.
A rough growl announced the loss of whatever battle it was. She was—
Oomph. She was suddenly thumped onto her back, the bedsprings giving a discordant reeeech. The powerful press of his hips spread her legs wide.
“Tony.” You’ll hurt yourself in this position never made it out of her mouth. Just a jarring gasp as he started plunging ferociously into her, his pounding rhythm granting his battered body no respect whatsoever. His muscular chest surged against her breasts. The translucence of his eyes was completely blacked out with lust.
She heard the soup spoon rattling in the bowl—the bed was knocking into the nightstand—and she clutched Tony’s shoulders.
“Your legs feel so good around me,” he snarled, then let out a deep, visceral groan of pleasure.
She cracked open one eye. Oh? She flexed her legs as tight as she could around his slick flanks.
He barked out a guttural sound then did the angle-thing with his hips again, banging into her clitoris, his final thrusts fiercely possessive.
She nearly flew apart as she climaxed for a second time, her contractions gripping his length as pleasure was unleashed throughout her womb and beyond.
She felt him strain and shudder, and his cock pumped, and in the last throes of his orgasm, he turned into a creature of savage beauty. His face contorted in pure, animal ecstasy, and a lion’s roar of hedonistic pleasure erupted from his arching throat.
After a full-body quake passed over him two times, he collapsed on top of her, a crushing, sweating, chest-heaving weight. “Damn,” he panted, “that was toe-crunching.” Then he didn’t speak for a while, his lungs making harsh grabs for air.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hugged Tony’s shoulders, and searched for explanations. Adjectives. A clarification.
Soul-shattering.
That’s what she came up with.
Breath-stealing, too. Although, actually…that wasn’t entirely a metaphor. Umph, he was heavier than he looked. She tapped on his shoulder. “Tony,” she puffed. “I’m having trouble breathing. You’re squishing me.”
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “But I can’t move.”
What? She slanted a glance at him.
His face was buried in the mattress, but after a second, he managed to angle his head enough to the side to give her a droll look. “Heap big Sicilian is hurting. You know, just a bit.”
Oh, no. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Hang on.” She wriggled out from under him, eliciting a lot of grunts from them both.
“What a glowing aftermath this is for you,” his said, still droll, although his forehead was lined with taut creases of pain.
“Don’t be silly. Let’s just get some medicine in you.” She stood, and just as she was collecting the pill bottle off his nightstand, his cell phone beeped the arrival of a message.
She shook two Vicodin into her palm while he removed the condom and tossed it in a bedside trashcan.
“Do you want me to help you sit up?” she asked, although the process would be a feat of creative engineering. How did such a compactly built man weigh so much?
“No, thanks. I think I’d rather stay like this.”
She handed him the pills, along with the glass of water.
He managed to take the medication from his sideways-lying-down position with only a few drops spilled. She took back the glass then held out his cell phone.
He made a face at it. “I don’t want to deal with anything right now.”
“You’d better at least look. It might be from your agency.”
He took the phone, opened the message, and read silently for a couple of moments. “It’s from Nicole, my former DEA partner. We haven’t been in touch since I went undercover.” He glanced up. “It says she’s working a desk at the Memphis office, and she’s pregnant. Due in six months. She seems really happy.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “At least based on the unusual amount of emoji usage in the text.”
Ronnie smiled, sensing Tony’s relief. “Sounds like Nicole found her way to exactly how she truly wants to be living her life right now.” She returned the cell to the nightstand. “Remember how you said shit happens for no explicable reason? Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe there often is a reason. Sometimes we just don’t see it right up front.”
He lay back on his pillow. “I sort of thought the same thing yesterday when I was pounding on Abbot’s guy—like, sometimes you have to do bad stuff to get to the good stuff.” He exhaled broadly. “Unfortunately, I’ve tended to walk away in the middle of the bad shit, so I never see the outcome, always figuring it’ll be bad—figuring I made it bad.”
She gently brushed some hair off his brow. “No knight can slay every dragon, Tony. The point is that you always rush into the fray and try.”
“Maybe, yeah. But mainly I don’t want to be the guy who walks away in the middle anymore.” He exhaled a breath and gave her a Vicodin-sleepy smile as he patted the mattress beside him. “Will you lie down with me?”
“Of course.” She climbed onto the bed.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her against his body, her back and the curve of her bottom fitting snugly into his chest and hips. “What do you think about going on birth control so we don’t have to use rubbers anymore?”
She arched her brows at his nightstand. “Birth control is for monogamous relationships.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what I’m asking for. Remember how I just said I don’t want to be the guy who walks away anymore?” He squeezed her. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I could rent an apartment in Philly. I don’t have to live in Baltimore to do my job for Phoenix Agency. Hell, half the time business meetings are held in San Antonio, anyway. Plus, it’s only an hour and a half drive from Baltimore to Philly.”
“Wow.” She set her arm over his forearm and hugged him that way. “You have been thinking about it.”
He nudged the back of her neck with his nose. “You’re not just a booty call, Ronnie.”
His words sent a tingle from her heart out to her fingertips. She rolled over in his arms to face him, setting her palms on his chest. Sweet. He didn’t like her to say it about him, but it’s what he was.
He gazed deeply into her eyes. “I love your smile,” he told her softly. “It lights up your whole face and shows all the happiness in your eyes. And the eyes never lie.”
“They don’t.”
“Does that mean you will?”
“Will what?”
“Be my girlfriend.”
She rolled her eyes. “Would I be here cooking soup for your sorry hide if the answer wouldn’t be yes? I mean, jeez. I’m in love with you.”
He pressed the side of his face against the hair at her temple. “Thank the fucking stars.”
“Just…are you sure, Tony? Moving to Philly seems fast for a man with strong loner tendencies.”
He pulled back, his eyes glowing warmly, and smiled at her. “Hey, I’m not the one who’s ever been cavalier about us, chica.”
Laughing softly, she wrapped her arms around his neck and—very carefully—hugged him tight.
* * *
Tracy Tappan’s award-winning military romantic suspense series, Wings of Gold, about the U.S. Navy’s best of the best…
LT Eric “LZ” O’Dwyer and Nicole Gamboa’s story,
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A Navy pilot and DEA agent join forces to take down a ruthless drug lord, but the intimate scene they must play together as a part of the undercover op ends up going way too far…
“Leave it to Tracy Tappan to take a deadly mission and make it darn near Mission Impossible!”
~Tome Tender
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