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KAREN HADN’T BEEN BORED once on the two-hundred-mile drive from San Diego to Bakersfield.  Her husband was funny, with a capital ‘F’. 

“Now where are we headed?” she asked as they passed the Bakersfield exits.

“You’ll see,” Drake said with a secretive smile.

“Drake, you’re passing the place with the butter burger. It was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  I looked up places I knew you’d like before we went on this road trip.” 

Karen noticed that he let off the gas a little bit.  “Woman, I fall in love with you more each day, did you know that?  But this trip is about you.”

Karen crossed her arms over the truck’s seatbelt.  “That’s bullcrap.  This is our honeymoon, it’s about both of us.” 

Drake reached over and tugged one of her hands loose and rested it against his warm thigh, tangling their fingers together.  “Do you want to call your mom again and check on Andrew?”

“I’m not that neurotic.  I just called her two hours ago,” she said wryly.

“Actually, you called her twice in the last hour, but who’s counting?” 

Karen tried to pull her hand back, so she could cross her arms again.

“I’m teasing.”  He smiled before turning his head back to the freeway.

“Okay, maybe I’m a little bit neurotic,” she admitted.

“Hey, one of those calls I suggested,” he reminded her. 

She smiled.  That made her feel better.  Everything about this trip was making her feel pretty damn good.  Except for being away from Andrew. 

Suck it up, Eastman, oops, Avery.  Her name was Avery.  God, that sounded good.  Karen Marie Avery.  She rubbed her thumb against Drake’s palm.  She couldn’t wait to get alone with him tonight.  Yesterday she’d gotten the all clear from the doctor.  Tonight was going to be a big night, that is if he’d ever stop.

“How much further?” she asked.

“Getting impatient?”

“Yes.”

Drake’s laugh filled the cab of the truck.  “We’re almost there.”

“We passed all the exits for Bakersfield, I think you messed up.”

“Karen, I navigate my way through jungles, I think I can handle the interstate.”  Drake turned on his blinker.  Finally, they were going to stop.  She just hoped it was going to be a step up from the Motel Eight she saw advertised on the side of the highway.

She watched as the road slid by, and they pulled up to an impressive log cabin.  “Where are we?” she asked as she tried to smother a yawn.

“The Cedar Inn.  It’s a bed and breakfast.”

“This looks like a pretty fancy for a bed and breakfast.”

“You deserve fancy.”

Karen started to open her door.  “Stay there, let me help you out.”  She smiled.  He always insisted on doing that even when they first met.  She really liked that. 

When the door opened, she noticed how cool the air was.  At long last she started to think that it was winter.  It had to be forty degrees out, which was nice considering it was seventy degrees when they left San Diego.  Seriously, was she never going to experience a winter again?

Drake lifted her out of the truck, their bodies sliding against one another.  Oh, it was going to be a good night.  “I’ll just bring in our overnight bags, we’ll unpack for real when we hit Yosemite tomorrow night, how does that sound?” he asked.

“Perfect.”  She’d put a slinky nightie in her overnight bag.  It was going to knock his socks off.

He led her into the reception area and they checked in.  Soon they were in their room.  It was gorgeous. 

“I’m going to take a quick shower and shave,” Drake said.

“That’s great, it’ll give me a chance to change into something more comfortable.”

He left the door open a bit when he went into the bathroom.  Karen liked that.  She loved hearing him doing mundane things.  She would never tell him, but she didn’t like it when he wasn’t home, so when he was around, she savored every second.

This time she was smart and did a quick breast pump, then slipped into the blue nightie and got under the covers.  Drake started humming.  Another thing that brought her comfort.  He always did that when he shaved.  She could just picture Drake teaching Andrew to shave, and both of them at the sink, humming together.

***

SHE LOOKED BEAUTIFUL sleeping on the soft white sheets.  Drake got into bed beside her and she didn’t move.  The woman was on the go twenty-four/seven with Andrew, and it was no wonder she was asleep.  But he couldn’t help himself, he had to try.  He gathered her into his arms.  She shifted, then melted against him, her breathing soft and even.  Nope, she hadn’t even come close to waking up.

“Dude, you’re so not getting any,” he said glancing down at his cock.  Then he grinned.  If he told the truth, all of those early morning feedings with Andrew, and secret meetings with Declan and his team had really taken a toll on his sleep schedule too.  He pulled Karen’s ass closer to his front, until she was positioned just right.  It was the perfect combination of heaven and hell that would allow him to have the best dreams known to mankind.

***

“DRAKE?” SHE WHISPERED quietly.

He smiled in the dim glow of morning.  Karen’s hand rested on his chest, her red hair teased his nose, he was enveloped in the scent of honeysuckle.  She pressed the softest of kisses against his heart, and he thought it might beat right out of his chest.  Her lips trailed more kisses through his chest hair and he heard her breathe in and then sigh.

“Quit playing possum.”

“Shhh, I’m trying to sleep.”

“You woke up the second I did.  You always do,” she said in her husky morning voice.

She had a point.  Of course if he didn’t, he’d make a piss poor SEAL.  He tangled his fingers through the silk of her hair and tugged.  He brought her lips to his.  Heat exploded between them.  It was a dark magic that had only happened in her arms, he would never be able to get enough of this woman.  Drake rolled Karen onto her back and thrust his tongue deep, needing to taste, to dominate, to claim.  She made a keening sound and he arched backwards.

“No!  You didn’t hurt me. Goddammit, I’m fine.”  She pulled hard on his neck and he settled on top of her again.  He watched as she smiled in pleasure and he realized she was fine.  She was healed.  More, he needed more from his woman.  He shoved the cups of her gown down, and stared at her breasts.  He loved making her excited, and he knew how he could.  He rasped his chest against her breasts, and she moaned low and long. 

He licked around her nipple, exciting her, she squirmed, and then her long, long legs lifted and curled around his hips.  Shit, she wasn’t wearing panties.  He’d slept naked.  He was seconds away from taking her.

“Now,” she demanded.  “It’s been so long.  Now,” her husky cry reverberated through the room.

He pushed the covers away from them and kneeled.  He pulled the nightie over her head.  “You’re not listening,” her voice quivered with need.

He couldn’t find words.  He was about to make love to his wife for the first time, words were beyond him.  He molded her flesh, rejoicing in the sight of his dark hands claiming her pale skin.  She was his.  She would always be his.  She arched into his touch, and when his fingers found her core, she parted her legs, inviting him into to her very core.

Drake had been so careful with her since the birth of their son, he now found himself shuddering as he felt the heat of her sex clenching his fingers.  She was going to burn him alive.  He coaxed more liquid arousal from her, then brought his hand to his mouth so he could taste.  She watched him with avid eyes.

“You’re so bad,” she breathed.

“You like bad.” 

“Yes, I do,” she hissed as he parted her legs further, then settled between them.  He was going to feast.

“No, enough foreplay.  Sex now.”

Drake laughed.  Seemed his redhead was getting angry.  He parted her folds, and swiped his tongue through her drenched flesh.  She shrieked softly but it wasn’t in anger.  He lapped up her honey and that excited him as much as it did her.  It had been so long since they had been together, he wanted to make sure she was ready for him, so he tested her depths.  Again, and again, he plied her with his fingers, loving the sounds she made as he found the perfect spot as he readied her for their joining. 

“Now.”

He grinned in the morning light as he licked her swollen bud.

“Please, take me,” she gasped.

Not before she went up in flames.  He stroked and swirled.  She arched and moaned. 

“Drake, oh my God.  Yes.”

She bucked up against him and then he felt her shatter.  He couldn’t wait another second.  He had to be connected to his wife.  Quickly, he sheathed himself in a condom, then liquid fire surrounded him as he melded his body to Karen’s.  Her gleaming green eyes shone brightly.

“So good.  I’ve needed this so much, Drake. It’s so good.”

Her foot trailed up the back of his leg and pressed into his ass.  She was trying to force him to go faster.  Deeper.  Well, his wife was just going to have to wait, they were doing things on his terms. 

She bit his neck, and he lost it, plunging deeper.  Molten fire enveloped him.  His head was going to explode.  She scraped her teeth against his neck, and clenched her internal muscles.

“God, Karen, what are you doing?” he groaned.

“I’m loving you.”

“You’re driving me fucking crazy.”

“Good,” she purred.  “Now fucking move.”

He didn’t have a choice.

He pulled out, her body felt sublime, the clasp of her body tried to keep him, and he pushed back in.  Again, and again, a deep and powerful rhythm emerged.  It had never been like this before.  Her green eyes glittered, but it was as if he saw all the way into her heart.  No not that, even deeper, into her soul.  The pleasure he was feeling was a connection that could only be felt when two halves of a whole finally found one another.  That was his last conscious thought before rapture exploded through his being.

***

JAMES EASTMAN - A WEEK Later

He stared down at the envelope that had arrived special delivery and he slit it open with his pocket knife.  He picked up the first newspaper clipping, it was from the London Evening Standard.  It gave a succinct account of a sheikh with suspected ties to ISIS who had been found dead aboard his yacht four miles off the coast of Qatar.  What made this situation particularly humiliating was pictures had made their way to the web of him having been engaged in autoerotic asphyxia while surrounded by gay pornography.  The London paper went on to say that the sheikh’s father was insisting that this was a set-up perpetrated by enemies of his son.  The story stated that if it were in fact retribution for something, that it had been perfectly executed to shake up members of the Arab community since homosexuality is punishable by death in their religion.

The second piece of paper wasn’t a newspaper clipping, it was a one-page printout from an internet site.  It explained how the Lius, a Chinese family thought to control one of the most ruthless gangs in all of Shanghai, recently lost billions in a newly created cryptocurrency called Shi-Coin.  They had been duped into believing they were in on the ground floor of a Chinese government backed competitor to Bitcoin.  Further they had been convinced that the Asian leaders would soon outlaw the Western payment system and Shi-Coin’s stock would skyrocket.  When the family lost almost every penny, the patriarch, Zhang Liu brought his two sons to his home and shot them before turning the gun on himself.

An article from the Arizona Republic Newspaper was the third piece in the envelope.  It stated that Kevin Decault, the wealthy rancher who had been missing for over a week was found last night by a ranch hand.  The body was naked, bound to a fencepost, wrapped in barbed wire, in a frozen back pasture of his ranch.  He was surrounded by four of his prize-winning bulls.  According to the county coroner, he had bled out due to multiple puncture wounds inflicted by the horns of the animals.

James heard Wilma in the hallway, just before she knocked on the doorjamb of his study he slipped the papers back into the envelope but left out the picture, then pushed away from his desk, making room for his wife.  She walked in and smiled, then kissed the top of his head and slipped onto his lap. 

He watched his wife’s delicate fingers trace the smiling faces of Drake and Karen, then rested on their grandson.  They were enjoying the San Diego beach.  Drake was wearing a wet-suit and Karen was gorgeous in a green summer dress, her smile absolutely blinding.  James had never seen his daughter look so happy.  Four-month-old Andrew Mason’s features had filled out, and he was a perfect blending of his parents.  He had his mother’s eyes and smile, but James knew that everything else would be all Avery.

“They look happy,” Wilma said.

“Even better, they’re safe,” James said with satisfaction.

“I couldn’t ask for anything more than safe and happy.  Except maybe for my husband to come to bed with me.” Wilma smiled.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”  James kissed the love of his life, content in the knowledge that Drake Avery had kept his promise.

THE END