Chapter Twelve

In a flash he was on her, fondling her breasts as he kicked off his underwear. Lizzy smiled as she kissed the top of his head. She had the brawny operator wrapped around her finger. It was him, and only him who she wanted in her bed.

She couldn’t imagine being with anyone as solid, as sheltering as James Cane. His strength chased away her cowardice, and when he looked at her with those hound-dog eyes, she felt like she could climb Everest.

A future with this handsome soldier still fell somewhere off her radar, but she could enjoy the moment, and what a moment it was. She sensed his thrill of arousal. His expert tongue swirled along her entrance, and her lady parts clenched at the electric touch. She came. Then he made her come again with explosive pleasure. After what seemed like hours of torturous bliss, John pulled back.

He ran a finger up her swollen folds and sat back to sheath himself. “Are you ready, Lizbug?”

She nodded as he raised her knees up to her chest. “Open your legs up… that’s it, honey. Just like that.” When his finger touched her, she jerked.

“Easy. This is fun, remember? If it hurts, tell me to stop.” He slipped a large finger in and used his other hand to massage her clit. As he stroked and rubbed, she began to pulse. He rubbed the tip of his shaft over her entrance, then slipped it inside.

“You’re so tight, shit.” Pulling out, he worked the tip slowly back in. “You okay, baby? How does it feel?”

“Different. Kind of full. It’s not bad.”

“Not bad? Guess I’d better try harder.” One hand fingered her, and he leaned towards her. “Look at me.”

Lizzy stared into his intense gaze.

He pushed a little farther in, then pulled out. “I’m so lucky to be here with you, feeling your hot little flower clenching around me. You’re amazing.” He pulled out. “Can you feel me fucking you, baby?”

His dirty words turned her on, and Lizzy groaned as he pushed slowly back in. “You like that? My cock likes it, likes it way too much.” John paused, allowing her to get used to his size, and she relaxed. Her muscles twitched, craving release, begging him to move. He bent and kissed her slowly, gathering her in his arms as he pulled out and drove himself all the way home.

No pain. Her body slowly adjusted, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

His arms shook as he held onto his control. “Lizbug. Holy hell.”

“I’ve waited so long for this. Please.”

Hard muscles caged her in. The slow rhythmic pumping of his powerful hips held her captive as his cock drilled her into the mattress. Passion rippled through her. This was what it was like to be with a man. Sweaty, messy, warm and oh, so good.

Too soon, muscles tensed under her fierce grip, and John shouted his release into her neck. She knew he’d held back, controlling his frantic pumping action, stilling too quickly and growling into her shoulder.

He’d barely come down before rolling her to the side.

“Are you okay, honey?”

She nodded. “That was good.”

John groaned. “So, we’ve graduated from ‘not bad’ to ‘good,’ and you didn’t come.”

“It was my first time. I didn’t feel any of the pain that girls talk about.”

“It doesn’t have to be painful.”

“I liked it, can we go again?”

“Easy, tigress, give me at least thirty minutes.”

Lizzy gave him half that. By lunch, she’d come twice, with him inside her. The feel of his hard thighs slamming against her hips was intoxicating. His male strength, driving her towards shuddering ecstasy. She loved the way he’d slow his pace back down, before taking time to roll his hips, grinding his pelvis against hers. It felt so intimate, a large sweaty male buried fully inside her. Then he’d pause to roll his thumb between them before gradually building back up to thrusting wildly.

Trying out different positions was fun—the poor man looked sated by the time they climbed in the small shower. That didn’t stop her from falling to her knees and wrapping her mouth around his delicious man bits.

“Oh, shit!”

“Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.” She winked and applied herself with gusto as he groped for the shower wall, almost sliding on his butt.

***

Johnny woke to a guitar strumming in the next room. Shadows darkened the bedroom as dusk fell. Was his cock still attached? He reached down—awakened from its nine-month dormancy with the most thorough workout of its existence. He adjusted himself cautiously as he rose, pulling on his briefs.

Maybe if he hid his dick from the budding nympho down the hall, she’d forget it was there. Who was he kidding? Johnny loved every minute of having her eager hands and mouth wrapped around his dick. No woman had ever matched energetic Lizzy in the bedroom, and this was only her first day. The notion that she was a petite and delicate flower was blown to all hell. His phone beeped, and he checked the incoming message.

Walking down the hall, Johnny poked his head cautiously around the corner and spotted Lizzy sitting cross-legged in a furry white bean bag chair. He’d noticed the monstrosity that first day in her apartment. It looked like a stuffed yak.

Lizzy wore his oversized T-shirt and a pair of fluffy gray socks. God, she was small enough to fit into his go-bag. An unfamiliar melody filled the air, and she hummed along, slipping in the occasional word while perfecting the tune.

He lay down on the floor and leaned his head against the yak bag. A warm breeze slipping in from the open balcony door stirred the lace curtains. When she finally paused to tune a guitar string, he asked what she was playing.

“It’s ‘Leave a Trace.’ By Chvrches, a Scottish band. Chvrches is spelled with a V, not a U.”

“Nice, it has an eighties vibe to it.”

“That’s why I’m totally obsessed. They’re a synth-pop band with an electric dance feel.” Lizzy pulled out her phone and played the original.

He didn’t say anything, but Lizzy’s voice was just as phenomenal. He handed back the phone. “Lizbug, you kind of sound like Avril Lavigne. Kind of look like her too.”

Judging by the haunted look passing over her sweet face, that was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Johnny twisted to look up. “What did I say? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She glanced away.

“Talk to me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think Avril Lavigne is amazing, but so did Ivan. For months, he’d insist that I play only her songs for him. Over and over. He pushed me to apply to one of those singing talent shows and would critique my performance for hours, telling me how Avril sang it better. After I recovered from his assault, I packed my guitar away.”

“That son of a bitch.”

“One day in therapy, the counselor encouraged me to start playing again. It was over a year before I played in front of anyone. Abigail was the first person. Then months later, that night at her house was my second go-around—the night that I played for you and for Max. Don’t ask me to play Avril. It reminds me of Ivan. I’ll get there eventually, just not today.”

Johnny didn’t trust himself to speak, wanting to punch holes through walls. Instead, he pulled her down and feathered a kiss over her temple.

“You sing like a goddamn angel. That pretentious, talentless ass-tard knew what an asshole loser he was and tried to bring you down to his level by breaking you down.”

“I know. That’s what my therapist said.”

“That one time you sang for me, I recorded it—without your consent—and I’m not sorry. I’ve listened to that grainy recording at least a thousand times. It’s my lifeline in the field.”

“John…” She stroked his scruffy cheek.

He waded back out of the touchy-feely quicksand that threatened to sink his toughened heart and rolled to his back on the bean bag, wanting to broach what had happened in Johannesburg.

While chasing an elusive terrorist, he’d befriended Lizzy, intent on using her to get close to Abby. Except he’d fallen hard and fast. He’d wanted to tell her so many times who he really was, even though saying something might have compromised the mission. The last night he’d spent with her, they’d had dinner at an Italian bistro. He’d played with her hand, marveling at her delicate fingers nestled in his large palm. He’d closed his fingers tightly around hers and opened his mouth to ask her to go for a walk—suddenly ready to confess his subterfuge—when Kris Muller joined their group. Abby introduced Muller as her childhood friend. Johnny despised Muller for the way he’d treated Abby and for the way he’d targeted Lizzy that night. When Johnny’s control finally snapped, it was too late. Lizzy panicked and left. The next time he saw her, she’d almost died in a shootout.

Johnny shifted on the squishy bag. “I’m sorry I let you down in South Africa, that I almost got you killed. I didn’t protect the one person who mattered most to me and I’ve hated myself ever since.”

She didn’t say anything and for a moment he wondered if she’d heard.

Finally, she spoke. “You put me at risk, but you also protected me, and you did the same in Peshawar. I’m still learning to trust and I can’t promise that this affair will change anything.”

“So, for now, I’m a friend who scratches your itch?”

She ran a hand along his shoulder. “More like a friend that strokes my itch… long, delectable, pounding strokes.”

He pulled her down for an upside-down kiss, she toppled sideways and giggled.

As she rolled upright, Johnny remembered his earlier text.

“I have news. Brianna and Suzie were sentenced today.”

“Oh, God.”

“They’ve both been fortunate and will serve only two months. My agency negotiated a transfer to an all-women’s minimum-security facility, with decent dormitory accommodation in Karachi. It’s not ideal, but physically they should be safe.”

“Two months though.”

“Prosecution pushed for a twelve-month sentence. And there are at least twenty thousand pending cases for the Peshawar High Court. The girls were handled quickly, instead of waiting months for their trial.”

“I want to see them.”

“No. It’s too dangerous. Ryker will visit them next week.”

“I can—”

“No, Lizzy. We went through a great deal of trouble to extract you. You’ve been flagged, you can’t go back.”

She fiddled with the yakky fake fur of the bean bag, twisting it in her fingers before saying, “Thank you for caring and please thank your superiors. I’ve had nightmares—imagining stonings or dirty cells with piles of hay in the corner.”

“They’ll both have a bed; the facility is well run.”

Lizzy hugged him hard. He stood and pulled her to her feet. “It’s my last night to chill before I’m back in the middle of bum-shitting nowhere weighed down by fuck loads of battle rattle. Pull on that cute dress and let’s roll—I could eat an entire cow at that bistro down the road, the one with the German beer.”

Johnny didn’t want to think about leaving her. Their fragile new relationship—whatever it was—may not withstand a lengthy amount of time apart. Switching the relationship from casual to concrete would take time. Uncertain deployment schedules ate into that opportunity and Johnny prayed he’d be back with Lizzy within the week.