Dominant Predator (19 page)

It only took a second, then the glass behind me was raining down around me, sprinkling to the lacquered floor, and the Committee member dropped with a definitive thud.

I stood and glared out the window at where the bullet had come from. If Armise still had his eye to the scope then he would see the annoyance painted on my face.

I checked the man’s vitals to ensure he was dead—although with the gaping wound that started at his cheek and blew out the back of his head, I was relatively sure he wasn’t coming back.

I swiped my blade clean on the Committee member’s uniform and placed it back into my holster then stormed out of the house. My fury grew as I tromped up the hill. I hated fucking complications and this op had been nothing
but
since the beginning. I was ready to take it out on Armise, but that asshole was the one to start yelling first.

“What the fuck was that?” Armise growled at me as he stepped out from behind the cover of a water purification shed, slinging my rifle over his shoulder.

“Me?” I yelled back. “It took you fucking long enough to take the shot.”

“Maybe because someone’s head kept getting in the way. Forgive me if I didn’t want to fucking explode your brain as well!”

“I gave you plenty of opportunity to shoot! He fucking came at me with a knife. That tiny-ass surge-freak came at me with a knife,” I threw back at him.

Armise barrelled down on me and gripped my chin in a vicious hold, craning my neck back. He let go just as quickly, snapping my head down as I jerked away from him.

Armise gave a wicked grin. “I don’t see any fucking marks on you.”

I huffed, my anger ebbing despite wanting to hold onto it. “Because I’m a goddamn professional,” I snapped.

Armise’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. He pulled a cloth from his medkit and threw it at me. “Clean yourself up, soldier.”

I wiped the cloth across my face and down my neck, the blood already beginning to dry into a sticky mess.

“Water?” I asked, looking up at Armise where he paced in front of me.

He handed a canister over to me and I cracked the top, wetting the cloth.

“So what the fuck did happen?” I pushed him.

“I told you. I couldn’t get a clean shot.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Couldn’t without putting me at risk, you mean?”

“I would think that would be of some import to you,” he replied flippantly.

“Fuck that. You could have compromised the mission. You’re the one who said this war goes on whether we live or die.”

Armise’s nostrils flared and he cracked his neck. “I’m also the one who said my loyalty is to you, not to any of them. We stand together on this. There is no other option. Not for me.”

I glared at him, silent. Tried to grasp hold of the emotions his words almost ripped free from me. I could feel a response inside me. As if my reply should be automatic and just as determined as his was. There was something unnamed there, something I had never experienced and didn’t know how to describe, but before I could grasp hold of it, it was gone. “I don’t want to have this conversation.”

Armise fisted his hand in my shirt, yanking me forward. “You think I do? Talking to you is fucking pointless. But this”—Armise palmed my cock, the heel of his hand digging into the base of my dick while his long fingers began to work me over—“this at least you can understand. This you know how to respond to. With this, at least I can get an honest fucking reply.”

I ground my hips farther into his hand. “Is this the kind of response you want?”

Armise didn’t answer me with words. He slipped his hand beneath my waistband and gripped my cock, slowly pumping it.

The adrenaline from the kill was still flowing through me, thrumming through my blood, and yes…this was a reply I could give him. I threw my arm over his shoulder and buried my lips in the curve of his neck, biting down on his collarbone then licking up the tendon at the side to his ear.

I fit my body against his, pushed him back on his heels with the force of the movement. He rocked into me, snaking his hand behind my neck and threading his fingers through my hair.

“We should probably take this elsewhere,” I whispered against his skin.

Armise responded by tightening his grip on me. “Fuck it. They’re all dead.”

I pushed him against the shed, rutted up against him, kissed at his neck, along his jaw then found his lips. Fuck, those lips. Soft and yet demanding. That thick bottom lip, begging to be bitten at, my piercing catching on his skin until he opened for me. And that first slide of his tongue on mine was better than any drug, more satisfying than any kill.

He popped the button on my uniform, then his own, then took both our lengths in his hand. I thrust into his fist, along his flesh. I braced myself with one hand on the shed and unabashedly moved against him, that blinding heat coiling in my groin, wiping all sense from my brain. He dropped his hand off my neck and began lifting my shirt off. I arched back to give him room and a ripping pain went through my torso.

Armise stilled when I flinched. “You’re bleeding, Merq.”

I stepped back and pulled my shirt completely off, tossing it to the side. The pain was immediate, my body protesting the movement. “What the fuck?” I said as I looked down at the seeping wound, a half-moon crescent slash that ran from just below my left nipple to the bottom of my ribs. The cut was shallow but pulled farther apart with each movement.

When I looked back to Armise his brow was creased in concentration. Or frustration? I couldn’t read him, couldn’t figure out why the minor wound had flipped his emotions so quickly.

He grasped me by the shoulders and put my back to the shed, his fingers gingerly pressing around the cut. “He went for your heart,” Armise gritted out. He put his palm to my chest, and breathed deeply, steadily, as if he was ensuring that my heart was still beating.

“I’m okay.”

His head snapped up. His jaw flexed, his blue eyes narrowed. And still his hand remained over my heart.

“Just fucking touch me,” I said quietly, even as my heartbeat thundered in my ears.

His fingers went to my nipple ring, tugged at it, the uncomfortable pull creating sparks of silver in my vision, the ache running through my body in waves. He dipped his head down and took my nipple between his teeth, playing with the ring as he licked at the bud. He ran his hands down my torso, over my abs, then he curled his fingers into the hair at my groin, tugging it.

I winced, but couldn’t resist the urge to pull a fraction away and amp up the pressure. It sent shockwaves through my body and I couldn’t hold back—I needed more.

I grabbed Armise’s hand and moved it lower, wrapping his fingers around my balls and tugging gently. Armise reached his fingers back, teasing at my hole. He slid his other hand down to my cock, pumping me with a firm grip. He kissed me with a force I knew would be bruising, leaving my lips swollen.

And still I needed more. More.

Fuck.

Just more.

That unfamiliar, unnamed feeling began to build back up in me. As if it was competing for my attention, trying to coax me into places my head wasn’t willing to go even if my body was.

Before I could think, I was cupping my hand over Armise’s and pushing his finger inside me. I bit at my lip, the sudden uncomfortable burn bringing every nerve in me sparking to life.

“Fuck me with your hand,” I ordered, pushing him farther inside me.

A near growl came from Armise, then he was pushing me to the ground, ripping my pants off my hips and discarding them to the side. He settled between my open thighs and didn’t say a word as he pulled his canister of balm from his medkit and dipped his fingers into it. And before I could even think of changing my mind—realising that, fuck, he’d only done this to me once before—he had two fingers pushing into my ass.

“Fuck, that hurts,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

“Don’t fuck with me, Merq. You get off on the pain. Just take it. Just let me”—he dragged his fingers over my prostate, making me arch into his touch—“make you come.”

The rocks on the ground jabbed into my back. I could detect the edges of my fresh tattoo because, unlike the rest of my skin, the sensation on that part of my back was dulled nerves and the itch of healing. The scent of Armise’s balm and his familiar musk surrounded me, driving the metallic bite of the Committee member’s blood from my nose.

I dug the heels of my boots into the dirt and pushed back on his hand. The pain speared through me and his cold fingers intensified the nerve-fraying effect. I clamped my eyes shut and rode the movement of his hand as he spread me open, that undeniable emotion clawing at me now, a clamour in my head of memories, of Armise’s body under mine, my tongue on his sweat-slick skin, of my cock driving hard and fast into his ass until all thought except him was wiped away.

This claiming wasn’t enough. I needed—I wanted, fuck, so desperately wanted—more than this.

I opened my eyes and spoke before I had time to stop myself.

“Fuck me, Armise.”

Armise’s gaze became predatory in a split second. He moved his fingers harshly inside me, forcing my body to open to him.

This was uncharted territory for us. I’d never allowed Armise to fuck me, and only one other man ever had. I’d rarely trusted anyone enough to allow them to control me like that. But at that moment I wanted Armise to possess me completely.

I wanted to fucking let go for once. To have control ripped away from me.

To feel what Armise felt when I took him.

His fingers were gone for only a breath then his cock was pushing inside and I felt like I was being torn in half. The sensation was overpowering—too full, too harsh, too foreign—but I gripped his hips and drove him deeper. I accepted the pain that rent through me and let all control go. The agony melding with pleasure, morphing, roaring through my blood, making my hearing fuzz out until all I could do was hold on as Armise pounded into me.

He lifted my hips, setting my legs over his thighs, his thumbs and fingers digging into my flesh. Each pressure point felt like an ice-cold brand on my skin. He wrapped his hand around my cock. The balm still coated his fingers, and the easy slide of his fingers over my dick was gentle in comparison to the harshness with which he fucked me. It made my head spin and I had to clamp my eyes shut to keep from coming right then.

But I couldn’t block it all out. Armise was everywhere—his body coiled around me, his hands bruising my flesh, his cock driving deeper inside me with each thrust. His moans filled my ears, ricocheted through my brain, shredding all restraint, imploding my barriers like the blast of a sonicbullet.

I panted, begged, knew I sounded as desperate as I felt. And that just made him take me with more force.

I didn’t know how much more I could take. This was torture and desire and fear and lust and I wanted to scream for more, but I didn’t know what else he could possibly give me.

My release slammed through me without warning, with a cry ripped from me that made my throat raw from the intensity. I saw stars behind my eyelids, a whitewash of brightness, and I could feel Armise’s eyes on me even if I couldn’t see them. Even if I couldn’t find the will to look at him as he took me apart.

I barely registered the stuttering of Armise’s hips, his cock buried to the hilt in my ass, then he collapsed on top of me, his black and silver hair brushing against my chin as he kissed my chest. He rolled to the side with a gruff exhalation of breath.

Armise turned on his side, resting his head on my shoulder. Putting his left hand securely around my hip.

The thought that this was too intimate skittered through my clearing head as I remembered who we were and what we were tasked with accomplishing.

I tried to restrain the urge to curl into his body.

I tried to shut myself down.

I couldn’t.

* * * *

We’d known our job would become harder after the first three kills. But we’d had no idea how quickly the remaining Committee members would scatter and disappear. Months passed, countries and continents blending into each other, informants all beginning to look the same, to sound the same—whiny, desperate and cowardly.

As my frustration built, the need for revenge became my only driving force. I had been able to put the image of Sarai out of my mind when we were tracking the first three kills. To forget for a time about that stadium and the hundreds of thousands who’d died that night. But now I had too much time to think and too little stimulus.

I obsessed about how to get to Ahriman.

I settled into the darkness of vengeance. Welcomed it. Let it consume me.

And Armise didn’t try to convince me to do otherwise.

We were entrenched in the bitter cold of the northern fjords of the UU—the New Year having passed weeks ago—with a half-frozen rain sleeting down on us as we trudged to another informant rendezvous point. This was the first time that Armise was going to make contact with a former co-worker, as it were, since disappearing with me from that stadium.

Manny was a Dark Ops officer for Singapore and Armise insisted that he could be trusted—to a point. I was dubious. But all other avenues of intelligence-gathering had been dead-ends.

Armise was hunched over, speaking in low tones to Manny, who was feeding him more intel on the supposed Committee member hiding out in the towering mountains, kilometres off track and completely off grid. It was the closest we’d come in months to any of the remaining nine Committee members. The anticipation of ticking another body off our list of kills had me hyped up and ready to move.

My rifle was slung over my chest and I clicked the safety on then off, over and over again, the lever making a mechanical snick of metal on metal, until Armise whipped his head in my direction. “Fucking stop,” he ordered.

Manny’s and my breath came out in billows as we exhaled, but the condensation from warmer air meeting the cold was conspicuously absent from Armise. I had no doubt that his skin would match the frigid temps of this northern clime.

I furrowed my brow and put my hands on my hips. He was just as on edge as I was, apparently. Manny’s sudden appearance didn’t sit right with me. Which was why we’d chosen to meet in the middle of nowhere.