Heat Seeker (24 page)

His release tore from him. He felt it shoot from the tip of his cock, filling the inside of her hot mouth as he felt her take him, swallowing the essence of him. He groaned her name, not caring how it sounded or what it gave away.

All he cared about was Bailey and the arousal that kept him brutally hard. As her tongue gave another long, delicious lick over the head of his cock, he pulled back, jerked her to her feet, and lifted her to him.

Bailey cried out in surprise and pleasure as she was lifted against John’s chest. His head lowered, his mouth covering a hard, sensitive nipple before sucking it into his mouth. Wicked hot and brutally ecstatic, each hard draw of his mouth sent shards of sensation striking through her womb before it wrapped tightly around her swollen clit.

She could feel each stroke of his tongue over her nipple, first one, then the other, as he kept the firm, suckling pressure on the tip.

Her head fell back on her shoulders as she gripped his hair and fought to hold on. To keep him to her, just for a little while. To make enough memories to hold her through the rest of her life, to keep her warm at night when he was gone again.

“Fucking beautiful,” he groaned as his head lifted.

Pressing her back against the shower wall, Bailey felt his lips move lower. She felt his tongue between her breasts, running down her belly. As he dropped to his knees in front of her and spread her thighs, his lips moving to the swollen, distended bud of her clit, Bailey felt her senses exploding.

Heated water showered around them as the hot warmth of his mouth surrounded her clit.

His tongue was velvet heat as it licked around the swollen bud, worked it against the underside, and laved it with hungry strokes.

He kissed it. Sucked it inside, then licked again and again, until Bailey was fighting to hold back her screams, pleas that he give her what she needed, that he sent her spinning into the star-studded void she could feel awaiting her.

“John!” His name was a shattered cry on her lips as his tongue stroked, his lips sucked. His fingers moved between her thighs, two sliding high and deep, filling her, working inside her with tight, heavy strokes.

He stretched her, burned her as he filled her. Bailey spread her thighs wider, panted his name, and fought to breathe just enough to make sense of the sensations tearing through her.

It hadn’t been like this before. It had never been this hot, this vibrant before and she found herself at once frightened and exhilarated by the sensations tearing through her.

Excitement wound in her chest. Blood thundered through her veins. Pleasure tore through her senses.

She couldn’t hold on to her senses like this. Was she supposed to? Was anything supposed to be this good, this hot?

Pleasure wound inside her, tightening in her womb, her pussy, swelling her clit and sending pulses of sharp electric sensation tearing through her.

Bailey felt her hands latch into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp as the tension escalated, tightened, and exploded into a starburst of rapture so sharp and intense that her knees weakened, her legs collapsed.

And he was there. John caught her, held her close to him, lifted her as he wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed the heavy tip of his cock into the violently sensitive tissue beyond.

“Ah yes.” Her lips moved to his shoulder, his throat. “Oh God, John. Like this. Just like this.”

Hard and deep. There was no control left for either of them. His hands cupped her rear, his fingers clenched there as he began to thrust inside her. His groans and her cries filled the shower, wrapped around them, bound them.

She could feel the bond as it began to tighten, felt it settle inside her, tighten through her as her orgasm rushed over her again.

She tightened around his thrusting flesh. Her legs gripped him harder, her fingers dug into his hair and her back arched as she felt his lips at her neck. And she felt his release. Unbidden, unsheathed, his cock throbbed, swelled, then sent his seed spurting deep and hot inside her.

Bailey’s eyes flared open to stare into his eyes. Feeling the last pulses of his release, the last echoes of her orgasm, their gazes connected, held and they both stared into the face of reality.

It wasn’t the release, it wasn’t that she wasn’t protected, because she was. Bailey didn’t leave her protection in any man’s hands. It was the knowledge that this intimacy had never been shared with another. Not even Trent.

She had felt this, known this. She had never given this to another man, until now.

John held something Trent hadn’t.

Her soul.

MARY GREER
’
S MOUNTAIN
cabin was a twenty-five-room three-story mansion set in a pristine valley surrounded by aspen, oak and huge fir trees. A large lake bordered one side of the property while stables and a snowmobile shelter bordered the other. A huge evergreen garden maze stretched out behind the house, while the front and side were reserved for the driveway and a multicar garage.

Limos were lining up in the huge circular driveway as the Serborne vehicle pulled in. Chauffeurs, butlers and housemen were carting luggage into the house and following the directions of Mary’s excellent staff in the placement of guests and their possessions.

There were more than two dozen couples attending. Invitations were much sought after and prized, even among the social elite who spent most of their winter in Aspen.

Dressed in winter-white cashmere pants, sweater and long coat, Bailey allowed John to help her out of the limo two days later as she stared up at the imposing structure overlooking them and wondered once again whatever possessed these people to live their lives as they did.

Bailey would be bored silly within two weeks and she knew it. A life of balls, parties, social luncheons, and shopping had never been her thing, as she’d proved when she left home just after she turned eighteen.

It had been her mother’s life, though, as well as that of her mother’s friends. They had lived for the next party, the endless rush of social functions and were crushed if invitations to their own weren’t accepted.

Security had been doubled from previous years, Raymond had assured her on the phone that morning. Every precaution had been taken to make certain that there would be no risk to her.

Bailey was beginning to believe that Raymond was truly upset over the attempt to kill her the week before. He had placed a security team outside her cabin, while inside both John and his bodyguard Travis ensured her protection.

Living under the constraints of that “protection” was starting to get on her nerves. She wasn’t a hare-brained debutante, she had assured them. She knew how to take care of herself.

“Nice place,” John commented as he let his hand linger at the small of her back to lead her to the open double doors to the marble foyer of the cabin.

“Do you think so?” she muttered. “I always felt it was a bit ostentatious. Too large and much too glitzy. It’s the one piece of property that Mary owns that causes me to question her taste.”

No one else heard the muttered insult, though John doubted Bailey would care if it had been. It was rather a known fact that Bailey shared housing and clothing tastes with few other people.

He could hear something more in her voice, though, a sense of disappointment, a soul-deep ache as she stared at the glittering, glitzy dwelling and those who were entering it.

Chauffeurs and house staff called back and forth. Luggage by the ton was being hauled in for a two-week stay, and many of the twenty-four guests had retreated to the ballroom and the buffet and drinks provided there.

“Ms. Serborne. Mr. Vincent.” Raymond and Mary’s butler met them at the door. “The Greers have requested your presence in a private gathering in the library. If you’ll follow me.”

Nose in the air, highbrow, and definitely status-conscious, the middle-aged gentleman led the way through the foyer to a marble-floored hall that in turn led to another wing of the house.

“Mr and Mrs. Greer.” The butler opened the door with a flourish before addressing his employers. “Ms. Serborne and Mr. Vincent.”

John placed his hand on Bailey’s back as they entered, felt the fine tension that held her muscles tight, and ached for her. She hated Raymond Greer. There hadn’t been a single noted confrontation between the two when they had been in the agency that had ended with anything less than animosity. She had known her former boss was on the take. Had known it, and had been unable to do anything about it.

Until now. But the road to the final goal was paved with heartache and pain for her. He had seen it in her eyes before their arrival, and he felt it now emanating from her body.

“Bailey, John.” Dressed in black silk pants and a matching black sweater, Raymond rose from where he sat with his wife in front of the fireplace and approached them with a friendly smile.

“Greer.” John accepted a hearty handshake and watched as Raymond turned to Bailey, gripped her shoulders, and gave her a warm kiss to the cheek.

A smile curled Bailey’s lips, even sparkled in her eyes, but it was no more than a testament to how hard she was reaching inside herself to carry on the charade.

“Call me Raymond, John.” Raymond clapped him on the shoulder as he turned back to Bailey. “Let me get you a drink. What are you having?”

Bailey’s voice was soft, gentle, so sweet it was almost enough to give him a toothache. Raymond’s smile was pure charm on a weasel’s face as he turned back to John. The illusion the man presented was almost amusing.

Requesting a straight whiskey, he kept his hand at Bailey’s back as Raymond motioned them to the small gathering. Ford Grace and his ex-model mistress Rose sat on a love
seat parallel to the fireplace. Mary sat on the love seat directly in front, which left another free for Bailey and John.

“Wagner.” Ford nodded back at Bailey almost hesitantly.

“It will be good to see him,” Bailey stated. “I haven’t had much time to spend with old friends.”

Ford nodded. “I’m glad to see you survived the last party well,” there was a hint of concern in his gaze. “I worried your past would follow you when you left the agency.”

Ford glanced at Raymond, then back to Bailey. “Your father worried constantly that one day you wouldn’t return home,” he stated as Raymond handed them their drinks.

Bailey stared back at Ford, hiding the hatred that welled inside her, that threatened to damage the goal she had kept in the forefront of her mind for so long.

She hated the sincerity he faked so easily. The concern that darkened his gaze and gave his expression the appearance of affection. She wanted to scream at him, to rage over the elaborate game he was playing and force him to admit to being the cold-hearted son of a bitch that she knew he was.

“If my past is returning to haunt me, then I’m certain I’ll have it dealt with soon,” she assured Ford before glancing at John with the confidence of a woman who knows her lover is taking care of the matter as they settled on the love seat in front of Mary.

“I’ve hired extra security staff for the party, dear,” Mary expressed, her concern genuine. “We’ve had to do this several times when Ray’s enemies have found him as well. It’s a shame that serving your country comes with such risks right when you should be able to relax and enjoy your lives.”

“It would be far easier to tolerate if the country you risked your life for gave a damn,” Ford injected smoothly, critically. “I’ve not seen a time that Raymond’s life was in danger that the agency gave a damn.”

Unfortunately that was true. Bailey wished she could argue the fact that more was done to protect retired agents, but she knew her argument would sound hollow at best. Besides, arguing for her country would do very little to engender the
trust she needed to draw Warbucks further into this little partnership.

“The agency barely gives a damn when you’re active,” she lied. She knew better. She knew the extremes that went into trying to protect agents, both active as well as retired.

“A shame,” Mary sighed, her delicate face creased in sympathy.

“Raymond, I believe Rose and I will see our way to our room now.” Surprisingly, Ford rose to his feet and extended his hand to his mistress as she joined him.

“And I believe I will as well.” Mary lifted her hand to Raymond, allowing him to help her from her seat. “I’m certain you and Bailey would like to discuss old times and those tales simply give me nightmares.” She grimaced.

Living those times still had the power to give Bailey nightmares.

Saying goodbye to Mary, Bailey restrained her own desire to escape to the privacy of her room with John. The sitting room felt stifling, the very air within it heavy with deceit.

“Bailey, would you mind if I talk to John alone for a bit now?” Raymond surprised her with the request. “I’d like to discuss a few security details with him, if you don’t mind.”

She narrowed her gaze at him. “John and I are partners, Raymond,” she reminded him coolly.

“And I understand that clearly.” He nodded. “Unfortunately, your choice of broker is going to have to prove himself to me, as well as to Warbucks, to gain approval, Bailey. John won’t be accepted instantly simply because he’s the one you chose.”