In the Line of Fire: Hot Desert Heroes, Book 1 (17 page)

He had a certain skill set, as did Ty, Rafe, and Quincy, which meant they were uniquely qualified to go in to dangerous situations and have a good likelihood of coming out alive. His past was full of dark deeds, all done in the name of country or honor.

She could have everything else. Just not his darkness.

For now, he held her while she let go of some of the residual fear. After a few moments she pulled back and swiped her cheeks with her fingers. “I need to blow my nose,” she whispered.

“Okay, baby,” he said gently. He let her go and watched her walk into the master bathroom. She closed the door behind her. He heard her blow, then heard the water run.

There was silence for a few moments before she opened the door. “I look like I’ve been crying,” she said.

“They won’t notice,” he told her, figuring she was concerned the others would comment on her puffy eyes. As she drew near, he snagged her hand and twined his fingers with hers. “All they’ll see is your beauty.”

She snorted. “You are so full of it sometimes.”

He let that slide. For now. But someday she’d know she was everything he saw her to be. So he merely smiled and murmured, “Let’s go get some pizza, yeah?”

Delaney nodded and preceded him out of the room.

At the area where the hallway opened up, she made a right turn into the kitchen. He let her have that play and turned left to join his friends in the living room.

“Everything okay?” Ty asked in a low voice. He’d obviously seen that she was upset.

“Yeah. She unloaded on me some of the aftermath she still has swirling around over her Mount Lemmon trip.” He sat on one end of the sofa and glanced into the kitchen to see she was busying herself with gathering plates, napkins, forks, and knives. “Uh, baby,” he called out to her, “we won’t need forks and knives.”

She set the knives aside and didn’t look at him as she gave an agreeable “We’ll need forks for the cake” and set the silverware on the countertop.

A low buzz sounded, indicating someone was at the outer door of Red Eagle. “Got it,” Ty rumbled and got to his feet. Beck peeled off four twenties and handed them to Ty as he went by.

When Ty came back he held a stack of boxes that included two extra-large pizzas, three dozen wings, and a two-liter of diet soda. He set everything on the coffee table. “You aren’t getting’ any change, bro, ’cause you’re a generous tipper,” he told Beck with a grin. “Gave the kid more than a twenty percent tip for havin’ to haul this bounty.”

Beck was too hungry to care at the moment. “More beers?” he asked the guys.

He got an affirmative from all three. He went into the kitchen and grabbed four longnecks from the fridge. “You got that?” he asked Delaney with a nod toward the stuff she’d set out on the counter.

She rolled her eyes. When she looked back at him, she said, “It’s just a glass, five plates, and some napkins. I don’t know why you think I’m so incompetent I can’t even manage something like carrying a glass, five freaking plates, and some napkins.” She stomped past him.

Blindsided by her accusation, all he could do for a few seconds was stare after her. He drew in a deep breath and held it, tamping down his anger, before he blew it out between pursed lips. All right then,
that
was a discussion they were going to be having before the night was over. He didn’t know where this latest insecurity of hers was coming from, but it seemed simple logic that if he’d truly thought she was incompetent, he wouldn’t have offered her a job. A job, which, from Gabe’s account, she was so far performing brilliantly.

From the expressions on his team’s faces he could tell they’d heard her snap at him and wondered what was going on. He gave a negligible shake of his head and sat on the middle cushion of the sofa between Delaney and Ty.

Quincy leaned forward in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table and flipped open one of the pizza boxes with a loud, “Come to Papa!”

“You do know you have to share, right?” Rafe asked him.

“Yes. Yes I do.” He partially rose from his seat and held the box out to Delaney. “Ma’am, if you’d like to, would you be so kind as to select your slices?”

Her lips curved up. “I’ll start with one,” she said and did just that.

“Babe, you’d better get more than one,” Beck cautioned. “Just sayin’, with this lot, all of this…” he made a circular motion that encompassed the coffee table and its contents, “…will be gone in about ten seconds flat. Twenty tops.”

She obediently took another slice and said, “Okay, Quincy, that’s all I want.”

“You sure?” he asked. When she nodded, he grinned and settled back on the sofa, holding the box just above his lap. “You gents help yourselves to that box.”

While Beck, Ty, and Rafe began growling at him about his unwillingness to share, Delaney piped up with “I made cake”. When the men looked at her, pink swept across her face and she ducked her head a little. “So, um, you need to, um, save room for dessert.”

“Well, that’s a different story, then,” Quincy said and plopped the box onto the coffee table. He took a plate and proceeded to stack six pieces of pizza on it. He wrestled open the container of chicken and picked out several wings, then settled back in his chair and licked barbeque sauce off his fingers before bringing a slice of pizza to his mouth.

Rafe peered into the box decimated by Quincy’s hunger. “Bastard left two slices. Two very small slices,” he muttered as he put them on his plate.

“Here, you big crybaby.” Ty handed him the other box from which he and Beck had already taken four pieces each.

Rafe smiled and grabbed the last two slices from the box and set both boxes on the floor. Delaney put her plate on the coffee table, jumped off the sofa, and picked up the boxes.

“Babe, those can stay where they are for now,” Beck told her.

She shook her head. “I don’t want grease to get on the hardwood.” She took the boxes to the kitchen then came back and took another bite of her pizza.

While the men plowed through the food, Delaney sat back, seemingly content to listen to their banter. She’d just finished her second piece of pizza when Beck leaned forward for another wing. “You’re saving room for dessert, right?” she asked softly.

“No worries about that,” he told her. “My stomach has a separate space for dessert.”

Her laughter ended on a snort and of course she got embarrassed by that. As she muttered, “I’ll just go cut the cake,” he nabbed her hand and pulled her toward him.

“Just sayin’, baby,” he murmured in her ear, “I love how you laugh. It’s cute.” He let her go, liking how rather than look disbelieving she looked unconvinced. There might not be a big difference between the two, but there was enough of one that he felt like maybe he was making progress.

The cake was fantastic. He didn’t know why, but Beck was surprised at how good it was. He shouldn’t have been because it seemed like she was the kind of person who tried to do her best with everything she undertook. Before he could compliment her, Ty got in there.

“Laney, girl, you should have a bakery,” he said around a mouthful. “This is fuckin’ fabulous.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Thank you,” she said shyly. Turning to Beck she added, “I didn’t know what your favorite cake was, so I made a black-and-white, which has layers of both chocolate and vanilla. Well, that’s what I call it, anyway.” She stopped and bit her lip.

“Baby, just so you know, I don’t eat much cake, but when I do it’s usually somethin’ chocolate.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “But Ty’s right. This is fucking fabulous.”

Rafe agreed but Quincy didn’t say anything. When Beck looked at him, he was scraping the last bit of icing off his plate. Holding it out, he said, “That was delicious. But I think, just to be sure, I should have another piece.”

Quincy got his second piece and in short order the men thanked Delaney for the cake and the company, and left.

The silence in the condo was stark. “Do you want to watch TV for a while?” Delaney asked. She met Beck’s gaze then hers darted to one side.

He knew why. The guys were gone and he was alone with a woman he hadn’t had beneath him for weeks. If he didn’t get her underneath him soon, he’d go fucking insane.

“No, I don’t want to watch TV,” he responded. “Do you?”

She rolled her lips inward then whispered, “No.”

“I have a lot of things I want to do,” he went on, “but first I think we need to talk.”

She took a step back from him. “A-about what?”

He slid an arm around her waist and held her close before she could flit away. “About what you said to me in the kitchen.” He lifted a hand and brushed fine, silky hair away from her face. “That I think you’re incompetent?”

She stiffened in his hold. “You want to call my mechanic about my car and thought I couldn’t manage to carry five flipping plates from the kitchen to the living room.”

“Yes, I do want to talk to your mechanic because I understand how cars work and he can explain to me what’s wrong.” He rubbed one palm up and down her back. “I assumed you don’t know anything about cars. If that was a mistaken assumption, I apologize.”

She glared at him. “No, it was not a mistaken assumption,” she repeated in a snotty voice.

He drew in a breath. “Listen, I get that your ex-husband is a prick. But, baby, you need to hear me. I. Am. Not. Him.”

Her glare softened and she bit into her plump lower lip. “I know that.”

“Do you?” He stared down at her, holding her attention. “I realize you’ve been independent since the divorce and maybe you’re not ready to give that up. But I’ll knock myself out trying to make life easier for you, if that means calling up your mechanic or helping you carry plates and napkins into the living room.”

Her shoulders rose with her deep breath. She let it out slowly then told him, “I overreacted.” She lifted her hands and rested them against his chest. “It’s just…I get nervous around people I don’t know, especially men.” Her face colored. “Especially insanely handsome men who you somehow seem to be surrounded by. Like, all the time. Don’t you have any ugly friends?”

What a goofball. “I’d think after an evening of watching them scarf down pizza and belch, you’d be cured of that. Laney, you could not make a worse first impression than Quincy did.”

She grinned at that. “He
is
funny,” she said as if he’d just told her that and she was agreeing with him. “But I overreacted before the burping portion of the evening.” Her smile faded and she rubbed her palms over his T-shirt. “I’m sorry, Beck. I guess I’m still working through some stuff.”

“It’s okay. I understand that and I’ll be as patient as I can, but you need to keep it in the forefront of your mind that I am not your ex. Or your mother. I won’t be trying to control you or take away your independence unless your safety depends on it. All right?”

She nodded.

“All right.” He bent until his mouth was a breath away from hers. Her face went soft and needy and that look, plus the feel of her in his arms, cut through him like it always did. “Now, baby, are you ready to go to bed?” As soon as he got another nod from her, he bent lower and swept her into his arms, one beneath her knees, the other supporting her back.

She made a startled sound but curled her arms around his shoulders. When she tipped her head back, he took her mouth with his and carried her to the bedroom.

Chapter Fourteen

Finally. After over three weeks apart, Delaney was in Beck’s bed with him in it. He’d gotten her clothes off in about five seconds flat, and his own much quicker than that. Now he was heavy on top of her, kissing her like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat banquet.

She’d expected wild and abandoned after their separation, but he had better control than that. His kiss was soft and sweet. Already she was
this close
to coming, and he’d barely touched her.

But that was all it took. Beck’s big body bent over her, those large hands on her, and she was ready.

She moved her hands on him, loving the feel of his warm skin, the solid muscles beneath, the sharpness of his shoulder blades, the rounded firmness of his buttocks.

His hands moved on her too, running down her sides to slide around to cup her ass and arrange her exactly how he wanted in the cradle of his hips. The hard ridge of his erection pressed against the juncture of her thighs and she shifted restlessly beneath him. She wanted him inside her, but she didn’t want to lose the sweetness of how he was making love to her, and she knew she would the second he slid home. Soon, she thought. Soon she’d get him hot and desperate. For now, though, she got him warm and sweet.

And it was heaven.

He slid his mouth to her throat, kissing the sensitive hollow at the base; then his lips worked at the dip where her neck met her shoulder. She quivered. Slickness built between her thighs.

“God, I missed you,” he muttered against her skin, his voice soft but rough.

At his admission, her stomach hollowed and her heartbeat stuttered. She twisted her fingers gently in Beck’s hair. “I missed you too,” she whispered. “So much.”

He lifted his head and met her eyes. His had gone that stormy dark gray that she loved so much. “I wish I’d been here for you,” he said quietly. “It kills me that you were scared, that you coulda died and I wasn’t here.”

Delaney could tell it bothered him. Whatever secrets he might be keeping, he wasn’t holding back on showing he cared about her. About her safety and her happiness. “I know,” she told him. “It’s okay. Everything ended up all right. I’m sorry I went off on you.” She stroked her fingers down his lean cheek. “I’ll learn to deal with you being gone.”

And she would, though she was under no illusions it would be easy.

His mouth took hers in another kiss as he cupped her breast in one big hand. The warmth from his palm spread through her. He swiped her nipple with his thumb, the callus on the pad bringing it instantly to a peak.

Delaney arched to press into his hand. She slid her hands from his back to his backside. Beck growled into her mouth and his kiss turned heated, more demanding, not as slow and sweet as the first one. He brought his thumb into play, meeting his finger, and he pinched her nipple then did a slow, rolling twist.

She whimpered, her fingers clenching his ass. She tore her mouth away from his. “I want to touch you,” she moaned.

“Baby, you are touching me,” he said.

She slid one hand from his buttocks and wrapped her fingers around his cock. It was hard, thick, and hot. So hot.

And it was hers.

“This,” she whispered. “I want this.” She stroked up and down once, then up and down again then slid her thumb in a circle around the silky tip. Hard and soft, all in one. And beautiful, this part of him. All of him.

He slammed his mouth down on hers, bruising in its force, and thrust his tongue between her lips. One hand slid between their bodies and he curled it over her mound, two fingers pressing against her clit.

She jolted and moaned into his mouth. “Beck,” she whispered against his lips, her body arching into his touch, her legs restless against the sheets. Keeping his weight off her with one forearm to the mattress, he moved his hand from between her legs to the hand she had wrapped around his cock. She protested his actions by struggling to get her hand out of his so she could put it back on the prize.

“Baby, I like that you like touchin’ me,” he rumbled. “But right now I’m gonna put my mouth on you. You’re gonna come, then I’ll work you on my dick. All right?”

Oh hell yeah!

“All right,” she said, and stopped fighting his hold.

His quick grin told her he wasn’t fooled. “I’m too close right now,” he whispered against her lips. “Not gonna take much to make me go off. So I want to take care of you before I get inside you. Later on we can go slower.”

She shivered against him. “Okay,” she whispered back.

“Fuck me,” Beck muttered. Then he did what he’d promised. He slid her toward the edge of the bed, his mouth never leaving her body. He stopped off first at her breasts, tonguing one nipple then the other, suckling them until they were swollen and red. Then he kissed his way down her belly. “Open for me,” he urged, putting pressure on the insides of her knees.

Eagerly she did what he asked, resting her soles on the bed, her toes curling over the edge.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. He laid his lips on the inside of her knee then moved up her inner thigh.

Delaney braced, her legs trembling as Beck continued his maddeningly slow journey. “What happened to fast?” she demanded.

He chuckled against her, the vibrations setting off small sparks in her core.

His thumbs spread her labia; then he was there.

Oh God, was he there.

He licked; he sucked; he nibbled. When his tongue wasn’t playing with her clit, it was fucking up into her and his fingers went into play. Then he’d suckle her clit and his fingers would fuck her.

She couldn’t stop her hips from moving, rising up into his touch. He slid both hands under her, cupping her buttocks, lifting her to his mouth. She curled her fingers into the sheets beneath her. Her breasts swelled, the nipples stabbing into the cool air.

“Touch yourself, baby,” Beck muttered against her slick flesh. He kept his mouth where it was, but moved just his eyes to look up at her face. “Let me see you pinch your nipples. Show me how you like it.”

Delaney’s face flushed with renewed heat at the thought of doing that while he watched, but she could see he was getting turned on by what he was doing, and it would turn him on more to see her help him get her off.

So she brought her hands to her breasts, and with thumbs and forefingers, she pinched and rolled the tips.

He groaned and swiped his tongue through her folds. “Harder, baby,” he breathed. “Twist ’em harder.”

She did, moaning as the pleasure/pain streaked through her. Then her climax was upon her. “Beck,” she moaned, her neck and back arching.

With a growl he pulled her closer to his mouth and kept on sucking. She dug her heels into the mattress. Through her cries and the pounding of her pulse in her ears she vaguely heard his low groan, felt the brush of his lips against her belly. The mattress depressed as he put a knee to it. He shifted her farther up on the bed.

When she came back to herself, he kissed her, and she tasted herself on his tongue. The tip of his cock slid through her slick folds; then he thrust inside.

She caught her breath.
God!
She felt stretched to her limit. It bordered on pain, but the good kind. The kind that, when you finally got to the pleasure, made it all worthwhile. She lifted her knees high, bracketing his sides, and wrapped her arms around him.

“Fuck,” he grunted, his mouth against her throat as he drove into her then back out again. “So fucking tight. Home.”

What?
She clasped him closer while she rode the upward swing of another climax. “What? Beck, what?”

“You feel like home,” he ground out. “This is why. I. Do. What I do.” He slammed into her then glided out. “My reward.” He slammed in and ground against her and groaned. “We fit. Perfect.”

“Yes,” she breathed as her core tightened.

“Give it to me,” he told her, powering into her now with deep, strong thrusts.

He bucked against her, plunging fast and hard between her thighs, his breath going uneven. He rammed in, grinding against her groin, putting pressure on her clit. She held on tight, throwing her head back to moan her second orgasm. He shoved his face into her neck and with a shout that muted to a groan he came with her.

Delaney savored this moment when she had Beck close, the sleek, warm, sweaty skin of his back against her palms, the feel of his cock not quite soft inside her as he glided in and out gently, drawing out their coupling. The smell of him, of their sex, in her nostrils. He shifted his weight so his upper body wasn’t crushing her, but kept them joined and nuzzled her neck, one hand stroking up her torso to cup a breast.

“Beauty,” he muttered against her skin. “Got beauty wrapped all around me.”

Tears hit her eyes. It meant so much to her that he thought that.

“I think I could live the rest of my life, just like this,” she whispered, touching his cheek with gentle fingers. It was an admission of love without using the word.

He pressed his lips against her throat.

“Gotta take care of the condom,” he murmured and rose up on his forearms.

She hadn’t even noticed when he’d put one on, that was how far gone she’d been.

He leaned down and kissed her mouth gently. “Do what you gotta do to get ready for bed, baby. But no panties, all right? I’m not done.”

She shivered and gave him a nod. “Okay.”

His lips tipped up in a lopsided smile before he dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose and levered out of bed.

She watched the play of muscles in his ass and back as he walked into the bathroom, until the closing door blocked him from view. Then she got up and went to the closet to his set of drawers. She pulled out one of his soft T-shirts and put it on. As she left the closet, he came back into the bedroom. She glided her fingers across his abs when she walked past him and into the bathroom so she could tidy up.

When she was done, she returned to bed. Before she could settle down, he growled, “Once wasn’t enough. Want to taste that sweet pussy again.”

He piled pillows beneath her ass and made space for himself between her thighs by the expedient method of tossing her legs over his brawny shoulders. He ate her as if he hadn’t just gone down on her and fucked her. He sucked and fucked her with his tongue. When her body jerked, he took his mouth away and drove two fingers in. She strained against him, crying out, her body bucking to the rhythm of his hand; then it went taut as her release splintered through her.

When she’d recovered sufficiently, she came up on her elbows to see one of the hottest things she’d ever seen in her life, ever
would
see, and that was Beck, up on a muscled forearm between her legs, eyes blazing, her calves still dangling over his broad shoulders. She could see his hand, could feel his fingers still tucked inside her, sliding in and out. His thumb grazed her clit and she bucked again. “Beck,” she whimpered.

“Beauty,” he rumbled. “Not done, Laney.”

Her breath hitched in her throat.
What?
“You’re not done?”

“Goin’ down on you. Need another taste. Say no now if it’ll be too much.”

She blinked. She wasn’t sure she could take any more, but she wasn’t too keen on denying him at the moment. “Um…”

“Didn’t say no,” he muttered and lowered his face back to her. When his mouth hit her and his fingers began thrusting faster and harder, her eyes closed and her head dropped back. She dug her heels into his shoulders for leverage and surged into his mouth, so close, so fast. So close!

His fingers rammed into her, his mouth latched on to her clit and sucked deep, and because she hadn’t completely come down from the last orgasm, she soared over the edge. “Beck!” she screamed, her body jolting, her hands clenching the sheets beneath her.

As she caught her breath, he rested his cheek against her heaving belly. When her breath finally returned to normal, he turned his head to press a kiss against her skin then maneuvered up and over to her side, drawing her into his arms.

She automatically settled on her side with her arm thrown across his hard belly. She lay there, listening to his breathing, hearing his heartbeat, and felt herself being lulled into sleep because, well, who wouldn’t be after three mind-blowing orgasms?

Then, suddenly, her mind started going a mile a minute and she knew she had to tell him about her encounter with Frank. She knew from experience she didn’t want Beck to find out from someone else because, like with her car’s brake failure, he’d lose his flipping mind. So she said to him, “Um, Beck?”

“Right here, baby.” His voice was drowsy and warm with humor and, probably, residual endorphins from sex.

“I should tell you, I think…”

All of a sudden she was on her back and he was braced on an elbow looking down at her with twinkling eyes. “Jesus, babe. What?” His lips quirked in a half smile.

“Well, about a week ago, I called my girl posse together so they could help me come to some conclusions about things—”

“Your girl posse?”

She glowered at him. “Yes, my girl posse,” she said in a tone that dared him to make fun of her.

He shook his head and murmured, “Go on.”

“Anyway, while we were at Coffee & Confections my ex-husband came in.”

His big body went taut.

She smoothed her hands over his shoulders. “It’s okay. Nothing happened except him shooting off his big mouth like he always does around me.”

“When’s the last time you saw him, before this time?”

She couldn’t get a handle on what he was feeling. His face was closed down; even his eyes had gone dead. He didn’t seem upset necessarily, but he obviously was not happy that her ex had shared space with her. “I hadn’t seen him since the divorce was final,” she told him. “He lives and works up on the northwest side of town, and I lived on the east side and worked down by the airport, so there really was no reason for us to be in the same area.”

“But he just happened to stop in to a Midtown confections shop for coffee?” He looked as skeptical as she’d felt when she looked up to see Frank standing there.

“That’s it exactly. He said he’d heard they have the best coffee in town, which they do, but I think he knows I hang out there and stopped in to jerk me around.” She licked her lips. “Beck, I had a set of spare keys to my car in the junk drawer in my kitchen. When I packed up all my stuff to move, they weren’t there. I think…” She took a deep breath and rolled her lips between her teeth. “Do you think he took them?”