Sneak Attack (20 page)

“
Gio
this,
Gio
that. Why is he your best friend all of a sudden?”

He didn’t reply. A wise man knew silence was the best tactic to deal with a woman in full temper. Which only made me want to fight with him all the more.

“There’s tension there. Can’t you feel it? I can feel it. It’s like a cloud in the room.”

“And your way of dispersing it is bragging about how many dudes she’s sleeping with?”

“One dude. Just one.”

“With the possibility of more.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, except when you’re doing the exact opposite of what you should be if you truly want to keep them apart.”

“Which is?”

He lifted my hand and separated my fingers as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world. “Minding your own business.”

“Like I don’t know that.” I dropped my head on the back of the couch. “How’d your test go?”

“Aced it.”

“Of course you did. Brown-noser.” I sighed. “I apologized once.”

“Huh?”

“To Carly. I apologized.”

“How’d that work for you?”

“You saw. She hates me.” I sighed. “Let’s go to bed.”

Grinning, he dropped a kiss on my head. “Your segues are truly something to behold. This, folks, is why I love this woman.”

“Jackass, I meant to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” It took a lot for me to acknowledge
we
had a long day ahead, not just me. It was hard getting used to being part of a team, never mind truly believing we were one.

And part of that involved what I was about to do before we went to sleep, no matter how nauseous it made me.

“You naked in a sleeping bag is a recipe for good any way you cut it.” He waggled his brows as I hauled my shirt over my head and pulled on the sleepshirt I’d left right in the sleeping bag.

The world’s best housekeepers, we were not.

“You know I don’t sleep naked.”

“A guy can dream.” Showing his usual modesty, he stripped naked in about two seconds and crawled into the bag. He patted the space beside him and smiled. “C’mon, live a little. Skip the nightie and the panties.”

“Hello, your mother and my sister are right down the hall.”

“So? Turn out the light and we’ll zip up tight.”

My lips twitched as I shook my head and took off my jeans and panties. I folded them neatly, then cast a surreptitious glance at the doorway to the back hallway before darting for the light to turn it off. His soft laughter followed me.

I didn’t pull off my nightshirt until I was right beside the bag. Just in case, I tucked it right beneath the side, that way I could get dressed in a hurry if I had to. And since I was right beside my backpack anyway, I dug out the item I’d discovered—and blushed over—earlier in the day when I’d gone looking for aspirin.

Compared to what I intended to tell him, revealing my inexperience with sex toys was a piece of cake.

I slipped into the bag with him and didn’t move as he slid his heavy arm over my waist. I gripped the object at my side like one might a lethal weapon. A conversation like this required easing my way in, an icebreaker if you will.

Then the damn thing started to buzz and vibrate against my thigh. Loudly.

“What the—whoa.” He peeled up the top of the sleeping bag. “What are you doing down there? Can I watch?”

I laughed. Actually no, I snorted hard enough to rupture something in my nose, which only made me laugh harder. And the stupid toy fell out of my hand and rolled between us.

He finally grabbed the vibrator and held it up to the moonlight, studying it as a doctor might examine a tool of his trade. “Look at all those notches.” He turned his stare on me. “When a beautiful naked girl crawls in my sleeping bag with a vibrator, I take that as an invitation.”

My breath actually caught. “They’re right down the hall…” The argument sounded weak even to my ears.

“Doth protesth too fucking mucheth,” he said against my ear, adding a lick down the side of my throat that made me shiver right down to my toes. “Get wet for me.”

Shit, now I was flushing. “You can’t just
command
that to happen.”

“Wanna bet?” He placed the cylinder against the heat of my thigh and I startled enough to drag my nipples over the cool satin interior of the sleeping bag. The movement and the reality of what was about to happen had me dampening in a flash.

Then he started to talk in that soft, hypnotic voice that accompanied the bulk of my orgasms, and I was done for.

“Let’s start on low, shall we? Just warm you up a bit first. I’ll slide it along your lips, let you get used to how it feels. Circle it over your clit until it gets stiff. Until it starts to pulse. After a minute I’ll slip the toy down, slide it inside you. Then I’ll start to fuck you, nice and slow, until I can hear how soaked you are for me. Because we both know I’m the one fucking you, whether it’s a toy or my fingers or my cock.” His warm, wet mouth skimmed along the underside of my jaw and I quaked like a virgin on prom night. “Tell me you want me.”

“I want you.” My chest was rattling with the breaths I tried to hold inside. “God, I want you.”

“Good girl.” He slid his arm beneath my shoulders and nudged me upward. So I could watch. Dear Lord. “Open your legs.”

I had to. I had to know.

He flicked his thumb over the lever and it powered on, sounding more like a lawnmower than a quiet, discreet vibrator. 3C was probably getting an earful again, though at least they might get their rocks off this time.

On second thought,
eww
.

“Your mom’s going to hear.”

“I’ll just tell her I had to shave my balls.”

I couldn’t help laughing again, though my amusement swiftly disappeared when he slid the tip of the toy inside me and bumped up the speed. He’d totally lied about his process to get me used to the vibrator. He was going for it, right away.

Why had I expected anything different? Neither of us dipped a toe in when we could dive in headfirst.

And damn, he was diving in, all right. He had the entire thing inside me within a couple of passes, and steadily increased the speed and pressure until I didn’t have a hope in hell of not making noise. I bit down on his corded shoulder muscles and he groaned, turning his face against my breast as he rotated the toy inside me.

I fought the orgasm as long as I could. It seemed wrong somehow, to come around something that wasn’t him. But when he lifted his head and pierced me in the hazy moonlit dark with his gorgeously expressive eyes, I gave in. Hard. Shaking around him until he cuddled me close and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my throat to ease my tremors.

Then he turned on the toy again, and drew it along my damp inner thigh.

“No,” I whimpered, shaking my head.

“Yes. Let me take care of you.” He licked his way into my mouth, kissing me slow and deep. “Let me.”

If anyone could say no to him, it wasn’t me. Would never be me.

He pushed it inside of me again, slow and easy, and my still oversensitive clit pulsed painfully. I bit my lip not to moan aloud, but as he turned up the speed again, there was no stopping it. He caught the sound with his mouth, kissing me gently while he used the butt of his hand to hold me in place for the onslaught of pleasure. Wires were twisting and twining tighter and tighter inside me, hot and barbed with thorns that brought ecstasy with their pain. He kissed me so sweetly even as the pressure rose inside me to an unbearable level. Nothing took it away. Not rocking my hips, not lifting upward to get more of that evil, incredible toy. His hand pushed me down every time I tried to escape, and his lips pinned me with gentle kisses.

“You’re mine,” he breathed against my cheek as we both watched him work me in the shadowy recesses of the sleeping bag.

There was no refusing it. I whispered “yes,” even as he nudged me over the next rise.

I was his, utterly. And he knew it.

For good. For life.

When he finally drew it away, I was a jittery mess. I curled on my side away from him and he rested his chin on my shoulder, holding me close.

Somehow his husky voice invaded the post-climax haze.

“Swans mate for life. When one dies, the other dies too.” His lips touched my neck. “There can be no other.”

I blinked. Replayed it over in my head a couple times. “What the hell are you talking about?”

His chuckle made me smile too, even if I didn’t know what we were smiling about. He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “Romance will forever be lost on you.”

The humor vanished. “Don’t give up on me.”

“Never.”

“I need to tell you something.” I rolled on my back and lifted a shaky hand to smooth the hair away from his brow. I was shaky for a whole new reason now. “Well, a couple somethings.”

“I thought you were cheating on me.” He averted his gaze. “For a while.”

“What?” I grabbed his cheek and drew his face back to mine. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“Sometimes. Over you, always.”

I lost my mad as fast as it had come. “Ditto. And don’t try to sweet talk your way out of this. How could you think I would cheat on you? There is no one…I could never…there would never be—”

He laid a finger over my lips. “I know that, now. We’ve come farther in the past weeks than we have in the past year.”

I shut my eyes. “I know I’ve been difficult to deal with.”

“Now and then, but hell, you can have five orgasms in a row, so it all works out.”

“Oh my God. It was not five. Like…four.” His laughter made me grin in spite of my embarrassment. “And a half.” I cleared my throat. “Why did you think I was cheating?”

“I saw all the phone calls from the unknown number. I wasn’t spying,” he added quickly. “I just picked up your number one day to grab Carly’s number, and they were all there. I didn’t know what to think.”

“They aren’t from a man. Or maybe they are. Hell if I know for sure. If they are from a man, they aren’t from one who wants to sleep with me.” I sat up and clamped my arms around my stomach. “More like he wants me dead.”

Tray sat up too. He brushed my hair off my shoulder and waited.

I told him everything I knew. About the calls years ago, the ones that had sent me running to the city and had caused me to change my name from Amelia to Mia. Then I went through the new calls, and the occasional texts, and mentioned that I’d wondered if the heavy bag was connected. If even that odd situation with the chick outside Vinnie’s that night in the alley might play in.

“The blonde,” he said, and I glanced at him, goose bumps popping out over my skin in spite of how warm the room was.

“What blonde?”

“I saw her in Vinnie’s one day. She was acting strange and just caught my attention for some reason. I couldn’t stop staring at her.” He pointed at me. “It was the same day you rushed in after my mom showed up.”

“That was the day the chick was in the alley. I thought she was blonde too. She had on a hoodie and shorts and sneakers. I couldn’t see her face.”

“If it was the same girl, she had pale skin, white-blonde hair. She looked like a runner.”

“Green eyes,” I said without thinking.

“I wasn’t that close to her, but maybe. How’d you see her eyes if you were in a dark alley?”

I swallowed hard. “Because she’s Darren’s daughter.”

“Darren’s…” He gripped my shoulder, tense fingers digging in. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“They’re using her to get to me.” I rubbed my suddenly gritty eyes. It wasn’t all that late, but God, I was exhausted. The kind of tired sleep wouldn’t help. “Or else she wanted to get to me and they hooked up somehow.”

Before he could question me further, I told him about Lorenzo’s visit the other day. His hand on my shoulder got tighter and tighter, until I wondered how he remained seated at my side.

“Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve killed him for daring step through the goddamn door.”

“He wants us to make a move. He’d be happy if I did something else, so he could get me where he wants me.”

“Which is where, exactly?” he asked, his voice like a whip.

“They wanting to build some kind of chick fighting empire. I don’t get it. I don’t want to. But Evie’s a part of it. I don’t know if she’s in their pocket, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“In their pocket how?”

“Lorenzo demanded I throw the fight tomorrow. Evie’s going to go far, and they want to back her. They’re putting big money on her winning, and if I lose, it’ll push her up the ladder faster, I guess. It’s all about green to them. Nothing else matters.”

Certainly not me or my sister.

A tool, Mia. That’s what you are to me.

He pushed a hand through his hair, then left his forehead pressed into the heel of his palm. “Do I have to ask what you said?”

“I told him to go to hell. Then I threw a shoe at his head.”

Tray’s head came up, his expression incredulous. “What happened to not doing anything to him so he can’t get you where he wants you?”

I shrugged. “The door had already closed behind him.”

“Jesus, Mia.”

“That’s not all,” I said quietly.

“Of course it isn’t. Because death threats and stalkers and fuck all knows what else couldn’t possibly be enough.”

“He threatened to harm you if I didn’t throw the fight.”

“Shocker. Typical scare tactic of a pussy in Italian leather.”

“Gorgeous Italian leather,” I corrected, then shook myself. “Anyway. I had something on my screen. Your screen. I was using your laptop.”

“You know that never ends well.”

“I do. It didn’t end well here either. There are so many missing kids. I never realized.”

The stories poured out of me. The grainy pictures, the snippets I’d read. Lainey Peterson. “It hit me hard, imagining her wandering around Chicago, scared and alone. Far from her home. Sometimes when kids escape, they don’t know where to go. Or if their attacker lets them go, it’s often in a city nowhere near where they live. Having to find someone to tell what happened to you…it’s almost as bad as the original attack.”

Saying nothing, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his chest.

“Lorenzo saw the screen. He told me he knew that was my greatest fear, someone I love turning up missing.” I almost couldn’t get the words out. They would make the potential horror I’d lived with for days for real. “Tray, he touched Carly’s picture. He could hurt her.”