The Soldier (Men Who Thrill Book 3) (7 page)

Then, much to my frustration, she pulled back. But I didn’t have an opportunity to miss the contact because without pause, she lowered my boxer briefs, freeing my cock. She stared up at me, and then, after another chuckle, she captured me in her mouth.

The warmth of her mouth, the softness of her lips, the tight funnel she created to hold me all had me on edge, and I hardened further, which seemed to drive her. Hands now wrapped around my base, she took more of me in, moving until the tip of my cock hit the back of her throat.

She paused, and through sheer force of will, I stayed still, desperate to thrust until I spilled. I groaned when she retreated, but the sound was cut short when she took me in again, working her jaw until I reached the back of her throat and then retreating, only to do it all over again.

Her low, throaty moans, her plush shoulders against my hands, and the sweet tug her mouth as she sucked me were too much. I shouted my release, blasting my seed into her willing mouth, moaning at the pull against my still-hard shaft as she swallowed.

She held me there, tracing her tongue against my crown and shaft until I was fully spent and started to soften. When she released me, I hoisted her to her feet, crushing her against my chest as I covered my lips with her. It was only seconds after my intense climax, but I wanted her with an intensity that bordered on mania.

“Jordan,” I said, voice rough with desire, “I’m going—”

My words were cut off by the ringing of my phone.

I stopped, knowing who the caller was but unwilling to let anything intrude on this. I kissed her again, smiling against her lips when she tightened her arms around me, that smile changing to a frown when the phone rang yet again.

She stepped back, leaving my arms and turning away so that I couldn’t see her face.

“You should answer,” she said, still not looking at me. “It could be important.”

In that moment, I couldn’t think of anything more important than her.

“It can wait,” I said, quickly pulling up my underwear and pants but not bothering to fasten them.

I stood behind her and brought her to rest against me, her full hips against my crotch and thighs, the thickness of her midsection filling my arms. I bent down and traced my tongue against the shell of her ear, the shudder the motion elicited making me do it again.

But the moment was again interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

“It could be important,” she repeated, again stepping out of my embrace.

Whatever it was wouldn’t wait, but I was still reluctant to leave.

She turned and placed a hand on my forearm, her face soft with an expression of understanding.

“Answer. I’ll see you around.”

The words were ominous, left me uneasy, but whether that a reflection of my own guilt and paranoia or something from her, I couldn’t tell. And I knew the calls wouldn’t stop until I responded. So, with one last kiss, I left.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“You needed something?” I asked when I returned the General’s call.

It had been more than twenty minutes since he’d called, an unheard of delay, particularly since I almost always answered on the first ring.

“I think it’s time to end this thing at Titan,” he said, the slightly faster pace of his words the only hint of his displeasure.

“So you’re satisfied that there’s nothing there?” I asked.

It would be perfect if he was, but nothing was perfect, especially not with him.

“Quite the opposite,” the General said.

I wished we were in person. I couldn’t always tell what he was thinking, but in person I’d have a shot at divining whether this was a test, figuring out if he had some ulterior motive. Over the phone, the challenge was hopeless.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked, my breath almost frozen in my lungs.

“Data analysis and system analysis both need to be eliminated.”

I gripped the phone so tight that the plastic creaked and I thought it might explode in my hand.

“That’s over fifty people,” I said. And Jordan. But I kept that to myself.

“Yeah. A shame,” the General said, though he may as well put in ordering hash browns for all the care he showed. “But you know as well as I do that sacrifices have to be made. You haven’t given me any actionable information, and I don’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

Fifty people would die because he was impatient, and he was implying it was my fault. I’d never doubted the General’s willingness to harm however many people necessary to fulfill the mission. This, though, this was something else.

I wished this reluctance I was suddenly experiencing was a reflection of my great character. But it wasn’t. I was an excellent soldier, committed to my orders, and though I was saddened at the prospect of the loss of life, as much as I loathed the truth, I knew that before I would have accepted it as necessary.

But the bottom line was, I wouldn’t let anything happen to Jordan.

“I just need a little more time. I can narrow this down. And like we said, things are messy right now, and a mass death would certainly gain attention.”

“You’re right about that, but I figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone. I have eyes everywhere at Titan. But that entire place is a rife with corruption, rotten to its core, and I want to fix that. I have some access, but I want a higher level of control. So there’s going to be an unfortunate accident. A CO2 leak in the closed circulation air system is going to kill those two departments. Once they’re gone we’ll likely have the source of any potential trouble handled and the CEO will be forced to move operations, to a place of my choosing, of course. It’s a win-win.”

I gripped the phone even tighter, unable to believe my ears. Which was foolish, I knew there were no lengths the General wouldn’t go to, but this wasn’t about sacrifice, this wasn’t about protection, this was about control, pure and simple.

“Got it,” I said, and then I hung up the phone.

I sat, strength leaving me, and leaned back against the chair, a chill as cold as the Arctic seeping into my bones.

I’d had a friend once, a person who’d told me that no matter what I wanted to believe, we were no more than the General’s personal servants, existing only as the physical manifestation of his will and not some tool used in service of the greater good.

I hadn’t believed him. Had hated him, thought him a traitor of the worst sort, in fact. But as I sat there, my body cold, my heart racing, I knew that he’d been right.

Names, faces floated through my mind, those who’d made the ultimate sacrifice at the General’s words but through my hand. Had they all been for nothing? Had the weight of what I carried all been in service of one man’s quest for power?

I wanted to be sick.

And then, that final face floated behind my eyes. Her face. I couldn’t save those others, undo what I had done. But I could save her. I would save her. How, I didn’t know, but I would.

If it was the last thing I did.

Chapter Thirteen

The rest of the night had passed interminably, my need to protect Jordan, my inability to go to her only making the time pass that much slower. The General had gone out of his way to mention that he had eyes everywhere, and the purpose of that message was not lost on me.

So, as much as I wanted to see her, touch her, remind myself that she was still alive and that I would keep her that way, I held back. She was in danger, unrelenting, deadly danger, but I couldn’t compound that by tipping my hand. I was reasonably certain the General didn’t know about us; he wouldn’t have been able to resist mentioning it if he had, but if I went to her, I’d be seen, and she’d be on his radar, if she already wasn’t.

I didn’t sleep, my mind racing with thoughts of the past, of plans for Jordan’s future. I’d gotten Stephanie Sloan settled somewhere safe, so surely I could do that for Jordan. Maybe send her out of the country.

I hadn’t yet decided what I would do, but the very moment she arrived at Titan, I would keep her by my side until I did.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I arrived at Titan well before anyone else, anxious. I watched the entry like a hawk, noting every car that turned in and feeling that same stab of disappointment when none of them was hers.

By nine thirty, the entering employees had slowed to a trickle, but she was still nowhere in sight. I told myself that I’d missed her, that she’d slipped in with the crowd, but that couldn’t be possible. My gaze would find Jordan wherever she was, and she had not yet entered the building.

Then I told myself that she was just taking the day off. She was entitled, given the stress that she was under, or maybe she’d planned it before.

That was bullshit, too. Jordan had taken off a week around the time of Stephanie’s “death,” but before that and since, she hadn’t missed a day.

Something was wrong.

I knew it, deep in my soul.

Panic, an emotion not befitting a person of my training, seized me in its grip and wouldn’t let go. A thousand scenarios of what could’ve happened: a car accident, supremely bad traffic, maybe she just decided to say screw it all and move, any and every possibility flowed through my mind. But I knew there was only one explanation. And I knew that if I didn’t act soon, Jordan would die.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Not even trying to maintain any semblance of control, I sped to her apartment. The lot was empty, the grounds quiet, and as I furiously ran to her door, the silent serene stillness unnerved me. I knocked hard at her door, ears frantically straining for the sound of her walk, but there was nothing.

I knocked again. And then again. But when I got no response, I dispensed with niceties and kicked the door with all my might. It exploded off its hinges, the metal door intact but the wood frame shattering and granting me entry.

The apartment looked like hers, her stupid mug, that pile of papers by the computer all as they should be. But the place was still, lifeless, and Jordan was nowhere to be found.

I ran back to my car at top speed and headed directly for headquarters.

Activity buzzed in the air like nothing was wrong, as if no one else cared that Jordan Casey wasn’t where she should be. And they had no reason to care. Jordan was no different than any of the thousands who’d come before her, the thousands who’d come after her.

But for me, she was everything.

“Is the General here?” I asked tersely.

The new guy, the one I’d met days before responded, “He’ll be expecting you. He said you’d know where.”

My stomach dropped.

He was on to me. I didn’t know how, but I did know that the situation was grave. The General wouldn’t hesitate to kill Jordan just to prove a point.

For the first time in my life, I was completely powerless.

Chapter Fourteen

The drive back to Titan was nerve racking. I knew without a doubt Jordan was in the General clutches, in the clutches of someone even worse than me.

The things that would happen to her, the things that could be happening to her already, were almost unfathomable, and gave me an urgency that was more akin to panic. I tried to calm myself, remind myself that panic was the enemy as much as the General, that I could only save Jordan if I kept my wits about me.

My admonitions worked, at least to a degree, and though my mind was focused, I was wary; that edge was there, wouldn’t relent until I saw her.

When I arrived I wasn’t certain that my access card would still work, but I buzzed myself into the executive parking lot with no trouble. I maintained my facade as I walked through the metal detector and gave a curt nod to the security guard. I headed toward the elevator, but at the last moment went for the stairs. The five flights would barely expend any energy, but anything would be better than standing in that metal box. As I rounded the landing to the fourth floor, that first day with Jordan slammed into my mind.

I’d thought of her as a puzzle, not a person, but in a few short days she had completely changed my perspective, altered my world and my life in ways that hadn’t seemed possible. And now her fate rested in my hands.

What if failed her?

The question haunted me as I climbed the final flight of stairs. And became a full-on specter when I saw a man, one of the General’s men, waiting for me outside of that overly large office. The General’s message was clear.

Without looking at the man, I entered the office, and he followed behind, closing the door. The General sat at the desk, feet up.

I’d seen this before, his textbook moves for intimidation. He liked to set the tone, make whoever he was with feel small, make them feel like he was entirely in control by taking on the posture of power. Invading personal space, breaching confines such as he did now was one method of doing so.

Using those tactics with me was a rare miscalculation. He’d seemed to forget that wasn’t the director of security for Titan Industries, that I couldn’t care less if he sat at that desk like he owned it, couldn’t care less if Titan burned to the ground. His power play would have no effect.

The only thing that mattered was her.

“There’s something downstairs you might find interesting,” the General said.

“Is there?”

“I think there is. At least if what the boys have been telling me is true.”

“You’ve been following me.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a certainty, one that I was kicking myself for not having considered. I’d thought the General trusted me, but I’d lost sight of the fact that he didn’t trust anyone.

“I don’t trust anyone,” he said, mirroring my very own thoughts with eerie precision.

“Oversight on my part,” I said.

“An understatement, but we all have our days. How are you going to fix this?”

“Can I?”

The General’s eyes narrowed, that flat, sharklike look telling me that he smelled blood in the water.

“Mr.—”

The door opened, and Susan entered. But she stopped short when she saw the General, gaze moving from him to me to the man standing by the door.

The General inclined his head slightly, and in three efficient moves, his guard retrieved his weapon and put a bullet in Susan’s chest. She crumpled to the floor, her face a mask of shock, the question of why she was dying twisting her features.