Walk on the Striped Side (21 page)

CHAPTER-TWENTY-THREE

Gage

“You think he’ll be okay?” his mate asked him twenty
minutes after they had driven away from the airfield they’d landed on in
Wilmington.

Gage had to admit he was quite surprised at Elena’s
protectiveness over the young wolf pup. Watching her take care of him during
their mission and the plane ride had given him an insight as to what she would
be like as a mother. He had to admit that he liked this maternal side of her;
not that she would want to hear that from him if her present mood was anything
to go by.

“He’ll be fine, woman. Davies and McPhee will take
good care of him.”

He heard a feminine sniffle, so he looked over from
the driver’s seat of his truck at her. “Are you crying?” he asked her
incredulously.

“I am
not
crying!” She turned to punch him in
the arm, which gave him a clear view of her face. No, she wasn’t crying, but
her eyes did look suspiciously glassy, like perhaps she’d been about to cry.
“And keep your eyes on the road, jackass!”

He snorted at her command. Looking back to the road,
he started to wonder, was Elena ready to have kids or something? He could
easily imagine her with lush curves and a cute, swollen belly filled with a cub
or two. His body responded to the idea of getting his mate pregnant and his
cock started to swell in anticipation. If she wanted cubs, he’d be happy to
give them to her. Shifter children could be hard to conceive, so it would give
him an excuse to fuck her senseless all in the name of procreation.

That sounded like a damn fine plan to him. He’d find
a way to start working on it as soon as they got rid of the rest of the shit on
their to-do list. For one, clearing Lulu’s name of the murder charge by the
Ninth Circle Council. Then there was still that pesky, little matter of Elena
figuring out why Gage had pushed her away two years before. Since he knew that
conversation wasn’t going to go over very well, he refused to think about it.
Both of them had just come off
  eighteen
hours of
round trip travel with nothing except an hour of a mission in between the two
flights.

Their fight with the Corvus pack had been brutal and
bloody and it was far from over. They hadn’t annihilated the entire pack of
wolves. In fact, their group had only killed those that they absolutely had to
in order to complete the mission. It probably wasn’t their smartest move,
however until they could get Marcus Corvus talking, they were hesitant to
proceed. Although the man had been held captive now for who knew how long, it
was still technically his pack. It was best not to kill them all off until
Corvus gave the word on who lived and who died.

Gage heaved a weary sigh. He was too fucking
tired
to think about killing anyone. All he wanted to do
was go home, take a shower with his equally tired mate, and then go to bed. All
of their issues would be waiting for them tomorrow.

He pulled into his driveway and parked the truck.
Silently, both he and Elena climbed out and slowly made their way to the front
door. After he fished his keys out and let them in, he watched as she walked
past him, down the hall and towards his bedroom.

It felt wrong for her not to be handcuffed and two
inches from his side anymore. The funny thing was, his mate was so out of
it—either mentally or physically or both—that she’d yet to realize she wasn’t
being held hostage by him anymore.

Locking the door behind him, he made his way to his
bedroom to see what she was up to. He didn’t find her in there, though. She was
across the hall in his bathroom where he could hear the shower already running
from behind the closed door.

Not caring much for having a door separating them, he
opened it, stepped into the room, and eyed her silhouette behind the shower
curtain. She wasn’t washing or even moving; she was just standing with her
hands braced on the wall, her head bent, letting the hot water pour over her.

Stripping his clothes off, he opened the curtain and
stepped in behind her. Gage could tell that she was aware he was in there with
her because Elena had turned her head a little to the side at the sound of him
getting in. Besides that, she didn’t move. His poor, little warrior was so
exhausted she didn’t even have the energy to fling insults or threaten him for
invading her private space. That was okay. He wasn’t in there to fuck her. He
was here for something so much more important than that. Comfort.

Placing his hands on the wall outside of hers, he let
his front cover her back as he placed his chin on the top of her bent head. He
was probably blocking most of the water from reaching her now, yet he didn’t
really give a shit. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, right then, she
needed him to soothe her, and that was okay because he needed it, too.

Minutes passed by, and they didn’t move. Eventually,
the muscles in Elena’s body started to relax one by one, and she shifted her
weight until her body was resting against him instead of holding herself up
against the wall. Not wanting to run out of hot water while they were still in
there, Gage moved backwards enough to grab the shampoo bottle. Pouring some on
his hands, he rubbed them together and then ran them through her hair, making
sure to massage her scalp with the pads of his fingers while he worked the
shampoo through her hair thoroughly.

Elena gave a groan of pleasure before tipping her
head back a little farther towards him. He loved to see her so unguarded. Dead
on her feet with dark circles under her eyes, probably head fucked beyond
belief from roasting people alive on their mission, yet there in that moment,
she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Who needed the frou-frou
pageant queens of the world when he could have one feisty Amazon with a spine
of steel?

Gage rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and then
massaged conditioner in. Once he’d rinsed that out as well, he grabbed his bar
of soap and rolled it between his hands until he had a nice foam of suds.
Reaching around to her front, he placed his hands on her lower abdomen before
starting to rub small circles into her smooth, slick skin.

As much as he would love to stand there and pet her
body all night, he didn’t want to take the chance of accidentally getting
himself too excited—neither one of them were in any condition to have sex—so he
kept his strokes short though somewhat reverent as he glided his hands across
her body while cleaning her. He had to add more soap to his hands several times
as he washed her breasts, legs and back, but his mate was putty in his hands by
the time he was done cleaning her.

By some miracle, he got her to stand on her own in
her half-asleep state long enough for him to quickly and efficiently wash
himself. When he was done, he turned the water off, carried her out of the
shower, and grabbed a clean towel on the way to his room. He managed to get
them both dried off without her falling flat on her face and then finally
tucked her into his bed where she belonged.

Gage slid beneath his sheets and curled himself
around his mate who was already dead asleep on her side, facing away from him. Wrapping
his arms around his woman, he closed his eyes and thanked God that he was
holding her instead of being devoid of her presence as he had been for years.

He briefly remembered that the old Army handcuffs
he’d used to keep her at his side were still in one of the cargo pockets of his
pants. His sleepy brain wondered if he would need them again tomorrow in case
she tried to leave him, however as sleep claimed him, the thought drifted away.

***

A hand slid slowly from between his
pecs
downwards until it stopped over his belly button. His
breath hitched in anticipation and then he felt lips kiss the skin just above
his pants. He looked down at Elena just in time to hiss in pleasure as she
swiped her tongue from one hip bone to the other across his skin. She was
teasing him by refusing to open his jeans and take his rock hard cock out so he
could put it in that pretty, little mouth of hers. Having her lips wrapped
around him was his second favorite thing in the world. If she’d hurry the fuck
up and stop playing around, he could get to his favorite thing. Her tight,
little pussy.

Gage reached down and grabbed some of her hair in
one of his fists. “Stop playing with me, baby. Take my dick out and get it nice
and wet because I’m going to fuck you so fast and hard tonight that you’ll feel
sore and think about me all day tomorrow.”

Her lips curled up in big, smug smile that warned
him she wouldn’t be the only one with reminders of their love making tomorrow.
Her deft fingers unbuttoned his jeans and slowly slid his zipper down, parting
the flaps wide so that his cock sprang up between them. Sticking her tongue
out, she ran it from the base all the way ‘til she made a circle around his tip
before sucking him in for a brief second.

Her mouth released him with a slight pop and then
she murmured, “I love it that you never wear any underwear. It makes it so easy
for me to play with you whenever I want.”

He was going to give her a good pop on the ass for
torturing him like this. “Babe, I see your lips are moving, but they’re not
moving where I want them to be, which is on my dick. Can you fix that please so
I can get to fucking you already?”

Elena shook her head. “I can’t. You have to wake
up now.”

He tightened his grip in her hair until her eyes
went a little glassy from the small prick of pleasurable pain it gave her. “I
promise you, love, I can’t get anymore ‘awake’ than I already am. So if you’ll
just drop your face a bit, open up that pretty mouth of yours and stay still,
I’ll do all the work for you. All you have to do is suck, I swear.” He thrust
his hips up at her face in his eagerness.

She shook her head again as a devilishly
shark-like smile spread wide across her face. “Wake up now, Garfield…”

***

It was the click of the handcuff’s ratchets closing that
woke him. He didn’t panic or wake up fighting, though, because there was only
one other scent in that room with him. Elena. He knew he wasn’t in danger,
physically at least. Mentally… there was no guarantee because who knew what the
woman was up to.

Opening his eyes, he saw a very smug looking Elena
sitting on top of him, straddling his waist. The room was lit by pale morning
light behind her, meaning they must have been asleep for some time. To be
honest, he’d still like to be asleep, but both he and his beast were far too
curious as to what their mate was doing to gripe about it.

His arms were in an unnatural sleeping position for
him, which was up by his head. He moved his eyes from his mate to look behind
him at the headboard and found her handcuffs looped through one of the low,
horizontal, wooden slats and then attached to both of his wrists. Did the crazy
woman actually think these weak little cuffs could hold him?

He looked back to his mate for answers and found that
she was now smiling broadly at him with a teasing glint in her eye. The look
told him two things. One, she knew the handcuffs wouldn’t hold him if he wanted
to be free, and two, she was feeling playful.

Well, cats do like to play…

CHAPTER-TWENTY-FOUR

Elena

“What are you doing, mate?” His voice was warm and
gruff from sleep, and the sound of it sent a shiver down Elena’s back.

The man looked delicious enough to lick from head to
toe right now. Tied up to his own bed, no shirt, just smooth skin ready for her
to touch. To tease. And that wasn’t even the best part. She rocked her hips
forward so that the lips of her sex glided over his semi-erect cock. No, the
best part was that Gage hadn’t dressed them last night after their shower. He’d
let both of them fall into bed buck ass naked. A first for them since they’d
started seeing each other again.

She snorted to herself at that thought.
Seeing
each other again?
What a funny way to put a hostage and kidnapping
situation. Somehow, though, he’d done exactly what she had been so determined
that she wouldn’t let him do; that sneaky feline had wormed his way back into
her heart. Elena was ready to admit her feelings for him, just like she’d been
ready to do two years ago on that horrible night she’d heard Gage call her a
‘piece of ass’ through his bedroom door.

Only, as she’d woken up to his partial
stiffy
poking into her backside, she’d decided she was
going to take the reins in this situation. Gage would get what he wanted, which
was her, as soon as she got what she wanted, the explanation. Yeah, the
annoying man had said she’d have to figure it out, yet she didn’t want to wait
for that. She was going to do the next best thing.

Elena was going to seduce the answer out of him.

Gage had been holding off the physical act of sex
until she was ready to admit she still loved him. Elena had withheld those
words and emotions because of a broken heart and his lack of an explanation.
Now that he’d somehow managed to mend her heart a little, she wanted that
damned explanation before she’d allow things to get any messier, like calling
this a relationship.

Thank God the man slept like the dead when he was
exhausted because it had given her the chance to slip out of bed and snoop
around his room a little. Elena had grabbed the handcuffs she’d seen him put in
his cargo
pant’s
pocket, but decided handcuffs alone
weren’t enough to help her drive him wild. That’s when her eyes had landed on
the nightstand. Lots of people kept naughty toys in their nightstands.

Only it hadn’t been
naughty
toys she’d found.
He’d put something so much better than naughty in there. Gage had his Heckler
& Koch MK 23 stored there—the very same gun they’d met over in the first
place—along with all the loose cat toys she’d left behind in his house. It was
like a drawer full of memories.

Elena had almost choked up when she’d seen it all,
yet then her eyes had landed on that one cat toy, and that’s when she had known
she’d found the most perfect—and unexpected—tool to use. She was going to
sexually torture the man, who’d driven her crazy, with a feathered wand.

It was downright devious and mean—cruel even—but in
her defense, she’d warned him back in that meeting room at the bar the day
before. Elena didn’t get mad, she got
evil
. And he’d pushed her to this
by not answering her questions. So, therefore, in her mind, he’d had this
coming to him all along. Gage was just lucky that she intended to get him off
while she was torturing him.

She’d placed the feathered wand behind her on the bed
between his spread legs to keep it out of his sight until she was ready to use
it. Now she just had to get her big,
ol
’ kitty worked
up.

He was watching her with the rapt attention of an
apex predator, taking in every minute movement she made as she settled on top
of him, bracing her hands on his abdomen. Using a fingertip from each hand,
Elena started tracing figure eights into his skin without breaking eye contact.

“Does my kitty like to play games?”

His chest rumbled with a purr. “What kind of games?”

“Naughty ones,” she whispered.

Gage bucked his hips underneath her and she gasped at
the feel of his hardening cock rubbing against her folds. “Baby, I can show you
things I’ve learned over the years that you wouldn’t dream up in your wildest
fantasies. You want to play naughty games? We can play a new game every night.
I’ll be the most attentive teacher you’ve ever had. All you’ve got to do is
tell me what I want to hear and we can start right now. Ever heard of hide and
seek?”

Elena snorted. “And what will you be hiding?”

A big smile stretched across his face. “First my
fingers, then my tongue and finally my dick. I’ll hide all three things inside
of you repeatedly until you find an orgasm. The fun part will be that I’ll
blindfold you and you’ll have no idea where I plan to hide until I’m working my
way in there. We’d have to see if we can hide all of my cock in your mouth,
though, because I’m not sure it’ll fit. But that’s okay because you have two
other holes if it doesn’t.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock and he winked at her
expression.

“You’re a dirty old man, aren’t you?”

Elena started to lean forward to kiss him, but he
bared his teeth at her and growled, “Wait.”

Jerking back a little at his reaction, she asked him
in confusion, “What?”

“Have you brushed your teeth yet? I’m not sure I can
take another blast of your nuclear breath.”

Elena barked out a loud laugh. “Learned your lesson
the first time, did you?”

Gage nodded. “You know, I was thinking that the Army
could use you as a weapon. If they bottled that shit and found a way to reproduce
it, they could use it as a chemical agent. Any enemy they unleashed that on
would run crying in the opposite direction.”

She playfully slapped his chest. “I brushed my teeth,
you jerk.”

Her hand on his chest vibrated from his purr. “Then
come here and kiss me, woman.”

She ran her hands up his body until she cradled his
face in her hands and brought her lips to lightly skim across his. “How about
we play my game first?”

“What game is this?” he quietly asked, his lips
brushing against hers with every word.

Elena grabbed his cell phone off the top of his
nightstand and started pushing buttons, explaining as she set things up. “We’re
going to see if I can make you come in ten minutes while you’re lying there. If
I can, then I get to ask you any question and you have to answer honestly. If
you don’t, then you can ask me anything you want and I’ll answer honestly.”

She turned the front of the phone around to show him
the times set up there. “Ready to play?”

His face was a blank mask. “Any question and you promise
to answer honestly?”

“Yes.”

“Game on,” he whispered back.

Elena started the timer and put the phone down on the
bed beside them then she went back to giving Gage light, fluttery kisses.
Teasing little touches of her mouth that quickly frustrated him. He tried to
kiss her deeply, however she pulled back and slid down his body until her mouth
hovered over one of his nipples. Elena kept her eyes on his as she snaked out
the tip of her tongue and lightly licked the little, flat brown disc, causing
him to hiss. She felt his cock jump at the touch where it was trapped between
them and smiled.

“Don’t get smug, Amazon. There’s no way you’re going
to make me come in time.”

Elena gave him a confident smile and licked his
nipple again. And then again. And then she covered the small peak with her
mouth and sucked hard enough to leave a hickey, slightly bruising his entire
nipple. Gage threw his head back on the pillow and growled loudly as she
continued to suck on his nipple. He bucked his hips against her and his length
rubbed against her clit, causing her to groan.

Getting impatient, Gage grunted, “Why don’t you suck
on something else now, Mate?”

She looked up and gave him a devious smirk before
moving her mouth over to his other nipple. He hissed long and hard when she bit
it this time before licking him in slow, languid circles. The handcuffs rattled
against the wooden headboard slat and Elena knew that his patience was rapidly
disappearing.

Keeping up with her plan to drive him crazy, she
moved her mouth in small increments down his chest, dropping kisses along his
skin. The teasing torture seemed to be working because Gage’s body was
practically vibrating with impatience. Taking her time to circle her tongue
around his belly button and then grabbing his cock with her hand so that she
could oh so slowly run her tongue down the little hair trail that led to his
groin.

Moving her hand lazily up and down his length, she
placed a small kiss on the tip. He thrust his hips up so that his cock bumped
her closed lips in a desperate hint of what he wanted. She couldn’t give it to
him yet, though, not this time around in their game. Just another minute or so
and the timer would go off, letting Gage win the first round. She had to drive
him insane between now and then, so she took that time to pepper light kisses
all over his throbbing length without ever quite giving him what he wanted.

When the chime of the timer went off, he snarled in
agitation as she let go of his manhood and straddled his hips again. His teeth
were on display with his snarl, and his fangs were starting to drop down in
length.

“You did that on purpose!” he accused her.

“Is that your question?”

Shaking his head fervently, he replied, “You’re not getting
off that easy, woman. You want to torture me? I’ll torture you right back with
the very thing you’ve been avoiding telling me. Do you love me?”

It was now or never. Was it wrong for a part of her
to still wish for never?

As Elena stared into Gage’s fevered eyes, she knew
she couldn’t deny him anymore. All she could do was hope that this would turn
out for the best because she couldn’t live through another heart break.

Leaning forward, she placed her hands on either side
of his head and skimmed her nose against his in a loving caress and then gave
him a light peck on the lips. Pulling back enough to regain eye contact with
him, she whispered her answer, “Yes.”

He surprised her when he heaved an obvious sigh of
relief and let his head drop back onto the pillow. She hadn’t realized just how
worried he was about that answer. When he re-opened his eyes, they held a
different kind of glint. Determination.

“Say the words, Amazon.”

She had something to do before she could say those
words. Reaching back over to his phone, she set the timer again. “One more
round of our game if you want those words, tiger.”

Gage growled in displeasure over her answer, yet the
sound quickly turned into a hiss as Elena skipped all the previous foreplay and
went back to what she’d been doing before, licking his cock. She didn’t lick it
for long, just enough to tease him from base to tip a few times before she
sucked him into the warm cavern of her mouth. Her objective was different this
time. Instead of drawing it out, she wanted to speed it up so that she could
use her secret weapon to winning this round.

Gage’s hips writhed under her hands as she gave him
slow, strong sucks. When she pulled off him with an audible ‘pop,’ his tip was
leaking and he was demanding she give him more. So she did.

Maneuvering her body to straddle his once again, she
quickly reached over to the nightstand and snagged the condom she’d left lying
there. Ripping open the little foil package, she took the condom out and rolled
it down Gage’s length so fast that it was a miracle she hadn’t accidentally
ripped the damn thing.

God, she was so ready for this. For him.

Elena took his throbbing shaft and placed it at her
entrance and then slid herself slowly down until she felt his balls resting
against her bottom. He was so thick that the girth of him was stretching her
until she wondered if he would be too much for her to take. Thankfully, after
sitting there for a few seconds, her muscles relaxed a little and she knew that
she’d be able to ride him like a woman possessed and not suffer any
repercussions from it.

Gage groaned loudly, letting her know that she felt
as good to him as he did to her. She’d love to drag this out and torture him
again, however she couldn’t lose sight of what she was trying to do to him.

He was still worked up from her teasing him with the
licks and kisses as she picked herself up onto her knees and kept rising until
just the head of him was inside of her, and then she dropped back down hard and
fast. Their bodies slapped together loudly at the contact and the erotic sound
of their sex only made her wetter for him.

Glancing over to his phone discreetly, she took in
the timer. Eight minutes. That’s how long she had to make him come to win her
question. That wasn’t a lot of time, so she had to make the most of it. She
started a punishing rhythm, riding him in a quick tempo that had her breaths
coming out in harsh pants and her eyes rolling back in her head.

Gage was a vocal lover, demanding more and crooning
encouragements to her. It didn’t take long for him to figure out her rhythm and
start thrusting back up into her every time she dropped down. The added thrust
made it travel deeper inside her and she couldn’t help the moans it forced from
her. She needed more of him, though. Needed to see marks made by her on his
body. Little, sensual brands of her ownership over him.

Digging her nails into his chest, she dragged them
down until she scratched down to the bottom of his six pack. When he growled
low in his throat, she worried that she’d gone too far, but his next words put
her at ease.

“Fuck, yeah, baby. AGAIN.”

She placed her blunt fingernails back on his
pecs
and scratched down to his abdomen again, a little
harder this time, and the red lines that bloomed in the aftermath of her path
were one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen. His body was her playground and
he hadn’t pulled out of those handcuffs yet to stop her. He’d let her mark up
his body by
hickies
on his nipples and scratching him
all over, giving her words of encouragement for more.