Dark Enemy (DARC Ops Book 9) Read online

  “Yeah,” she said, “I do.” She thought about a better type of alteration. One that could be brought about more easily, and enjoyably, and without the hangover.

  The guilt might still be there, though . . .

  Logan smiled and filled his glass. “I think I need it, too.”

  What did he really need? What did this man really need in life since their breakup? And why hadn’t he already found it?

  “Did you find that tracking device yet?” Logan asked. “They’re designed to be invisible as well as . . . untouchable.” He shook his head and said, “Is that even a word? Untouchable?”

  “Of course it’s a word.”

  “But I mean, does it make sense in that context? I guess I should have probably said, unfindable.”

  “Now that’s not a word.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, have you found it, regardless?”

  She laughed. “No, I haven’t even thought about it.”

  “You might want to find it. If it did get discovered, we’re not the only ones who could track it.”

  “I suppose a shower won’t deactivate it?” Holly said. “Or at least lodge it loose?”

  “Well, let’s be sure,” Logan said, inching closer, the sides of their bodies touching. “Do you mind?”

  “Well, you put it in there, so . . .” She had turned her head away, staring at the darkened hallway that she assumed led to his bedroom. She felt him move closer, his hands combing through her hair now, her body this time loosening with it. This time, without the worry of meeting her Russian kidnapper immediately after. This time, in the quiet privacy of Logan’s apartment.

  She felt him say, “Hmm,” with his face leaned in close, looking, fingers tickling through. “Your hair smells nice, by the way.”

  Was he just saying that? It was hard to remember when she’d last had a shower.

  It was only a day ago. God, it felt like forever.

  “Got it,” he said, pulling away from her.

  “Thanks.”

  His hands returned, this time in an attempt to fix up the hair he’d messed and knotted up with the search. He kept them there, lingering, feeling through.

  Holly said, “Now what are you looking for?”

  “Nothing.”

  His hands moved lower, out of her hair after patting and combing it flat, then onto the back of her neck, both hands moving out toward her shoulders. Both hands gently squeezing the sore muscles at the base of her neck. When he used a little more pressure, Holly couldn’t help letting her head fall back, loose and limp at his commanding touch. A familiar touch, his fingertips applying the right amount of force to the right muscle groups. A healing energy worked through, but still there was something more. It was beyond just a therapeutic massage. There was something hungry in his touch. A yearning that she knew all too well.

  A quiet moan escaped from somewhere deep inside. After, when it was too late to reel it back, she almost felt embarrassed about how it sounded. Then he continued his massage and she’d already forgotten all about it.

  Was he moaning, too?

  No . . . but his breathing . . . his other hand rested on her shoulder, and she reached back for it, folding it in to her neck and then down, their hands together traveling over the ridge of her collar bone. He didn’t offer any resistance, and she couldn’t resist plunging that hand inside the top of her shirt, letting him do the rest.

  He moved in without further guidance, his hand coming tight around her breast as she felt his mouth at her neck. The transition was quick and reckless, and likely just what they’d both needed to get past any silly lingering thoughts about staying cool and professional. It was hard enough to go a full day of professionalism around her ex-lover. A whole night, too. Even just the start of it in his apartment would have been a whole other level of difficult.

  Why not make things easier on each other?

  Why not help his hand slide underneath her bra, as he squeezed onto her tighter?

  His kiss at her neck ended, his weight shifting slightly on the seat next to her, him almost falling against her as he settled in, and stared at her in the eyes for a moment.

  He looked just as hungry, and perhaps just as apprehensive.

  Wasn’t it too late for apprehension? For taking things back and forgetting them? Certainly too late for forgetting him. She could still remember his touch, his taste, seven long years later.

  For a half second, she worried he’d begun to actually think, and think too much about what they’d started. And when his expression changed, as if he’d come to some conclusion, Holly was sure she would hear the words that would keep them apart. Words of de-escalation, regret. She was sure they’d just fucked up, and now it was time to reel it back in.

  Then his face darted against hers, almost too fast and rough, with his sandpapered chin grazing her face as he kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, she forgot the small bite of pain and the reason for discomfort. She forgot herself and began living only through her lips, through their kiss.

  Holly had already fallen backward, sinking ever deeper into the old, comfortable sofa, falling and falling. With his weight firmly on top of her, it felt like the descent would never end, her consciousness buried under his kisses. She was happy to be there. Under him, under everything. It was the safest she’d ever felt.

  Hands were underneath her shirt again, this time from the bottom. And this time, Holly was doing more than guiding them, working together to remove her shirt completely, and the bra, allowing her man the access he needed. Something he’d perhaps always needed, judging by the speed and voracity of his attack. Of his mouth sucking hungrily on her nipples while she unfastened his belt. He paused. “Let me grab a condom.” Holly reached up and pulled him back down. “No need,” she mumbled against his lips. “I’m covered.”

  “Me, too,” he said, punctuated by kisses. “I’m clean. Testing is part of the job.”

  In the quiet of Logan’s apartment, things like belts and clothes slid away with the most glorious sounds. It was exciting, hearing Logan freeing himself of his pants, his breathing getting louder as he worked away Holly’s. She felt hyper perceptive of their sounds in the otherwise dead-quiet safety of that moment on his sofa.

  His groans pierced the air as she fondled and stroked him. Soon after, she heard the muddled voice of a woman, pleading, slurred with heavy breathing. It didn’t sound or feel like her own voice. The hand between her legs wasn’t her own, either. For too long, it had been. It was the sad, boring reality of life after someone like Logan. Her own hand could never compare. It couldn’t measure to his size. Nothing could. Neither could all of her toys match the warmth of him when he slid inside her, the shape of him when he broke her open and began pumping deep inside her with his love.

  He was a lot rougher than she’d expected. But it was okay. She liked it. There was something about him tonight, something about the way he needed her clothing off and how he needed Holly on her back with her legs spread wide open . . . something about the way he plunged himself into her made it clear that something real had changed in him. There was an impulsiveness, perhaps born from fear. God knew she felt the fear, too. Fear from many things. From the latest horrific events of the outside world. And from their own internal world, her and Logan, fear of what they were doing, fear of what they needed. Fear it may never happen again.

  It was with this impulse that she pulled him into herself harder and faster, her body shaking with his work. She closed her eyes and focused on how good he felt, hardly feeling his finger slide between her lips, then between her teeth. She sucked on it, feeling nothing else but an unrelenting urge to allow the warmth of her orgasm to shake through her body. With the knuckle of his finger clenched firmly between her teeth, Holly groaned and quivered and came.

  16

  Logan

  His hands grasped the sheets, bunching them up tight. In his dream, he had to hold on to the arm of one of his comrades as they sailed into the air in a helicop
ter after a quick dust-off from Tikrit. Grappling to hold on, losing strength, he woke from the nightmare to find himself alone and gripping sheets.

  Logan caught his breath and rolled over. No, he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t the man he eventually pulled into the helicopter and saved. And it wasn’t the medic who eventually saved Logan. It was the woman who had already saved him in so many ways in the past. But never here. Never in this apartment, in this bed, and in the pale light of an outside billboard lighting up the soft outline of her face.

  Maybe it was a new dream, rolling straight into the next one after the helicopter rescue. He felt dreamlike and slow, his body almost numb and sedated with sleep. And with something else. Another kind of warmth. A memory of just a few hours ago. The sofa. Him on top of her.

  Holly . . .

  He whispered her name again, but she didn’t move.

  That sweet, sleeping face.

  He lay still and listened to her breathing.

  He watched in her in the half-light reflection through his window, not knowing what time it was, not remembering what tasks he’d have to tackle the next day. Not caring about any of it. All he cared about was Holly.

  And then, as if she could hear his thoughts, her eyes flickered open. Slowly at first, half opened so he could see the tiniest slit of light reflecting back at him. And then a shocked full open, her head jerking back in almost as much shock as he felt to find her there.

  A second later, she relaxed back into him. Holly moved closer to him, under the covers, their bodies meeting there, warm with sleep. The full memories of the night came rushing back as her soft curves pressed against him.

  He felt her breath along his neck and to his face, where she placed her lips on his in a smooth, wet lock.

  Her kiss tasted of sleep, but it made him want more. He wanted the real Holly, every aspect of her. He wanted her again, under these blankets, right in his arms. He wanted to take her again. But then a wave of guilt flashed across him. He wanted her. Of course he wanted her. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been a complete ass.

  His mind spoiled with all the possibilities of how he’d taken advantage of a trauma-weakened Holly. How he’d lured her back to his apartment. How he’d forced himself upon her, starting with the hair. His hands combing through. He knew what he was doing, and what it would lead to.

  “What’s wrong?” Holly said after he pulled away from her next kiss. She stared at him, eyes wide in the dark. “Logan?”

  “What?”

  “Are we okay?”

  “We’re okay,” he said. “I know we’re okay.”

  “Yeah.”

  He said, “We’re safe.”

  “Yeah . . . but what’s wrong? Besides the obvious?”

  “What’s the obvious?”

  Without missing a beat, Holly said, “My cousin is kidnapped and perhaps sold as a sex slave.”

  He felt a gap between them open up. And then Holly pulling back in close, saying, “So what else is it? Awkward, weird? Unprofessional?”

  “How about unethical?” Logan said.

  “No. Why unethical?”

  “I’m trying to convince myself that I didn’t just take advantage of you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I shouldn’t have. Not now, when you’re . . .”

  “Logan, I’m a grown woman and can make my own decisions, especially about who I want to fuck.”

  His eyes widened a little, and then he chuckled quietly. Holly could always surprise him.

  “What’s so funny? You’re suddenly realizing that you don’t have some sort of magical power to convince a woman to have sex with you?”

  He smiled. “I’m trying to get accustomed to being used.”

  “Used?”

  “Especially this way, I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t. If this is what you need to help forget about things for a while.”

  She frowned. “It was never about forgetting, Logan. It’s about remembering things,” Holly looked at him close up. She held her face only inches away, looking hard to see if he really knew what she meant. “Remembering things with you.”

  “I feel like it’s better than remembering,” he said.

  “It was,” she said. “It is.”

  “It’s making new memories. New things to remember.” But at the same time, it was a little sad to think that they’d just become another line of events to remember. Was that all it was?

  Logan tried to see it in her face, if it was escapism she needed, a good fucking, or his arms wrapped tightly around her, for tonight, and for other nights. As if to answer, she leaned in to kiss him again, this time, her body folding close around his. This time, her breathing speeding up. This time, no break for conversation, for air between them, for memories.

  It was just that moment, her hand brushing against his cock, his mouth tasting hers like it was the beginning of a last meal. It was all perfect with her, the stars aligning to place them together again. Her in his bed. A wonderful surprise despite the backdrop of tragedy that hung over them. A surprise, a slice of heaven, but perhaps a fleeting one.

  Holly rolled on top of him, taking her time, teasing him, grinding her hips over his stiffening cock. But he was happy to be teased, happy to take his time. Their initial hunger had subsided into something more authentic, something that might translate beyond the bed sheets. He wanted it again, but not as a reaction or an impulse. He wanted it to be an expression of something greater.

  An expression that ended in two wonderful orgasms, of course. It couldn’t be denied how wonderfully her body fit him and squeezed and worked a climax out of him. He couldn’t think too far ahead beyond that.

  She whispered, “You want it so bad, don’t you? You want it so—”

  He wrapped his arms around her back as he raised his hips up, trying his hardest for it.

  Holly held her body away from him, teasing him with her finger in his mouth, saying, “No . . .”

  Logan said, “Yes,” around her finger, lifting his hips, the tip of his hard cock sliding inside her. “Yes,” he said, “Yeah,” breathing a little heavier and sliding in deeper.

  This time she did not—and perhaps could not—resist. Instead, she worked with him, finding a rhythm together. Finding a harmony that he’d only known since beyond last night. Beyond seven years. Beyond what he’d experienced with anyone.

  She groaned against him as she rocked, leaning back on her palms, taking him deeper and fuller. There was a sensation deep inside him, an ache in his balls that he’d needed to release. He felt an ache somewhere else, too. In his heart, burning there. It was a stronger need, and it clung to his every breath. It almost pained him. Suffocating. Scared.

  He had never felt so desperate for someone. So vulnerable and open with emotion. Yes, he’d been in love with Holly before. But he had moved on. Or so he’d thought. Both of them would be moving on, relegating this current activity to nothing more but casual fun, Holly sliding back and forth on top of him, grinding him until he felt weakened and heavy with cum. He couldn’t help but moan, the way she’d made him feel. Moaning and gripping her bare ass, plunging himself deeper into the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Wanting her again, but wanting for far more than a night. For far more than seven years.

  It was the sex that was driving him crazy and irrational. No doubt it was, like a chemical imbalance brought about by the most swollen areas of his manhood. He’d need to clear that away and rethink this current conundrum of real feelings. Real emotions. It was simple: just clear it away and make a rational decision.

  Logan focused on his task, opening his eyes to see the light coming in from outside, shining on the wet tips of Holly’s nipples where he’d suckled her. When her face came back into the light, he could see the strain across it, Holly trying for her own release. He loved watching her so much he almost forgot about his own needs. He watched her lean forward, her hands coming hard down on his chest as she rode him, her face dipping close to his. Logan arched
his head up to taste her mouth, their kiss moving sloppily and full-tongued. Hungry. Hot. Her teeth grazing his lip. And then biting it harder than he expected, holding on to him as her body shook and squeezed around his hard cock. When she backed off from her animalistic bite, her eyes opened wide and rolled back, the whites gleaming through the dim light as she rode out the last waves of her orgasm.

  Logan could feel her slowing breath against his bare skin, her hot exhales traveling down, her hair caressing his chest as she made her way down his body. She took him into her mouth, hot and full. But she barely had to do anything. He was so aroused and sensitive, Logan could have probably found his ending without even so much as a glancing touch. When the subtle suction of her mouth throbbed up and down over the swollen head of his cock, his hips thrust up as he came.

  17

  Holly

  She woke to the full sun shining on her face, her hands moving against strange bed sheets. A strange bed in a strange room. It was funny how the light of day had changed things, burning the images into reality. Burning this reality into fact, into her head. It had really happened . . .

  She also wondered what the light would do to Logan’s face. Holly turned over and craned her neck for a view of her slumbering ex-lover. Or, current lover. She wasn’t too sure of the exact classification, but he was at least last night’s lover. Most definitely last night’s lover. And an amazing one at that.

  “Logan?” she called it out again after seeing his empty side of the bed, projecting her voice into the hall beyond his half-opened bedroom door. Holly slid her hand across the cool empty space where there once was so much heat.

  Immediately, the feeling of abandonment rushed in. A familiar rush of emotion that had come on at the start of Logan’s army deployment. Back when she had a reason to feel that way. Back when they’d had a relationship. The pain worsened until even he had enough of the guilt. It wasn’t just his physical departure; it was the emotional retreat that lingered even after his return.