Blue Knight (31 page)

His breath hitched. Abruptly, his cum shot from his spasming cock in salty spurts, coating the back of her tongue. “Sweet Jesus, Olivia!” he cried, arching back hard underneath her.

As soon as the spasms stopped, as soon as the orgasm passed, he moved. He gave her no chance to do more than lift herself up from her crouch. He came up off the bed, his eyes blazing and scooped her up, an arm around her waist, flipped her on her back and threw her onto the bed beneath him.

His knee thrust her thighs apart and his cock rammed into her in a quick one-two movement that pushed the breath out of her.

He paused, resting over her. She could feel his heart still thundering and his breath was still ragged. But his cock was still engorged, hard and pulsing despite the incredible climax.

“No one has ever done that to me,” he breathed. “How can a woman who looks as you do know such wicked, such sensual things?”

She laughed. “I think that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said about me.”

“Why?”

“All the women you’ve bedded and none of them have ever done that?” She touched his lips with her finger. “Experience really does have some advantages after all.”

He slowly withdrew his cock and slid it back into her, making her catch her breath. Her pussy quivered and her clit throbbed. Deep inside her, she could feel the beginnings of her own climax starting—the slow build of that big wave of sensations that would wash over her and leave her senseless for a moment.

Her heart started to race in anticipation.

“Faster,” she breathed, curling her legs over Daniel’s hips and bringing her hands up to his shoulders.

But he didn’t move faster. Instead he kept up the same slow tortured pace, sliding his cock in and out of her cunt with delicate, sensual strokes that ensured every ridge, muscle and nerve ending was caressed and teased.

His pace did not change, but Olivia fell to pieces around him. Her body crumpled and trembled, her heart slammed against her ribs. Her clit swelled and throbbed. Her pussy walls clenched and dripped moisture, rippled around his cock, trying to pull his cock into her, to keep him in, to draw upon him. Her thighs tightened and quivered.

She hammered with her fists at his shoulders. Uselessly.

She begged. “Please, Daniel. Please. Just fuck me!”

Olivia tried to reach for her own clit but Daniel ruthlessly pinned her wrists to the mattress with his hands.

When she was a mass of quivering, helpless and desperate nerve endings, when he had left her hovering on the brink of orgasm for minutes on end, craving for release but unable to reach it, he finally relented. He released her wrists so that he could grip her hip. “Now I will fuck you,” he growled.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Daniel’s cock slammed into her in hard, controlled strokes, his pelvis kissing her abused, neglected clit.

Olivia clutched at him as the orgasm gathered energy inside her, preparing to explode. The power of it was almost frightening. She could see Daniel watching her, his blue-eyed gaze absorbing her pleasure.

“Come for me, Olivia. Let me hear you scream.”

Her breath built and built and built as the orgasm peaked. As it released, she screamed hard and long and low. Daniel smothered her scream with his mouth and groaned as he came, spilling his semen into her.

His lips didn’t leave hers. It turned into a kiss that turned into another, that stretched on for long minutes while their hearts calmed and their breathing steadied. His lips wandered over her face, covering her eyes and nose and forehead and temple and cheeks and chin.

When she could breathe again, he lowered her leg to the bed and rolled onto his side, bringing her with him so that his cock stayed inside her. He pushed her hair off her face.

“You should try to sleep,” he said quietly.

“Like this?”

He smiled. “I’ll move in a minute, but not very far.”

“And when I’m asleep, you’ll go, right?”

His gaze dropped away from her face for a moment, then came back to her eyes. “Yes.”

She licked her lips. “Daniel, I-I’m not going to be able to go to sleep. I’m not very good at this. I’ve never done it before.”

He shook his head. “Neither have I. Not like this.”

“I know.”

He slid her thigh off his hip, pulling himself out of her. She wanted to protest over losing that much of him, but didn’t. He picked up her hand from between them and kissed the knuckles. It made her want to weep.

“I wanted you to be asleep when I left. I think it’s the only way I can make myself go.” He looked up from her hand to look her in the eye and she knew he was using every scrap of courage he had to do so.

“Why?”

His answer took a long time to come and he had to look back down at her hand before he could say it. “I’ve been doing this sort of work for fifteen years and this is the first time I’ve ever been scared.”

She picked her words carefully. “You’ll be fine, Daniel. I’ve seen you do stuff. Not much, but enough to know you’re good. Very good. If anyone can come out of this alive, it’s you.”

He looked up then, startled. “God, not me, Olivia.
You
. I’m scared for you.”

Her mouth opened. But there were no words there. There were dozens of thoughts. Hundreds of them. None of them voiceable. All of them ranging from dumb shock to astonished hysteria.

He kissed her knuckles again. “You shattered the coffee cup that day and covered for me and it was a selfless act. You keep saying you have to give to get, but you knew damn well you were never going to get anything back from me. You just did it because it was the right thing to do.” He stopped and kissed her temple. “Well, maybe you finally taught me something after all because what I’m doing tonight I’m doing for no better reason than it’s the right thing to do. Two weeks ago I wouldn’t have bothered because the risks are too high and these aren’t my orders, but I suddenly can’t stand to see my country go down the gurgler like this. Serrano’s insane and I just plain don’t want him in charge. I’m in a position where I can actually do something about it and I’m terrified I’m not going to live to see the sunrise, but it’s the right thing to do, so I’m doing it.”

He closed his eyes. “But that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as leaving you behind, alone and having to deal with whatever craziness Serrano and Ibarra choose to hand out in the meantime.”

“You’ll be back,” she said firmly. “And in force.”

“If it comes down to a standing battle, then I won’t be able to reach you, not immediately. You have to take care of yourself.”

“I said I would.” She cupped his cheek. “Do you trust me, Daniel?”

He blew out a breath. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He laughed and kissed her knuckles again. “With my life. I already have, haven’t I?”

“And do you consider me capable, within my own range of abilities and talents?”

He smiled. “Astonishingly so. You have amazed me more than once.”

“Then there is nothing more you can say or do to protect me. You have done all you can. I will do the rest.”

Daniel shook his head a little. “Just trust me, huh?” he murmured. He sounded strained.

Suddenly, she understood. All the important people in his life had gone away and not come back. His mother, his father, the family and friends who had disappeared. Then he had made the pattern repeat itself by ensuring anyone who did get close to him had wanted to leave by treating them so badly they hated him enough to go.

Now he was the one leaving and he was expecting that when he got back she wouldn’t be there. It was the pattern.

Tears burned her eyes. She knew now what she had to do. It would make her terribly vulnerable but for Daniel’s sake, she was willing to take the risk. She brushed her thumb over his cheekbone.

“Daniel, I love you. I love you so much that it’s completely changed my life.”

The shock on his face was momentary.

Olivia pressed her fingers to his lips to stop him from interrupting her. “You don’t have to be afraid I won’t be here when you make it back,” she told him. “No matter how long it takes you. If you say you’ll be coming back, then I’ll defy Serrano and his whole fucking army just to see you again. Don’t you see? You can’t scare me away from you. Serrano tried and failed—I came back. He didn’t scare me from you.” She held his face. “You’re not going to let anyone down tonight. How could I let you down?”

Daniel’s kiss seared her mouth, his hands holding her hard against him. He seemed to be trying to climb inside her skin and Olivia floated despite the anchor of his heavy body over hers.

When at last he let her go he stared into her eyes. “Now I really am afraid,” he whispered. “I’m afraid I won’t deserve your love.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she told him. “I will love you no matter what you do.”

He grimaced. “If that is true, then why do people who love you always leave?”

“Because you had a shitty childhood and because you learned to be an even worse adult.”

He looked startled again. Then he smiled. “Right, I forgot. The bastard syndrome.” He took a breath. Hesitated. Then, “It’s time, Olivia.”

Her heart jumped, but she said with false calm, “What can I do?”

“Nothing. I’m just going to get dressed and go.” He eased off the bed and began to dress.

Olivia threw on her satin robe and belted it. She pulled the gun out from under the pillow, then stood at the end of the bed. Her heart was racing. When Daniel was fully dressed she held it out to him. “You’d better take this. If they catch me with it, it’ll go worse for me and you’re going to need it tonight.”

Daniel nodded and took the gun with no argument. He pulled out the clip with quick sharp movements, checked it, checked the barrel and reassembled the gun with economical, practiced motions. He tucked the gun into his trousers and left his shirt hanging out. He unclipped the window but didn’t push it open. He glanced at his watch.

“Go, Daniel,” Olivia told him softly. “You don’t want to miss the rendezvous.”

He had one hand on the window frame, as if he meant to push up the window. His back was to her.

Instead, he dropped his head, as if his courage had deserted him.

Olivia dipped under his arm and pushed between Daniel and the window. She kissed him. “You must go.”

His hand curled around her waist. “I will.”

“I’ll be here.”

“I know.” He sighed and kissed her. “Peaches,” he whispered and pushed her gently to one side. “Don’t ever change your shampoo, either.” He carefully looked out the window, watching the guards. Even as he studied them she saw his job take over, the habits of his profession wash all personal concerns from his mind. The hard, clinical man she had first known stood before her. After about fifteen seconds, he opened the window and stepped up onto the low sill. Then, like a cloud shadow on an overcast day, he moved across it and was gone.

Olivia closed the window, not nearly as quickly as Daniel had moved. Then she wiped her cheeks dry, dropped the robe to the floor and started to dress as swiftly as possible.

It was barely beyond the curfew as Olivia walked the corridor of the hotel. Since the broadcast, the hotel had been in an uproar and she was banking on that to get away with what she planned. She had learned from Daniel that being outright obvious about something was more effective at hiding it than trying to be sneaky.

So she walked like she had every right to be there.

She saw only two sentries on her way to the public rooms and neither of them challenged her.

She made it to the hotel foyer and looked around, her heart thudding hard. She pushed her hands into her jeans pockets, trying to make it look like she was casual and laid back. The low lights they set for the evening were already on. The night staff might already be in place, but there was no one behind the desk, which was exactly what she had planned on. It had been that way when she had sprinted here the other night.

Olivia walked over to the counter and rested her forearms flat against it, like she was about to call for assistance. She looked around for observers.

No one.

She gripped the far side of the counter with her fingers and slid over the top. She crouched down behind the desk and listened, her heart screaming in her temples.

No one yelled. No running boots. No protests.

So far, so good. She stood up cautiously and moved into the office in the back behind the desk, through the glass door with the venetian blind. There was minimal lighting back here, but enough to let her see this was a large administration office immediately behind the glass door, with three desks. All had telephones on them. She ignored them and kept moving, looking for a larger office, a bigger desk, a bigger chair. She wanted that telephone, because the chances that phone would be part of the hotel circuit would be less likely.

Olivia found a big circular office at the end of a grand passage, complete with a leather-tucked and brass-studded chair, a rosewood-and-leather inlaid desk and two phones. By the light of the fire alarm switch in the wall, she studied the phones. One had three or four out-lines, an intercom, numbers for staff, the kitchen, a secretary, more. The other just had a number pad and speed dial numbers. That phone, then, was the private line.

She picked it up and got a dial tone. Her heart really began to slam around in her chest. Her pulse was doing weird things, too.

Counting out the numbers by touch, she dialed the phone number by memory and listened to it ring. Once, twice. “Come on, Jane, pick up,” she murmured.

“Colonel Davenport’s office,” Jane said crisply.

“If you’re there, that means Dad’s still at work, too,” Olivia said. “I have to talk to him, Jane.”

“Oh my god!” Jane breathed. Then she pulled herself together. “Wait just a moment. Only a few seconds, I promise.” She didn’t say more than that, but she didn’t have to. The promise not to leave her waiting told Olivia that Jane knew exactly where Olivia was.

The line went blank and muffled and Olivia could feel the buildup of a touch of panic. Now that she’d started this particular ball rolling, she wanted it to keep rolling. She didn’t like being put back into limbo.