Elite Metal-ARE-epub (48 page)

They shed their shoes and he abandoned her breasts long enough to undo her jeans. His cock jutted toward her, like a compass seeking true north. She wasted no time wrapping a hot hand over him, and he hissed out a breath when she gave him a long stroke, then another.

Shackling her wrist, he eased her hand off of him, then dragged her close by the waistband. Dropping to his knees, he pressed a kiss to her belly then peeled those jeans downward. The copper hair gleaming on her head matched the sweet curls his actions revealed and he grinned. A stupid thing to enjoy a natural hair color, but he wanted every real part of her.

“Name,” he reminded her then pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh as he pushed the jeans to the floor. She lifted her foot to step out of them, and he swung her leg onto his shoulder. Bracing her ass in his hands, he set her to the wall and stroked his tongue along the seam of her pussy. The flavor burst over his tongue, sweeter than her scent and thousand times more addictive.

“Name,” he repeated, nibbling kisses as he went. He circled her clit with his tongue and she fisted his hair. The force urged him closer. Refusing her demand, he whispered a breath across the swollen bud and teased the edges. “Name.”

“Oh,” she growled, and the throaty sound had his balls tightening. “Fuck it, call me, Ginger.” Her leg tightened against him, the pressure an exquisite reminder.

“Hmm.” He nosed her clit lightly, then stroked away from it with another kiss. “Gilligan’s Island. Cute.” The Professor and Ginger? “Not MaryAnn?”

The more he teased, the harder her breaths came. She was right on the edge.

“I can make it feel better,” he told her, teasing a finger against her entrance. His cock was so stiff and his balls ached. He wanted to make it better for both of them. Looking up the gorgeous length of her, he met her troubled gaze and consternated frown.

“You’re really pissing me off.” Frustration writhed in those words.

No risk, no reward
. “How much is your name worth to you?” He pushed the finger in, and her muscles tightened. She was so cut, everywhere. A perfect specimen of feminine grace, beauty, and strength…he didn’t know her.
Yet.
“All I want is your name, sweetheart, then we don’t have to say another word.”

If he lasted that long, he qualified for sainthood.

She pressed her head to the door, rested her weight against his shoulders and his hand. The simple act of trust encouraged him, and he added a second finger to the first. Her mouth opened, and her eyelids dropped. Passion suffused her face and she said, “Copper.” Blowing out a breath, she squirmed against his hand and he smiled. “Call me Copper.”

“Hello, Copper.” Delighting in the victory, he made good on his promise and locked his mouth around her clit, sucking the hard little bundle of nerves even as he stroked it with his tongue. The force of her orgasm was a sight to behold. The sweet scent of her arousal filled his nostrils. The taste of her on his tongue was like a drug. He wanted more. Her face, her expression undid him. No moans or soft cries teased his ears. She came with almost absolute silence.  Profound relief relaxed the tension in her expression, her head arched back and her neck extended. He could almost see the pulse beating in her throat, the wild cadence more than a match for his own. She softened, grew more radiant and he felt like for the all the world he was worshiping at her feet.

God, what a place to be.

Easing his fingers from her, he set her legs down gently. Once he was sure her feet were braced, he tugged his slacks closer. Retrieving a condom from his wallet, he suited up and then surged upward.

Lifting her, he kept her to the wall and she wrapped her legs around his hips, giving him all the angle he needed. Guiding his tip to her entrance, he waited till those soft green eyes opened to stare at him before nudging inside.

Hot. Slick. Tight as hell. What was left of his control began to shred. “You taste magnificent, Copper.”

Digging her nails into his shoulder, she shuddered. “You feel fucking wonderful.”

“I don’t have it in me to be gentle anymore,” he warned. Sweat trickled down his back. His body wanted one thing and his mind was in full agreement. He wanted to drive himself into her until he came, yet he wanted her with him.

Fire burned through the dreamy look in her eyes. “You don’t have to be gentle. Trust me, I don’t break.” She flexed her legs against him, driving him in to the hilt with a move that left them both gasping. “Give me…all you’ve got.”

Permission to slip his leash received, he slammed his mouth down on hers and delved his tongue into her mouth in time with his hips. Liquid heat poured down his spine as the delicious friction increased the need throbbing through him. She met him thrust for thrust. She fisted his hair and raked her nails down his back.

His balls tightened and he jerked, trying to bump her clit with every furious slap of his flesh into hers. Muscles clamping down on him, she came with another silent tempest. She stiffened as her orgasm rocked over her and he followed, the relief as blistering and wild as the swift build up.

Clinging together, they rode the storm and he buried his face against her damp throat. The taste of her on his lips and the feel of her body milking him—
Pure, perfect, Copper.

He had to know everything about her.

Chapter Three

Parked on the deck of the coffee shop, she had a spectacular view of the lake below. A coffee cup appeared in the periphery of her vision. Cobalt set the cup down and slid into the chair opposite her. Glancing at him over the screen of the laptop, she gauged his mood had decreased in temperature from pissed to irritated. She’d gone off grid and script in the lecture hall. By the time she’d extricated herself from Gabriel, found her clothes and headed out—Cobalt had been on the way in. Having sex to get information they really needed wasn’t a first for her. Sex with Gabriel, however, hadn’t been about the mission.

The frost in Cobalt’s attitude warmed to a simmering temper in the van, and she’d ignored him all the way to the coffee shop. Pulling up her programs, she checked the download she’d made from Gabriel’s phone. The encryption was over the top.

They’d attended a fundraiser the night before, and she’d scored the information on their second target, Gerald Barrow an assistant turned would-be congressman. Pulling up the first two side by side, she began to skim their contacts, recent phone calls and general day-to-day schedules.

A corporate officer, a budding politician and a professor. It was like the lead in to a bad joke. Her body hummed at the thought of Gabriel—
professor, potential target.
Reconciling the man’s sexiness and vibrant intelligence with possible betrayal and treasonous acts didn’t work for her.

And, if I fucked the enemy…
She didn’t make rash decisions or impulsive choices. The man’s personality had sucked her in from the moment she walked into his classroom. She’d settled in a lower seat, figuring he’d never notice her in the sea of students, but he’d focused on her.

Her.

Seen
her
. More, he’d let her know he’d seen her. No one saw her, not unless she really wanted them to. So, what did his attention say about her?

“What do we have?” Cobalt asked, apparently ready to play nice in the sandbox again.

“A lot of bullshit.” She chose a different encryption program to try and crack the code on Gabriel’s info. The fact he had such tight security compared to their other two targets threw up a red flag.

Or it simply means he worked for the CIA. They have a
lot
of analysts. He has to have an understanding of how vulnerable encapsulating your life on a smartphone was.
If Chrome hadn’t ordered her to use a phone, she wouldn’t own one at all.

The decryption continued to fail. Three programs down and two to go, if she couldn’t crack the encryption, she’d have to find a secure server to upload the info so the Ant could take a crack at it.

He’d be all over this shit. Copper was decent, but no expert. She knew what programs worked. Brad had been like that—if she or anyone on the team needed anything, he could find it. She used to tease him he could find someone selling ice cream in hell…

Rubbing at the ache in her chest, she took a long drink of coffee. “Gerald Barrow is clean.”
Relatively speaking.

“You sure?” His question irked her.

Meeting Cobalt’s gaze, she raised her eyebrows. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?”

“You go off book, disappear for an hour, don’t respond then don’t tell me where you went…”

“I told you, I was making nice with the professor. I got the information, didn’t I?” Why the fuck was she defending herself?
Because I have something to hide.
“Barrow, on the other hand, does have something to hide, but not anything to do with national security.”

She opened the private photos on Barrow’s cloud and swung the laptop around and nudged it over to Cobalt.

“So, he has secrets,” Cobalt shrugged. “What if someone is blackmailing him?”

“Okay, if you had someone on the special intelligence desk of the Joint Chiefs, would you let them walk away from that source to run for congress?” They had the deck to themselves. Inside a couple of teenagers ran the register and made coffee, looking more bored with their existence than anything else.

“Point.”

“Besides,” Copper said, turning the computer around. “His financials are clean, and his bank account is kind of pathetic. So far, I’m not turning up foreign accounts, and I’m assuming Poppy’s ‘sources’ would have found hidden financial assets even in the Cayman Islands.”

Money trails
,
ugh.
Her least favorite thing to hunt. Let her pick up information or get them access, no problem. Pull a bank heist? She could do that, too. What would Brad have done?

Sleep with a sheep to get the info they needed, then delivered it with a five course meal. The man could make a picnic in a desert. She missed him. He’d understood how her mind worked, never relented when he wanted something, and walked her through the steps to get what he wanted out of her—until she
wanted
to give him what he wanted. Kind of like answering the professor’s question about her name. S
top.

“Go away.” Merc announced his arrival with three syllables, all of them directed at Cobalt. “Plat’s checking in with Chrome. Go talk to them, and give them an update.”

“Well, I know when I’m not wanted.” His easy grin said no hard feelings, and he left her to Merc. The teens inside had noticed Merc’s arrival. Their wide eyes and faint pallor suggested they weren’t familiar with the real, hard side of life.

The de-encryption program dinged, and she switched screens. They’d cracked the first layer of encryption on the phone. She had all the contact phone numbers, but no names. The possibility of spending hours waiting on the computer gnawed on her patience. Turning it over to Ant was the right thing to do—
except I don’t want to give Gabriel to Ant until I’m sure he’s…
Until she was sure he was what? Clean? Guilty? Out of her system?

“Most likely target?”

“No idea. I know who isn’t, but not who is.” Not discounting the encryption, but being security conscious didn’t make a person bad.

“Coyle’s dirty. He likes buying women and girls.” Merc stretched his legs out in front of him. “What about Barrow?”

“He likes dancing in women’s underwear and seducing men while wearing a dress.” The photos on his phone could make his bid for government office go down in flames before it began. Still, the images didn’t look photoshopped. Those she would ship back to Ant and Poppy. If they were a bait and switch, they could find out.

Merc paused. “Weird.”

“But not criminal. So far, all of these guys appear well over the age of consent. He has a type, too.” He liked that touch of gray around the temples.

“The professor?”

“Smart. Intelligent. No obvious vices.” Besides being able to fuck like a champion and giving her the best orgasm she’d had in a year. It had been a long, hard dry spell, yet he’d melted the chill right off her. Before they’d dressed, he’d talked her into meeting him after classes the next day. If she were still here, she’d go…
Really?

Was she seriously planning to meet the guy? Only if the mission parameter required she do so. Of course, if she couldn’t break his encryption…

“Sachi,” Merc’s voice penetrated her internal argument. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Having a cup of coffee.” She smirked and raised her cup as though toasting.

He said nothing, the thousand-mile stare in his eyes raiding her defenses and seeing right to the core of her insecurities. Lying to Merc never worked unless he let her get away with it. Most of the time, he didn’t push. Apparently, this wasn’t going to be one of those times.

She had two options. Play stupid and keep right on doing what she was doing or concede the battle without firing a shot and confess. Neither sat well with her, so she took another sip of coffee and met him bland stare for stare.

“We need to identify the leak. Chrome’s right. You have a gift for ferreting information.”

“Thank you.” Hey, a compliment was a compliment.

“You also don’t get snowed by other’s bullshit.”

Two for two.

“Except once.” Well, two out of three wasn’t bad.

“Don’t say it.” Bringing up her decision to have an affair with Brad was Merc’s right. He’d told her it wasn’t a good idea at the time, and part of her understood it. Didn’t matter—in the end, Brad was still dead and her only regret had been losing him, not having been with him.

“I wouldn’t, but you’re not giving me a fucking choice.” His glare spoke volumes. “I’m not some Dr. Phil asshole. I don’t give a rat’s ass about who you fuck or don’t fuck unless it fucks with your head.”

She hadn’t slept with anyone in a year. A year. Who she slept with or the fact that she didn’t sleep with anyone was no one’s business.
Right up until you let a target corner you and drop your clothes like some cheap two dollar whore.