Of Alliance and Rebellion (15 page)

She cried out, her head craning back on the table, and her hips rising so sharply his hand was almost displaced. His fingers brushed her again, and her thighs fell completely open. Her hands shot down, and she wrapped both of them around his wrist and thrust his hand onto her hard while canting her hips up at the same time. As his fingers rubbed her just right, Max hissed in a breath. He straightened and grabbed her hands with both of his.

“No,” Anahita sobbed, already missing the touch of his fingers on her sensitive flesh.

“I said
no touching
,” he whispered, wrenching her hands above her head and pinning them to the table. “I meant it!”

“Yes, fine,” she said quickly, staring up into his face, which was now a breath away. “I won’t do it again. Just ...
please
.” She gulped back the sob that was tinging her words. “Do not stop, Max.” His eyes glittered down at her. “
Please
.”

He looked at her for several hard seconds, and then he adjusted his hold so that her hands were pinned with one of his. His index finger brushed a curl off of her forehead, then trailed down her nose and over the curve of her lip before coming to rest between her parted lips. “Lick it,” he said brokenly.

She felt her brows pucker, but after a slight hesitation, she obeyed. She tasted herself on his finger. Her eyes closed, and she moaned as she sucked it further into her mouth, laving it until the flavor was gone.

He pulled it out of her mouth with a little pop, and when she opened her eyes to gaze up at him, his eyes were swimming with a new level of lust. “You’re gonna be the death of me,” he whispered.

He was right, of course, and the sudden reminder was unwelcome and harsh. Her eyes searched his face until he broke eye contact. Before she could become too embroiled in the sudden dark turn of her thoughts, the fingers gripping her wrists tightened, almost as though he were warning her to live up to her promise not to touch him. Then, his finger, wet from her mouth, landed right on the spot that drove her wild and began moving in tight, fast circles that showed her no mercy.

Her legs jerked with each pass of his skin over hers, and tiny, breathless noises burst from her mouth faster than she could catch them. It felt as though a string were being pulled tighter and tighter, and any moment she would snap.

His name became a litany she said in hoarse, pleading whispers. After the first few repetitions of his name, Max looked into her eyes. His face was tense; his eyes were tortured. He never let up on the pressure and speed of his finger, and as her cries grew louder, his expression turned expectant. “Do it for me, pretty baby,” he groaned. “Let me see your face as you come apart.”

For the first time since he’d pinned her hands, she tried to get free. She was unraveling. Her skin felt too tight for her body, and she wanted to hold on to him, to have him ground her. He pressed her hands more firmly against the table and tsked at her, but blessedly, he did not let up with the brushes of his finger, because Anahita finally found out what that snapped string would lead to.

“Max!” she said, throwing her head back and bowing off of the table to ride wave after wave of pleasure as it shot through her, radiating out from where his finger had now slowed and brushed over her gently.

When she whimpered and her hips fell back to the table, his finger slowed to a stop. As clarity became more accessible, she noticed that his fingers were trembling where they clutched her wrists. His breaths were exploding out of him, puffing across her face and stirring her hair. His face was a mask of utter longing.

Anahita remembered the physical torment she’d been in when they’d done this before and Max had left her wanting. She would not do the same to him. She must have caught him unaware—or he simply wanted it too badly himself—for Anahita was able to free her hands from his hold.

“Your turn,” she whispered up to him. And then she placed her palm over the front of his pants. She gasped at the same time he did. She could
feel
him throbbing through the fabric. His length was so long and so hard, she almost hurt for him. But just as she was about to undo his pants and bring him to pleasure the way he had showed her to do, Max exploded into an upright position.

He stumbled back, almost tripping over his feet. His eyes roamed, touching her and quickly sliding away to her surroundings. He muttered to himself in an unbroken stream of self-recrimination that Anahita could not quite hear, except in snatches.

Then he turned and ran. Anahita was still gasping from the heights he had taken her body to when the door slammed behind him.

All of the good feelings he’d wrung from her body dissipated into the air. This—this was almost worse than how she’d felt when it had been
him
who’d received the pleasure, and she who had gone wanting.

She felt dirty. Used.
Again
.

Who was she fooling? This
was
worse.

Distance. Distance. Distance.

Max careened down the hall, his raging erection preventing movement without pain, and all the while, that damn word was a litany inside his head, mocking his complete failure at maintaining it.

Distance. Distance. Distance.

He made it all the way to the end of the hallway before he broke. With a roar, he spun into the wall, kicking the plaster hard enough to make a plume of dust explode out and cover him. “
Fuck
your distance!” he bellowed.

He heard a snort and spun around again to find that his little mantrum had taken place right where the hallway met the main room. Eli and Jericho stood a handful of feet away, both wearing wry grins. Max’s brows crashed down over his eyes. He didn’t know which of these bastards had snorted, but he was going to find out and punch him in the throat.

Before he could act, however, Eli raised an eyebrow and said, “Problem, Casanova?” And then he pointedly flicked his eyes down to Max’s waist.

Max’s eyes followed, and there it was: the biggest hard-on he’d ever sported pushing obviously against the front of his trousers. “
Shit
,” he muttered, crossing his hands over his fly.

“I hope to God you left her in a better state than you,” Jericho said, “because Jayden will straight up take this out on your hide if he finds out.”

“I can take the angel.”

Jericho’s smile faded. “Uh, no. You really can’t.”

Eli nodded. “Truth.”

Max wanted to throw his hands up, but he still had a pants problem, so his hands stayed right where they were. “Where’s Luke?” he asked in a piss-poor attitude that even he could recognize was obnoxious.

“Came out here looking like someone had kicked his puppy, and then took off for the medical wing like his britches were on fire,” Eli said with a shrug.

Medical wing
. “Ah, hell,” Max said, dropping his hands and taking off in a sprint across the room.

“Everything okay?” one of the men shouted after him, the Southern accent indicating it was Eli.

Max didn’t bother to answer, just kept running. Everything
wasn’t
okay. He’d left Oliver alone. He’d left Oliver alone!

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered under his breath, tearing past people who stopped to gawk at him.

He heard the explosive noise coming out of Oliver’s room from the beginning of the medical wing, and immediately, Max knew he’d messed up in a way that he could not compensate for.

Oliver’s voice came roaring through the hall, nearly bowling Max over. His friend was screaming—not obscenities, but in
fright
. Max had never heard him make that noise before, but he instinctively recognized the desperation of Oliver’s fear.

“Put him
out
,” Luke begged.

Max skidded into the room, not having to pause to open the door because people in scrubs were rushing in and out. Luke was standing at Oliver’s side, clinging to the man’s hand as he thrashed on the cot and continued that dreadful screaming. Without breaking stride, Max hurried over to Oliver’s other side. Oliver’s blue eyes found Max’s face, and Oliver’s panic increased. “Where
are we
?” Oliver shouted, gripping Max’s hand so tightly he heard some cracking.

“We’re safe, man,” Max said quickly. “We’re safe.”

But Oliver’s screams drowned Max out. A man in blue scrubs shoved Max out of the way, and the light gleamed off of a syringe right before the nurse plunged it into Oliver’s thigh.

Almost immediately, Oliver’s screams faded and then went out completely. His blue eyes slid closed, and his breathing evened out. Most of the medical staff left the room with only two staying behind to make notations on charts and check Oliver’s vitals and make notations on charts.

Max stared at Oliver through eyes that were growing dry from a lack of blinking. “He woke up alone,” Max said under his breath.

“No,” Luke whispered gently. “I was here.”

Max’s head snapped up, and he blinked at Luke until he came into focus.

“But you know he needs
you
when he first wakes up.”

Max nodded silently, guilt pouring through him almost more severely than he could handle.

“Stop your bitching.”

Both their heads swiveled in Oliver’s direction. The gravelly statement had come from Oliver, who was staring at Max through bleary but calm eyes.

“I don’t need anyone,” Oliver said. “I’m a regular fucking rock.”

A half-laugh burst from Max’s chest motivated by relief. Oliver’s face was completely relaxed. All evidence of the torture he’d been experiencing was absent. “Oh yeah,” Max said. “Your screams: very rock-like.”

“Damn straight,” Oliver muttered, his eyes drooping. “Just call me Alcatraz.”

“That’s terrible,” Max said, edging closer to Oliver’s cot as the remaining medical staff left.

“Of course it is. You geniuses roofied me.”

“Your screams, remember?” Luke said.

“Oh, yeah,” Oliver said, his words slurring. “This shit’s great.” Luke and Max glanced at each other before focusing on Oliver once more. “I want pudding,” Oliver muttered, and then his head drifted to the side.

Luke cleared his throat and gestured for Max to join him out in the hall. With one last look at Oliver’s peacefully sleeping face, Max followed Luke out.

Jericho and Eli were leaning against the wall opposite the door. They straightened when Max and Luke came into sight. “Everything okay?” Jericho asked.

“Yeah,” Luke said, clapping Max on the shoulder. “Everything is okay.” And for Max’s ears alone, he added, “Truly okay, my man. You understand me? He’s fine. No harm no foul.”

A tiny fraction of Max’s guilt dissipated from his shoulders. A
tiny
fraction, but a welcome relief nonetheless. He nodded to Luke and turned his attention to the other two men. “Luke will want to debrief us,” he said.

“Really?” Eli said, his brows rising. “He was barely in there with Anahita. He had time to learn something?”

“Prepare to be amazed,” Max said. He could see Luke duck his head and knew the man was blushing.

“Follow us to the meeting room,” Jericho said, turning on his heel and walking out of the medical wing in giant strides that they all had to work hard to match, despite the fact that they were all taller than average themselves.

Jericho led them to a room that housed a long, mahogany table surrounded by a dozen leather chairs. They all naturally congregated at the far end where they could watch the door easily—old soldier habits die hard.

“Okay,” Max said to Luke, knowing from experience that he had hit intel pay dirt. “Lay it on them.”

“You were wrong about angels not being threats around their Temptations,” Luke said to Eli and Jericho in the quiet confidence of a man who knew he was right but didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Max frowned and saw the expression mirrored on Jericho’s and Eli’s faces.

Luke continued, “The man Anahita was talking to was an angel named Remiel, and he did something to his Temptation—I’m fairly confident that he killed her.”

“No,” Jericho said, shaking his head. “Are you serious?”

“Very,” Luke said. He placed his hands on the table and stared at them rather than at the other men. “And Anahita looks up to him. It wouldn’t be remiss to call it ‘idol worship.’” He flicked a quick glance at Max, and then returned his eyes to his hands. “Max isn’t safe from her, and if
he
isn’t safe—”

“None of us are,” Eli finished for him.

“There is
some
hope,” Luke said softly. Max found himself swallowing hard. “Anahita is definitely ...
conflicted
where Max is concerned. But she is also resolute. She wants something—very much wants something—that only our deaths will bring about. She doesn’t take this goal lightly, and neither should we.”

Luke raised his head and pinned Max with a heavy look. The
and you treating her like a booty call will not help our case
was heavily implied in that single moment of eye contact. Max’s eyes shifted away, and he tried as surreptitiously as possible to finger-comb his hair over his scar.

“You got all of that?” Jericho asked. “From a five minute conversation?”

“Well,” Max said, “a conversation and an ill-conceived pass.”

He could
feel
Luke’s discomfort, and Eli’s and Jericho’s brows shot up. They looked at each other and then back at the two of them.

“Along that vein of thought,” Max said, examining his fingers casually. “The angel and I—we’ve come to an agreement.” He looked directly at Luke. “An
exclusive
agreement.”

Luke’s face fell. “You’re in a relationship?”

“I wouldn’t say
relationship
.”

Either Jericho or Eli coughed uncomfortably, but Max didn’t look away from Luke.

Luke’s jaw went slack. “You’re
friends with benefits
with an angel of the Most High God?”

Max frowned. Luke had been watching too much television while staying with Oliver in the medical wing. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds douche-y.”

“How would you put it?”

“…I wouldn’t say
friends
…”