Own (Command Force Alpha #1) (28 page)

They didn’t come. She was his to mold and explore.

I’m his. Only his.

Her love had started as something little and unformed—just enough for an eighteen-year-old to flare into an unending crush. But his humor and power and light had shone back at her, fanning her infatuation even higher. That’s where it could’ve ended, when they’d made choices based on fear. Except their lives had crashed into each other again. Now there was this. Her love for Evan. It was overwhelming—nothing her younger self could’ve ever imagined, let alone dared to feel.

She wanted to both weep and come. Either would mean escape and release, but she’d handed everything over to him. She wouldn’t be afforded those options until he said so.

He opened the flimsy packaging of a condom and handed it to her. “Put it on me, shark. No teeth.”

“Does that mean you want me to use my mouth?” She wasn’t sure where she found it in herself to be flippant. A sheltered, frightened place, perhaps.

“Not this time.” His lips quirked on a grin. His eyes verged on an unnatural shade of blue, too bright to stare at, as if the ocean held the brightness of the sun. She wanted to place her fingers across his eyes, to keep him from pinning her with that unnerving stare, with so much faith and trust shining out toward her.

She loved him too much to stand by while he ran away to danger. It would be like the last four years all over again, with Evan charging into the fray. This time, Katsu’s heart wouldn’t break in two. It would shatter.

Her hands shook when she unrolled the condom down his thick cock. The sheer material layered white over the ruddiness of his skin. She sneaked in an extra stroke, for the pure pleasure of touch. The fingers of one hand couldn’t encircle him at the base, and his length had never, ever failed to please her.

As if to prove the point, he pulled her closer and dragged her across his lap. The crisp hair on his thighs abraded the delicate skin inside her legs. She wanted more of that. More than that. She wanted him inside her.

So quickly, she got her wish. He used one hand to align the head of his cock to her opening, nudging through her wetness, making her tremble from head to toe. He was going to fuck her. She hadn’t been sure, despite putting the condom on him, because he was Evan. He was Sir. Easily, at his whim, he could change her mind and make her want him to come on her tits. A few wanks of that strong hand and he’d explode all over her. She’d have been rewarded with the visceral impact of how much he wanted her. That would’ve been enough had it been what he chose.

The way he filled her was better. His cock spread her sheath with every inch that slipped inside her. Heat rose between them. Any drift of the suite’s cooler air arrowed away when he pulled her closer and closer.

There wasn’t an inch of her that he didn’t own. He adjusted her knees on the soft velvet cushions to open her wider. He tucked her feet over his knees. She hardly had any leverage in that position. She didn’t need it. Evan held her steady and fucked upward, with one hand splayed between her tits. She was his doll and his prize, but the way he made her feel was
her
prize.

She knew when he was nearing his climax. That amazed, adoring look faded from his eyes. His mouth tensed flat. His gaze absorbed the sight of her, as if assessing what she would need. Where she’d need to be taken. “You’re going to come with me, shark.”

One twitch of her neck. That’s how close she came to shaking her head. It seemed implausible. But if Evan said that was what would happen, that was what would happen. Period. He hadn’t let her down yet, and it looked like he never would.

He pushed upright, so that their torsos rubbed together. Again and again, her nipples were tormented in the sweetest way by the thatch of hair over his chest. The angle lined his cock against her G-spot. Her clit was slammed against his pelvic bone. It should have been too much. Her brain was spun five different ways, and she couldn’t breathe through any of it.

“Here.” He wedged one hand under her chin, holding her still while he fucked and fucked. “Here, Katsu. On me. With me.”

He was making little grunts as he bucked into her pussy and she took him deep. Deeper. So deep that she exploded from the inside out. He locked his vise-strong arms around her body. Katsu was afraid to exhale because she might lose the blooming, shivering pleasure that had taken her and made her its own. She felt good
everywhere
, all the way up to her scalp, which tingled with the rush of blood overtaking her body.

Evan had come too. His tight moan told her as much, as did his relentless hold on one of her ass cheeks and her shoulder. He wasn’t letting her go. Not in this moment. Maybe not ever, if she was the good girl she wanted to be. Could she ever be
that
good?

The computer signaled an incoming call. The computer rigged only for emergencies. He drew back and caught her gaze. His eyes were hazy blue. No,
wary
blue. He expected an explosion from her.

He wasn’t going to get it. With every breath that slipped between them, and every puff of air that cooled her sweaty skin, she was rebuilding her walls. Brick by brick. As fast and as hard as she could, all without moving.

Love didn’t matter when Command Force Alpha followed him everywhere.

He scooped her up and carried her to the bed. He wrapped her in a blanket that drove the chill from her body but couldn’t do anything about how that damn ringing sound dipped her fingers and toes in freezing water. This was…hell. Fucking, shit-ass, cock-sucking
hell
.

Sliding a robe around his naked body, he strode across the room. He flipped open the laptop, scowled at the monitor and shoved in an ear bud. “What?”

The skin around his eyes had tightened, and his jaw locked. He listened. He grunted replies that may have been in code. Eventually Kat pulled the blanket up over her head.

She didn’t want to look, not when she was going to be left alone.

Again.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Evan waited patiently as Fletcher patted him down. The man was especially grim, and neither exchanged their usual barbs. They both felt the charge in the air. Why else would so many CFA operatives have assembled in the hospital ward?

At least the colonel no longer looked like an animated corpse. He remained in intensive care, but he wasn’t stuck with as many needles, tubes and monitor wires. He was dressed in a shirt and track pants, and had recently shaven. The man’s will was granite. Evan’s brief glance toward his recovering mentor was replaced by the full-on slam of Katsu in the waiting room. So distracted by the monitor set up in the colonel’s room, he’d nearly forgotten that he and Kat had arrived at the hospital together.

That’s
why he couldn’t have her. Nothing, not even dominating Katsu and making love to her, matched the intensity required of fending off threats so few people on the planet knew existed. His duty obliterated all. It was his job. It was heartbreaking.

Let alone that telling the colonel what had taken place at Quincy would mean Evan’s imminent death.

He bit his molars together and whirled on Fletch. “I need her out of here.”

“She knows something’s up. Fifty bucks says she won’t leave the colonel while all these geese and ganders are flapping around. I suggest a crowbar. Or a hydraulic winch.”

“Or a head of security who can do his goddamn job,” Evan ground out.

“I do my job just fine, Sommers.” Fletch’s blue eyes were like shards of vintage glass. He pierced Evan with a narrow stare. “You brought her in here, man. You decided to stomp on a couple thousand bucks worth of high-res cameras. Only the colonel’s word will shift her off that seat.” He paused. “Unless you hold more sway than he does now.”

“I don’t need this, Fletch.” Evan forced himself to back away. Fletcher wasn’t his enemy. In fact, Evan considered Mark Fletcher a friend. This was frustration and hope and fear churning in his gut until the words he spoke became toxic. And he was supposed to talk to Kat? He’d burn down what remained of the fragile bridge they’d built between one another.

“No, but you’ll need this.” He handed Evan a file. “It’s the rundown on that guy from Quincy. He was so easy to talk to.”

“That’s not normally your style.”

“I’d have had a longer conversation, but all he did was sing like a canary. He’s from the Bokuns, but he wasn’t tailing Kat. He was after you.”

“Why?”

“Sanctuary. Believe me, I didn’t want to believe it either, but the guy is scared shitless. He wanted to talk to you about asylum, and he’s willing to roll over on some fellow Bokuns to get it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Bullshit. What’s going on with the monitor for the colonel?”

“We got a call from Magdalena Portillo, from down in Antigua or someplace where she’s tracing a cold trail. She wanted to know if we had any new information on Laurie. The colonel filled her in.”

“And now?”

“Now there’s a monitor in his room. That’s all I got.”

“Doc cleared it?”

“Yeah. It took Nicky’s threats and the spike in his blood pressure to do the trick. But as soon as the link was secured, his readings went back to normal. Imagine that. A guy who actually calms down when presented with more responsibility.” Fletch shot that quick, mostly amiable grin of his. “I don’t know
anyone
else who works in reverse that way,” he said sarcastically.

“Shut up.”

“Fine. Just get your stupid ass in there.”

Fletcher closed the double doors, sealing Evan in with what probably amounted to all of the team members currently in Boston. Alex, Snow, Gabe and Dr. Bascombe were givens these days.

Other team members had crawled out of the woodwork. Gabe leaned against the far window casement next to his seemingly dumb-witted partner in crime, demolitions expert Jeremy Crandall.
Seemingly
, because both were completely skilled at presenting a convincing, absolutely false outer persona. Neither looked to be in the mood for disguises at the moment. The air jumped with electric uncertainty.

But without Nicky Stafford, CFA’s center wouldn’t hold. Everyone would slink back to their various secret-ops roles, turn merc or give up the game altogether. It was easier to put life and limb on the line under the command of a trustworthy leader. In Evan’s experience, that kind of leader only came along once in a lifetime.

The colonel’s daughter was once in a lifetime too.

“Gemma should be here,” Snow said idly. One hand toyed with the hem of her long tweed skirt. The other hand held a dagger no longer than her palm, twirling it over and over through her fingers as a baby would caress a rattle. For comfort. “They were best friends. Has anyone called her?”

“No one says a thing to Gemma. She’s buried in deep cover in Iran, and you know how long it took us to get her in there.” Evan’s voice reached everyone, even the idlers at the back of the room, because Gabe and Crandall looked up from their conversation and nodded. It was a rare thing to see earnestness in their expressions. “Doc Bascombe will be in with the colonel and me by default. The rest of you will wait. No exceptions.”

Snow tucked a slip of auburn hair behind her ear. “Always so bossy, boss man.”

Katsu fired a few dozen rounds with nothing but her stare as he left her behind. Her look of betrayal tempted Evan toward very unprofessional thoughts, but she already knew too much. No way was she sitting in on a debriefing, even if it took place at her father’s bedside.

Alex leaned mock-casually against the wall outside the colonel’s room. “Still think I made the wrong call, Sommers?” Alex asked the question casually, but Evan heard what he really wanted—affirmation that the six minutes he’d been out of contact with the team in Minsk hadn’t been an error in judgment.

Evan looked him in the eye. “No, I don’t. Your debrief cleared all doubt from my mind. Consider that my apology.”

With a rough smile, Alex nodded. “Consider not kicking your ass my acceptance.”

While glad to clear the air with his teammate, Evan still had a mountain to climb. He entered the ICU suite, which was brightly lit. Dr. Bascombe was already inside, so Evan closed the door. The darkness outside the half-drawn blinds was absolute.

“Sir,” Evan said brusquely.

Amazing what that word meant now, as opposed to an hour before.

“Evan.” Lines that had scored either side of his mouth eased, giving Evan a sense of gratification. He had sins to atone for, but he would not let this man down. “I’m glad you’re here. Mags, are you with us?”

“Here, Sir.” Onscreen, Mags Portillo cleared her throat. The satellite connection she was using had very little lag. She was a curvy, dark-haired woman from Colombia, whose looks were made mysterious because of a scar that ran from her left earlobe to temple. However she’d come into the colonel’s fold, she’d done so by tooth and claw. “From what the colonel told me, Laurie Madigan’s status officially remains MIA, correct?”

“Correct,” Evan said. “The Bokun family wanted to trade our bullshit promise to stay off their backs for their bullshit, so-called proof that Laurie is dead.”

“Then what I have to share is relevant. The colonel wanted me to wait until you arrived before I explained.”

“Go ahead, Mags,” Nicky prompted.

“Evie received an encoded email about three hours ago. She and Jayden have been hacking the hell out of it, and finally traced its source to an Internet café in Novgorod, Russia.” She took a deep breath and exhaled, her lips tight. “The email claims to be ‘on behalf of’ Laurie, and rudimentary CCTV at the café shows no sign of anyone who looks even remotely like him at the right timestamp. It
does
show a heavy-set blond man giving a CFA hand signal directly at the camera.”