Saved by His Submissive (5 page)

Goddamnit, he’d believed every line they fed him. He’d settled for saying goodbye to her photo on a tripod as they tossed flower petals off a cutter in the Sound, instead of demanding they all look harder, deeper, further for her.

Never again.
He vowed it now with every cell in his being. He’d never again give up on her. The angels had given her back to him, and he sure as fuck wasn’t blowing the chance. He’d never again let her go, and he’d never again rest before knowing she was safe, secure, completely protected.

He began making good on that oath that moment, clutching her close and claiming her mouth with a kiss so deep and consuming, they both dragged air in harsh, heavy breaths afterwards.

He kept her pressed against him, still barely comprehending that her heart beat beneath his and her arms actually trembled against his neck, before he murmured, “Welcome back, Sage Weston.”

Sage pulled back a little. She tilted her face up at him, her chapped lips tremulous with the question that tumbled off them. “Welcome back…to what?”

“To life, sugar.” He brushed her lips softly with his own again. “To life.”

* * * *

Several hours later, he watched another degree of that life dance across her features as she laughed into his cell phone. She held the phone on the side of her face that hadn’t turned five shades of blue yet, causing Garrett to Zen-breathe his way out of another surge of fury. She’d shrugged off the injuries, unwilling to tell him how they’d gotten there, telling him that she’d shared all during Franzen’s debrief and didn’t want to go through it again with him.

Garrett told himself to be patient. For Christ’s sake, he’d woken up in a grimy hotel room today about to masturbate in his sleep with her wraith. Tonight, ensconced safely in the US Embassy’s guest quarters, he was about to climb into bed with her very warm, very alive self.
Be grateful, you nut sack. And patient. Very patient. That includes what’s about to go down here. You have no idea what she’s been through. She may not want your dark blue balls all up in her business yet, got it?
  

He turned from her, trying to focus on something a little less arousing than the sight of her in his old Pike Place Market T-shirt and a pair of utilitarian white panties. The task was
not
easy. The combo was sexy as fuck, no matter how basic its inspiration. She literally had nothing with her when they’d gotten here, and had been too tired and hungry to wait for clothes to be scrounged up, other than the underwear. He’d assured the Embassy staff they could wait for a while, and had shuttled her up to his room. She’d rushed for the shower, spending the next twenty minutes moaning in ecstasy beneath the hot spray. Garrett had paced the bedroom, fighting an erection that could’ve raised a barn with the nails it could pound.

Concentrate on something else.

He looked out the window at the courtyard that grew brighter with the peachy shades of dawn. A grim smile took over his lips. This morning, that asshole King and all his henchmen were behind bars. The Thai police had gladly turned them over, and now they’d face international repercussions for what they’d done to Sage, Rayna, and the five aid workers.  

The shitty thing was, men like him were like cockroaches. Kill one and you ended up stirring the whole intrusion. He had no doubt that other SOF teams would be called here soon to try and quash more of the monsters.

Sage’s throaty laugh was a welcome step into his thoughts. He turned and visually feasted on her again. She was propped against the wall with his phone against her ear, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. The muscles in her calves and thighs were prominent, but all the curves that’d invaded his imagination for the last twelve months were still there…barely. She’d lost a lot of weight. There were old scratches on her ankles, indicative of heavy hiking through thick brush. He gazed at the pronounced muscles in her arms, too. Every inch of her body that he could see was clear evidence of what she’d survived in the last year.

What
had
she survived?

Patience, damn it. This isn’t an op you can control. You can’t just kick in the doors of her psyche and demand answers like she’s a friendly informant.

“Okay, Mom. Yes, I’ll call as soon as we get back stateside.” She bit her lip, and swiped at the tears that escaped anyway. “Yep, he’s right here. I love you too.”

She clicked the call off and extended the phone to him with a watery smile.

“Is she doing okay?” Garrett asked.

Sage nodded. “Yeah. Just stunned, I guess.” She shook her head, bemusement touching her features. “Suppose I’ll get that reaction from a lot of people.”

He put the phone down on the utilitarian bureau, then scooted around to the foot of the bed. After he sat down, he braced his elbows on his knees. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “You should prepare yourself.”

About a minute passed. It felt like an hour. He tilted his head in order to steal peeks at her, watching her shred her bottom lip as she stared at the far wall. He could practically see the thoughts tumbling through her head, a mental gymnastics team on crack. It was just as hard to follow in terms of what she was thinking.

Patience.

“Did you…have a service?” she finally asked.

During the drive in from the jungle, he’d tried to explain what he’d said about welcoming her back to life. He’d followed it with the flyover version of what had happened after she and Rayna had disappeared. He’d tried to smooth over the rougher parts, as semi-impossible as that was. There was no way of sugar coating the visit from the CNO, the papers Heidi had been asked to sign, the medals that were promised, the condolences imparted. He’d told her about the Army’s certainty they weren’t still alive, and the dictate from sources much higher than him that a search wasn’t feasible, hopeful, or possible.

To his perplexity, Sage had merely nodded and said they’d done the right thing. When Garrett questioned that ludicrous shit, she’d turned and gazed out into the night, her eyes matching the darkness, turning into deep forests he’d never seen there before.

What the hell had happened to her in the last twelve months?

He forced the thought into a side pocket of his mind. He was damn determined to get an answer to that, but right now, she needed hers more.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “we had a service. We did it on a Navy cutter, out on the Sound.” He lifted one side of his mouth at her. “You would’ve liked it, sugar. Except for the being dead part, of course.” When she returned his smile with a tentative smirk of her own, all his ribs turned into mush, baring his heart to the warmth of her regard. It gave him the courage to continue. “We tossed yellow and pink roses onto the water, along with your—well, what they assumed were your ashes. And we served grilled cheddar cheese sandwiches while listening to classic disco.”

She laughed in full. “Okay, you’re right. I really would have loved it. Except for the being dead stuff.”

He joined her in a chuckle, but it was all he could manage before his next words came out, shaking as they did. “Damn it, Sage. I’m so glad you’re not.”

The air thickened back into awkwardness again. He kept his stare threaded into the thin bed blanket, suddenly unable to meet her gaze.

“Are you?”

It was only two words, but they asked so much more. He knew it, and he knew she did too. She inched one foot toward him then nudged him with her big toe. “Then why don’t you show me?”

He curled his hand around her foot. The sensation of touching her, really touching her, and of  caressing her warm, soft skin…it turned the crumbles of his ribs into dust, and dissolved his senses into a chaos of confusion, need, heat.

“Garrett.”  Now she leaned over, and grabbed his wrist in one of her tiny but iron-strong hands. “Please. I need this. I need…”

She drew his hand up to her cheek.

“I need you.”

He took a shaking breath as she leaned her face into his palm. Then another as she turned and kissed his wrist. God
damn,
her lips were so warm and soft and succulent.
Don’t think about that. Think about the Mariners chances for the Playoffs this year. Or getting the oil changed on the truck when you get home. Or—

Shit.

She pulled his middle finger down. Wrapped her mouth around it. Her gaze, now green and clear as Spring itself again, opened to him in blatant need.

He was done with breathing. With patience. With the goddamn Mariners. With anything else except needing her in return.

“Oh, fuck me, sugar.”

He groaned it as he surged at her. He grinded their bodies together, mashing his mouth onto hers. When he pulled up to give them both a gasp of air, she curled a breathtaking smile up at him.

“Isn’t that my line, soldier?”

He didn’t have the self-control to return her grin. His blood, until now barely banked, burst into a bonfire, raced through his system then gathered force inside his balls. He didn’t waste a single moment to let her know it, either. Shoving her thighs wide with his knees, he fit the khaki-clad ridge between his legs against the cotton-covered groove of her own, and rocked with slow, teasing thrusts until Sage’s mouth parted on high, breathy cries. He stared in fascination at the locked edges of her teeth beneath. Damn, he’d forgotten how breathtaking her mouth was.

He lifted a finger to her lower lip and pressed down. “Open up,” he said with guttural demand. “I’m going to taste you, Sage.”

With a gorgeous little mewl, she complied. He rose up, bracketing her jaw with one hand, holding her still for his descent. He dove in, ramming his tongue deep, exploring the cavern of her mouth with two overriding intents. The first? To claim her again, to fill her with the taste and heat and feel of him alone. The second? To make damn sure she knew exactly what he was going to do to her body next.

Beneath him, she didn’t just open up. She blossomed. Incredible sighs erupted up her throat and soaked him with her essence in return. The feel of her hands on his back, jerking up his T-shirt to drag their way up his back, made him vibrate with a million electric tremors of arousal.

“Garrett!” Her plea was strident and sweet in his ear. “Oh, please!”

He ran a hand downward, tucking it beneath the band of the panties, his lust roaring hotter when her body drenched his fingers in sweet, tangy juices. He couldn’t control himself from going further, inching a finger up her secret channel. They moaned together when her vagina clamped on him like a long-lost lover, sweet and tight in its desperate bliss.

Damn.
What was it going to be like when he slid his cock into her?

He couldn’t wait to find out.

His breath came in harsh spurts as he shoved the panties down to her thighs. In seconds, he returned his fingers to the curls a few inches higher, spreading her again, coaxing the ridge of flesh where she was most sensitive, stroking her desire into a blaze to match his.

“My heart,” he murmured against her lips.

“My hero.” She gasped and arched into his fingers, stunning in her hot, panting desire.

He hovered his face above hers, breathing in the sweet natural essence of her, a mix of spring mist, wildflowers, and complete woman. “Now I know why I couldn’t let go. Everyone told me to move on, but I told them all to fuck off. I refused. Part of me knew. And now,” –he sank his lips deep into hers— “I’m not ever going to let you go again.”

 “I love you, Garrett.”

She smiled again at him, her eyes dreamy. Her lips were stung from his kisses, her face aglow in the radiance of expecting him to return the words. His heart rang with them, and his soul clamored with the need to bellow them from the fucking rooftops if he had to…but in the pit of his throat, the consonants were a gob of mud, the vowels were a tangle of nails. Even thinking of dissolving the mess made him shake with pain and loss.

What the hell is wrong with you?

That was the ten million dollar question, wasn’t it? His lack of an answer was agony. He’d dreamed of seeing her like this again, open and ready and beautiful for him. He’d clung to this memory for what felt like forever.

This memory.

This memory.

Holy fuck. This was how she’d looked the night before she left for Botswana. The night he’d lost her forever.

“Garrett?”

He dropped his head, breathing hard. He couldn’t take her this way. Not like this.

He craved the Sage who’d shared his dream this morning. The squirming, writhing Sage…in his captivity, under his control. Holy God, he needed her.

“Garrett? Baby?”

He lifted his face again, curling a slow grin at her as he did. “I’m here, sugar.” With slow, gentle circles, he started another kiss. As he skated a hand up underneath her shirt, he tilted his head and rained bites on her lips. She rolled her mouth against his, trying to give back as good as he gave, but he stopped her, increasing his pressure, always bringing her under his rule again—until with a frustrated cry, she nipped at him and captured his upper lip with a giggle of triumph.

Garrett growled low, raised his hand to her erect nipple, and tugged it hard.

“Ahhh! Garrett, what the—”

Before she could finish, he’d lifted her shirt all the way off, hurled it to the floor, and returned his mouth to the peak he’d just pinched, licking the irritated skin with the flat of his tongue.

“Oh.” It left her on a startled breath. The sound turned into another tiny keen when he pulled again at that distended nub, using his teeth this time. She tunneled both her hands into his hair, digging at his scalp with her nails. “Ohhh! Shit!”

She began to writhe now. And God help him, his dick throbbed harder.

She gasped as he took both her hands and pinned them over her head. He snarled low, yanking down his fly with his other hand.

She twisted and trembled. He grunted and gritted his jaw. His pre-cum alone was a geyser. Looking at her like this, completely his, tamed for him at last, had his cock screaming to seal his claim on her.

“Kick the underwear free.” He gave her the order on a harsh, hot rush of sound. “Then you’ll spread wide for me, sugar. I’m gonna claim every inch of you, Sage. Every fucking inch.”