Walker (Bad Boys of X-Ops #1) (9 page)

I bullied against her. “It’s
our
business. The goddamn business we’re in. And you should fucking thank me for getting you out of Beirut with your head intact instead of shot clean off.”

“You should be thanking
me
for not killing you in your sleep!” She tried to prod me back, but I was a hard wall of tall muscle in front of her.

And I was not stepping down.

“You snore,” she hissed.

“Oh, yeah? You drool. And you talk in your sleep.”

Jade’s face went murderous, the rage making her even hotter, me even angrier.

“I think I shall go to bed.” Madge sidled away, politely excusing herself.

She wasn’t stupid. She could tell when two powder kegs were set to go off.

We barely glanced at her, and I hardly noticed when the bedroom door snicked shut.

“I’d like to know how everyone scrambled on us so quickly in South Carolina. Not like we left a trail of breadcrumbs,” I gnashed out, straining toward Jade.

“Are you accusing me of something, Walker?”

“I think you know what I’m saying.” I prowled that last inch toward her, my hands clenching at my sides.

She flipped her hair back. “You think I’d risk Majedah’s and my lives just to . . . what? Take you down in the crossfire?”

“Wouldn’t put it past you.”

The air around us filled with antagonism. Distrust. And just like Madge had said, so much fucking unstoppable lust.

Neither one of us stepped down.

Seconds passed—tense and silent.

I relaxed my stance, lounging slightly back. “You know what I like to do when I need to expel some energy, Jade?” Her name came out buttery soft with a slight dare.

My eyes lowered to the dangerous curves of her body, and the atmosphere shifted again, compelling me closer to her sensual heat.

Her gaze widened, the green of her irises drowning in darker depths.

“What?” she asked, breathless and not backing down.

“Fuck or fight. So what’s it gonna be?”

Fight Night or Fuck Night?

“YOU WANT MY KNIFE at your cock again?”

The woman never missed a chance to backtalk me, but that was about to end tonight because she’d be too busy sucking my dick.

“Actually, that was
my
knife.” Gripping Jade’s hips, I set my mouth right against her ear. “No. I want your lips plunging down my cock.”

Her head snapped up, her mouth so close to mine I could nearly taste her.

“Fight,” she declared.

My nostrils flared. “Typical.”

I let her go, let her retreat a few paces. Then I started undressing, right there in the middle of the loft. First my shirt, which I slung behind me. I thumbed open the top button of my jeans, my fingers coming into contact with the black hair that ran from my belly button down and around my cock.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked.

Huh.
I’d never heard her squeak before.

“I said fight!” Jade visibly gulped when I forced open the last few buttons over the rigid rod of my cock.

“If we’re going hand-to-hand combat, I don’t wear street clothes.” I grinned, slowly braiding my hair into one long plait with my jeans hanging open and framing the thick base of my shaft. “Haven’t you heard of the ancient combat method called heroic nudity?”

“What?” Her voice registered another, higher level.

“No place to hide. And no place to hide weapons. Sheer strength for strength. But this time I’ll take pity on you.
”
Toeing off my jeans, I worked them down my legs and off.

Naked, I ambled to my pack.

“Well, I’m not taking pity on you.” Jade’s voice dropped into a strained, husky whisper.

I rummaged for my jockstrap. It didn’t conceal much, but it definitely gave me range of movement. Last time I’d worn it was when Hunter and I had gone at it—
not like that
—and I’d laid him out in his gym at his house. Good times. He was a mean fucker with his fists when he got pissed off.

Stepping into the lightweight jockstrap, I flexed and stretched. The rest of my body bare, my muscles heaved in preparation for whatever Jade was going to throw at me. I hefted my dick, making sure the bulge of my cock and my sac were all tucked into the pouch.

Fuck. Probably needed to put the protective cup in the thing, too.

But I wouldn’t complain too much if Jade decided to cop a feel while we went at.

“This is what I wear.” Returning to face her I spread my arms wide.

Her eyes narrowed into a glittering green glare, but there was no mistaking the pink splashes across the skin of her high cheekbones. “Going full Native on me?”

The corner of my mouth lifted. “Not quite.” My thumb pulled down the band settled along my pelvic muscle. “Can if you want.”

“Distraction tactics?” One of her slim black eyebrows rose.

“I didn’t think you noticed that sort of thing, Jade.”

“Oh, I noticed,” she muttered.

I loped forward to the center of the room. “Here’s the deal, if I win, we fuck.”

“If I win, you’re dead.” She flashed a challenging grin at me, getting into combat stance.

“Bring it.” I curled my fingers in her direction.

I usually didn’t hit chicks, but the truth was I couldn’t wait to get physical with this woman anyway I could.

We stalked briefly around one another, balancing on the balls of our bare feet, lunging and snaking away before any strikes landed on flesh.

The heat in the room multiplied by a million degrees when Jade whipped off her hoodie, revealing a tight black tank top that showed off the sleek sinews of her arms and shoulders.

My low wolf whistle seemed to really set her off.

Surprise.

With a high shriek, she leaped across the air. Coming down, she planted her heel in my solar plexus. Before I could recoil, her hand captured my braid, and she cuffed me across the face.

I thrust her away with my knee at her chest so she stumbled a few steps.

“Nice move.” I swiped the blood from my mouth.

“I learned it from watching you. You fight like a girl.”

“And you got a big mouth. Hope you can back it up.”

Jade grunted, pouncing forward. I ducked the blow she aimed at my ribs then rose behind her. Cinching her wrists in my fist, I held her hands immobile at the base of her spine.

I pulled her against me. Sweat drizzled between my chest and her back. The muscles in my arms and shoulders bunched with restraint.

Her ass moved almost imperceptibly against my steel-hard cock, and she gasped before growling.

Squeezing her fingers together into a tight funnel, she cranked her head back against my throat. She slipped free while I bent over, taking in deep draws of O2.

Whirling on me, Jade bit out, “Come on,
baby
. Hit me. You’re the one who suggested a fight.”

“Actually, I was angling for a fuck.” I reeled away from her incoming roundhouse kick before she made contact. “But what can I say? Lady’s choice.”

“Then you
actually
have to fight me to get it.” Her tits rose and fell with the harsh breaths in and out of her lungs. “Your rules.”

I growled and lowered down on my haunches, prowling in a circle around her. “That what it takes to get you going, Jade?”

“You don’t
have
what it takes.”

Charging forward, I struck fast. I grabbed the back of her neck and hauled her against me.

My other hand moved to the front of her neck, and her breath left in a sharp exhale.

I squeezed until the pumping of her blood through her arteries beat against my palm.

Releasing my hand on her neck, I skimmed down her arm, skating my fingertips against her flesh in a ghost of a caress. My breath washed across her panting mouth.

“I. Am. Not. Hitting. You.”

She screamed holy hell, ripping away from me. “What do you want? What do you want from me?”

When I shook my head, standing in front of her, every instinct in my body pulling me in opposite directions, she flew at me. Punching, kicking, meting out blows like her life depended on it. She still fought with finesse but there was a more personal, vicious force behind it.

I let her land one more strike—a hard bash to my ribs—before I locked my arms around her. “Only way I’m hitting you is when you’re riding my cock and I’m slapping your ass.”

She struggled and swore, attempting to break free.

“Hold fucking still!”

“Make me,” she spat at me.

“Goddamn you, Jade.” A sneer formed on my lips.

I felt the lethal animal inside me coming to life.

I shoved her away, and she landed on her hands and knees. Grasping her hair, I yanked her to her feet. Forming a fist, I slammed it into her sternum with much less force than I’d ever use on the field.

She gasped and dropped back.

I was just about to apologize when Jade shot up with a violent glare. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Tensing all over my body, I reined in the beast trying to come to life.

My chin dropped. I balled my fists.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I hashed out.

Damp hair clung to her face as she drew herself up in front of me. “You couldn’t if you tried.”

I dove for her, driving into her stomach and sending her sailing through the air. She rolled into a somersault, landing on one knee.

I stood, one big ball of badass and seriously pissed off, on the opposite side of the room. “This what you want from me?”

“Yes!”

We met in the middle, digging in. We were both highly trained professionals, but this was something . . . else.

Her hits came hard and fast. I deflected and spun out of her way as much as possible, which only made her angrier.

The next time I captured her, I pinned her onto the floor on her back.

Her disheveled hair—dampened, black and wine-red—tangled in my fingers as I swept if from her forehead. Beads of sweat clung to her temples. Mine dripped down my body. Her top was crooked, my jockstrap loose, and our legs twined together as I held her contorted beneath me.

“I want you in my bed,” I croaked out. “Want you on my cock.”

Her knee swung toward my groin, but I spread-eagled her firmly between my thighs.

“Want my mouth on your cunt. Now.”

Her rage eclipsed anything I’d ever witnessed before. Somehow she slithered from beneath me. She howled, landing on my back.

I snapped my teeth in her direction, almost tossing her off as I bucked up, but she clamped both hands into my hair and bounced my head off the cement floor.

“
Fuuuck
.” Starbursts went dynamite-bright in my eyes.

Wrapping my legs back through hers, I hefted up and over. She scuttled away before I mashed her between the floor and my body.

Dizzy from the head-plant move, I momentarily lost my bearings.

Everything came screaming back into painful focus when Jade snuck up behind me. She jerked my left arm in one direction, my shoulder in the other.

The loud twang of my shoulder joint popping out of the socket hit my ears moments before burning pain jolted through the left side of my body. I squeezed my eyes shut, biting down on my tongue.

Disbelief ran through me as I looked at my dislocated shoulder.

Jade jumped up in front of me.

Her face turned white. “Oh my God! Shit, shit, bloody hell. I didn’t mean to . . .”

I breathed out through my nose, willfully shaking off the agonizing pain radiating from my arm. “Fuck, Jade! You really need an off button.”

Maybe Justice could add one to his super-fucking-duper control pad.

I almost laughed until Jade kneeled beside me, gingerly inspecting the damage she’d done.

“I can’t believe I refused to hit a woman.”

“You hit me.”

“I didn’t frigging do major damage.”

“You’ll live.”

I peered at her, and her face was still chalk white.

“No thanks to you. You’re a machine, not a female.”

At that, she stretched out my arm and snapped the joint into place with no goddamn warning at all.

Standing slowly, I shook off the queasies and the bone-deep ache in my shoulder. I’d survived worse. I was sure she had, too.

Helping her up with the one good arm, I grinned like I’d just been on the best vacation of my life.

Jesus.
No doubt about it. I was one twisted motherfucker.

“You know what they say. All’s fair in love and war.” Her posh accent hit all the right notes, and her smile was—for once—completely unguarded.

I snatched her to me. “So is this love—or war?”

Jade laughed,
a lighter sound than I’d ever heard, curiously wholesome and sweet as if she’d found some kind of relief from letting it all out.

On me.

Almost all of it out, anyway.

Not remarkably, I was still fucking hard as a pole.

Yup. So messed up, getting turned on by a woman who beat the crap out of me.

“That depends.” Her honey voice skipped chills up my back.

We were bloody, sweaty, and out of breath.

Nothing had ever been hotter.

“On what?” I snuck down to trace my tongue up the length of her neck.

“Whose side you’re on.” Her voice dipped with my tongue, which dragged into the small scallop of her collarbone.

“Your side. Always your side now.” Slanting her head, I bent over her and slipped my tongue into her mouth for one lunging taste.

I reached down, grabbing her ass. “And I’m definitely into your backside.”

“You didn’t win!”

“I don’t give a shit.” Groaning, I trapped her hair around my fist to pull her to me. “Need to fuck you, Jade. Jesus.”

“I don’t want you.” Her hands whisked down my chest to land on my hard-packed abs.

My body bucked in response.

“Bullshit to that.” I picked her up in my arms, being careful to favor the left side. “You’re mine, and you know it, Jade Huntington.”