and she sucked his skin, tasting his salt, then kissed his throat, his chin, his mouth. The kiss went from zero to sixty in an instant, immediately desperate, frantic, needful. He thrust deep, and matched the thrust with his tongue.
Rhythm together became panting, tangled moans, her arms around his neck, his fist beside her face, one hand caressing her breasts.
Already on the edge from having just come, Wren felt an orgasm stealing over her, creeping up with insatiable speed. She welcomed it, arched her back and ground her pussy against him, searching for the right angle. He seemed to sense her need without having to be told, and adjusted the angle of his hips, moving shallowly, thrusting quickly.
When he did that, she whimpered and felt herself burst apart. “You…now.”
She pushed at his shoulder, rolling to one side, keeping him seated deep inside her. He moved with her, and she straddled him, found her balance, her palms on his chest and her weight on her shins and knees. Her hair cascaded around their faces like a black waterfall. Wren held still, letting him fall away from the edge so she could take him there once more. Their eyes met in a moment of stillness and silence.
“I love you, Wren.” Stone whispered the words into the dawn glow.
Wren blinked twice, surprised, and then the weight of what he’d just said hit her. She gave a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob of joy. She lifted up and plunged him deep, letting the love she felt for him seep into her gaze. Once more she lifted up so he slipped almost out, and then sank down, her mouth wide and trembling, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears of need and ecstasy and joy and love.
“I love you.” She breathed it on a down-thrust. “I love you,” she whispered it as she drew him out. “I love you, oh God I love you.” She spoke it out loud as she sank down on him and lifted up, setting a rhythm, slow and deep. She felt his stomach muscles tense, and she quickened her rhythm, made her strokes more forceful, deeper. “No. Don’t hold it back. Give it to me. God, Stone…I love you so much. Give it to me, give me it all, right now. Come, Stone. Come now, and come hard.”
Stone lifted up and took her nipple in her mouth, thrusting in time with her, meeting her down-stroke with lifted hips, rolling inside her and suckling her breasts and moaning as she rode him. He fell back against the bed, took her hips in his hands, his thumbs in the indents, pulling her down onto him and groaning her name. “Wren…Wren…shit, Wren…God, I love you…oh God, I’m—I’m coming…”
Wren leaned back and moved with her hips alone, balanced so he was deep, buried skin to skin, rolling and rolling with aching and tender ferocity, unrelenting desperation. She was there too, a third detonation erupting within her, brought on by the throbbing of his cock inside her, the press of his hands on her hips, the knowledge of love and safety making each breath she took erotic, each thrust pulsing with fervor and the coiling blasting heat of impending release for both of them.
Soul-to-soul, they moved together, loving each other.
She felt Stone come apart beneath her, felt the hot flood of his release inside her. He juddered, pushing into her desperately, eyes open and locked on hers, and she came with him. Time slowed, stopped, froze mid-stream as Wren felt her body shake and tremor and spasm, heat and pressure unfolding inside her and making her brain go blank, ripping tears from her eyes and whimpers from her throat.
Stone seemed possessed, wordless, fraught with emotions of such potency he had no way of expressing them. “Wren. Tell me…again…say it again,” he gasped.
Wren saw him, saw into him, felt the same intensity inside herself, and how impossible it was to express such love, such wild and heart-pounding, stomach-lurching emotion.
She rode him, leaning forward now, collapsed on his chest, her mouth against his throat, sliding down against him, milking him with each pulsation of her hips. “I love you, Stone. I love you, George Alexander Pressfield.”
“The third,” he muttered. “Don’t forget that part.”
“The third,” she agreed, smiling into his mouth as she kissed him.
Stone watched Wren sleep. Black hair wafted across her face, blown by the oscillating fan in the corner of her dorm room. The sheet had slipped down while she slumbered, and was now bunched around her naked hips, leaving her upper torso bare in the near-black of midnight. Moonlight shone through the window, a sliver crescent shedding silver across her tan skin. Her mouth pursed, her eyes scrunched tighter, her fists clenched beside her cheek, and she shook her head, moaning, whimpering, emitting tiny, fearful noises.
“No, no…don’t, please!” The terror in her voice ripped a hole in Stone’s heart. “No more…please no more…”
He reached over and touched her shoulder, skating his fingertips over her warm skin. He nuzzled her cheek with his lips. “Wren. Wake up, baby. It’s a dream. It’s not real.” Wren shook her head violently, then her eyes flickered open, locking on his. At first, all he saw in her eyes was disorientation and fear. He brushed her cheekbone with his thumb, smiling at her. “You’re fine, babe. Just a bad dream.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered. “It wasn’t…wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. I saw…the naked girls, locked in tiny rooms. Never getting out. Never getting away. Never being free. I saw him, saw him in the darkness, coming for me, with the drugs. The needle, it erased me. Made me forget who I was.”
Stone gathered her in his arms. “I know.” His heart broke for the agony in her voice.
“We have to do something. I can’t—I have to help them. I have to do something to stop it. At least try. Raise money, or awareness. Something.” She pressed her face to his bare chest, and he felt the warmth of her skin and the wetness of tears. “Stone, we have to do something.”
“We will. I promise. We’ll do something. We’ll get everyone we know in on it.”
She nodded, and began to drift once more. Stone held her and watched her sleep, his own nightmares keeping him awake, his mind whirling with ideas.
20
~
Stone tugged on the cuff of his sleeve and took a deep breath. He’d never been comfortable in the full dress uniform, with all the ribbons and medals and all the other official bullshit. It was hot and stuffy and uncomfortable. He preferred BDUs, or shorts and T-shirt. Anything, really, other than the full dress uniform. He’d even take a suit and tie, which he didn’t own. But here he was, in full dress, hair freshly cut to regulation length, about to step into a ballroom packed with hundreds of people. It was worth it, though.
Wren had campaigned tirelessly over the last six months, organizing a fundraising dinner to benefit the victims of sexual slavery and human trafficking. She’d pulled in organizations from all over the world, non-profits, charities, political groups from both sides of the aisle. Stone had used his few connections into the political world to get more people involved. Senator Johnson had been the first person to donate money, and he’d also used his enormous amount of political clout to bring attention to Wren’s efforts. His daughter Lisa—whom Stone and his men had rescued from Cervantes’ operation—was a keynote speaker, along with Wren and several others. There were senators and congressmen, ambassadors from all over the world, lobbyists, mayors, governors, movie stars, sports stars, and a host of ordinary citizens.
Stone had worked alongside her to get this event off the ground, and to make it as visible as possible, but Wren had been the driving force. She’d continued her classes at the university, but her life had become focused on this event, on raising awareness and gathering funds to benefit those who had survived experiences like hers and Lisa’s.
It was astonishing what she had accomplished, really. Even before the fundraising dinner, she’d raised tens of thousands of dollars. She was planning on using the money this event raised to establish her own non-profit organization, which would work hand in hand with governments all over the world to crack down on human trafficking and sexual slavery, as well as providing aftercare to survivors.
Now, it was all coming to fruition. Wren was in another room, having her hair and makeup attended to by a team of professionals, a service contributed by a high profile film actress. In just a few minutes, she would enter the ballroom and make her presentation, beginning the dinner event and sharing her story.
Stone was nervous for her, although she claimed to be more excited than nervous.
A knock sounded at the door and Stone spun on his heel. Wren stood in the doorway, clothed in a custom-
