Grace laughed bitterly and moved past him, with short, agitated strides. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and drank deep. “A doctor can’t fix me, Gabe. I’m fucked up. Broken. And there’s nothing that can put me back together again.”
“Cut yourself a break, Grace. We lost a child. It’s going to take some time.” He tried to go to her. To comfort her. And himself. But she jerked out of his arms.
“Really, Gabe?
“I couldn’t, goddammit, and you know it. Bennett put me in isolation so fast after my cover was blown that I didn’t even get a chance to see her. Do you think I didn’t want to hold her again? To touch her face one last time?” He rubbed his burning eyes and then ran his fingers through his hair roughly. “Do you think I didn’t try to fight my way through the agents who had me under lock and key?”
“How the hell should I know, Gabe? All I know is that you weren’t there, and if you’d paid more attention to what was going on in your other life, then she’d still be alive. You’ve always been good at keeping your thoughts to yourself. This is the most emotion I’ve seen from you in all the years I’ve known you.”
Her words cut fast and deep, and his heart was bleeding. Gabe punched his fist through the door leading into the bedroom. “Is that enough emotion for you?” He walked toward her, a predator stalking his prey, but she didn’t back away. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish that Tussad had killed me instead. I know she’s dead because of me. And I know you’ll never forgive me, but I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t there, Grace. I needed you, too.”
She turned her head so she wouldn’t have to maintain eye contact, but he took her chin and forced her to look at him—to see the pain that raged deep inside of him and know that it wasn’t hers alone to bear.
“I needed you too,” he repeated. “But when things died down and they released me, you were already gone. The first thing I did was visit her grave. The second was to come find you. But you’d already left the country and sold yourself to the highest bidder like a…”
He welcomed the sting from her hand as she slapped him hard across the cheek, and he grabbed her wrist as she tried to follow through with a punch to the stomach.
“Enough,” he said as they struggled against each other.
“Nothing you can say or do will ever be enough. As far as I’m concerned, you’re as dead to me as she is.”
“Damn you, then. Damn us both.”
All he wanted was for the pain to go away. At least for a little while.
Gabe pressed her back against the sidewall of the plane, his body hard and hungry for hers. Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t push him away. Their racing breaths mingled, and his heart pounded desperately in his chest as his mouth crashed down on hers.
It wasn’t a kiss filled with tenderness or affection. It was a kiss full of pain and longing—a desperate attempt to fill the aching emptiness that consumed them both and to claim what had once been his.
Grace bit his lip, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. She ran her hands under his shirt and across the hard planes of muscle, and he gripped her hips and pressed her against his straining cock, grinding against her sweet spot until she whimpered into his mouth. They’d both be sore tomorrow.
Their breathing was harsh, and Gabe lifted her shirt over her head, ripping it in his haste. He inhaled the muskiness of her scent. Her arousal was potent—the sweetest aphrodisiac, calling to his animal nature. He trailed his lips down her neck and laved his tongue across the groove of her collarbone. He flicked open the front clasp of her bra with two fingers, and her breasts spilled free. They were small, but they filled his hands completely and swelled under his attention.
She pulled off his shirt and raked her nails across his chest and abdomen, and he shuddered at her touch. Her hands trembled in excitement as she worked at the buttons of his pants and found him large and heavy in her palm.
“Mmmm,” she purred as she stroked him, spreading the liquid that seeped from the tip of his cock over his plump head.
Gabe turned his attention to the pert nipples that stood up and begged for his attention. She’d always been sensitive there. He bit down gently, and she went crazy with desire, her hips arching and her moans turning into demands.
“Inside me,” she panted.
He watched her from under his lashes, continuing his assault on her nipples with his teeth and then soothing the sting immediately with the flat of his tongue. Her face was flushed with desire, and her hand continued to stroke him to the point that he hand to concentrate not to come. He wanted to be deep inside of her when he orgasmed.
“Fuck me, Gabe. I can’t wait any longer.”
Grace kicked off her boots, and he tugged at her pants. She lifted up so he could strip them down her legs, and he tossed them to the floor. Her fingers were relentless as they worked him back and forth, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer if she kept it up. He bound her wrists with one hand and kept them imprisoned above her head, and he plunged his fingers into the wet heat of her pussy. She immediately tightened around him, spasming as she came with a gush of liquid cream into his hand.
“Christ.”
“Let my hands go. I need to touch you.”
He did as she asked, and her nails trailed down his chest and stomach until she held him in her hands.
“Now, now,” she chanted as she guided his cock inside her.
Gabe closed his eyes as he pushed into her. She was tight, and the spasms from her last orgasm pulled him deeper inside. He gritted his teeth at the agony of prolonging the inevitable, but he wanted to give her more before he found his own fulfillment. He grasped her hips and hitched her higher so the angle would allow him to hit the spot that always made her scream. He ignored the scrape of her fingernails down his back and took her mouth in a savage kiss as he felt the last dregs of his control fade away.
He slammed into her to the hilt and swallowed her cries of pleasure, thrusting again and again even as she tightened around him once more. Heat gathered at the base of his spine, and his balls tightened against his body. He felt her contract against him with a new wave of liquid heat, squeezing his cock to the point where pleasure almost turned into pain. She screamed her release into his mouth, and he swallowed every sound before thrusting into her one last time and filling her with his come.
Their breaths came in rapid pants, and they sagged against each other in exhaustion—two warriors at the losing end of a fight.
They’d both found fulfillment, but neither of them had found satisfaction.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The bartender’s name was Lucinda. Or maybe it was Lorraine. Jack couldn’t quite remember which, but she’d been a welcome distraction for the last couple of nights. She’d also been creative as hell in bed, which he appreciated in a woman.
It was close to 4 a.m., and his cock was already beginning to stir again. The woman was insatiable.
“Yeah, sugar. You get on top this time. You’ve worn me out.”
She laughed, low and husky, and his blood ran a little faster. She straddled his hips and he was just about to get his own little piece of heaven on Earth when his phone buzzed on the nightstand beside him.
“Shit,” Jack said.
“Just ignore it, baby.” She pushed down on him so just the tip of his cock was inside, and he groaned in frustration.
“I can’t, sugar. But give me a few minutes and we’ll start right back where we left off.”
She huffed out a sigh and shoved herself off him, grabbing her robe as she stalked out of the room and
