Fire for Effect (Mourningkill #2)

Prologue

Kai “Griff” Griffith

Five years ago

Fayetteville, North Carolina

“You’re a fucking Psycho on that bike,” I slurred, pushing a hand against her front door, leaning on it as the world spun around me, gravity trying to pull me down.

“When you call for a ride, and a place to crash,” The Psycho said with a laugh. “You don’t get to bitch about the delivery.”

I leaned over her, my face hovering over her shoulder as she twisted the key in the lock. She was the perfect height for me to plant a kiss on her temple. My mouth salivated at the thought.

Shit, I was drunk.

Not as drunk as I was pretending to be, but definitely not okay to drive.

She pushed the door open, and I crashed through it, falling onto the bare floor of her entryway. She stepped inside, straddling me, one foot on each side as she closed the door, and I got a nice bottoms-up view of her perfect, round ass.

There was an upside to this…

I was in my twenties, getting a divorce after my wife fucked my best friend. A soldier’s nightmare—and so typical. I was a god damn punch line.

My family wanted me to reconcile with Kristin. The team wanted me to forgive my teammate, Greg Veder, henceforth to be known as VD, short for Venereal Disease, for his rot-riddled dick… the fucking man whore.

But at least I still had my Psycho little Taz Guerro. Did I call her because she was the only person I could stand to be around? Yes. And if anyone was going to brighten my mood, it was her.

“When someone drunk calls you for a ride, do you think that maybe a car would have been better?” I had to sit behind her on the crotch rocket, hanging on like a backpack as she wove through the busy streets of this military town. Even in my state, or maybe because of it, the pucker factor was damn high.

It was also the first time I had touched her and really felt her. For years, we had sparred, trained, and fought together. We’d huddled together in the cold, and I had even seen her get dressed in my peripheral vision. But I had never looked at her the way a straight man looks at a beautiful woman. I had never let myself… marriage was a choice. A choice that was, in my case, one sided.

But on that bike, I had felt her in my arms. Firm. Warm. It took everything to keep my drunk hands from rising up from her waist to those ribs, and those pretty, pretty breasts.

“I hate driving cars.” She smirked down at me, as she switched her feet so that I was looking up her front. How – how – how had I gone this long without noticing how nice her tits were? Perfect little handfuls. “And you needed some wind therapy.”

I grabbed her leg and brought her down, hoping to take her to the ground. But after downing a half bottle of Jack, I was in a bit of a disadvantage.

She laughed, ninja rolling out of my grasp and popping back up on her feet like an action hero.

“Coulda fucking killed us both,” I whined. Then held my breath as she dropped her helmet on a hook and pried off her black, leather jacket.

Were her shoulders always that wide, and her waist that narrow? Was her ass in those tight jeans always that fucking round? Yes. Yes, they were. I knew that because I had spent three years making sure that I did not notice those things about Trinity “Taz” Guerro.

My ring finger was a chastity belt, preventing me from seeing the beauty that I worked beside every day. When my wife accused me of sleeping with local women in various assignments or snooped about parties she had “heard” team guys got up to when they deployed, there had been nothing to tell. I was a boring asshole, who went to bed early, got up, PTed, went to work, and went back to my bunk.

But now I could see my teammate with new eyes… and I couldn’t stop staring.

We were friends. Just teammates. Friends. Friends . Friends!

The word rattled around in my head until it sounded like an insult.

“I’ve got some catching up to do.” She walked languidly toward the fridge. “You smell like a brewery.”

I scrambled to my feet to join her as she messily dropped her jacket on the back of the couch. I came up behind her, picked it up, and placed it on a coat rack that was covered in backpacks, PT belts, and everything except for coats. The cute little slob…

The sight of her backlit by the refrigerator gave me another pause. Not just because of how it emphasized every curve but because the contents were just so typically Taz that it made me laugh.

“Christ, did you steal this fridge from the frat house?” It was nothing but liquor, beer, and take out containers. “Hell yeah! A Belgian White!”

I excitedly swiped at the Edelweiss beer, but she was faster. She was sober, so she had the advantage.

I tried to pull it out of her hand, but she tugged it away, giving me a dirty glare, holding it away from me. I reached over and easily got my hand on it – the advantage of greater height.

We were gonna fight about this – I earned that beer.

“What the…? Hey, I got it first,” she said, pulling at the brown bottle between us as we wrestled for dominance, pulling it back and forth like a really annoying game of tug of war.

“I’m the one going through an emotionally traumatic event. I should get the good beer!”

She scrunched her face. “Yeah? How long you gonna ride that gravy train?”

“I just signed the separation papers today!” I blurted.

“So you should be over it tonight!” She countered.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the sensitivity of a charging bull elephant?”

“Several times, actually,” she deadpanned.

Without warning she leaned down and in one, long motion, licked from the bottom of the neck all the way to the top. She smiled triumphantly, completely oblivious to the sudden steel-hard erection threatening to bust out of my jeans. If she had wrapped her lips on the tip, I would have come right there like a pubescent.

“I licked it, now it’s mine.” She proudly declared.

Oh, you sweet, little Psycho…

“Is that so?” I challenged, stepping in closer, staring into her dark eyes. They were green near the pupil. But not a leaf green… more like a deep teal, slowly fading into a dark coffee brown. It was an unusual color. A gorgeous color.

I darted out my tongue, licking from her throat, up her jaw, all the way to her earlobe. “I licked you. Now you’re mine.”

The salty taste of her skin broke the dam, releasing years of repressed, ignored desire.

Her eyes widened with a gasp, before I plunged in to kiss her, our teeth clashing as she whimpered against my mouth. Our tongues tangled, and her soft lips molded to mine. She tried to pull her head away, but I wouldn’t let her. She turned her head, and I countered. She pulled away, and I pushed closer.

“Mine.” I cupped her jaw in my hand. “You made the rule. You can’t back out now.”

“That wasn’t what I meant… umph!” I silenced her with another kiss.

I had never been one for French kissing or necking. It all seemed sloppy and wet… but there was something about her. The way she tasted, the way she breathed, the way I wanted to own it all.

When I released her, she looked at me with dazed eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered against my lips.

“You’re wrong,” I told her. “You have no idea how badly I needed to do that.”

I had never felt a need like this. I had never felt a soul-deep desire that threatened to burn me in her fiery gaze. I needed more. I needed everything.

She tried to pull her head away, either to breathe or to protest but I didn’t let her. I captured her mouth again. I had licked it. And now, her tongue, her mouth, her nose, her breaths… they were all mine.

Finally.

For four blissful hours, we made out, fucked, and made out again in every room of her townhouse. Every fantasy I had denied, every feeling I had repressed, and every lingering desire I had pushed out of my head for the sake of our friendship was gone, and the reality of her was better than I could have dreamed.

“Is it dumb that I can’t wait to tell everyone that you’re mine?” I whispered into her hair, as she fell asleep on her side, snuggled against me. I intertwined our fingers and held her and watched as she fell into a deep sleep.

I was in complete fucking bliss, after years of marital misery.

Then, I woke up alone, and the Psycho didn’t even have the decency to leave a note.