Love Op: A Spicy, Cat-And-Mouse, Thriller Rom Com (Love and Other Jobs Book 5)

29. Mattie

The whir of the jet swirled around my head, mingling with the pounding ache that slammed against the back of my closed eyes. Beneath my cheek, Kael’s arm shifted, and the movement tore me from sleep with a sudden jerk. I sat up, sucking in a startled breath and nearly knocking his chin with the top of my head. He caught my head between his hands and managed to stop me from giving him a bloody lip. “Easy, Bunny.”

I looked around the quiet, darkened cabin of the private plane in bewilderment. Dimmed overhead lights cast an earthy glow around the camel-colored leather seats, and the cabin beyond twinkled with mechanical lights from the open door to the cockpit. I sat curled up in Kael’s lap, which he’d somehow managed in a single seat with his foot propped up on the seat next to us and his elbows on the armrests.

I angled a look down to him, and he watched me quietly, his arctic eyes less sharp than usual in the shadows. A swath of beard growth graced the cut of his jawline. I lifted my hand, and shifting in his lap, I managed to scrape my fingers across the bristles. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing briefly. “You slept for a few hours. That’s good.”

I glanced around the cabin again, taking in the plush carpet along the middle aisle and the relatively spacious bathroom at the back. “How long do we have left?”

“Three hours,” he rasped. He looked exhausted. Thinking back to being taken, and then his rescue right after, he’d probably been awake for nearly two days at this point.

“Did you sleep?” I asked, scratching his beard and loving the texture of it against my fingers. I couldn’t believe he was here. I couldn’t believe I was in his arms. I had been so sure I would—

“A little.” Kael turned and kissed my palm, cradling the back of my hand with his.

“You should lie down,” I advised, starting to get off his lap.

His arm tightened around my hips, sucking me down into his body like the restraining bar on a roller coaster. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, you’re very… comfortable.” I need you. I think I might drown in fear if you leave me.

“Then stay,” he murmured, and he guided my head back down to lay on his shoulder. I adjusted, snuggling more comfortably into him, and then his heartbeat was beneath my palm. He had on a black, breathable shirt that looked partially athletic and partially tactical. It had long sleeves and hard padding along the outer parts of his arms, but I didn’t mind molding myself around them.

I traced a webbed pattern on the shirt with my finger. “Kael… aren’t you going to get in trouble for all this?”

“For what?”

Oh, I don’t know, execution-style murder, maybe? “Everything?” I clarified unhelpfully.

“I’ve done this a few times,” he replied, his voice lilting with some amusement. “We have a system for cleanup. Don’t work yourself into knots about it.”

“Is that why you left Tab behind?”

“Yes, and before you get after me for that, it’s her job. She’s fine,” he rumbled. I liked the way his voice sounded with my ear pressed close to his neck where it thrummed through me.

“You should pay her more.”

“I pay her plenty,” he drawled, but I heard the smile in his voice. He paused for a moment, and then both his arms wrapped around me in a warm bear hug. “Mattie, I… I’ve never had to worry about someone else after I finished a job.”

I chewed on his words, trying to digest his meaning. “You mean, you’ve never had someone there when you did your… stuff?”

“I’ve never shot someone in front of a person I loved.”

I sat up suddenly, and my hair fell around us in a curtain as I tilted my eyes down to meet his. “Pardon?”

Kael’s gaze strayed in thought as his left hand began to massage up my back in idle circles. “I hadn’t really considered what it would be like to have someone I really cared about witness me end someone else’s life.” He stared at me again in concern. “I usually like it when people are afraid of me. I’m not sure I like it as much right now.”

“No, back up.” I tapped his chest with my finger. “Love?”

The micro-expressions on his face were priceless. Incredulous amusement rippled into sympathy, and then hardened into confident bemusement. “Why, out of all the things I just said, are you surprised about my love for you?”

My heart strummed a full, harmonic chord of joy. “Your love for me?”

He clicked his tongue. “Yes, I love you, Mattie. However dangerous for my health, it’s the truth.”

“Dangerous?” I repeated incredulously. “Excuse me, but it’s not like I’m going to have brain-scooping maniacs hunting me down my entire life.”

Kael sat up, shifting us again, and he took my face tenderly between his hands, avoiding the worst of the throbbing bruises. “The maniac bit isn’t dangerous. I’m talking more about the constant heart attacks you give me. I need to get an EKG when we get back home.”

I huffed out a laugh and squished his cheeks together between my hands. “I am not that bad.”

“Yesh you are,” he said between smashed cheeks.

I released his face, smoothing my thumbs over his prickly jaw. “But you love me anyway?”

“Desperately,” he replied seriously. His eyes volleyed between mine, the blue of his irises barely visible in the darkness. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I had the sudden, intrusive worry that maybe Jonathon had succeeded after all, and that none of this was real. That he’d given me a lobotomy, and it had gone horribly wrong, and I’d retreated inside my own fantasies.

Kael leaned forward, pressing his lips carefully to mine. “You’re safe, Mattie. I’m right here.”

I sipped in a broken breath, and it caught onto a well of tears. Blinking them back, I fell into his kiss, deepening it and tasting Kael’s lips and tongue, just as starving for him as he’d been for me. My fingers fisted the buttery material of his shirt, and I plastered myself against the hard planes of his body. He cradled the back of my head, moving slowly and angling his lips against mine with careful movements that wouldn’t pull at the bruised skin along the side of my face.

I pulled away, panting. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Your parents never said that? Or even partners?”

“No one,” I reiterated. “Literally no one.”

His lips opened for a moment, and then his grip at the back of my head tightened. “I love you, Mattie.”

Despite my best efforts, some of the tears escaped my well-constructed barrier. I bubbled out a little laugh-cry. “I love you, too.”

“I love you,” he repeated, tilting his head to skate his lips across mine. “I love you. I really, really fucking love you, Mattie Thorne.”

I laughed again, but he swallowed it in a kiss full of longing and relief. I gave myself over to him, to the way he kneaded the stiff muscles along my back as his lips coaxed mine apart. He licked a line along my upper lip, and then his tongue flicked out to plunge between my teeth, and I remembered the way he’d tortured six delirious orgasms out of my body. My body responded with aching heat. I squeezed my thighs together restlessly.

With a sudden gasp, I pulled away, looking down at myself. “Oh God. I’m in a hospital gown.”

Kael reached around me, and with one deft tug, pulled it off. I sat naked on his lap suddenly, and he dropped it to the floor. “You can have one of my shirts when I’m done with you.”

I smiled, and it pulled at the bruises along my cheeks. “Okay, but, uh, let me wash off first.”

Kael did an up-down perusal of my body on his lap. “Why?”

I put a hand to my throat where blood had dried on my skin. “I have evidence on me. It’s kinda gross.”

“Hm,” he angled away to get a better look at the blood. “I thought it was yours. It’s not?”

“No, I bit a guy.”

His smile turned feline. “Good girl.” Then he arranged his arms around me before lifting me as he stood. He winced, redistributing my weight, and then carried me back to the bathroom.

“This is very chivalrous but unnecessary,” I pointed out.

“Mattie, shut up and let me love you.” Kael maneuvered us into the bathroom, which as far as airplane lavatories went, was pretty swanky. It was the size of a standard powder room, and it had a shower to the left, a separate room with a door for the toilet, and a gorgeous, white marble sink with modern cabinets beneath.

Kael set me on the counter, and I sucked in a breath at how cold the surface felt against my heated skin. Keeping his body close to mine as he stood between my legs, Kael reached over and flicked a red towel off its ring. He reached around me, turned on the sink, and let it run until the water warmed. I glanced to my right at the sink, and then to my left where his other hand lay planted by my bare hip. I should have felt exposed or uncomfortable, sitting there totally naked while my muscled Ghost wet a rag and washed blood from my skin.

But it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He tilted my head gently to the side, swiping at the dried blood that had dribbled down from my lips to my neck. Warm water trickled from the cloth, sliding a path down my collarbone and dipping between my breasts. I shivered, and Kael lowered a heated glance my way. “Okay?”

I gave him one of my plucky Mattie smiles. “This was my evil plan all along. Get kidnapped and almost maimed, and then bite a guy until he bled so I could get you to wash my naked body in an airplane bathroom.”

Kael nodded, scrubbing the dry end of the towel over the skin he’d cleaned. “That sounds just insane enough to be an actual Mattie plan.” He finished, and after tossing the towel to the ground, he pulled me up hard against his body. “And it worked because I’m about to do you one better.”

“Yeah?” I breathed, taking in the delicious slope of his lips before letting myself drown in the polar blue of his eyes.

“Mhm.” He pressed his erection against my heated core, spreading my legs wider. He bent his head and licked a line from between my breasts to my neck where the water had dripped moments before. “I’m going to fuck you in an airplane bathroom.”

“That’s positively scandalous, Kael Last-Name.”

“Specter,” he smiled, pulling away. “It’s Specter.”

I batted his arm. “It is not.”

“Where do you think Ghost came from?” He nibbled the delicate skin on the side of my throat before inhaling his way to my earlobe. He nipped it before adding, “And do you know what I think is a much better last name than Thorne?”

My cheeks went red hot. “Jesus, Kael.”

“Specter, Kael,” he corrected with a grin. “And Mattie Specter.”

I puffed out a laugh. “You are not proposing to me three hours after putting a bullet in a guy’s head.”

“Pretty sure I am.” Kael coasted his lips across my jawline, painfully delicate about the movement so he didn’t press on my bruises, and then his lips found mine. My stomach somersaulted, tumbling around with my fluttering heart before settling into a blissful kind of contentment. Nothing felt as safe as Kael’s kisses. Nothing had ever felt so right.

I pulled away from his kiss reluctantly to whisper, “That’s crazy, you know that right?”

“If you haven’t realized yet that I’m crazy for you, then you haven’t been paying attention,” he smiled.

I squished his bristly cheeks again. “Ooh, very clever of you, Ghostie.”

Kael’s hips pulsed into me, and he pressed my lower back until my slit rubbed against the hard length of his arousal. Moisture pooled at my center, and I dropped his cheeks, my eyes hooding and a breathy moan escaping my parted lips. He tilted my chin up. “Tell me, Mattie Future-Specter—how many orgasms are you giving me tonight?”

Desire melted in my lower abdomen, drizzling its way down to my rapidly aching pussy. “However many you want.”

“Good answer.” Kael palmed my bare breast, squeezing gently and massaging until I let my head drop back with a contented sigh. He dropped kisses light as dandelion seeds along my throbbing cheeks before he moved down to my neck. Unlike the other times he’d taken control of my body, he wasn’t rough. He didn’t offer the sweet, fierce handling that would make me tingle. Instead, he wrapped me in downy spider silk, covering me in loving touches that bound me so tightly to him, I would happily suffocate in it. His lips caressed and kissed, teased and revered, moving from my neck to my breasts.

I leaned back, letting my head fall against the mirror as his tongue lapped a languorous circle around my nipple. My fingers twined in his hair as he lavished flicks and nips on each nipple, tightening the desire at my center. I groaned, shifting my exposed clit against the rough fabric of his dark gray pants. “Kael,” I huffed.

“Easy, Bunny,” he murmured against my breast as he kissed the outside of it and his hands steadied my waist. “I’m not rushing this.”

“Why?” I whined.

He chuckled, kissing along the curve of my breast before moving to my sternum. “Because you scared the sin right out of me.” He kissed lower, moving to my navel. “For every hour that I worried for you,” he nipped just above my belly button, “I have to replace it with hours of loving you.”

I gusted out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, because I had felt the same kind of desperation. When I’d thought I would lose myself, lose my sanity, all I wanted was to have him find me again. I straightened, bending over him as his mouth moved lower and he fell to his knees in front of me. My gold hair spilled around us, and I watched in awe as he parted my legs further, spreading my slick arousal and pulling me nearly off the counter so he could bring his lips to my aching center.

I tightened my hold on his silver-streaked hair, staring in wonder at the way his tongue glided up the inside of my folds, setting me on fire and sending sparks of pleasure straight to my pointed toes. He circled and pressed, flicking my tender clit before licking back to my aching core and fucking me slowly with his tongue in a way that made me crave him inside of me. My back arched as he brought me close to an orgasm, and I had to put my right hand behind me to steady myself as the nerves in my body tightened inward, like wringing together thousands of cords. My head fell back again, and I closed my eyes. His tongue circled my clit before pressing hard against it, and my legs shook with the effort of keeping them wide for his assault.

Then his mouth was gone, and it was like stepping into a cold shower. I exhaled hard, opening my eyes to glare at him. I found him standing, lips curved into a teasing smirk. “Something wrong?”

I groaned, knowing he was teasing me. “Please, Kael.”

His eyes closed briefly in satisfied amusement before he caught my gaze with his icy one. “I’ll never get tired of that.”

I resettled my weight on the counter, leaning forward to grab him by the shirt and force his hips between mine again. I lifted his shirt with short, jerky motions. “Please, Kael, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to fill all your rifles with… sugar.”

His amusement spread his smile wide as he lifted his arms for me. “They’re not gas tanks, Bunny.”

I ripped his shirt over his face. “Shut up and give me your dick like a good boy, Ghost.”

His laugh came out muffled until he had his shirt all the way off, and then I took in his bruised torso with a concerned flit of my eyes. His usually smooth skin had been peppered with angry welts and deep bruises that spread over his chest and around his right ribs, and then again down low just under his left ribs. I glanced at him in silent question.

Kael dropped a look down for a moment before returning his eyes to mine. “I got shot a few times.”

“Oh my God.” I pressed a hand to my mouth. “You need to see a doctor.”

“Nah.” He stepped close again, wrapping his arm around my lower back and fitting my spread center against his straining erection. “I broke a rib, I think. Nothing they can do, anyway.”

I let my fingers travel over his strong jaw, the gruff stubble, and up to his graying temples. “You’re one badass motherfucker, Kael Specter.”

“If you were to ask me,” he murmured, just as gently smoothing a finger along my hairline, “I’d say all that shit I went through was so I could do this.” He took one of my hands and placed it against the angry, dark purple bruise on his left side. “I might be a little warped as far as humans go, but I can take a hit for you, Mattie. And I’d do it a hundred times over if it meant you stayed safe.”

Tears sprung to my eyes, and this time, I didn’t try to blink them away. I curled my fingers around the tender wound and angled my lips up to his. “Okay, but also, never do that again.”

“Stop getting yourself kidnapped by psychos, then,” he grinned. Then his lips were on mine, and the words on my lips tumbled into his kiss. Tears tracked a warm path down my cheeks as I moved my mouth against his, dancing in perfect synchrony with the push and tug of his teeth, his tongue, his rough lips.

Despite what Kael said about taking his time, our needs ratcheted mile high in tandem, and the hot, gusting breaths we shared between kisses fueled the aching desire between my spread legs. I moved restlessly against him, seeking relief. Finally, he undid his zipper and freed his erection, painting my entrance with the head of it. It was horrifically reckless—I’d only started birth control a week before. But I needed him. I needed to feel him inside of me, and I knew that neither of us had the brain space to wonder if there were condoms on board our rescue flight. We’d almost died, for fuck’s sake. Everything else seemed to pale in comparison.

Kael leaned back, both his hands on my knees and stretching me so wide that the tendons along my inner thighs screamed. Panting, he watched as his cock slowly sank into my wet heat. I leaned back on my hands, giving him better access, and the sight of his dick slowly easing inside of me almost made me come right then and there. He thrust forward suddenly, filling me completely. I groaned, pressing the back of my head against the mirror. “Fuck, Kael.”

He retreated, slowly, so slowly, it was agony. I looked down again, watching as he repeated the motion. He withdrew with torturous patience, only to steadily fill me again. I moaned. Trying to move my hips and take him faster. But he had my knees pinned, and he took his time filling me and retreating, ramping up my need for release to an unbearable point.

“Don’t move, baby.” He sounded strained, and I knew he was drawing this out and feeling as much agony as I was. “I love watching you like this.” He pulled out slowly before sliding back in, and all my muscles clenched with the need to build and release. “Look how wet you are for me. It’s dripping on my cock.”

The sound I made in response was unintelligible gibberish, and I closed my eyes, loving and hating the aching slickness of his withdrawal and lazy plunge into my pulsing center.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” he said breathlessly. “Fucking perfect.” He inched into me, pulsing and pulling out in little movements that made my vision go red.

“Please, Kael,” I pleaded, hitting the back of my head against the mirror once. “Please.”

He huffed out a laugh before slamming into me hard. I gasped, reaching forward and pulling him to me. He released my knees then, and I curled around him, locking my legs around his lean hips and fusing our bodies together like they’d always meant to be that way. And then he was moving, and my hips met him thrust for thrust, urging him deeper each time, until I felt sore and wound up so tight, I feared the aftermath of the detonation to come.

Kael pressed my forehead to his shoulder, purposefully keeping my bruised cheekbones away from the jarring impact, and I nearly cried again. He was everything. Everywhere. He was in every cell of my being, and his tenderness in defiance of all his hard edges would undo me.

The way his rough, hard thrusts were pinching and rubbing against my clit, the way he hit that cluster of nerves just inside my pussy, it struck like a match against asphalt. I finally lit on fire then, a chemical reaction of love and lust and aching need that flared to life and exploded in sweet, clenching relief. Kael chased my orgasm hard and fast, his body slick with perspiration. As I pulsed and fell down from a dizzying height, he pumped his release into me before pressing me firmly to his chiseled body.

I clung to him, breathing hard and shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was the strain of the position or the lingering adrenaline in my system, but I suddenly felt like I might rattle to pieces. I was a jerky freight train, trembling with loosened nuts and bolts that threatened to give way any moment.

Kael felt the change in my body, and without hesitation, he adjusted us so he could withdraw from inside of me and pull his briefs over himself. “Hey sweetie, take a breath. You’re okay.” He picked me up from the counter before sitting us down on the hexagon-shaped porcelain tiles. “Breathe, Mattie.”

I sucked in a breath that sounded oddly tortured. The pretty, gray bathroom fixtures blurred, and I gasped out, “What?”

“Your body is catching up. It’s alright. Just breathe.”

I shuddered out a harsh breath, trying to sit up. “Your bruises.”

“Just relax,” he soothed, pressing me back down to sit sideways in his lap with my sore temple against his chest. He rubbed my legs with his right hand and supported my back with his left. “You’re safe, but your body doesn’t know that yet.”

“I kn-know I’m safe,” I grated out in frustration. “Fuck this.”

He chuckled ruefully. “You’ll have to ride it out, I’m afraid. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have—I should have known that much exertion—” For once, he fumbled over his words, rubbing his mouth. “Sex was a bad idea,” he muttered finally.

I swallowed tears, hating them. “It was not. I needed it.”

“What you need is a week of rest and several years of therapy. But I guess dick is a close second.”

I laughed thickly. “I needed to be with you, Kael. I think it just… brought down my defenses.” I clacked my shivering teeth together. “M-maybe that’s a good thing.”

He nodded, his rough chin rubbing against the top of my head. “Maybe.”

Eventually, my shivering subsided, and Kael turned on the shower. He maneuvered us both into it, soaping me up and tenderly washing every inch of me, despite wincing with every movement in the cramped space. I did the same for him, marveling at the watercolor splashes of blue, purple, red, and dark black along his torso. I’d be crying like a baby if I had injuries like that.

We dried off, and like he’d promised, Kael found me one of his black T-shirts. I wasn’t a short pixie girl who could get away with having a T-shirt cover me to my thighs, but I didn’t figure Kael cared if I flashed him now and then. His heated eyes on my body told me he definitely didn’t.

I came to stand between his legs as he sat on a couch near the back of the plane, and the urge to lie down and sink back into sleep suddenly overtook me. Kael noticed, his hands settling on my hips and kneading them in circles. “We’ve got an hour and a half or so before we land.”

I nodded. “I’ll be glad to be…” I paused, not sure what I was going to say. Home?

Kael’s pale blue eyes searched me, and his hold on my hips tightened. “I’m sorry I can’t take you ‘home,’ wherever that might be.”

I rested my left hand on his shoulder, bringing the right up to drift through his damp hair. “Will I be with you?”

A dangerous hardness flashed in his eyes. “You’d better be.”

Smiling faintly, I pushed him back against the couch and crawled onto his lap so I straddled him. I didn’t fight the rush of affection that stole my breath and settled lightly over my heart. I didn’t question how fast it had happened. I didn’t begrudge the violence that had brought us together. I relished in the brand-new knowledge that had found its way to my soul just as suddenly as Kael himself had.

I didn’t need a place to belong.

I didn’t need a building or a property that signaled I had made it “home.”

I had something so much better.

I took his rough face between my palms. “Then you’ll be taking me exactly where I need to be. You are my home, Kael.”