Savage Beauty (The Arrow Tactical Series Book 5)

Chapter 21

Sloane is a nymphomaniac. All my life I’ve dreamed of finding one, and I found her. Last night she blew my fucking mind.

My cock is sore from all the fucking we did yesterday, and last night, and the night before that. Blissfully, blessedly worn the fuck out.

Yet, somehow, he’s painfully engorged and ready to go again. Of course, I know the how. I’m entangled with a leggy bombshell, and my throbbing erection is perched between her ass cheeks.

I’m in deep with this one. It’s clear as day. Because instead of coaxing her awake, I’m lying beside her, luxuriating in her soft skin and powdery scent. My arm’s asleep with a million tiny needles pricking it, but I refuse to move because she’s sleeping comfortably. My nose is buried in her silky hair, and I just want to stay like this forever.

So, yeah. In deep. I’ve had girlfriends before, and I recognize the signs.

Her eyelashes flutter and her nose crinkles. Those long legs straighten and stretch. The movement caresses my needy dick.

I’d like to wake up like this every single day. Yet another sign.

Christ. Knox worried about me making it awkward for Sloane on his so-called family holidays. What about for me? For the rest of my life, when I see her gorgeous, lean legs, I’ll remember how they feel pressed against me in bed. I’ll remember how tight her pussy is. How she has to stretch to take all of me, and how fucking good it feels when she does.

If I were to run into her in the future with some punk brainiac on her arm, I’d be the one stumbling over myself. Bashing down the desire to strangle any fuckwad with her. It’s not a good thought. But it’s definitely in the realm of realistic because I can be one jealous bastard. Jealousy isn’t an emotion I enjoy. The insecurity that drives it isn’t a good look, and it’s one I do my best to avoid.

Her hips undulate slowly, and the movement feels glorious.

“Do you always wake up like this?” I hear the smile in her words as I nibble her earlobe and my hand wanders along her torso to cup her breast and tease her responsive nipple.

“With you, I’d say chances are good that’s a yes.”

“I’m sore.” She says it softly and with great thought.

“So am I.” I press a kiss to the back of her head and on the side of her throat. “And I need to go for a run. We’ve got a lot to get done?—”

She twists on the bed, but that’s not what stops me. It’s her fingers wrapped around me. Her firm grip makes it hard to swallow. Hard to think.

And then her mouth. Holy fuck.

I roll onto my back and scoop up as much of her hair as I can, moving it out of her way, both out of care for her and as a totally selfish fucking measure because I want to watch.

She cups my balls and massages them as her hot mouth moves up and down my shaft, alternating circling her tongue around my tip and licking me up and down. Blood leaves my brain when she takes me wholly in her mouth. She can’t take all of me, but what she can’t take, she keeps in a firm, studied grip. And when I say studied, I mean it’s like she’s watching my every reaction, learning what I like, what I don’t, and adjusting as she goes.

“Babe. That’s incredible. You’d better… I’m gonna…” I tug on her hair, warning her. She doubles down, taking me deeper, and that’s it. Game over. It’s all she wrote.

I’m spasming in her mouth, hips gently thrusting, draining every bit of yet another mind-blowing release.

She swallows some, but I continue, and there’s a milky white mess all over my abdomen. I pull her up to me, intent on giving her a thankful, sloppy kiss, but she pushes away, wiping at her messy mouth.

“That’s kind of gross,” she says. Her nose wrinkles, and then she’s gone.

“Sorry about that.” I did kind of warn her.

I watch her naked, gorgeous backside plod into the bathroom. I should get up and clean myself, but I’m too light-headed. Too out of breath. Too overcome.

I hear the toilet flush, then the sink, and force my legs over the bed. When she exits, I point at the bed.

“Get back in that bed.”

“Aren’t you up?” she asks as I place a hand on the bathroom doorknob.

“I will be.” I nod in agreement. “But after that, I want some morning minutes with you. Just holding you before the day begins.” I pause and wait. Her gaze is on the floor. “Sloane, can you give me that? Five minutes. Fresh breath. A start to the day holding each other?”

“You were…” Her skin’s flushed, and maybe she’s a little perturbed, but she waves a hand at me and says, “Go. Five minutes.”

After taking care of all the things—cleaning myself, brushing my teeth and taking a whiz—I return, naked, to the bed. She has a sheet pulled up to her armpits, and she’s lying back on a pillow, watching the television. It’s on mute, but it’s a news station, the BBC, I think, and there’s a scroll along the bottom of the screen that she’s reading. It’s an announcement about a new drug being approved by the FDA.

I climb in beside her and pull her to me.

“We’re going to have a busy day today.” Yes, it’s stating the obvious, but we’ve got to pass the awkward to get back into a cuddly groove somehow. “Erik said you’re going to D.C.?” She nods, curling into me, and I know this is what we need. A little more time. “What’s in D.C.?”

“Langley. I lived in D.C. briefly. I’ll stay with a friend. Handle some things. Once your team clears it, I’ll reach out to Origins and explain what happened so I can get my job back. Or, if you’re right and they’re somehow involved, I’ll look for a new job.”

She sounds down. Her calf slides back between mine, and my thigh rises to hers. Looking for a job, I get. Transitions suck, so I also get sounding down about that. But… “What things need to be handled at Langley?”

“Jack Sullivan recommended I meet with some people there. Plus, a guy from the NSA. Logan McDowell. They want to hear more about what I experienced in Cambodia.”

“And what, exactly, did you experience?” I know the highlights. Saw the outside of the compound. But she said they didn’t hurt her.

“It’s not so much, I guess, what I experienced, but what I was doing. I mean, you know, lots of governments know about the compounds. And they have questions. And the blood testing I did. I guess they want to ask about that.”

“Why would you need to meet with the CIA about that?”

“I suppose it’s an international concern?”

“Are you nervous?”

“No.” It’s a weighted negative. My arm curves around her belly, holding her as close as possible. “But they’re going to ask me questions. And it’s going to come out that I knew what they were doing, and I participated.”

I tilt my head back on the pillow, shifting beside her.

“You didn’t take anyone out of that compound.”

“I told them who would be the best matches.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. And I suspected they didn’t really have Sage. But I kept conducting the tests and updating profiles into a database. They branded identification numbers on the people. On their arms.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

“I kept thinking that what they were doing wasn’t so bad. Not really. Because those people didn’t have good lives. If they ended up in that compound, they were all out of options. At least there, they got food and a place to sleep. Many of them were immigrants. Not only without homes, but without countries. And, if their organs?—”

“Don’t say it.” I swallow. As a man trained to kill in battle, I understand the minimization of human lives. She shrinks down into the mattress, heavy with guilt. And dammit if I don’t feel guilty. Telling her she can’t speak, as if she’s in the wrong. “I understand the logic. One life to save another life.”

“It’s not ideal. But it’s today’s reality.”

“Do you think the US government is going to get involved? Shut down the compound? Did Jack make it sound like that?” He hasn’t said anything to me about Sloane having these meetings with government goons.

“I don’t know. But…I’ve been thinking a lot about what I found. The source fields I matched. I think someone used the people in those compounds to test something. Maybe someone out there is still using those people. That’s why my data showed a much higher prevalence of cancer in organs originating from Asia. Someone was doing it, but not my lab. That’s not what we do. It would be a company paid to administer testing.”

“There are companies that do that?”

“Oh, yes. In theory, these third parties don’t suffer from business interest conflicts. Most companies conduct tests on human subjects in China or India where the regulations are laxer. But it’s time consuming. I think someone out there was doing broader initial tests in Cambodia. Probably years ago. It’s all about speed to market and innovation, but maybe someone needed to do larger scale dosage testing?” She bites at the corner of her lip, her glazed eyes looking like she’s deep in thought. “But if my theory is correct, Origins isn’t involved in my abduction. We don’t do that kind of market testing. What I’m doing is innovative, but it’s a long-term project. It won’t reap financial benefits for possibly decades. This makes more sense to me than anyone from the black-market organ trade wanting to block my report.”

“But you wanted to submit your report for peer review. It definitely seems like someone wanted to block you from doing that.”

“True. But not my lab. I identified a cancer cluster. I wasn’t aiming to be a whistleblower. The purpose of the data I was collecting was to reinforce the benefits of our research. And I wanted to speak to the investors in their language, looking at it from a financial perspective. I was laser-focused on my project. But the more I think about it, I think I uncovered something bigger. Much bigger. And maybe peer review would invite those who focus on researching cancer clusters. But if I’m correct, the one piece that makes little sense is why keep me alive?”

My thumb brushes across her nipple. Lightly back and forth. She shifts her arm and squirms, but I don’t want to be pushed away, so I palm her breast and still my hand. “You sound sad, so I’m going to repeat myself. None of this is your fault. Even those people who went missing. You didn’t take them. Nothing happening in that compound falls on your shoulders.”

“There are quite a few reasons to feel sad beyond guilt.”

“Okay. Let’s hear ’em.”

“One, I don’t have a job. And all the research I’ve spent years developing is not progressing. No one is working on it. I couldn’t locate my files.”

“If it’s anywhere on Origin’s servers, Erik’s team will find it.”

“Fine. Even if they do, I don’t own it. The company does. I’ve got to find someone else to fund my research. That’s a lot. A ton of work.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you?” She rolls onto her back and looks up at me with troubled, dark eyes. “Because if you could see it, you’d let me go back to Origins and ask for my job back. I’m not great with people. Selling investors on my research isn’t something I can easily do. Finding a spot on a research team is possible but it would take so much time. I want my old job back, and I swear, it doesn’t make sense for them to be involved.”

“I get your theory. You could very well be right. Maybe after your meeting with the intelligence goons?—”

“That’s what Jack Sullivan said.”

“When, exactly, did you talk to Jack?”

“He called yesterday. When you were in your meeting with the team.”

Fascinating.

“So, I’ll go to D.C. He asked that I meet with them. He asked for my patience. To let all of his resources look into this further.” Her chest rises and falls dramatically. “For Sage’s sake.”

“You’ve heard that a lot, huh?”

“I have.”

“That’s got to be hard.”

“No.” Once again, she tilts her head, looking directly at me. “I’d do anything for her. That’s why I tested all those people. That’s why I did what they asked. Because while it breaks some people’s rules, they’re still saving lives. And someone out there loves those people. Just as much as I love Sage.”

“But it’s…” She’s got to see that ethically what’s going on there is all kinds of wrong. Harvesting organs from captive people shows an unconscionable disregard for human life. But that’s why she’s torn. She’s feeling guilty because she knows it’s wrong, but she’d do it for Sage if forced to make a choice. “Are you worried about Sage?”

“Right now, she’s healthy, but if she lives long enough…”

“She’ll need another transplant.”

“And my research?—”

“Won’t be done in time.”

“Probably not.”

“Did you get contact information? So you know who to call if the day comes and you need?—”

“No. I don’t believe any of the men on the ground had any idea what I was doing or why.” She’s probably right. They hired mercenaries to run security. “But if we’re ever desperate, I have a better idea now of how it works.”

“They wanted you alive, but it doesn’t sound like they wanted you for your knowledge. Not that you aren’t all kinds of skilled, but they weren’t using you for that. Not really.”

“There was a building on the far end of the compound with a small casino and a brothel where both the guards and the workers could spend money. I overheard one of them mention they get one day off a month. But whoever put me there set me up on a different schedule from the other workers. I mean, I didn’t get a day off, but I slept away from all the others. In a private room. I was definitely treated differently, but I don’t know why. Do you think the men Jack’s asked me to meet with will believe me?”

I think she might be in for a long interrogation, is what I think. But I press my lips to her shoulder and hold her tight. “Is worrying about that meeting what’s making you sad?”

“Oh. I didn’t finish my list.”

“No?” I let my teeth sink into her shoulder.

“Today is the day we have to say goodbye.” She doesn’t want to say goodbye either. An idea crystallizes.

“I don’t know about that.” My chest feels lighter.

“Yes. You’ll go back to LA, and I’ll?—”

“We’ll go to D.C. together.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I’ll let Jack know.” There’s no way I’m letting her go through a CIA interrogation without support. If not in the same room, I’ll be counting the minutes and doing everything I can to ensure those fuckers don’t put her through the wringer.