CHAPTER 20 #2
We push toward the administrative offices, pivoting to cover the metal grate stairs leading to the second floor catwalk.
I take the rear, walking backward with my weapon trained on the high angles and the dark recesses of the loading bay, while Leon takes the stairs two at a time.
The rusted grating groans dangerously under our weight, telegraphing our position to every armed motherfucker in the building.
We are completely exposed out here. Bullets ping off the metal handrails, sending sharp, deadly shards of lead and flaking yellow paint into the air around us.
I grab the handrail to steady myself as I back up the steps, and a jagged wooden splinter from a reinforced beam drives straight into my palm.
I don't let go of the weapon. I don't even flinch. We’re too loud. We need to end this fast.
"Rear is clear," I call out, tracking the barrel of my gun across the shadows.
"Don't stop moving," Leon commands, his broad back pushing through the smoke. "Second level, now."
We reach the top landing and spill into the second-floor hallway.
The sheer violence of the raid isn't terrifying me anymore; it has fully mutated into a massive, intoxicating adrenaline spike.
Every sense is dialed to eleven. The flickering fluorescent lights overhead cast jagged shadows, and the smell of scorched electronics from a shot-out computer terminal fills the corridor.
I feel more alive in this hallway of death than I ever did sitting in some sterile federal cubicle filling out threat assessment forms. My psychological transition is fully complete.
I am addicted to the rush of being his lethal partner, and the line between fear and lust is starting to blur so heavily I can't tell the difference.
I lick my dry lips, tasting the heavy salt of my own sweat mixed with the metallic tang of the smoke in the air.
Leon kicks open the first office door, clearing it in a microsecond before stepping back out. He looks at me, his chest heaving under his suit, his pupils blown wide. "You feel that, Alessia?"
"I feel everything." I grip the gun tighter, my heart hammering with an unhinged thrill.
"That's the hunt," he growls, flashing a terrifying, feral smirk. "Enjoy it."
Two more guards step out of adjacent rooms halfway down the corridor, their faces masked in absolute panic as they raise their weapons.
Leon and I don't even need to speak. We drop them simultaneously, our shots echoing as one loud, brutal crack. It feels like a sick, synchronized dance of death. I put two rounds dead into the chest of the guy on the right. We move forward without breaking stride. I step over the cooling body of the guard I just dropped, my heavy boot treading directly onto his dropped tactical radio and crushing the plastic. The smell of cheap cologne wafts up from the dead man, mixing with the static hissing violently from the broken radio. Three years I studied these people in sterile files. Now I’m the one they’ll fear in their campfire stories.
"Door left!" I shout, tracking movement.
"Got him," Leon replies, firing a single shot that drops a man entirely out of sight.
The resistance is heavier than we anticipated. The rival leader is desperate, heavily fortified at the end of this hall. We need to reload and wait for Sven’s flankers to push the far stairwell and create a crossfire. Leon gestures to an empty side office, and we duck inside.
He immediately kicks the heavy mahogany door shut and aggressively twists the deadbolt, plunging us into a momentary, suffocating isolation.
The sudden, muted silence in the room is a violent shock to the system.
It instantly amplifies the sound of our own frantic, ragged breathing.
I lean back against a tall metal filing cabinet to reload, my chest heaving so hard the Kevlar plates in my tactical vest click sharply against each other.
The cool, stale air of the office is a stark contrast to the burning heat of the hallway.
Muffled thump-thump sounds of flashbangs echo from the lower levels.
The immediate threat is outside those walls, but the claustrophobic proximity in this small room and the massive comedown from the adrenaline spike causes the sexual tension between us to snap like a frayed live wire.
I drop my empty mag and slide a fresh one in. "We have two minutes before Sven reaches the end of the hall to flank the main office."
Leon steps toward me, his eyes entirely black. "Look at me, Alessia."
I rack the slide, my hands shaking slightly from the high. "Leon, we’re in the middle of a raid..."
He doesn't wait for me to finish the sentence.
He moves with the same blinding, lethal speed he used in the hallway, closing the distance between us in two strides.
He grabs me by the hips and slams me back against the cold concrete wall between the two large office windows.
The impact knocks the breath out of my lungs.
His hands fly to my tactical vest, the velcro ripping violently with a loud, aggressive sound that perfectly mirrors the destruction happening outside.
He yanks the heavy gear open, his chest pressing flush against mine.
The grit of the concrete wall bites through my thin utility shirt, and the furnace heat of his body swallows me whole.
He wants to see if the killing high has broken me or bound me to him.
I'm going to show him exactly what I am now.
"Do you feel the Agent anymore?" he demands, his face inches from mine.
"No," I breathe out, my chest rising against his. "She’s gone."
He grabs my jaw with bruising force, his large knuckles still dark with the soot and blood of the raid.
He tilts my head back, exposing my throat, his eyes searching mine for any lingering flicker of the law-abiding woman he met three years ago.
He finds absolutely nothing but a feral, desperate hunger.
I reach down between us, my fingers scrambling frantically for the heavy buckle of his belt.
My movements are clumsy with the adrenaline, my fine motor skills absolutely wrecked by the fight, but I manage to pop the metal clasp.
"You liked it," he states, a dark, possessive purr vibrating in his chest. "Killing for me."
"Yes," I gasp, ripping his belt loose. "God, yes."
Leon crashes his mouth against mine, entirely obliterating any remaining space between us.
It’s a punishing, deep, filthy kiss that tastes of the gunpowder and dust we’ve been breathing for the last twenty minutes.
It’s not a kiss of affection; it’s an absolute claim of ownership.
He bites my lower lip hard enough to draw a sharp copper drop of blood.
I groan into his mouth, hooking my right leg high around his hip, pulling his solid weight closer even as the heavy plates of our gear clank awkwardly together.
He breaks the kiss just enough to murmur against my mouth. "Quiet. They’re right outside."
I bite back at his lower lip, defiant and utterly unhinged. "Then make me."
He rips my vest the rest of the way open, shoving it up toward my chin.
His hands drop to my utility pants, tearing at the fastenings, popping the button, and violently dragging the zipper down.
His breathing is a ragged, animal growl.
He doesn't bother with any finesse. His large, rough hands roam my skin with a possessive urgency, shoving my tactical underwear aside.
His calloused palms scrape against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, leaving new, hot marks right next to the old ones.
He reaches over me and dumps his Glock onto the mahogany desk.
It hits the wood with a heavy clatter, the barrel still smoking slightly from the kills.
He shoves his hand down his slacks, freeing his thick, hard cock. He rubs the broad head of it right against my wet, aching clit, making me let out a sharp, involuntary whine that gets lost in the distant sound of glass shattering down the hall.
"You’re mine in the blood, Alessia," he whispers harshly, his hips pressing forward.
"Take me," I beg, my hands gripping the lapels of his ruined suit jacket. "Now."
He lifts me completely off the floor by my thighs.
I wrap both legs tight around his waist, my back violently scraping against the rough concrete wall.
I let out a sharp, choked groan as my injured bicep stretches dangerously, the dull ache of the torn muscle merging instantly with the sharp, blinding pleasure into a single, overwhelming sensation.
I bury my face immediately into the crook of his neck to muffle my voice as he aligns himself and thrusts into me.
It’s a hard, uncompromising entry, stretching me so fully I see stars behind my eyelids.
He pauses for a fraction of a second, entirely buried inside my wet pussy, the scent of his expensive soap fighting through the heavy grime and sweat of the raid. "Don't you dare scream."
"Leon..." I gasp into his skin, completely losing where I end and he begins.