Chapter 5
KAILA
My eyes burn. The blue light from the six monitors arrayed in front of me feels like it’s bleaching my retinas. Blinking is impossible. The target is too close.
Stale, recycled air fills the loft, charged with enough static electricity to jump-start a tank. Underneath the ozone, the heavy scent of pine and gun oil blankets the room. Daniel.
A solid wall of heat presses against my back.
His massive frame towers behind my chair, radiating a possessive energy that threatens my concentration.
I force my attention back to the screen.
Letting the towering tracker distract me gets people killed, even if he kissed me senseless an hour ago and left me aching inside his oversized leather cut.
"Focus, Ghost," he growls. The low rumble of his voice vibrates through the heavy leather draped over my shoulders.
"I am focused," I snap back. My fingers fly across the mechanical keyboard he gave me, the clatter echoing over the hum of the cooling fans. "This encryption is nasty. A rolling algorithm shifts the pathways every time I bypass a firewall."
"Don't look for the door," he commands, leaning over me. A large, scarred hand plants onto the desk next to my mouse. "Look for the window they left open for the money."
Greed always makes these bastards sloppy.
I shift my code, abandoning the brute-force attack to slip into the sub-routine managing their external accounts. My ribs vibrate with the force of my pulse. The heavy, thudding rhythm prepares my body for a physical fight.
"There," I whisper. A stream of data flickers on the third monitor, revealing a transaction log. "They’re routing payments to a private server node in the Eastern Cliffs. A payroll drop."
"That's the compound," Daniel says, hot breath washing over my neck. "Isolate the IP. Pin it down."
"I'm trying, but—"
"Do it, Kaila."
The command rings with absolute certainty. His unwavering belief pushes my fingers faster. Gritting my teeth, I execute the script and lock my lungs.
The chaotic stream of numbers freezes on the screen. A blinking red dot appears on the geo-map, confirming the coordinates.
"Got you," I breathe. "I found the node. We have eyes on the compound."
Neither of us moves. The glowing red dot illuminates the dark loft. That pixelated marker forms my brother's cage, representing our first real victory against the Costas.
A thick arm reaches past my shoulder. Daniel grips the power cord to the main comms unit and rips it out of the wall, severing us from the rest of the Clubhouse.
"Daniel?" I spin my chair around. "What are you—"
Dark, dilated eyes lock onto mine. A feral hunger burns in his stare, fueled entirely by the fact that I sit before him wearing his leather vest and nothing else underneath but cotton panties, my jeans discarded on the floorboards where he’d kicked them aside.
"We found him," he grates out. "You did good."
"We did good," I whisper.
Denim-clad thighs bump against my bare knees. The oxygen evaporates from the loft, replaced by pure tension.
"I told you," he murmurs. Large hands grip the arms of my chair, caging me. "I promised I wouldn't claim you until the filth washed away. Until we secured a victory."
I swallow hard. "We have a win."
"Yeah." His intense gaze drops to my lips, trailing lower to where the heavy leather gapes open over my cleavage. "We do."
I tilt my chin up, meeting his descent. His mouth crashes onto mine—a brutal claim, no questions asked. He devours my lips with a feral, desperate hunger tasting of dark roast coffee.
A ragged whimper escapes the back of my throat. My fingers tangle into the thick hair at the nape of his neck. He groans, a low animal vibration against my lips. The rolling chair shifts backward under his advancing weight.
He breaks the kiss, chest heaving. "Desk."
"Daniel, the equipment—"
"Fuck the equipment."
Rough palms grip my waist, hauling me upward. One violent sweep of his arm clears the workspace entirely. Keyboards and ceramic mugs go flying, crashing to the floor in a loud, chaotic clatter. A side monitor tips over, the screen cracking against the hardwood floor.
He lifts my hips and drops me onto the cleared surface. The impact sends a sharp jolt up my spine, instantly consumed by the flood of adrenaline rushing through my veins. Thick thighs wedge between my knees before my lungs can expand, pushing my legs wide open.
"You’ve been driving me insane," he growls. His thumbs dig deep into the soft flesh of my hips, leaving inevitable bruises. "Eight months of chasing a ghost, only to find a smart-mouthed hacker wearing my leather."
"I’m a genius," I gasp, wrapping my calves tightly around his narrow waist.
"You're mine," he commands. "Say it."
"Daniel—"
"Say it, Kaila."
"I'm yours," I whisper. The absolute truth of the statement anchors me. After months of hiding behind firewalls and fake IPs, his intense focus peels away every layer of my defenses.
He kisses me harder, his tongue sweeping past my lips to demand total submission.
Rough hands travel upward, shoving the heavy leather cut off my shoulders.
The rigid material pools around my elbows, trapping my arms at my sides.
Cool loft air hits my bare breasts, hardening my nipples under his burning gaze.
He pulls back, his facial muscles tight with unchecked desire.
"Beautiful," he breathes.
Thick fingers hook directly into the cotton waistband of my panties. With one sharp yank, the fabric rips. He bypasses sliding them down the length of my legs, tearing the garment away like tissue paper.
I gasp at the sheer force. The brutal destruction creates a fresh flood of slick wetness between my thighs. Every nerve ending in my core throbs, hypersensitive to one of the most dangerous man in Pine Valley standing between my legs.
The heavy metal of his belt buckle clinks against the desk. He shoves his denim jeans down over his hips, freeing his erection.
The massive length of his cock springs forward. He is remarkably thick, the veined shaft rigid and demanding attention.
"Daniel," I breathe. My stomach twists into a hard, cold knot. "It’s been a while."
The frantic motion stops. His large hands freeze against my bare skin. Tracking my sudden tension, his posture softens slightly, shifting back into the man who bought me an ergonomic keyboard to soothe my aching wrists.
"I won't hurt you, Kaila," he murmurs, his voice dropping an octave. "But I cannot be gentle right now. The control is gone."
"I refuse gentle," I answer. I need his overwhelming weight to ground me, to completely obliterate the paralyzing paranoia of the last eight months.
He nods. His grip on my hips tightens, lifting my pelvis to align our bodies.
He drives his thick, engorged cock into my slick entrance, stealing the air directly from my lungs. The massive girth stretches my pussy to the absolute limit, a careful invasion claiming every inch of my internal walls.
I cry out as my slick flesh strains to accommodate him. My fingernails dig deep into his broad shoulders while he pauses, allowing my tight muscles to adjust to the impalement.
"Fuck," he hisses through gritted teeth. His forehead rests flush against mine while a hard twitch pulses deep inside my core. "Your pussy is squeezing me so damn hard. You’re entirely soaked, Kai. I need your slick juices coating my balls with every single thrust."
The first strike hits deep. His cock slides in and out with a wet, heavy friction, igniting a raw fire across my clit. Each time he bottoms out, his pubic bone slams against my pelvis. His heavy weight pins me securely to the desk, dominating the space with primal, relentless force.
My entire world narrows down to the slick friction. The sharp sound of skin slapping against skin echoes through the room, accompanied by the harsh creak of the wooden desk bearing our combined weight.
He thrusts into me with a desperate, frantic rhythm that repeatedly jars the breath from my lungs, grinding his narrow hips against my pelvis with every punishing stroke.
"Look at me," he commands.
My heavy eyelids flutter open. Sweat beads across his forehead, his jaw locked tight as he watches his own cock repeatedly bury itself inside my dripping pussy.
"You see this?" he grates out, burying himself to the hilt. "This is absolute reality. Us. Only us."
"Yes," I moan. My head falls back as the thick tip of his shaft strikes a highly sensitive bundle of nerves deep inside my canal. "Yes, Daniel."
A large hand securely cups my bare breast. His calloused thumb drags harshly across my tight nipple, shooting fresh electricity straight down to my engorged clit. Every rigid firewall I constructed around my mind shatters into a million unrecognizable pieces.
"You’re mine to protect," he pants, his plunging rhythm accelerating. "Mine to completely own."
"Yes," I sob, my hips bucking upward to meet his brutal downward strikes. "Please."
The violent pounding turns relentless. Deep, friction-heavy thrusts drive me directly toward the edge. A fierce tension winds tight in my lower belly, pulling my internal muscles into a rigid, snapping coil.
"Come for me, Ghost," he growls directly into my ear. "Let me feel you fall apart."
The harsh growl of my callsign acts as the final trigger.
I scream his name as the climax strikes hard. A physical release detonates in my core, radiating intense heat out to my bare fingertips. My internal muscles clamp down viciously on his thick shaft, the involuntary spasms milking his cock.
A guttural roar rips from his throat. He drives into my clenching pussy three rapid, punishing times before his entire massive frame stiffens. Hot, thick spurts of his seed coat my inner walls as he buries his face deep into the curve of my neck.
He remains buried inside my slick core. His crushing weight anchors my trembling body to the desk while my fingers dig tightly into the sweat-slicked muscles of his back.
Harsh, ragged exhales fill the quiet loft, bleeding into the mechanical hum of the active servers still tracking the enemy coordinates.
Slowly, Daniel shifts his weight backward. His lips press firmly against my damp forehead, the quiet contact a sharp contrast to his previous violence.
The thick friction of his withdrawal leaves me entirely hollow. He adjusts his heavy denim jeans, then grabs the discarded leather cut. Broad hands pull the heavy vest back over my bare shoulders, fastening the front snaps to secure my exposed chest.
"You okay?" he asks. A rough palm cups my flushed cheek.
My chin tips forward in a weak nod, my exhausted muscles refusing to hold my own weight. "Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay."
His dark gaze sweeps over the catastrophic mess of plastic and shattered glass coating the hardwood floor. A single corner of his mouth ticks upward.
"Austin is going to kill me for the monitor."
A breathless, shaky laugh escapes my lungs. "I can fix it. Or hack his bank account and buy you a new one."
A deep chuckle rumbles through his chest cavity. He leans forward, capturing my lips in a slow, possessive kiss.
"No more hiding, Kaila," he whispers against my mouth. "We secured the target coordinates."
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he pulled back, the lethal edge returning to his dark stare.
"Now we go get your brother."
I stare up at the lethal Tracker who ruthlessly claimed every inch of my body. The phantom existence I maintained for eight months burns away, replaced entirely by the solid reality of his protection.
"Okay," I reply. "Let's go get him."