Chapter 10 Bodies Armor
BODIES; ARMOR
LORENZO
We wake tangled and sweating, bathed in the full bright sun of late morning.
Her eyes are bright as she rests her chin on my chest and stares at me. "I wish we could just stay here forever."
“Me too," I say. I search her face. "I didn't expect…" I can't find the words. "I've never known anything like that. I didn't think you were ready, I wouldn't have…" I groan in frustration. "Soph, tell me the truth. Did I hurt you?"
She rolls her head from side to side. "No. Not at all. Not even a little." Her grin is heated. "I'm a bit sore, but I love it. You were perfect."
"I lost control," I mutter, angry at myself for it. "I should have been gentler."
She slithers higher on my body, gaze serious.
"No, you should not have," she says. "I absolutely fucking loved every single second of making love with you like that, Ren.
I wouldn't change a thing. I wanted you to lose control.
You gave me exactly what I needed. You were patient while I got used to how fucking gigantic your cock is.
" She grins at me. "And baby, it…is…huge.”
I may blush a little. "You sure know how to stroke a man's ego."
"I'll stroke more than just your ego," she says, giggling. Serious, again, then. "For real, honey. I mean it. You were gentle when I needed gentle, and you fucked me like you couldn't get enough when I needed that."
"You're sure?"
She nods. "I am."
I run my fingers through her hair. "How are you feeling about everything?"
"Emotionally you mean?" she asks, and I nod. "I don't know if I’m awake enough yet to know. I need coffee and breakfast."
I grab a handful of her gloriously full ass, give it a shake and a soft slap. "Get a shower while I order us some food."
Her grin is lopsided. "You may need to do that next time we have sex."
"Do what?" I ask, giving that ass another gentle clap. "That?"
Her eyes heat and sparkle. "Yes. That."
"You're sort of shocking me, you know," I tell her.
She tips her head to one side. "Oh? How so?"
I roll a shoulder. "I guess I didn't expect you to…I dunno. Be as…into it, as you are. I thought you'd take longer to get over things to the point that you'd be able to…" I shrug again. "I don't know how to put it."
"I know what you're trying to say," Sophia says.
"And I'm kind of shocked myself. I guess.
I don't know, Ren. I guess once I broke the seal on everything, it was a purge of—of everything.
Talking about it, telling you the things I've kept secret all these years, facing the things I’ve been afraid of…
it's been wildly cathartic. I don't know if I’ve fully processed it all yet, to be honest." She dots a quick, light kiss to my lips and wriggles off the bed.
"Shower for me, breakfast for us, shower for you, and then we check on the others. "
I watch her sashay into the bathroom until she's out of sight, and then I use the number the security guy gave me to order a breakfast spread. That only took a few minutes before I got a confirmation text from him with an ETA of thirty-ish minutes for the food.
Leaving quite a bit of time to kill before the food arrives.
I go into the bathroom and lean against the counter to watch Sophia in the shower. She's wet and naked, black hair plastered to her scalp and neck and shoulders, head tipped back as she scrubs her chest and belly with a soapy washcloth.
God, she takes my breath away.
Her voice startles me. "You gonna just stand there or are you getting in?"
I don't need a second invitation. She lets me get under the spray with her, and soon we're entwined together, kissing, hands sliding on slick skin.
We spend as much time kissing and groping as we do getting clean.
I get out first and dry off, and then wrap her in a towel, sink to my knees and take my time scrubbing her dry.
And, since I'm on my knees already, I use the opportunity to take her pussy with my mouth.
This time, there's no hurry, no desperation, no hesitation or concern.
I take my time bringing her to a shuddering, panting orgasm, her ass against the counter, hands in my hair.
When she comes the first time, I hike her up onto the counter with a folded towel under my knees and I devour her all over again.
She arches backward, hands reaching up and back to press against the mirror, heels tight against her ass, knees splayed wide apart, pulsing her pussy against my greedy mouth as she comes, and the sounds of ecstasy she makes for me burn into my my brain, into my soul, the panting whispers and gasping pleas and hoarse cries of delirious release.
I'm about to go for a third when a sharp trio of knocks announce the arrival of our breakfast.
I tuck a towel around my waist and leave Sophia spread out on the bathroom counter, slumped back against the mirror, panting, bleary-eyed and stupefied. I close the bathroom door after myself and head across the suite, making sure the towel is secured.
I hear the shower turn on a moment later, and I grin to myself at the thought of Sophia trying to stay upright in the shower on shaky legs.
Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I have my hand on the knob, the other on the lock, but some faint instinct jangles in my gut. I hesitate, hungry enough to ignore it.
Long years of training and experience, however, mean I know better than to ignore my instincts.
I throw myself to the side, away from the door.
A deafening blast leaves my ears ringing, and the door explodes inward in a storm of splinters—a shotgun.
I hit the ground on my ass and roll backward to my feet.
The towel droops off me, and I snag it, crouched and waiting.
I have a split second to glance across the room at the rifles and pistols, uselessly lying across the room on the couch.
A black combat boot kicks the ruined door inward—it flies open and slams against the wall, shuddering halfway back toward the frame.
The boot's owner steps through, a massive Binelli sweeping across the room.
I still hear the shower running, but there is absolutely no chance Sophia didn't hear that blast.
I have no time to think about anything else, then.
The breacher is pivoting my way in his sweep of the room.
I whip the towel at his face, and in his attempt to bat it away, he gets the shotgun tangled.
I lash my foot out in a front-kick, my heel slamming into his gut.
He doubles over, gagging, and I snag the shotgun, towel and all, out of his hands.
I slam the butt as hard as I can into the side of his skull, and I feel it give with a wet crunch.
I drop to a knee and find the trigger, tug it through the towel.
The fluffy white fabric disintegrates as the slug rips through it, and I yank the towel away and toss it aside.
My first slug left a giant hole in the wall just outside the door but didn't hit an enemy. It did buy me a few seconds, though.
The second tango steps through sideways, aiming where I would be if I was on my feet; he fires a burst as he crabwalks through the doorframe, but his rounds buzz over my head and chew up the floor just behind me.
My slug slams into his chest and sends him flying backward into the frame, blood spurting from his mouth; his body armor stopped the slug from penetrating, but the sheer blunt force trauma of the ultra-close-range blast caused some sort of severe internal damage.
Another burst rips through the doorway, a buzzsaw of bullets intended more to keep my head down and me from moving across the opening than to harm me.
A flashbang rolls with a clatter across the marble floor.
I react on instinct, using the butt of the shotgun like a golf club to whack the explosive back toward the enemy, and then curl over the shotgun and clap my hands over my ears, face buried in my thighs.
The blinding light and concussive noise is a sensory assault, leaving my already ringing ears ringing even worse.
I surge to my feet, blinking away the blurring, coruscating, flashing afterimages, butt tucked against my shoulder, and step toward the doorway, firing blindly into the opening.
After my first blast, I dart sideways and fire again, shoulder slamming into the far side of the frame.
I fire a third time, jerk the barrel to my left a touch and fire a fourth time.
I'm still firing mostly blind, as the afterimages still dance across my vision and the ringing in my ears leaves me off-balance and nauseated.
I hear an assault rifle chatter in a burst, burst, burst, and then feel a small soft hand on my left shoulder: Sophia, HK in her hands, as naked as I am, moving past me in a tactical crouch, firing off burst after devastating burst into the foolishly clustered group of tangos.
They're all wearing body armor, so most of her shots that do hit don't kill, but leave them momentarily out of commission.
My sight is clearing and the ringing is abating now. I go for lethal headshots, putting slugs through skulls—the mess of gore painting the foyer is unbelievable.
The door to the other suite crashes inward, and Toro fills the opening, rifle crack-crack-cracking; he steps through diagonally, and Fonz follows him, limping so badly it's more of a one-legged hop.
His aim is unaffected, however, and in short order every tango is down, either dead or badly wounded.
Toro, once the gunfire has been silenced, eyes the moaning, bleeding survivors with a cold glare, mutters to himself in Spanish, and then whips his rifle back up to his shoulder and double-taps those who aren't dead yet without moving from the doorway.
"I guess we know what you two were up to, eyyy?" Fonz says, grinning at me.
Sophia seems unaffected by both her nudity and Fonz's off-color joke. "Is anyone hit?" Her gaze flicks to me, rakes over me. "Ren, you're okay?"