Chapter 21
MIKEY
All was still except for the steady rhythm of Scottie’s breathing. The storm had long since passed, but I hadn’t found the desire to move just yet. Here, with her wrapped up in my arms, her hair tickling my chin, was the safest place I’d ever found myself.
Despite knowing there was still much death and violence to be had at my fingertips, for a moment I could pretend that the red staining my hands didn’t exist. She shifted slightly against my chest and instinctively I pressed her tighter into me. If only time could slow its pace.
Moonlight would be here soon, the orange of the sun casting a dimming glow spread faintly into the cavern. Everything here held a memory I bound tightly to my soul. Someday this would be nothing but a distant tick in the fabric of the world, but for me, it was something else.
Something more.
Her chest expanded, pushing against my embrace, and I loosened my hold slightly. Lashes wisped against my neck as she tipped her chin up. Glancing down, I offered her a tender smile as her eyes fluttered open. Her brows creased together, but it wasn’t confusion that pulled them tight. Something else drifted across her face, gentling her ever sharp features.
Sparkling doe eyes met mine. My heart thumped wildly in my chest yet everything else in my soul fell still and calm. Her palms rested against my chest as she gently pushed herself away from me to sit upright.
Her legs had to be numb from straddling my waist for so long, but Scottie didn’t move to leave. Instead her touch remained warm against my body. Dried blood coated her cheek, her wound from the previous mission opened during the explosive scuffle we experienced hours earlier. Sliding my fingers out from her hair, I brought them forward and rested both hands upon her face, carefully cupping her cheeks without brushing over the cut.
My thumb drifted a gentle caress across the dried blood, tipping her head to the side ever so slightly. Her fingers twisted into my combat shirt, sending a pulse of electricity shooting through my skin.
Fuck. She was beautiful. The sheen of the setting sun mixed with the red of the glow stick danced shadows across features that would forever be tattooed on my heart.
And I knew at that moment that I would cross every grain of sand, dive into every explosion possible, if it meant one more second with her. Just like this.
Never before had such an intense whirlwind of desire ripped my heart from my chest, bringing light to something that had long since turned black. For the first time, hope broke through the violence that ensnared my hardened soul.
Her amber eyes flickered down to my lips. Briefly like a butterfly whisking away on a summer breeze, a smile so unlike she’d ever shown before brushed her mouth. Dimples creased her cheeks, but no teeth were shown. Such an unusually soft and genuine expression from her.
What I should have done was gently put some distance between us, or maybe said something witty to break the sensual tension between us. I knew she had her reservations. I knew she had her boundaries. So I should have respected them.
But there was nothing left in me shackling me to the hesitations that once had bound me so deeply behind the caged wall my heart was shrouded in.
Tipping my head slightly, I leaned forward. My heart raced in my throat, sweat dripped down my back, sending a shiver racing up my spine. She didn’t fight it, didn’t try to pull away. Her eyes lifted back to mine, innocent and carefree. Rushing like the wind that once swirled as our guardian outside this shallow cavern, my stomach lurched.
Hot breath washed over my face. My lips a mere centimeter from hers. She exhaled deeply, her lashes fluttering.
And then velvet slammed against my mouth.
My fingers gripped her cheeks, every fiber of my being thundering with an awakening. Deeper and deeper, my lips worked against hers. Warmth pooled low within my belly. I didn’t fight all of the tension that drew me closer and closer to her. Like putty, she melted into my kiss. Tasting of salt and sticky sweetness, my body craved more and more as she worked her mouth against mine. Fighting and dancing at the same time, every movement of mine was fueled by the desire to have her closer.
Threading my fingers back through her hair, I slipped my other hand around her waist and hoisted her tighter into my lap. A soft gasp left her lips, parting from mine so briefly, but I quickly captured her mouth again and slipped my tongue between her teeth. She welcomed it with a returning wet caress of her own taste.
The savagery simultaneously melded with passion, and I was no longer sitting in a dark cavern. No one but Scottie and I existed. There was no war. There was no death. Only the living, breathing desire that glued us together.
As I twisted her hair between my fingers while pressing harder with my hand against the small of her back, she slid her palms up my chest and around my neck. Raising onto her knees, her body flush against mine, her tongue darted against mine. I nibbled on her bottom lip, an unexpected whimper leaving my mouth as fuzzy static heightened low in my back. Heart racing, my entire body fired beneath her touch. Her slender fingers slid across the skin of my neck, tangling in the ends of my hair.
I tipped my head back as the pressure built between my legs, my dick straining against the buttons that no longer seemed strong enough to hold my pants closed. She rocked against me, her hips bucking with a soft moan that left her lips.
A moan that almost undid me in a split second.
Leaving her mouth, I slid my tongue down her neck, biting as she tipped her head back. All rational thought long since left the cave. Drowning in nothing but the taste of her skin on my tongue, her body rocking in rhythm against mine, I wasn’t just treading, I was effortlessly swimming in the pool we’d found ourselves in.
Sleek hair slid between my fingers as I found the end of her locks and tugged. Greedy. Hungry. She didn’t protest; instead, she increased the pressure against my hard-on. Another moan left her lips, and stars swirled in my vision.
“Fuck, Blondie,” she moaned.
Licking at my bite mark on her neck one last time, I returned to her mouth, shoving my tongue in without hesitation.
Every breath of mine was rapid, sporadic as she bucked her hips against me faster. Fuck was right, considering that my pants and hers were still on. But feeling her body begin to shiver against mine, I cracked my eyelids, craving more than anything to watch her through slitted lids as euphoria was creeping up on her. Nearly ready to take her away.
And a massive rumble split the rapture we were caught in.
My eyes snapped wide open as hers did, and she froze. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, straddled around my waist as the vibration of engines hummed closer and closer.
“Shit,” I growled, frustrated beyond belief.
“Shit,” she muttered. Her eyes stayed locked on mine and then she tipped her head, wearing an unreadable expression. She unexpectedly rolled her hips against me one more time. Her brows stitched together, strain caressing her features, and she buried her face with a whine into my shoulder.
Despite the massive fucking blue balls I was about to be left with, satisfaction of a different kind crept within my cold, black heart.
Holding her tightly against my body so she knew that she was safe, I listened to the approaching vehicles that eventually rolled to an idle, and then the engines cut off completely. Her chest continued to rise and fall rapidly, wrapped in my arms, as I listened and attempted to calm my heart.
And my dick.
Muted words swirled into the air, distant chatter that I couldn’t make out. Straining harder to hear, I attempted to count the different voices. So far, all of them sounded male, and then I heard the pitch of a very unforgettable tone.
Sighing, I took the opportunity to slide my fingers through Scottie’s hair one more time. “Guess who’s out there?” I muttered in her hair.
She suddenly whipped her head up from my neck and scrambled away from me. Her face paled. “Mikey, what the fuck was that?” she whispered, rather angrily, gesturing at me.
I pulled my brows together, grabbing my vest and helmet, choosing to ignore her question. “The team’s come looking for us.”
“Don’t do that, Mikey,” she mumbled, gathering her equipment.
“Don’t do what?” I strapped my vest together.
“That! You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Her voice shifted. A little louder and more desperate.
“What was it to you?” I asked, buckling the helmet and adjusting my balaclava back over my mouth.
Her hands quickly worked her hair back into a smooth and sleek bun. She stared at me, no words leaving her mouth, not until both of us could clearly make out the team discussing where we might be since there were only two bodies beside our blown up buggy. Bodies that weren’t us.
“That never happened,” she whispered, her eyes misting over.
“No one else knows what happened, Scotch,” I protested.
“But if they found out, my career would be over. You don’t understand, you never will be able to. You’re a man. You’re a boy in a boy’s club. You’ll be cheered on by everyone else while I…” Her voice softened to barely being audible. “I will be ostracized, or worse.”
Shit.I had never really thought about that. Yeah, maybe once, very briefly, but she was right. I had no idea how something like this would affect her because I wasn’t her.
We were impossible. She’d known that from the start.
And a part of me had known it too.
“I won’t say I’m sorry,” I finally mumbled, ready to make my appearance with the team.
She stared at me, and a pained smile briefly flashed on her lips before she slipped her mask over her nose. But not a word left her mouth.
We’d tasted freedom and absolute blissful passion so briefly that it almost seemed crueler than had it never happened. A craving for her weighed like a heavy blanket on my soul. In a single decision, she’d become an addiction I knew I’d never be able to shake.
Maybe not just something I wouldn’t be able to shake, but one I was going to actively choose to not shake. A calm resolution settled over my soul as we crawled to the mouth of the cavern. I was okay with it.
Whatever forbidden path we had to take, I would travel down for a simple chance at the impossible with her.
I shot her one last glance and then laid down on my back, dragging myself out from the hollow den that held what was now one of my most treasured memories.
The burning ends of daylight stretched its tendrils over the ridges of the dune, briefly blinding me as I stood upright.
“DOM!” Bernie shouted, his once again recognizable voice drawing my focus. Sprinting away from two newly intact buggies came in our direction five men—four of them I knew by name, the other happened to be our bogey.
Wait, I knew those eyes on our bogey. I knew him.
Scottie quickly walked by me, leaving a cold chill in her wake. Whatever brief serenity shared between us would forever be a memory and secret. One shared between two people destined for destruction.