Chapter Forty
Helios
Riding back to the house was fucking torture.
Her sweet ass against my stiff cock, her legs wrapped around mine, I had no one to blame except myself.
Like I knew she would, the woman rode the throttle hard and me harder.
A mile from the house, the third time she tried to fucking top me on steering, I laid into her. “Not your fucking ride, woman. You want control, do it on your own damn bike.” I’d bought her two.
Ignoring me, shifting her weight slightly, she aimed to pass another car.
I tapped the brakes and flipped up her visor. “I know you heard me. Settle down, throttle jockey. We’re not fucking flogging it on this ride.”
“Did you just call me a throttle jockey?”
The woman thankfully didn’t fight me as I downshifted and turned us onto our street.
“Better than a squid.” She’d graduated from that shit, but my Haven was still a damn speed-junkie demon.
Always had been. Not that I had room to talk.
If I could ride it or fly it, I was good. If I could shoot it, even better.
“You’re teasing me.”
“What fucking gave it away?” Pulling into the driveway, I drove us up to the house.
She stayed with me until I’d opened the garage, walked us in, and cut the engine.
Then she slid under my arm and off the bike before I’d hit the kickstand. Taking off the helmet that was sizes too big, she kept my leather on. “I wasn’t going too fast.”
“Woman. If you’re on two wheels, you always go too damn fast.” The love-hate affair I had for her few addictions—me, speed, anxiety—was hell on my sanity.
“You ride faster,” she accused.
“I’m more experienced.” I winked at her because I fucking could. And because her hair was just fucked-up enough to make her wide-eyed stare at my innuendo-loaded response stand out that much more. All of which was the exact kind of shit I got off on—rattling her cage.
Cheeks flushed, she thrust my helmet at me.
“You know where that goes.” Dismounting, I pulled off my gloves.
Giving me an eyeful of her perfect ass as she about-faced, I watched her head to the built-in shelving where we kept our helmets. A whole damn row of them. His and hers. I got off on that shit too.
She carefully placed the helmet next to the matching one she wore when she rode the Panigale with me.
“Collection’s growing.” If I could get her into piloting, it’d be fucking perfect, but she hated being in the air for too long, so I chose my battles.
She spun back around. Still wide-eyed, she looked up at me like she was seeing something I didn’t. “What?”
I tipped my chin toward the helmets and riding gear. “Our collection.” I tossed my gloves next to my other pairs. “It’s growing.”
“You keep buying new bikes.”
I smirked. “Haven’t heard you complain.” She benefitted.
“I would never—” She cut herself off. “You’re teasing me again.”
“Hazing, but yeah.” Stepping into her personal space, I unzipped my leather and took the jacket off her. “Come on. We’re trying this again.” My hand between her shoulder blades, on a fucking mission, I didn’t give her room to negotiate or ask. I led her into the house.
Dumping my jacket on the couch, then unholstering my Glock, I set the piece on the kitchen counter.
Fishing our cells and her earbuds out of my pocket, tossing them next to my 9mm, I didn’t break stride as I swept an arm under her legs and picked her up.
Then I was opening one of the sliders out to the lanai single-handed.
Her gasp cut through the silent house before her protest hit. “Wait, stop!”
Not a fucking chance. “No.” We were doing a goddamn redo.
“Helios!”
I plunged us into the hot tub. Again.
I took us under. Again.
I surfaced with her in my arms. Again.
Then I pushed the hair off her face and explained. “We’re having a do-over. I’m not letting this morning be your last memory of the damn hot tub.”
Water coating her eyelashes, her hair slicked back, her gorgeous fucking eyes looking even bigger on her face, she blinked up at me. Then she gave me that voice, her pure fucking submissive voice, right before she cut deep. “My last memory of you and the hot tub.”
“Yeah.” That.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I fucking inhaled. Then I cupped the back of her head and brought her face into my chest so I didn’t goddamn kiss her. “Woman.”
“Helios,” she murmured.
Did she have any fucking idea how she took me out at the knees every goddamn day?
Every tactic I knew, every form of PSYOPs I’d learned and utilized on and off the battlefield, I’d tried with her—strategic, operational, tactical.
Every fucking trick I’d picked up or learned in the military, from infantry, to Rangers, to Selection, to the Unit, all the goddamn ways I knew how to overpower, manipulate, anticipate, and defeat, I’d tried on her.
But none of them had broken through her defenses.
None of them had gotten me to a place where I didn’t have to kick her motherfucking door in.
I was left with two options. Begging or fucking.
After the day she’d had, I wasn’t touching the latter.
But fuck me, it’d solve all this shit between us.
She’d feel safer with me, connected. I’d fuck that anxiety out of her.
Get her to talk to me, really fucking talk.
Taking her, making her mine, it would cut through all this bullshit and maybe, just fucking maybe, temper the relentless obsession pounding in my head.
Fuck.
Later.
I stroked up her back, my cock pulsed, and I gripped her hair. Pulling her head back, I tipped her face up. “Look at me.”
She looked.
Jesus fucking Christ, she was beautiful. So goddamn beautiful, my plan went to hell. “I can’t fucking beg you, Feralyn.”
“You called me by my name.”
I didn’t have to search her eyes or analyze her fucking tone to decipher that shit. I saw the hurt mixed with want. “Stop shutting me out, and I’ll call you Haven all damn night long.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“Trust me, I’d make it count.” Fuck, I’d make it count.
“You can’t when you have to say it to fulfill a promise.”
Jesus. “What part of you could possibly fucking doubt that you’re my haven?” That I was hers?
“Please,” she whispered even quieter. “This is too much for me right now, Helios.”
For the second time in my life, I knew what being gutted alive felt like. But I wasn’t letting this go. “Tell me what happened today.” I’d bring her goddamn heads if that was what it took.
A fat tear rolled down her face. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit.”
Another tear followed. “Please. Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell you that it kills me to see you like this? Enrages me? That I’m gonna get the fucking answer out of you?”
Her sucked-in breath of shock was too little, too late.
My tone cut to Delta. “I kill for a living. I’m a fucking mercenary.” I raised my voice. “Tell me who the fuck you saw!”
Outright crying, she shook her head. “Stop.”
“WHAT FUCKING HAPPENED?”
“I-I saw him!”
“Saw who?”
She clutched her ribs. “A-a-at the farmer’s market.”
“Who the fuck did you see, Feralyn?”
A tremor wracked her body. “H-his eyes.” Terror shook her voice. “His scarred face.”
I fucking froze.
She barely breathed. “T-the eagle tattoo on his chest.”
A red fucking haze descended.
“The man who abducted me.” Fear teeming, she whispered, “H-he was at the farmer’s market.” She fucking fell apart.