34. Deimos
The few days we needed to flesh out our plan of attack were characterized by increasingly icy exchanges in public while on shift, per our plan, and passionate evenings in our shared quarters to make up for the lack of affection during the day.
The closer we got to executing our calculated sting, the more vigorous Vaughn became with his attentiveness. He poured his worry into his touch, making sure that I felt as much as I knew that he was in this with me.
“I want one more,” he pleaded, gazing up at me from between my legs, one hand clamped firmly at my hip, pinning me in place, and the other reaching up to roughly massage one breast.
“I can’t,” I whimpered, already spent from the two he had previously wrung from me.
“Wanna bet?” He flashed a wolfish smile, sliding the hand at my breast down my stomach to my folds.
The moment his fingers penetrated me, my body arched off the bed.
“Fuck,” I hissed, moving my hips in time with his touch, and cresting with a muffled keening cry a moment later.
Vaughn had released my hip at the last minute to silence me, lest our charade of marital problems be discovered, dashing our plans before they’d begun.
He only gave me a moment to recover before he was pushing his cock against my entrance.
I moaned deep and low as he filled me, lifting my legs up to clamp around his hips, a silent demand for him to continue.
“I’ll never tire of this,” he groaned, leaning down to press his forehead against mine as he pounded into me, the friction so lovely, I felt like I was floating. “Tell me if I’m being too rough.”
“Harder,” I challenged.
“Be careful what you wish for, Trouble.” Vaughn reared back, slamming into me harsher and deeper than ever before, leaving me breathless, sporting a knowing smirk upon his face as he did so over and over again, until we both reached our respective releases.
Sweaty, but sated, I curled up against him, the gravity of the situation coming back into focus. It would be the last night I’d spend in his bed until, for better or for worse, the mission was completed.
“I changed my mind,” Vaughn groused, wrapping a possessive arm around my middle and dragging my back flush with his front as he cuddled me from behind.
He’d said the same thing every night since we’d put together our plan.
“We’ve been over this.” I sighed. “He’ll be suspicious of anyone else monitoring him so closely.”
“What makes you think he won’t be suspicious of you?”
I turned in his arms to face him. “Because he’ll think he’s gotten what he wants.”
“You.” Vaughn scowled, tugging me closer, as if that would stop what was about to happen.
“You said you’d be okay with it.” I ran the pads of my fingertips along his full bottom lip. “I won’t let him get too far.”
Vaughn huffed indignantly.
“It’s the only way.” I leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips.
“I don’t trust him. What if he tries to force you—”
“Vaughn,” I stopped him. “I need you to trust that I can handle myself. I’ve—” I paused. I hadn’t told Vaughn about Deimos, or thought about it in a long time. “I’ve had to do this before,” I admitted.
Vaughn surprised me when instead of demonstrating anger at my confession, his face crumpled. “Why? Who made you do that?”
I cocked my head. We both knew nothing was off the table for IA. He’d lost dozens of men at their whims.
“And it ended well?” he hedged, clearly wanting to ask more about what had happened, but not wanting to press too hard.
I felt my shoulders deflate. “It ended my career,” I told him the truth. “But only because I wasn’t prepared and I didn’t listen to Darren—he tried to warn me.”
Vaughn’s chocolate gaze enveloped me in the warmth of his affection. “Will you tell me?” A request, not a demand.
“There’s not much to tell,” I deflected, already seeing what happened, as if it had occurred to someone else, and not me.
The therapist I’d been forced to see after had called it “disassociation.” “I’d been working on the mission for weeks.
It should have been simple. Some rich asshole who lived on Deimos was suspected of various horrors, and I was supposed to go in during one of his big events, help IA get access to his comm, and get out. ”
But just like this mission, it was never so simple.
Vaughn ran his hand up and down my arm, comforting me as I continued.
“Darren warned me he’d heard the guy had a reputation for getting rough with girls and that he’d had dozens of charges disappear, along with a few women, for good measure, due to his influence and connections.”
“Fuck,” Vaughn hissed through clenched teeth.
“I wasn’t even supposed to have to deal with the guy.
There was another operative who was in charge of pickpocketing his comm, I just needed to hack into it and let IA in.
But the moment I walked through the doors, he had his eyes set on me.
I could feel him watching me the entire time, but what nobody knew, not even Darren, was that I’d gotten the call about Xavier the night before the mission. ” Tears pricked my eyes.
“Oh, Lark…” Vaughn’s voice carried the weight of his empathy.
“I’d worked so hard. If I’d backed out, we’d have been set back for months until he’d hosted another event.
I didn’t want to be the reason he was still on the streets.
But I was distracted and distraught, so when he cornered me later, I didn’t even hear him before it was too late.
” I allowed the tears to fall then, unable to stop them.
“He beat me to within an inch of my life and was moments away from raping me when the other operative found me, shot the guy, and dragged me out of the room. I woke up in the hospital the next morning, humiliated and without a job, due to negligence, according to my termination paperwork.”
“Is he dead?”
“Who?”
“The man who hurt you?”
I nodded. “Might have been the only good thing that came out of it all.”
“Good.” Vaughn seemed to relax slightly upon hearing he wouldn’t have to hunt down another perpetrator to avenge my honor.
“Cassidy won’t hurt me,” I told him.
“Lark.” He brushed my hair from my face. “I love you, but you don’t know him at all. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Why do you think I’m so terrified of letting you walk into his arms?”
“Because you’re jealous.” I cracked a smile, trying to lighten the mood.
Vaughn scoffed. “You and I both know I don’t have anything to be jealous of.”
“No.” I reached down to squeeze his already half-hard cock, nestled between us. “You certainly don’t.”
He groaned in response, reigniting my desire in an instant, and allowing the bad memories and the fear of what was to come slip away, if only for a little while.