Sins and Scarlet Lace

chapter SEVENTEEN

The intensity of their lovemaking left them both limp and weakened, and he didn’t know how long they lay there, their breaths heaving in tandem and the sweat cooling on their skin. Declan groaned when he pulled out of her and felt the stickiness of his semen against the chaise.

“Damn,” he said, rolling to his side and pulling her with him so she rested in his arms. He wasn’t even sure she was conscious. “Condoms. There was a whole f*cking box and I couldn’t think past the point of burying my dick inside you to put one on.”

“S’kay,” she murmured. “Birth control. All good.”

The rain had started to fall sometime during their lovemaking, and he stared up as the rain splattered against the glass ceiling. She rolled over in his arms so her head rested against his chest and her hand splayed on his stomach. He hoped to God she wasn’t ready to go again, but he wasn’t sure he could get another hard-on in the next week, much less the next ten minutes.

“I always hated that you used condoms before, even though I was on the pill. I never felt like I felt all of you. That day at the planetarium was the first and last time you ever took me without one.”

His fingers glided up her back and then back down again in a lazy motion. “That last time we were together it took every ounce of self-control I had to put one on. I thought when I came back home that I’d ask you to marry me and then I’d never use one again. That whole mission I thought about how good it would feel to slide into you with nothing but flesh between us.”

“I understand why you felt you had to push me away,” she said softly. “I don’t agree with it, but I understand that protecting the people you love is just part of your makeup. It’s in your blood. You talk about getting me to trust you again, but if you think about it, you never trusted me to begin with. You didn’t trust me to love you enough or stand by you no matter what.”

She felt the breath shudder in his chest, but she had more to say. “And I wasn’t strong enough to tell you to shut the hell up and that I wasn’t going anywhere. If we were in the same position today there wouldn’t be a nurse or a relative you could throw in my path to keep you from me.”

“So I guess when it comes down to it, I didn’t trust your love enough either. Because I should have known you were full of shit as soon as the words started coming from your mouth.” She felt the tears she’d sworn she would never shed drip down her cheeks and onto his chest. “Because if I’d been paying attention for the two years we were together I would’ve been positive that the love you showed me in every gesture or kiss was the kind of love that can’t be turned off and on like a switch. What we had was real. And we were both stupid for walking away.”

“I want a second chance with you,” he said, the huskiness in his voice warming her heart. “I want to make a life with you. We’ve already wasted so much time.”

“Ten years is a long time to pick up where we left off.” She swallowed and closed her eyes against the pain. “We’re different people. We might find we don’t like each other as much as we once did.”

His lips touched the top of her head and she felt his smile. “I guess we’ll find out. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”



***



Declan looked up from his laptop as Sophia came into the kitchen early the next morning. It always took her a good hour before she was ready to face the day, and she stumbled into a bar stool as she followed her nose to the coffee pot.

The sight of her wearing nothing but one of his shirts had the blood pooling from his brain to his lap, and he shook his head in wonder. After the night they’d just shared he should be more than satisfied for a long while. Apparently not.

She drank the first cup black and standing against the kitchen counter. He knew better than to say anything until she was ready, so he went back to checking the traps he’d set for their friend. The last thing he wanted to do was leave a trail that could be followed back to their location in Surrender, so he’d set up dummy trails showing their location at multiple places all over the world.

Hackers had patterns, or signatures, they used when they tried to overtake a system, and Declan was hoping he’d be able to recognize the signature by the time he’d finished taking the bait. He had his own signature as well, which is what made what he was doing risky. Whoever was on the other end of the computer had already traced three of the nine dummy locations he’d set up.

“Good morning,” Sophia finally said.

He grinned and pushed the computer back, reaching for his own cup of coffee. “Twenty-nine minutes,” he said, looking at his watch. “You’re getting faster at waking up.”

“I can recognize sarcasm when I hear it. Did you eat already?”

“That’s a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one.” His brow quirked and he watched in fascination as she blushed as red as the nightgown she’d been wearing the night before. “I could go for a little dessert for breakfast. Why don’t you come over here and let me show you what I have in mind.”

It was becoming increasingly warm in the kitchen, and he watched as Sophia’s nipples puckered to hard peaks beneath the cotton of his T-shirt.

“I don’t know, Dec.” She fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously. “It seems to me you should have to eat a good meal before you get dessert.”

“I’ve always thought food tasted better if you had to catch it yourself.” He grinned and scooted back from the table, hooking his fingers in his shirt and pulling it over his head.

Sophia’s eyes widened and she put her coffee down on the counter, moving a few steps back with each step he took closer. His thumb and forefinger flicked open the button of his jeans, and she licked her lips and took another step backward.

The air around them was thick with lust and anticipation, and he stood poised at the ready, waiting for her to make the first move. The kitchen was open on all sides and she stood just at the edge of where the kitchen met the dining room.

He saw it in her eyes before she made her first move, and he was already leaping after her as she turned to run. A shriek of surprise bubbled out in a laugh as his fingers glanced off her arms before she maneuvered quickly in the opposite direction and put the dining room table between them.

“You might as well give in,” he taunted. “Maybe I’ll take it easy on you if you surrender peacefully.”

“Who said I wanted it easy?” She pulled off her shirt and tossed it at his face to distract him as she took off toward the foyer.

Declan leapt over the dining room table and caught her before she made it to the stairs. She was laughing as he took her lips in a scorching kiss, going straight for heat instead of a slow simmer. His hands grasped her bottom and lifted her so she was able to wrap her legs around his waist and her nails bit into his shoulder blades.

The kiss was endless, a mating of tongues and a sensual slide of lips. His hip bumped a table and something crashed to the ground, and he cursed as he worked to get his jeans unzipped. Her back slammed against the wall, knocking a picture from where it hung and her breasts rubbed against his chest as she pushed back against him. He could smell her heat and his knuckles glanced off the slick essence between her thighs as he finally got the zipper down and his jeans shoved to his hips.

His cock sprang free and he lifted her, searching for the entrance of her p-ssy so he could sink home, but she rolled her hips against him just as the head of his cock found her entrance and she dislodged him. Instead she slid her drenched p-ssy up and down his shaft.

“Christ,” he panted. Her bare skin scorched his fingers as she pleasured herself shamelessly against him. The taste of her filled him, until he was drunk from the pleasure, and he stopped worrying about how he’d find the ability to draw his next breath as her ankles crossed behind his back and she squeezed him tighter.

He stumbled back from the wall, intending to move her to the couch, but her teeth bit down on his lower lip and color exploded from beneath his closed eyelids. Something shattered—maybe a vase—and her back hit the front door just as the flared head of his cock probed at her entrance. An incredible pressure rose within her as he stretched her sore muscles, and she bit her lip as the pleasure/pain assaulted her system.

A pounding at the front door and then the insistent ring of the doorbell had them both freezing, their breaths tight in their chests.

“Everything all right in there?” Shane called out, laughter in his voice. “It sounds like someone fell over.”

Declan groaned and sank a little further inside of her as he kept her pressed against the door.

“Maybe if we’re quiet he’ll go away,” she whispered in his ear.

“I thought we were supposed to have a meeting this morning,” Shane called out. “Maybe I’d better come in and make sure everything is all right.”

“If you do, you die,” Declan finally yelled through the door. Sweat gathered at his temples and his muscles strained at the effort it took to hold back. “Go away, Shane.”

“I could just wait here on the porch for ten minutes and then knock again. But maybe y’all should go to a different room because you’re pretty loud.”

“Come back in an hour or I’m going to shoot you.”

Sophia’s body shook in a fit of laughter and she buried her head against his neck. Every movement she made had him slipping a little farther inside of her and he felt like his skin was being flayed alive. He eased his grasp on her bottom and let gravity sink her farther onto his cock. The laughter stopped and a sharp gasp rent the air as he felt the familiar tightening of her muscles.

“An hour?” Shane asked. “That’s impressive, brother. I guess you get to be king of the jungle today. And to think I woke up early for this.”

They both held their breaths as they heard a car door slam shut and then an engine start before driving away. Her teeth bit into his shoulder and he realized she was just on the edge of coming.

“Remind me to kill him later,” he panted. Declan tightened his grasp on her bottom once more and pushed his entire length into her with one rough thrust.

The orgasm ripped from her body and she heard herself cry out, but it sounded as if it was trapped beneath water. Blood rushed to her ears and all she could focus on was the thick shaft pounding inside of her. He kept her anchored to the door with his hips, and she clamped tighter around him as she felt his finger probe at the sensitive bud of her anus.

All it took was a touch and she climaxed hard and long around him, bucking against him as she begged for mercy. His shout echoed her own and she felt the hot spurts of his semen filling her as he pinned her to the door with a final hard thrust. It was enough for a fast and powerful climax to shudder through her once more.



***



Thirty minutes later they were both showered and dressed and back in the kitchen.

“I’m never going to be able to look at Shane again,” Sophia said as she rummaged through the fridge for sandwich fixings.

“That would be perfectly fine with me. I’m pretty sure I’m honor bound to kick his ass for that little stunt.”

“Though to be honest, we probably were being a little loud. I’m sorry you broke your clock. And the picture frame. And that table. But I’m pretty sure you can glue the leg back on.”

He narrowed his eyes as she laughed at him. “You laugh now, but what you don’t understand is that this family is relentless when it comes to stuff like that. My cousin Dane and his wife once pulled a towel rod free that was bolted into the wall. It flew out of Charlie’s grasp and shattered the shower door. Everyone still talks about that and it’s been years.” He grabbed the bread from the pantry and a knife from the drawer as she started setting things out on the counter. “Also, I like how you say it was me who broke the clock. Like you weren’t involved at all.”

“I was just along for the ride. I’ve got the sore muscles to prove it.”

“You know, I’ve got a very nice Jacuzzi downstairs—” His phone buzzed on the table and he sighed as he saw it was Brant on the line. “Hold that thought,” he said as he picked up the phone.

“Why aren’t you on vacation?” he said as he answered the call.

“Because I’ve learned to listen to my gut,” Brant said by way of greeting.

“We’ve got major trouble. About an hour ago a man dressed in a business suit carrying a briefcase was buzzed inside your building by your receptionist. The man pulled out a silenced pistol and double tapped your security guard in the head before giving the receptionist a single shot to the heart. I’ve seen the surveillance footage. It was quick and professional.”

Dec stayed silent as fury boiled in his blood. He didn’t show any outward reaction to what Brant had just told him, but Sophia must have sensed something was wrong because her eyes became worried and she stopped what she’d been doing to watch him carefully.

“Keep going,” he said.

“The man left the briefcase and walked out. The outside cameras show him getting in a black sedan, and then they stopped beside the gate that leads down to the parking area. He tossed in a hand-held device that seemed to be on the same timing system as the briefcase left inside. The device rolled down almost all the way before things went boom.”

“Who was called to the scene?” Dec asked.

“The police initially, but it wasn’t fifteen minutes before Director O’Daniel was there shutting things down. I managed to slip in through your private entrance and clear out all of the classified files and set the computers to self-destruct mode.”

Dec opened his laptop and checked the progress of the bait he’d set up. “How’d he find us?”

“Director O’Daniel isn’t very forthcoming at the moment, but from what I was able to find out it looks like someone broke into his files. You’d think the Director of the CIA would have better security.”

“Not for someone like this. Do me a favor and take Darcy on that vacation. And spread the word. I want all agents to go underground until I know how much of our personal information has been breached.”

“You want me to leave you alone to fight this out by yourself? Darcy would have my head on a platter.”

“I’ve got plenty of backup here if we need it. My best advice is to not tell her what’s going on.”

“So speaks the man who isn’t married,” Brant said, dryly. “I’ll tell her what’s going on, but I’ll make sure we go under.”

“Be safe and lock down the information you extracted from the office. I don’t want any incoming information on my personal computer.”

Dec hung up the phone just as the doorbell rang. “It looks like Shane’s timing has improved. You’re going to need to make more sandwiches.”