Bonds of Justice

CHAPTER 38

“Beautiful.” A rough sound, impatient hands that turned her to meet his kiss.

And oh, his kiss.

It held the same wild tenderness, the same protectiveness that had torn through her every shield from the very first. But it also held something else—a raw, dark pleasure, a hotly sexual aggression. Shuddering, she pulled at his shirt. Buttons went flying every which way as he cooperated with her frustrated need to touch him, but his attention was on her mouth, his hunger inexorable.

His hands back on her body as soon as his shirt fell to the floor, he squeezed and petted until she broke the kiss, unable to take any more. But he wouldn’t let her go. Kisses on her jaw, on her neck as he walked her backward, the heat of his chest an exquisite caress. She was more than ready to fall onto the bed when it hit the backs of her knees. Not waiting for him to nudge her, she crawled on and turned over to brace herself on her elbows.

He was watching her with a glittering kind of focus, one that made her skin tighten until it almost hurt. She swallowed as his fingers went to his jeans, as he undid the snaps and peeled the denim down his legs, along with his briefs. Her eyes were riveted to the thick length of his erection . . . to the hand he clasped around it. He stroked once, and her body arched. She couldn’t explain it, didn’t understand it, but the sight of him stroking his own flesh was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. “Max.” A shuddering plea.

Coming over her as she lay back in unspoken invitation, he lowered himself just enough that their thighs brushed, the hardness of his erection pushing at her abdomen in blatant masculine demand. Sucking in a breath, she slid her hands up the beauty of his chest and over those magnificent shoulders. “Yes.” It was an answer to a question he hadn’t asked.

But he understood. Relaxing his muscles, he allowed his body to touch her all over. The full-body contact was an erotic lightning strike, an electrical storm. Moaning at the pleasure-pain of it, she tangled her fingers in his hair and took his mouth in a kiss of her own. He shuddered against her, his hand clenching on her hip. When he moved that hand to push at her thigh, she spread her legs in silent invitation.

He touched her slickness, and it made her tremble. But he didn’t stroke her with lazy patience as he had once before. This time, his touch was deliciously, demandingly rough, as he used his knowledge of her body to make her twist beneath him. “That’s it,” he murmured, his shoulder muscles bunching against her palms as he played with her. “Scream for me, Sophie.”

She managed to tighten her thighs, trapping his hand in between. “I,” she gasped out, “am not a screamer.”

A wicked, unexpected smile, that lean dimple flashing in his cheek. “Well now, a man’s got to take that as a challenge.”

She adored him. Tugging down his head, she pressed a line of kisses along the dimple, even as he began to tease her with small movements of his finger against her clitoris. Her breath caught. “Max, you’re rushing me.”

The sensual complaint made him chuckle. “Fair’s fair.” But he withdrew his hand, leaning down to kiss her slow and lazy though his body thrummed with tension above her. His hair was a cool stroke across her skin as he moved lower, nuzzling at her breasts before taking a tight little nipple into his mouth.

It was an agony of sensation, and it was magnificent. “Oh!”

Grazing her with his teeth, he released the nipple. “That,” he said, circling the wet nub with his tongue, “was close to a scream.”

“Gasp,” she breathed out. “It was a gasp. Now please do that again.”

“What?” Another wicked smile.

“Max.”

Chuckling, he dipped his head to tease her neglected nipple, curving his hand possessively over the roundness of her other breast.

Shivering, she found she’d spread her thighs again, that she was cradling him in the most intimate of ways. The depth of pleasure was a knife, sharp and edgy—she shifted restlessly, her hands running up and down his back. Mine, she thought with a primal possessiveness, he’s mine. Her hands touched his buttocks when he raised his head to kiss her on the lips, and she found she really, really liked stroking her hands over the sleekly muscled strength of him.

A groan against her. “Stop that.” He nipped at her lower lip when she didn’t comply. “Or I’ll play the same game with you . . . in front of the mirror.”

Her hands went motionless.

Max braced himself on his forearms, intrigued enough to fight the pulsing need of his cock, the drive to sink into Sophie’s silken heat. “So, Ms. Sophia Russo has kinky fantasies about mirrors. Interesting.”

Heat colored her cheeks, but she tilted up her head. “Tell me one of your fantasies.”

He loved that she trusted him enough to not back down. Fighting fire with fire, he made a slow, deliberate move . . . until his erection nudged at her clitoris. Lord have mercy. It felt so good, he wanted to slip a few inches lower, take everything. But this was Sophia’s first time, and he damn well intended to drown her in pleasure—it was a matter of determined male pride . . . and of how much he felt for this woman.

Whose eyes drowned in black as she said, “Don’t think you’ll distract me.”

Smiling, he kissed her, nuzzling at her throat as he spoke, “You know those suits you wear? The prim ones with skirts to the knee and jackets that button below your breasts?”

“Mmm.” She made one of those little movements that drove him insane, rubbing herself against his cock. “My suits are boring.”

It took him several seconds to find his voice. “Au contraire.” Husky words, his breath caught in his throat. “Those suits give a man ideas. Like, for example, catching you alone in a deserted office”—he gripped her earlobe in a quick, teasing bite—“bending you over a big wooden desk, pushing up that sedate skirt to find you wet for me.” The image drove him one step closer to insanity.

Then Sophie said, “Would you touch me?” in a sultry voice that wrapped around his cock and squeezed.

Shuddering, he lowered his head, sucked hard at her neck, leaving a little red mark. “No, this is a Neanderthal fantasy”—one of his favorites—“I just rip off your panties and thrust into you.”

“That—” She swallowed, wet her lips. “I have . . . um, nothing against that fantasy.”

Now that deserved a hot, open-mouthed, inferno of a kiss. “I have another version,” he told her afterward.

Fingers clenching on his biceps, her breasts rising up and down in jagged breaths.

“This time, I get you to stand in front of me, and I push up your skirt inch by inch, while stroking my thumbs along the insides of your thighs.” Rising to kneel above her, he mirrored actions to words, parting her thighs to afford him the most delicious of views. “I know you’re not wearing anything underneath—though sometimes, I let you wear silk stockings and a suspender belt—”

Her breasts turned a hot blush pink as heat rolled over her body. “Max.”

He moved his hands over her in a sweeping caress. “Shh, this is getting good.” She shivered under his touch. “And so I shove the skirt to your waist, bare you all pink and damp for me”—sliding his hands under her bottom—“tug you close”—positioning himself lower down her body—“and eat you up like candy.”

And then he took her. Hot and deep and with an open possessiveness. She bucked under him, lush in her femininity, making small sounds of pleasure that urged him to drive her ever higher. But today, he didn’t want her to go over without him. He needed to hold her in his arms, feel her pleasure. So when he felt intimate little muscles clench, her breathing alter, he took one final taste and rose over her body, his hand on her hip. “Together this time, Sophie.” The words were so deep, so hoarse, as to be almost unrecognizable.

Sophia realized her cop had reached the end of his control. “Yes, oh, yes.” Feeling wild and needy and hotly female, she wrapped her leg over his hip, opening herself even further for him.

He didn’t ask again, kissing her with a gut-wrenching blend of tenderness and an almost violent need as he nudged at the entrance to her body. The sensation was . . . indescribable. It might have driven her to madness if she’d tried it when they first met. But now . . .

Burying her face in his neck, breathing in the intoxicating blend of his scent, she gripped his body tight as he slid inside her. His entry burned a little, but that was a small thing subsumed in the agony of sensation. Shaking, she wrapped her other leg around him. The sudden act opened her up, made him slide inside faster than before.

They both cried out, and Max froze above her. “Sophie?”

She ran her teeth up the line of his throat. “Yes.” Always, yes for this man.

Tugging off her hands, he twined them with his own as he pressed her to the sheets, his mouth claiming hers. She felt deliciously exposed and shockingly exhilarated as he flexed his hips and buried himself to the hilt inside her. Her cry was torn out of her, her body arching toward his in primal response. When he began to move, she tried to follow. She was a fraction of a second out of sync . . . but only for the first few strokes.

And then, there was no more thought. Just the slick, hot glide of his body against hers, inside hers, the rasp of his jaw against her cheek as he lowered his head . . . and finally, the turbulent beauty of a sexual storm that threw them both against the rocks and broke them wide open.

“Hey you.” Braced on his side beside her, Max ran his hand down her front. “You look like a well-fed cat.”

She scrunched up her face. “That is not a sensual image, not when I know it’s Morpheus you’re likely using as a comparison.”

The tart response got her a kiss, a deep, intense claiming. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine. My inexplicable”—but viciously strong—“shields are still holding on the PsyNet.”

“That’s good, but I was talking about the physical.”

Her body flushed. “Oh.” She’d made a visit to the bathroom, had looked at her face in the mirror, amazed at the rumpled, pleasured woman with the kiss-bruised mouth who’d stared back at her. “I’m a little tender, that’s all.” It felt strange to have such a conversation, and yet she could. Because it was Max.

He smoothed his hand over her abdomen. “Let me know when you’re ready for round two—like I told you, practice, lots and lots of practice, makes perfect.”

Catching the teasing light in his eyes, she punched him lightly on the shoulder, before turning to face him. “Thank you for making the experience so very . . .”

“Interesting?” A flash of the lean dimple she adored.

“Yes,” she said, tracing the laughter with her fingertip, feeling her own lips curve. “It was supremely interesting. That’s a high compliment.”

“I’m so glad.” Sliding one arm under her head, he draped the hand of the other over her hip. “For a Psy, you were okay.”

“And you weren’t bad for a cop.”

They looked at each other, both of them utterly delighted in the moment. She wanted to snuggle closer to him, but her body was still humming with sensation. Better to wait a while, she thought, let things quieten a fraction. “Turn around.”

To his credit, he didn’t pretend not to know the reason for her demand. Scowling, he did as asked. The tattoo ran along the length of his spine, a sword with the tip just below his nape and an intricate hilt at his lower back. It was a gorgeous piece of art.

Fascinated by the spare beauty of it, Sophia pushed down the sheet so she could view the whole thing. “When did you have this done?”

“Sixteen,” he said. “I thought I was hot shit.”

She considered the boy he must’ve been—tough but slender, his musculature still developing, and wanted to trace every inch of that tattoo with soft, adoring kisses. “The blade’s so empty in comparison to the artwork on the hilt.”

His muscles bunched. “I left it blank on purpose. For you.”

Her throat locked. She wanted to give him a gift, too . . . a gift as precious, as enduring. “It’s near lunchtime in Port Vila. You could probably catch the professor in his office.”

Turning to face her, he said, “I know.”

Sophia stroked her hand down his arm, worried. “Why do you sound the way you do?” As if he was holding something tightly in check.

He shuddered, bending his head so his forehead touched hers. “I’m afraid.” A stark admission. “What if it isn’t River? Or what if it is . . . and he doesn’t want to see me?”

“Why would he reject you?” Max had fought for his brother, tried to save him.

“I’ve always thought that he went down the wrong path partly because of the guilt he felt at the way our mother always treated us so differently.” River had been her golden child, Max the whipping boy. “I tried to shield him from it, but I couldn’t, not in the end.”

Sophia’s fingers twined with his on the sheets between them. “If this is your brother, if he’s the boy I saw in that flash of backsight, he cares for you to the depths of his soul.”

“Sometimes, that isn’t enough.” Max knew he sounded harsh, but it was the only way he could handle this. If he allowed it to matter, it would hurt too fucking much. “I wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t want to be reminded of the past.”

Sophia squeezed his hand, leaving the decision up to him, those violet eyes warm with an intense, unbreakable loyalty.

In the end, there was only one thing he could do, his love for his tormented, damaged younger brother stronger and far more tenacious than the fear that sought to hold him back. Picking up his cell, he made the call—the conversation with the professor took less than a minute, with the elderly man promising to pass on Max’s details to this River who might be his brother. Hanging up, Max released a long breath and drew the scent of Sophia into his lungs.

The temptation to curl up around her and just forget the world was almost overwhelming, but the cop in him wouldn’t settle. He’d taken an oath, made a promise. “I should let you rest,” he said to the woman who was trying so hard to make sure he had a family, “but . . . want to come on a stakeout?” His anger at being helpless in the face of her failing shields threatened to make him bitter, but he fought the ugliness, refusing to taint the beauty of this strange, beautiful joy between a cop and his J.

Sophia’s face lit up with an almost childish pleasure. “Really? Yes!”

And he knew he’d do anything in his power to keep that light in her eyes.

“Okay,” he said once he’d checked in with the manhunt team—no sightings, no information to help him narrow the search grid, his frustration as acute as theirs—and they were on their way through the darkening city, “word is, some Psy are having secretive meetings around town. No one knows why.”

“We’re going to observe one of these covert meetings?”

“Yes. Clay’s informants say it’s pretty certain the place we’re heading to will be the gathering point tonight.” The leopard changeling had sent through the message earlier. “For now—we’re just going to watch, see if we can get an idea of what’s going on, gauge if it might be connected to the Nikita situation.”

Not that long afterward, Max brought the car to a stop in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood, parking between two other similar black sedans. This particular street was a historical landmark, maintained much as it had been in the early twentieth century, the trims on the graceful Queen Anne-style homes decorative, the colors distinctive even in the muted light.

“This is exciting,” Sophia said, wide-eyed, just as the streetlights sensed the approaching night and switched themselves on.

Max bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, and don’t think I take all my dates on stakeouts. You’re special.” Such an impossibly simple statement to describe the depth of what he felt for her.

“I’m flattered.” A husky chuckle. “Oh—I may have discovered what was bothering you about Quentin Gareth’s file—I meant to tell you after you got off the comm, but we got . . . distracted.”

Max’s body purred at the thought of that distraction. “Still feeling tender?”

“Max.”

Reaching out, he closed his hand over her thigh, gave a little squeeze. “So?”

“Yes.” He could hear the blush. Then she said, “Are you erect?”

Hell. “I should know better than to tease you.” Grinning, even as he shifted to ease the pounding erection she’d brought to life, he said, “So, Quentin Gareth?”

“Has a well-hidden discrepancy in his early records. It says he went to an Ivy League college from age eighteen to twenty-three, and he did. However, he wasn’t actually at college for six months of his final year—he enrolled in no classes, took no exams.

“When I dug deeper, I discovered he’d won a place in some kind of work experience program.” She touched her fingers to the hand he had on her thigh, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “There’s nothing inherently suspicious in that, but the fact that he hid it instead of putting it on his CV tells me he either did so badly during the program that he wants it gone from his work history—”

“—or,” Max completed, “he’s got a secret he doesn’t want us to uncover. Where was he posted?”

“That’s the thing. There’s no record whatsoever of where he spent those six months.”

Max caught something with his peripheral vision. “Stay relaxed,” he said to Sophia. “It’s dark enough that they won’t be able to see us.” Though the streetlight in front of the target home made their quarry very visible.

Two men and one woman walked up from the other side of the street, entering the house after a quick knock. Two more women, middle-aged this time, followed. The sixth attendee was a much older man, his hair in tight gray curls.

Sophia jerked forward without warning. “Is that who I think it is?”

The individual who’d caught her attention paused on the steps of the house, glancing around as if conscious of being watched.

“Son of a bitch,” Max murmured as Ryan Asquith shifted on his heel and walked inside.