Being Emerald (22 page)

“Good girl.” He pulled the vibrating torture device from her.

A lightning bolt rippled through her as his fingers pressed into her. “Go ahead, baby. Grip me hard.” He wasn’t done.

This was her punishment. “Rock, I’m sor-ry,” she sobbed. She tried to collapse, but he hiked her up to her knees.

Tears trailed from the corners of her eyes, landing on the tops of her hands as he knelt behind her and fucked her with his fingers. The force of it made her sway on her knees. His hot breath cooled the sweat on her lower back. She groaned at the fleeting relief.

The vibrator clicked on, and Rock touched it to her clit. Uncontrollable spasms wracked her. Laila wailed in response to the obnoxious pleasure. She seized and bucked as she gulped quick sobbing breaths.

She raised herself to her hands and knees. He covered her hands with his, curling his fingers into her palm and pinning their joined hands to the floor. “Your pussy’s so sweet, peanut. It’s wet and swollen, your little clit poking out, wanting more,” he said as he pistoned into her. “I bet all I have to do is blow on it to set you off again.”

His sweat fell in droplets onto her back as he tirelessly pleasured himself to another orgasm. “Fuck, yeah, baby.” His heat flooded her. His hands squeezed reflexively with each jerking spurt inside her. He pulled out and rolled to his side. “Stay there.” Her quivering thighs were a wet, sticky mess. She could barely catch her breath.

He was next to her. She met his gaze. He didn’t look happy or content. Her punishment wasn’t over.

“This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Fucked, baby. You wanted fucked.”

“Yes. But—”

“No buts. Tonight, I’m going to give you your fill.”

He retrieved the vibrator and inserted it inside her again.

“It tickles.”

“It will pass.”

“I thought you didn’t want to get me pregnant,” she said, grasping for anything to distract him from his intent.

He chuckled. “I don’t care anymore.” His tone was curt. It was difficult to care because the vibrator inserted deep inside her didn’t tickle anymore. Pleasure built more quickly this time. Her muscles tightened. Her inner muscles clamped down on the device.

“Rock.” She met his gaze.

“What, baby?” His response was cold.

“I’m sorry. My Resistance commitment is over. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“Good.”

“Ahhh,” she cried. “Please take it out.”

He smiled, and his inner gratification exploded. “I love when you beg baby, but my answer is no.”

For a split second, she considered removing it herself. No. She was determined to be what he needed. She groaned and closed her eyes, trying to escape his intense scrutiny and the unmistakable pleasure twinkling in his eye. She attempted to lock down the building orgasm, resist the pull of it, but after the maddening overstimulation, it was a losing battle. She would be his spectacle, a wailing, quivering bundle of bones and flesh, at his mercy.

She came again, violently, collapsing onto the carpet as the pleasure rippled along her spine, making her cells sing out. She rolled to her side when her climax slowed to a shudder.

“I didn’t say you could move.” He forcefully positioned her on her knees and circled around her until his cock was near her mouth.

“Make me hard,” he said, pushing the blunt head of his penis into her mouth.

She tasted and smelled remnants of their previous encounter as his cock grew against her tongue. She pulled hard all the way to the tip. Then she dipped her head and took him down to the base with the tip of her nose resting on his tight abs, the crest moving farther to the back of her throat as he grew. When she sucked him out to the tip again, Rock pulled out of her mouth with a pop.

He circled behind her and filled her again with a rough surge of his flesh. He fucked her hard and fast. It didn’t much matter, though. It would have been impossible to come again.

“This is what you wanted, baby—your pussy fucked? You got it.”

She was rigid with sensitivity. “I’m sorry.” The stimulation was almost intolerable, as he held her ragdoll body still and drove into her until he came with a shout.

When he let go, she dropped to the carpet, half-conscious, but his words at her ear penetrated the haze. “The punishment is knowing, for the rest of our lives together, the first time I was here.” He dipped a finger between her lower lips and slid it along her slit. “You made this about having to re-establish our relationship instead of heightening it to highs we’ve never been to before. I’m disappointed in you, Laila.”

Laila couldn’t respond, couldn’t move. She just lay there, letting his words sink in and drifted off to sleep.

* * * *

It seemed only moments later when she opened her eyes to the rising sun. With Rock spooned behind her, she enjoyed the settling cloud of peace that finally surrounded them.

Not long after, he stirred.

“I have something to tell you,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to know any of it,” he murmured. “It’s over. We need to look forward, not back.”

“I gave my word, Rock. I have some things to tell you.”

She rolled over in his arms until she faced him. Her head rested on his bicep. He rhythmically caressed the curve of her hips around to her rear and back again.

Eyes fixed on his face, she waited to proceed. He ground his molars together and nodded slightly.

“I gave the speaker from your kitchen to a woman. She’ll be assuming the identity of a Sapphire who’s leaving New Atlanta through the tunnel.”

“Journey,” he rumbled.

“How did you know?”

“She’s the only woman in New Atlanta who’d want to give me a message.”

“She’s changed her tattoo to Sapphire. She’ll be working in the Emerald Zone. Something big, she said. But that’s all she could tell me.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Doesn’t sound like Journey.”

Laila nodded. “That’s what she said you’d say. She’s gotten more involved in the Resistance.”

Rock tensed at that tidbit of information. “I was afraid of that.” He took in a big breath and ran his fingers through his hair, probably trying to release some of the anxiety that suddenly saturated the space around them.

“She wanted to see you before we left but had to settle for sending a message instead.”

“Okay.”

“She said to tell you thank you and she’s grateful for everything.”

“When Journey first came to me, she was painfully shy.” He paused and tilted his head as if leafing through words that fit better. “Shy is not quite the word I’m looking for, but close enough.” He rubbed his jaw, rasping his fingers over his stubble. “She came a long way under my care and, it seems, even further in the past year. She’s been working for the Resistance leader since I’ve been gone, but I had no idea she could do what she did last night.”

“It seems like she’s grown into a confident, courageous woman. Because of you.” He got to his feet, bringing her with him and handed over her clothes. Rock shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. Just took care of her, loved her.

Rock pulled two envelopes from his bag, and she followed him to the kitchen. He tossed the envelopes on the table. One was labeled
Dad
, the other,
Journey
. He angled his head to meet her gaze. “I was like a papa bear raising up a baby bird. But I would never presume to take credit for her successes. I just gave her a safe haven so she could grow into herself.”

“It looks like she’s doing that.”

“Yeah.” His expression turned serious. “But assuming a Sapphire’s identity, very risky.”

“The woman she’s replacing just got designated. New job assignment. New apartment. Nobody will know Journey’s not who she says she is. It’ll be okay, Rock.”

Laila sat to put on her boots and got a glimpse inside his open duffel. She saw all the toys in it and glared at him. “You knew I would follow.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

Rock pulled out the prosthetic hand he’d built for Jordan and left it next to the envelopes.

“Journey said she ran across a pit full of dead men outside the Emerald Zone.”

“Not surprised.”

“I also saw something weird yesterday.” Laila told Rock of her discovery of the children on the Peacekeeper’s Compound, and he took the time to jot a quick note to Xander before they walked out of the drop house together.

The glorious morning sun kissed her face and worked on burning away the dew. When they arrived at the rest stop, Rock left her by their vehicle and headed toward Garret and Sydney’s truck.

A moment later, Garret walked around the back corner of theirs. “Where the hell have you been all night?” he snapped in a low voice. “I had to cover for you with Sydney.”

“I’m sorry. It couldn’t be helped.” Laila said.

“You should be. Don’t put me in a position like that again.” He walked away without another glance, his anger still rolling off him.

Rock entered the driver’s side of the armored truck, and Laila laid her head on his lap.

“Day two,” he said before putting it in gear. The inside of the cab was warm, and they were moving at a good clip. The steady undulation of the truck combined with the white noise of the engine lulled her. For the next hour or so, she dozed.

The truck slowed noticeably. “Get up,” Rock said as he briskly rubbed her arm.

She righted herself. The truck ahead of them was stopped with a fallen tree in their path. Garret was already at the back, pulling a chain saw from the open door. She looked past where the men were working, worried the loud growl of the chainsaw would attract unwanted guests. The paved road was still visible through the encroaching vegetation and debris. The area seemed deserted, but the longer it took to clear the tree, the more her anxiety built.

As the minutes passed and her worry for Rock’s safety spiked, the mission took on seriousness as a new dimension of this journey became clear. Rock risked his life so she could experience her life’s dream.

Her suspicions that he was not returning to New Atlanta seemed to be correct. He’d deposited his two duffels into an SUV, joining at least twenty more of the same, before they’d left the drop house. It must have taken a year’s worth of trips to accumulate all of them.

For a moment, she considered whether he might be leaving supplies for someone who lived in Onyx, but then she remembered the toys packed in one of the bags. Those weren’t for somebody already out there. They were for him. That was why Journey risked everything to see him. She’d known.

Laila didn’t know whether to be angry or worried. Sure now that Rock was not returning to New Atlanta, she wondered why he hadn’t said anything to her about it yet. He wouldn’t deliver her to New Atlanta and then abandon her to start a new life. Would he? Would he leave her on her own, like he’d left Journey? God, she was unhinged by the possibility.

The entire morning and afternoon were filled with identical fits of starts and stops. With not much else but the scenery to capture her interest as they hopped their way north, she had a lot of time for those thoughts to wreak havoc with her sanity.

Rock pulled up near the front of the capitol building and put the truck in park. Laila’s knee bounced up and down as she leaned forward and visually explored what she could through the limited angles of the windshield and passenger window. He followed her gaze. The capitol looked in remarkably good shape, considering it had received no maintenance for twenty-eight years.

When her hand reached for the door handle, he reined her in. “You can open the door so you don’t get too hot, but don’t get out until I give you the okay.” Her groan made him smile as he got out of the truck and worked with Sydney and Garret to set up an electrified security fence. He felt her intense frustration burning through his body armor and landing heavily on him. After he finished the inner fence, Rock walked a larger perimeter and triangled the camp with laser alarms that would activate if someone or something crossed them.

When he finally helped Laila out of the truck, she was talking before her feet hit the ground. “First we need to scout the first few items on the list. They are priority. According to the intel Morgan had from his father and my research, when the Gov realized the collapse was imminent, they moved the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights from display in the National Archives to a secured room underground.” Laila smiled at him. “Let’s see if they’re still there.” She started walking toward the archives building.

“Whoa, girl. Hold up.” He reached for her, grabbing the edge of the flak jacket she wore to jerk her backward. “You’re identification and conservation. We’re scouting and security,” Rock said, motioning at himself and the other two.

“You follow us, not the other way around,” Garret said from behind her.

Rock focused over her shoulder as Garret said, “Sydney and I will go find the items and make sure it’s safe to bring you in. Then you can come.”

Rock nodded his agreement. Laila grabbed his arm, pulled him away from the other two, and whispered wildly at him, “You have lost your fucking mind if you think I’m going to stay here while they go traipsing off, fumbling around priceless historical artifacts.”

Rock laughed. “You need to take a breath, peanut.” He paused. Their gazes locked, and he realized, in this, he couldn’t say no to her.

He sighed. “You have to wear your side arm. Be ready in five minutes.”

Almost an hour later, Laila found the documents in the pitch-black darkness of a maze of underground rooms. “This recovery will be the easiest of all the artifacts if the titanium and aluminum cases are still intact.” With a flashlight, she meticulously inspected the cases housing the documents. “They seem to be pristine and should be easy to transport to the armored trucks by hand,” she said to the three shadows lurking behind her.

The quartet made three trips from the archive building to the trucks. Rock covered Sydney and Garret as they carried the cases. Laila helped by opening doors and shining light when necessary. The sun was low in the sky by the time all three were secured in the back of the lead truck. Laila stood, studying the last document secured. “The actual U.S. Constitution. It’s hard to wrap my brain around.”