Guardian (10 page)

Gripping her hips, he broke the kiss and stared down into her eyes. The glaze was giving way to reason.
 

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “No thinking.”

She rolled her pelvis against him, driving his cock deeper, and he had to smile at the blatant attempt to distract him. He nipped her bottom lip in punishment.
 

“There are some situations, baby, where you just don’t get to be in charge.” He punctuated the statement by bending down to her nipple and sucking it into his mouth. When he increased the pressure, adding a bite of pain, her pussy convulsed around him.
 

You like that
, he spoke to her mentally.
 

“Maybe. Do it again,” she whispered.
 

When he did, she cried out and dug her nails into his shoulders. This was a side of her sexuality they’d barely explored before. Even sensing her interest, he’d been afraid of pushing her too far, too fast. Of losing control and hurting her. He was less afraid of that now. And he thought she might be up for the next level.
 

He slid his hands to her ass, spread the cheeks and ran a finger down to the tiny hole he’d uncovered. She sucked in a breath but didn’t deny him, didn’t try to free herself. He pressed gently against her, kept his mouth against her breast as he whispered the question.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” she hissed back.

But it wouldn’t be as far as he wanted to go since he hadn’t come prepared with any lube. Still, it was a start, future preparation for a step he was certain would happen soon. He lifted his head as he slowly pushed one finger into her ass. He met the ring of resistance, watched her eyes widen and her teeth catch her bottom lip. Instead of protesting the invasion, she moved against him and hissed with discomfort when he broke through. Then a new, lush wave of arousal washed over him. He felt her desire along with his. Amplifying it, heightening every sensation. Pain mixed with pleasure. Pleasure mixed with pain. She didn’t hide how much she liked it.

“Oh, baby, the things I can share with you,” he whispered reverently. How had he not seen this side of her before?

“Well, get on with it,” she panted.
 

 
He grinned at her impatience. “Not all at once,” he denied her, but they both knew the promise of more was there. He wanted to make her beg, wanted to make her scream as she did it. She curled her fingers in his hair and tugged.
 

“Do it now,” she ordered. “I feel what you do. Don’t you remember that, honey? This part of the bond?”

“I remember,” he said lazily, reaching between them and finding her clit. “But what you want and what you need and what I can give you now are not all necessarily the same thing.”

Her eyes clouded as she tried to work her way through that pronouncement, but he didn’t want her thinking. Not yet. Not for a long time. Right now he just needed her to feel. The connection between them. The rightness of it. And there was only one way to get there, faster than he wanted, but maybe now was the right time.
 

He kept his finger where it was and started to work another in with it, while also focusing on her clit. He wasn’t soft or gentle. He could feel her in his heart and mind and that wasn’t what she needed now. So he drove her up quickly. He used that little bite of pain she loved and she met him every step. When he withdrew his cock from her pussy, she moaned a protest but hushed when he nudged the head against her ass.
 

Damn, he wanted her bad, just like this, but caution held him back. “You’ve never done this before and we don’t have any lube, baby,” he cautioned.
 

“I don’t care,” she whispered. The admission was enough to snap him back and he moved, thrusting back into her pussy. She groaned a complaint.
 

“But I do care. We’ll get to it when the time is right, I promise.”
 

He gave her what she needed then, thrusting hard and fast and sure, giving that little extra twist when he touched her clit. He was so connected to her, he felt the way the pain and pleasure twined together. He felt everything she did when the orgasm exploded over her and knew she shared his when it came seconds later.

Mallory plastered herself against him, too replete and satisfied to dare try to move. His hands stroked up and down her back, soothing, tempting her to drift off to sleep.
 

“You can’t pass out here.”

She groaned. “Why not?”
 

He chuckled. “Think you can float sleeping?”

“Sure. Why not?” she mumbled.
 

“Anyone could come along.”

“Just had to go ruin it, didn’t you?”
 

And that voice of reason really was ruining it. Some of the sex had hurt, and that hurt had been so, so good.
 

She’d think that made her weird, but she’d grown up with the Elect. She’d heard this tale from so many of their woman, human or otherwise. She’d just never experienced it before. Zach had always held that part of himself back and she hadn’t complained. But now…now she knew what the cost had been, both in what she’d lost and what she’d have to lose in the future.
 

Any pretense of control—sexually, at least—would be gone. He might accept her, even acquiesce to her, in regular life situations, but privately? With all the barriers between them stripped away? Never. He was what he was. Part of her accepted that and another part knew she had to keep some for herself. And all of her had no freaking idea how to make this work.

Chapter Nine

Zach felt Mallory pulling away emotionally when his phone chirped a new message. He clenched his jaw when he read it.

“What’s wrong?” Mallory asked.

“Brax wants us back at the house.” And he was damned sure he wasn’t going to like what he heard when they got there.

He knew when they entered something hadn’t gone right with Gabe’s plan. Before he could usher Mallory back outside, Brax stepped out of his office and motioned them over. His leader and friend wore a partly resigned, partly pissed-off countenance. It made Zach nervous because he’d only seen that expression lately, since Brax had taken Esme as his mate. It was usually a sign Brax’s sweet-looking mate had steamrolled over him when he’d tried to protect her.
 

Zach had a sneaking suspicion he was next to lose control of his mate and braced himself when he followed Mallory into the room. Gabe and Carter were waiting there with Esme. Mallory took the free chair next to her while Brax sat on the edge of his desk.
 

“What’s up?” Zach asked with more bite in his voice than he’d intended. Mallory turned to give him an arch look over her shoulder as if she knew what was coming. Hell, maybe she did.
 

“We have two goals. First, of course, is to get Merilee, Jamie and any of our other people we don’t know about out.” He paused. “Second, Gabe is going to copy as much of their database as possible in the time we have. He’ll also be controlling security so we can get in and out without getting caught. The timeline is really tight, the operation complicated. Mallory has to be there.”

Zach barely heard the end of the sentence over the rush of fury in his ears. “We already agreed she wasn’t going back in.” He whirled on Gabe. “You said you had this handled.”
 

To his credit, the other man looked unhappy and pissed about it. “If I had another couple weeks? Sure. But the kid insists it can’t wait.”
 

The kid. Carter’s son, who kept insisting his mother was alive, in danger and inside Stirling. That explained why Carter was here.
 

“I don’t do computers, Gabe,” Mallory said.
 

“I don’t expect you to. You’re going to work this Saturday just like you’re scheduled. It’s a visitor’s day, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you said the cafeteria deliveries are every Wednesday and Saturday, no matter what is going on.”

“That’s right,” she said, as he unrolled a long tube of paper and spread it out over Brax’s desk.

“The original floor plans,” Gabe said. “I’m sure they’ve been altered some, but we need specifics, babe.”

Zach moved around the desk with her to look at them. “What do you need to know?”

Gabe pointed to the back of the building. “This is still a loading dock that backs up to the cafeteria and its storage?”

“Yes.”

“This corridor that runs parallel to the storage area…who has access to it?”

She shrugged. “Everyone. It’s against the rules to smoke on the property, but as long as it’s out of sight, the administration doesn’t say anything. This is the unofficial area.” She paused for a breath while tracing the hall with her finger. “This is the employee locker room. And this is the elevator.”

Gabe pointed to the stairwell that was accessed through the corridor just feet from the dock though. “Is this still here? Can you access it?”

“I can’t, no,” she said with enough thought in her voice it made Zach nervous. If Gabe suggested she try it, Zach might have to hurt the little twerp. “Mona probably can, though, and you copied her card.”

And there was no way in hell she was going to try out that cloned card either. “Why do you need Mallory?” he asked. “Y’all were talking about hijacking a truck earlier. I assume you mean to take over the delivery to slip a team in.” It seemed a logical conclusion.
 

“Yes, exactly. It will be…complicated, though. And the timeline will have to be very specific.”

“And Mallory?”

Brax finally stepped forward and took over. “We can easily gain control of the truck and Gabe is confident that he can control the security. But if we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, it has to be done quietly. Mason and his team will go up the stairwell, but they won’t do it fast. We don’t want anyone to hear anything and get curious. Then there’s the condition of the patients. From the list of drugs Mallory gave us, we can assume they’ll need to be carried out. Time-consuming, but it actually works in our favor to a certain extent.

“We estimate it will take about an hour and a half to unload the truck. We’ll have the driver and co-driver do that and send a six man team for our people.”
 

“We have no idea how many people are there,” Zach pointed out.

“Which is why you’re going in with them,” Brax said. “You have drugs that will counter effect some of the ones on Mallory’s list. We might need them and someone who knows how to use them.”

Zach shook his head. “No. We have a list of drugs, but we have no way of knowing if it’s complete.”

“Okay, but we still need a doctor on the team,” Brax said. “We’d like more time to plan, but I don’t think we have it.”

And Brax was famous for his intuition. If he thought the situation was critical, Zach believed him. He didn’t want his wife involved though.
 

“I understand, but there’s no reason for Mallory to be there.”

“There is, though,” she whispered, then bit her lip. A sign of anxiety. Worry. It was so different from the woman she was now that it froze him. It took a few moments to realize he didn’t like it much.
 

“Baby?” he asked softly. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew he was offering to rescue her. She gave him a sweet smile and slight shake of her head.
 

“Saturday might work,” she said, brisk and all business. “Visiting hours are 8 a.m to 8 p.m. That’s the only time IDs aren’t checked at the gate or lobby doors. It’s a madhouse, actually, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the delivery is pretty much ignored. The electronic security will still be in place, though.”
 

“But you don’t have to be there, baby,” Zach said softly.

“Yeah, I think I do. If I don’t show up, even if I called in sick, it could change the way everyone else acts. The nurses would have an extra burden. That would stress them and security would notice. They might even get asked to pitch in and help. Normally, they’d be focused on the gate and grounds on a visitor’s day, but decrease the staff inside, and some of them might get pulled into the building. You don’t want extra security inside. These guys are too focused…” She let the thought trail off, but he suspected where she was going with it. “To pull this off, the normal routine
has
to be maintained. Altering that routine changes too many variables in what is already a very tricky operation.”

Gabe grinned and lifted the keycard he’d copied. “Don’t worry, Zach. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

He didn’t believe that for a minute, but Mallory jumped in before he could say so.

“It’s not that big a hospital. Once you’re into the secure areas, someone will realize you don’t belong there,” she said severely. “And don’t forget, these people are paranoid. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re using some kind of identifying software on the security cameras.”
 

“Facial recognition,” Gabe said, and the damned idiot sounded excited about it. “I’ll just have to make sure I’m not seen. We might need a distraction when we’re moving everyone to the truck, though.”