Hot Shot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#5) (17 page)

“Then we’ll just have to do it again.”

He grinned, and then he moved his hips and stroked into her. Gina couldn’t help the gasp that rolled through her. “Hold on, babe,” he told her. “This is going to be good.”

He went slow at first, building the pleasure, spinning it out between them. He let go of her leg, let her move until she had her legs high around his back, her ankles locked together.

He moved faster then, rocking into her harder and harder. Their bellies slapped together, sweat rose on their skin, and still the pleasure didn’t stop. Gina didn’t think she could go any higher, but he took her there again and again. She got close to the peak, closer, until her body was impossibly tight and she was begging him—loudly, desperately—for release.
 

“Is it enough?” he asked. “Do you want to come?”

“Yes, oh, yes.”

Jack lifted her ass with one broad hand, bringing her hard against his body, his cock finding her sweet spot deep inside and stroking it. She tumbled over the edge with a long cry, falling into a pleasure so deep and consuming that she didn’t ever want to emerge. Jack moved faster then, pumping mercilessly into her until she felt him coming deep inside her. His body stiffened as he came and he held her hard against him, rocking into her over and over.

He didn’t shout—she hadn’t expected him to shout—but he groaned deeply and brokenly, and she knew he’d lost as much control as he was capable of losing.

Gina put her arms around him as he collapsed against her. He made sure to roll his big body so that his weight was on his hip and shoulder, but he still lay on top of her, covering her. She ran her fingers up and down the muscles of his back. He was slick with sweat, but so was she. The air was cooling, but not quickly.

He moved a hand against her belly, her hip, and then down to her pussy where he toyed with her clit while she began to writhe her hips, faintly at first and then with more urgency.

Jack laughed. “Greedy girl.”

“Shut up and make me come.”

“I can do that.” He did, his fingers moving expertly and quickly until she shattered yet again, her chest heaving as she tried to calm her racing heart one more time.

“You should come with a warning.”

He lifted himself on an elbow. “I do.”

“Really? Where?”

He pointed to a tattoo on his pec. “Right there. Says Caution, dangerous.”

She peered at him. And then she slapped him. “It does not.”

He laughed. “No, it doesn’t.” He lifted his arm and rolled off her then, and a sharp feeling pierced her heart at the name running along his ribcage when he put his arm over his face.
Hayley.

She hadn’t noticed that before. Had he had it on the island three years ago? She didn’t know, but he certainly had it now. Gina’s throat tightened. “I can’t say I expected this to happen,” she said lightly, trying to keep it surface deep between them even though she wanted to go further.

But he didn’t.

He lowered his arm and gazed at her. “Can’t say as I did either. I’m not sorry, though.”

“Neither am I.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. The silence was awkward, but she didn’t know what to say. Just when she was ready to fold herself into him, to lie against his warm body and fall asleep for a few minutes, the captain came over the intercom.

“Miss Domenico, we’ve been cleared for landing at St. Margarethe Airport. We’ll start our approach and be on the ground in approximately thirty-five minutes. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for landing.”

Jack was looking up at the ceiling, his expression far away. When he turned his gaze on her again, his eyes were noticeably cooler. Her belly fell into her toes. She felt as if the last hour hadn’t happened at all—or maybe it had happened with another man, because this one didn’t look in the least bit happy or satisfied anymore.

“Jack?”

He swung his legs from the bed and stood, gloriously naked, his muscled body still glistening with sweat. “Showtime, babe. Better get dressed.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JACK TOOK A QUICK shower and dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt before going back to the main cabin and strapping himself in. Gina was a few minutes behind him, but she was seated too by the time the captain began the final descent into St. Margarethe. They didn’t speak as the plane set down on the runway.
 

The lights of the city and the airport glittered as they whizzed by. It wouldn’t be daylight for a few hours yet. They were still within Metaxas’s twenty-four-hour deadline, so the plan was to check into the hotel and rest for a few hours before calling him—and hope the team could extract Eli and make the whole thing moot.

Jack could see her fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. She was nervous—but was it because of him or because they’d arrived?

Hell, he didn’t know up from down anymore. He was out of his depth with her. It was hard to believe he’d been lost in her sweet body just a few minutes ago. That he’d been stroking hard into her and feeling like the top of his head would blow off. He’d felt the power of that orgasm all the way to his toes. His balls still tingled with aftershocks, and his cock threatened to grow hard again just thinking about it.

Fuck.
Why couldn’t this thing between them be normal? Why couldn’t she be a waitress or a nurse or someone he’d met at the gym? They could go out for drinks, dinner, fuck each other stupid on a regular basis, and walk away when they were done.

But this? This was hard-core. She got to him deep down, in his gut, in a way no one since Hayley had. Not that he felt the same way for her as he did for Hayley, but there was more to it because of the circumstances. He was smart enough to know that’s what it was. He’d crossed a line with her three years ago, and there’d been consequences.

His gut clenched as he thought of the way he’d spilled himself inside her just a few minutes ago. She’d said she was on the pill, but if a condom hadn’t worked the last time…

Shit.

Jack scraped a hand through his hair and fixed his gaze on the movement outside the plane’s window. What the hell was he doing with Gina? Why did he always seem to give the universe the finger when he got inside her?

He wasn’t that reckless. Ever. He was cool, methodical, and thorough. Yeah, he had sex with other women. But he used protection and he pulled out when he came.
 

There’d only ever been one woman for him, and that woman was gone. He didn’t want to go through it again with someone else. He had a child with Gina, and he would deal with that, but this thing between them wasn’t anything more than hot sex and short-circuited brains. He needed to remember that the next time his cock tried to do the thinking for him.

The plane came to a rolling stop and the seat-belt light went off. Stephanie came into the main cabin. “The door is open if you’d like to exit, Miss Domenico. Someone from immigration will meet you inside. Your bags will be delivered to the Margarethe Crown Hotel.”

“Thank you.” Gina stood and shouldered her handbag. Her hair was damp and messy, and she’d pulled on jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on. She wore a lemon-yellow silk top with a white cropped jacket and heels that made her seem tall again.

It hit him just how rarified her existence was. They’d just landed in St. Margarethe on her private plane. The captain spoke directly to her when he made announcements. The flight attendants arranged for her baggage to be taken to the hotel and came to inform her personally that she could leave the plane.

The room at the hotel was no doubt the best available, and if there wasn’t a bottle of Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket waiting for her, he’d be stunned. Jack grabbed his backpack and followed Gina down the aisle and out the door. The captain was waiting for her, of course, but at least that was somewhat similar to flying commercial. The flight staff thanked you for flying their airline as you stepped off. In this case, the airline was hers and the staff was comprised of her employees.

Surreal.

They went through immigration—a brief affair since St. Margarethe didn’t require a visa and didn’t much care about things you brought to the island so long as they were legal—and then they were in a hired limousine and heading toward the hotel.

When they reached the hotel, they checked in and took the elevator up to the suite. It wasn’t as luxurious as the suite at the Venetian, but it was still nice. Jack let his gaze wander the room—and of course there was a bottle of champagne. He went over and picked it up.

Not Dom Pérignon. Cristal.

He set it back down.

“What now?”

He turned to find Gina standing on the white plush carpet in her heels, staring at him. She’d removed her jacket and her arms were folded over her middle. It made her breasts even fuller, if that was possible.

His dick started to tingle.

“You should sleep for a while. I’ll check in with the team.”

She dropped her gaze for a second. “I figured that much. But I was talking about… what happened. On the plane.”

As if he didn’t know. A chill seeped into his veins, but it didn’t calm him the way it usually did. “What do you want to happen?”

She sighed and turned away from him. Then she sank down on the couch and crossed her legs. It was a casual move, yet he didn’t get the impression she felt very casual or at ease with him just now. Her green eyes fixed on him. They were wide, filled with a hurt that went deeper than she let on.

“You’re Eli’s father. I want you to be a part of our lives, and yet this complicates things.”

“How? It’s sex, Gina. Not a proposal.”

Her eyes flashed. “And that’s not complicated? I’ve dated one man since Eli was born, and he was never a part of Eli’s life. But you will be.”

Jack blew out a breath. “Do you really think now’s the time to discuss this? We have to get Eli back first. We can talk about the future after we’ve done that.”

Her jaw tightened. “All right. But I want to know one thing first.”

“What’s that?”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “I want to know if you’re over Hayley.”

His belly was a ball of lead. Pain ricocheted out from his heart, across his nerve endings, and settled in his temples, pounding out a rhythm. “Over Hayley?” He sounded hoarse, and her head snapped up, almost as if he’d slapped her. “I met Hayley in elementary school. I rubbed dirt in her face and she told the teacher. I had to write sentences on the board. I didn’t like her very much then, but that changed. I asked her to junior prom. She wasn’t my first kiss—or my last—but she was my first in every way that mattered.”

His throat was tight. How to explain what Hayley had been to him? What he’d wanted out of life with her? And how miserably he’d failed. She’d never asked him to leave the Army, though he’d spent plenty of time away from her. But she hadn’t known what he did because it was top secret. What he never knew was why he’d kept doing it when he had her to go home to. That was the guilt that sometimes tore at him at the most unexpected times.

Gina clasped her hands in her lap. “Then I suppose the answer is no. Thanks for being honest with me.”

Somehow he felt like he’d disappointed her. And he didn’t like that feeling either. “She’s been gone for nearly four years. I miss her, I still think about her, I wonder if our baby would have been a boy or a girl, and I wonder if he or she would have had Hayley’s smile. She had a great smile.” He stopped and shook his head. “Why are you asking me this?”

She dropped her gaze, but he didn’t miss the way her eyes glistened. “Her name is on your ribcage, near your heart.” She shrugged. “I wondered.”

“So why didn’t you ask me then?”

“I didn’t see it until right before we landed. I didn’t think it was appropriate, given the circumstances.”

No, it wouldn’t have been. But he still felt like he had to explain. “It’s ink, Gina. I wear her name because she’s important to me, because she helped make me who I am. Don’t try to turn this into something it’s not. It’s not about you, or me, or Eli. We’ll deal with our shit, but Hayley’s not a part of it.”

She got to her feet. “Great to know. I’m going to bed.”

Jack watched her walk out of the room, her hips swaying in that come-to-mama way she had, her head held high, her back straight. She was something else, that woman. And he had no idea how to handle her or how to begin to address everything that lay between them.

* * *

Gina woke the next morning with a start. She sat up in bed, certain she was supposed to be frightened and not quite sure why. And then everything that had happened to this point downloaded into her brain, and she threw back the covers and grabbed a hotel robe before hurrying over and ripping open the door to her bedroom.

Jack looked up from the table, his blue eyes raking over her. An array of weapons sat on the table in front of him, dark and gleaming. Boxes of bullets were stacked up on one side and her heart thumped.

“Are we robbing a bank?” She didn’t know why she thought she’d find herself alone, but she had. And it had scared her. Except he was here, bent over his weapons and looking lethal. Since when did the sight of a shirtless man polishing guns make her feel happy?