Justice (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 2) (12 page)

She was golden and creamy and peachy and stretched out for me. Just for me. I wanted to own her, body and soul.

Sealing my lips over hers, I lay half over her. I paid attention to her body in all the right ways, none of them practiced or thought out in advance or rehearsed. Just her.

With Tilly everything was easy, and more meaningful than the whole collection of one-night encounters I’d filled my free time with before her.

Listening to her moan my name, I circled my tongue over her nipples again and again.

Watching her twist her hips, I smiled at the lush swollen softness of her pussy I spread open between two fingers.

I first wet those apricot curls that guided me lower before pulling up her thighs and licking her slit. Her juices gathered on my tongue, and I delved inside, mouthing her, kissing her.

Every part of my body inflamed while she pushed her heels into my shoulders, sliding her pelvis up for each thrust of my tongue in her cunt. I bit at her, nuzzled her, held her ass in my hands, and drank from her. Her fingers slipped to her clit, but I was right there, lightly rotating my thumb around the tiny nub before I drew it into my mouth and kissed it repeatedly, hotly.

When Tilly’s legs scissored and her back arched, I couldn’t wait any longer. Reaching for my pants, I pulled out a condom, ripped into the wrapper, and quickly sheathed myself.

My body heated to such a degree I could’ve humped the air twice and come like a fucking fresh-faced virgin.

She came down from the throes of a second orgasm, damp hair sticking to her temples, her skin flushed and glowing. Sitting in front of her, I pulled her onto my lap.

I wanted to hear her voice.

See her face.

Hold her tight.

Framing her face in my hands, my huge palms nearly eclipsed her sated, sensual expression. “You are so beautiful. Do you realize how beautiful you are?”

“Justice . . .” she purred.

Between us, my cock jumped and thumped. It brushed a path across my belly then along her inner thighs when I gripped it and pushed the broad head closer to her cunt. Her hand followed, and she curled her fingers around me.

Her other hand coiled behind my neck, and she murmured against my mouth, “You’re going to feel so good.”

My fingers swept down from her face. I cupped her tits, drawing the tips back to aching arousal. Pulling her closer with an arm running around her back, I skimmed a palm over the small swell of her tummy. And lower. She kept stroking me, my cock now a thick mast standing upright between us.

Blood roared in my ears and filled me to bursting. I nudged her clit. Farther, I opened her, winding two strong fingers inside.

My new beard abraded the side of her face with a rasp. Our cheeks met, then our lips, searching, searing, sucking.

“If this were any other life, I’d—” My voice dropped, the muscles in my forearm flexed as I turned my fingers inside her and ran them in and out with lazy pulls.

Tilly lifted drugged eyes. Her hips orbited in sensual undulations when I stroked her in circles, her wetness guiding my fingers deeper and her hand on my wrist keeping me gloved inside her.

“You’d what?” she breathed out.

I’d fall in love with her. But I knew the truth as surely as I knew making love to her was going to destroy me.

I already loved her. It was impossible not to. Her fight and her fire. Her gorgeousness and her grit. Her beauty and her balls.

“I already want you more than I should, Tilly.”

She bowed her back, released my wrist, and dipped the head of my cock inside her. “Then take me. Have me. Fuck me, Justice.”

“God. Woman.” My face felt carved from stone when I grasped her waist and pulled her onto my cock.

The entry was delicious, wicked, slow. It slicked sweat along my shoulders. Every inch inside Tilly was another bad memory let go.

This woman breathed life into my very being.

She was warmth. Heat.

She is life.

“Justice!” She gasped, folding her arms around my back, her legs around my waist.

We met, and there was nothing else between us.
Everything
between us. Her breasts crashed to my chest. Her mouth hit my neck. Her cunt took me, shook me, rippled over me in waves.

“So good. You’re so good, Tilly.” I grunted, doubling my arms around her—keeping her locked tight.

Every vibration inside her stretched my skin. Inhaling with her scent in my nostrils, I leaned back, disengaging from her. Her wetness made my cock shiny. Her lushness made it hard as a spike.

I pulled her onto me again, and she tossed her head back. Bending down, I cushioned her ass on my thighs, her hips in my hands, and her nipples on my tongue. Pink and aroused, they were perfect. Tilly was perfect.

She kneeled up, her calves along my thighs. Dipping up and down, she rode me fast and hard, always feeding her tits to me. I kissed as much of her as I could get, wanting more. Wanting everything.

She came quickly, her hair billowing behind her. The sucking motions inside turning my head inside out. I held her quaking body in one hand and eased her onto her back.

“Gotta have you, Tilly.”

“Yes,” she moaned. “
Yes
. Fuck me.”

My face hardened. I lunged into her, taking her fast and as far as I could go. The muscles all along my legs, my stomach, my chest and shoulders turned into steel. Accepting each shuttle of my cock, she grinded up against me. Her nails bit into my arms, my shoulders, my ribs.

I licked up the center of her chest, her neck, her chin until I found her mouth. Her lips parted. Her teeth bit me. Her cheeks hollowed, and her eyelashes flickered down to her cheekbones.

“Harder,” she whispered hoarsely.

Oh Christ.

I was afraid I’d fucking break her in half. But
harder
. Fuck yes.

Caging her between my arms and my legs, I fucked her with coarse hard thrusts, abandoning everything but driving need—hers and mine.

“YES!” she shouted, convulsing around me.

A deep groan tore from my throat at the same instant my entire being flew into the atmosphere, drew lock-tight, hurtled forward. Buried inside her, embedded against her womb, I grunted when hot wet come sprayed from my cock.

I heard Tilly cry out a final time before I slumped over her.

I was hashed.

Nothing glorious about this.

Everything glorious about this.

Keeping us meshed together, I rolled to my side and pulled her with me. Beautiful? Screw that. She was stunning, especially freshly fucked by me.

Her mouth moved into a smile, but she didn’t open her eyes as she sighed, “
Mmm
.”

I tickled her lightly. “
Mmm
?”

“Glad I took the bull by the horns.”

“So’m I.” I jerked my hips, spreading new warmth up her face.

Her eyelashes slit open to show a sliver of green. “Seriously? Again?”

“This bull likes to get ridden.” I grinned down at her, loosely twining one of her curls around my finger.

She smushed against my side. “
Ah
heard tell this bull gets rode a lot.”

“Did you now?” I pulled back, my grin slipping into a frown.

She nodded.

I tucked my fingers beneath her chin, tilting up her face to capture her gaze. “Not like this, Tilly. Never like you.”

Smoothing a hand down my chest, she whispered, “What happened to my big bad playboy operative?”

“Which asshole’s been shooting his mouth off this time?” I squinted. “Walker? Storm?”

“No. None of them.” She folded her hands beneath her chin as she rested on my chest. “Just what you said. I’m a smart cookie. And a tough one. And it’s easy to tell a man like you probably gets around a lot.”

“A man like me?”

“One who doesn’t want to get captured.”

“I meant what I said, Tilly. No matter how many women I’ve been with none of them compare to you.”

“Okay.” She smiled.

“And I don’t mind being big. But I don’t want to be bad for you.” I pulled her fully on top of me.

I kissed her nose and her freckled cheeks. My hands roved up her arms.

“Oh, Justice.” She tapped my nose. “You aren’t bad at all.”

“I’m not, am I?” Tackling her below me, I surged inside of her. “Care to make a wager on that?”

“Lady’s choice.” Tilly pushed me away.

Lady’s choice.
Goddamn
. If Tilly wanted to have her way with me ten times a day and double that on Sunday I’d probably fucking go skipping down the street.

The second time we fucked was a supercharged erotic display in the mirrors. She was on all fours. Her milky white skin, her smaller form mouthwateringly innocent.

But not so much.

She’d sucked my cock to several near orgasms, holding me off at the last second. She’d watched the deep gusts of breath saw in and out of my chest, licked my jizz, shared it with me, then finally—when I was too far gone to object—told me to fuck her doggie-style.

I reared up behind her, all tan muscles and pinpoint eyes, pinpointed on her pussy she pressed out for me between her legs.

Fuck.

I did look big enough to break her, bend her in half, fuck her through the floor. But after the first time, I knew exactly what she wanted.

I gave it to her, and we both watched.

Her tits, hanging low, jiggled.

Her elbows bent with each mighty thrust.

Her back arched like a kitten.

Her ass was fucking glorious.

Her cunt sucked me in, and my cock drove her to the mat before we were done.

She came. Came twice. I hung on by a thin, snapping thread until a bellow bull-rushed my throat, and I swore until my choking voice turned into a reedy thread.

Later, I stretched out an arm and checked my watch. Tilly’s pale red hair winnowed over my chest and her eyes peeped open.

“Are we running out of time?” she asked.

Always.

I dropped the watch and strengthened my arms around her. “Not yet, baby.”

I’d take an hour. A minute. Just one more second with her.

My heart walloped like a heavy sledgehammer beneath her ear.

I smelled her hair, burrowing my lips to her earlobe.

“Apricots,” I murmured.

“What?”

Feeling awkward, I brushed a hand down her back. “Nothing.”

Propping up on my chest, Tilly kissed my chin. “Apricots? Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“Your hair.” I crushed it in both hands, lifting the color and scent to my nose. “The color of apricots.”

“And freckles.” She sat up beside me, crossing her arms over her breasts.

She frowned.

I sat up, too.

“Oh yeah. Freckles.” My fingers trailed across the little dots on her face before finding the ones on her breasts.

I kissed her shoulder. “Love ’em.”

She shrugged. “Most guys don’t.”

“Well, they’re doucheheads. And I’m glad I get to see them all.” Especially the ones on her belly.

Lord.

She folded her arms tighter around her legs. “Have you ever been in love, Justice?”

I nearly swallowed my tongue.

Stealing Time

I RUBBED MY HANDS down my face. “Thought so, once.”

“Did it hurt?”

Tilly looked smaller than ever, her body bare and her face so goddamn open to me when she turned toward me.

“Yeah. It hurt.” I wound my hand up her arm, pulling her to me. “Come back to bed, baby.”

But it wasn’t a bed. This wasn’t romance. And everything going on between us was just going to make the inevitable break even harder.

She slid down beside me, and I snuggled her closer. “I was going to marry her. The women I thought I loved.”

“What was her name?” Tilly’s lips nuzzled against my jaw, and I flipped a blanket over us.

“Jennifer. We were pretty young, but yeah . . .” I flung an arm over my face. “Didn’t work out anyway.”

Tilly didn’t press for more, but the words tumbled out anyway.

“She got pregnant.” I felt the same familiar ache as always—an emptiness—but the pain wasn’t as strong as it used to be, not with Tilly in my arms. “Turned out the baby wasn’t mine.”

Tilly’s fingers slowed from their soft stroking of my chest, but she made no other comment.

“You’re pregnant!” Joy, fucking euphoria, filled me.

Jennifer sat quietly with her hands folded over her flat belly that would burgeon with our baby during the months to come.

I kneeled beside her. “What’s wrong? Is it okay? Are you okay?”

I brushed the hair from the side of her face.

“Don’t you want the baby, Jen? I’ll marry you, if that’s the problem. I was just waiting for the right time.”

Christ. I’d been so fucking young and stupid.

My hand moved to the back of Tilly’s head, and I combed my fingers through the sunset-colored curls.

My voice dipped. “Told her it didn’t matter. I’d love the baby just the same, like it was my own. I’d be the daddy. I forgave her almost instantly because I wanted my own family, something of my own, so badly.”

“
Ohhh
, Justice.” The first words Tilly spoke trembled, and her fingertips brushed up over my face.

“Justice, don’t you get it?” Jennifer shot off the bed and began rearranging her jewelry and her brushes and her perfume bottles on top of the dresser.

“Get what?” I tried to fold her in my arms, but she pushed me away.

“It’s not yours,” she whispered.

“It’s not—” The blow to my heart couldn’t have been more fatal if I’d been struck by a bullet.

I swallowed and swallowed the bile that crept up the back of my throat.

I dropped my hands, staring at her like she was a stranger I’d never seen before. This woman I’d planned on marrying.

I wondered what mattered most in life. Fidelity? Love? Family? Children? Forgiveness?

Forgiveness. Family.

I swallowed again.

“It won’t matter. I’ll still love it. I’ll still love you.” My voice felt corroded in my throat.

Jennifer whirled on me. “God, Justice! I’m having the baby, I’m having it with Ethan!”

“Ethan? You’ve been cheating on me with my fucking friend?”

“She’d been hooking up with my best friend.” I scrubbed both palms down my cheeks. “So that kind of put me off commitment and women.”

“Good Lord, Justice. What kind of woman does that?”

I shrugged.

Reaching up, Tilly hooked her arm behind my neck and kissed me on my brow. “What happened?”

“To me? To Jennifer?”

“To . . . well . . . to them.”

“
Ah
. They got married. I wasn’t invited to the wedding.” I snuffed a short laugh. “And a couple years later they got divorced.”

“Did you ever try to—”

“Contact her again?” I leaned over Tilly, toying with the one loose curl that fell to her forehead over and over. “Hell no.” I kissed her on the tip of her nose then across the radiating freckles on her cheek. “I only needed to get burned once to learn my lesson.”

She drew my palm to hers, drawing soft circles on it with a finger. “I know that feeling.”

“Do you?”

“
Mmm
.” But she didn’t elaborate.

“I think Jennifer wasn’t really what I wanted after all.”

“Not your type?”

I shook my head. “
Nuh unh
.”

“What is your type?”

You.

I cleared my throat and glanced away.

Her fingertips kept dancing across my palm. “That’s why you got into this work?”

I brought her fingers to my lips then folded them over my chest. The steady bass beat lifted our joined hands, and I curled her into my arms.

“I guess. I mean I joined the Marines as soon as I could after that. I wanted to do something different. Completely break away from who I was.”
Keep myself safe from attachments even while I threw myself headlong into harm’s way.
“I was good at it—this—thinking fast on my feet and getting in and out of dangerous situations. Being in the Marines taught me that.”

I knew she saw straight through me when she asked, “You’d rather hurt your body than your heart again.”

“I was pretty much a dumb schmuck back then.”

“You weren’t dumb. You were in love. And Jennifer was just plain evil. I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta say it.”

“Yeah, she was.” I laughed, and Tilly joined me.

She was so completely unlike any woman I’d ever met. Here we were, at crisis point, naked, after having fucked furiously—twice—and she made me laugh after listening to my old tale of lost love.

There was definitely imminent danger to me here. The danger was Tilly.

I just could not give a fuck at the moment.

I’d gone for chicks who were easy, who were hungry for every little scrap I gave them. I never stuck around long enough for them to get clingy or hold me back or make me want to stay. I’d never wanted to settle down because, after Jennifer,
settling down
was the last thing I was cut out to do.

“But I don’t really talk about me all that much, babe.” I grinned over at Tilly. “Kind of a hazard to the job.”

“I probably wouldn’t recognize you if you weren’t wearing your combat gear.”

“You seem to
recognize
me pretty damn well now that I’m not wearing any gear at all.” I led her into a kiss while her hand moved down the bare skin of my back.

“Is that why you like me, Tilly? Because I’m a bad boy?” I nudged her chin up with my nose and slanted my lips against her neck.

“Oh, Justice.” She sighed, her fingers curving over my ribs. “Don’t you see it? You’re not bad at all.”

I scowled down at her.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Her light laughter trailed out. “You’re big, and you can be mean.” She poked me in the chest. “And you tried to scare me away, but there’s a big heart in you.”

It pounded right then. Because of her. Her proximity. Her beauty. Her truth.

A light knocking rap on the door of the gym drew my head up. I listened for the second combination of taps before relaxing back against Tilly.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Walker. Just signaling all is quiet right now.”

“What time is it?” She sat up, began searching for her clothes.

“Don’t go. Stay. Talk to me.” I was unwilling to give her up just yet. “You mentioned you’d been burned too.”

“Justice, you don’t want to know about that.”

“Yeah. I damn well do.”

“I said it would just be sex between us.”

“And we both know that isn’t true.” My jaw jutted.

Tilly peeked at me over her shoulder, her delicious back curving just so, and the side of one breast visible in profile. “Are you sure?”

“Come here.” I gave her my hand. “I want to know. Want to know all about you.”

She slid close. I held her with a hand sweeping up and down her back, my leg nestled between the softness of hers, my face only inches from hers. Her fingers rested on my thigh, tickling the light hairs there.

“There was a man. He was . . .”

I
thought
she was going to say wonderful, handsome, a freakin’-genius-the-love-of-her-life.

“An absolute asshole.” Her mouth puckered up.

I barked a laugh. “Why, Matilda Lawless!” I said in my best southern drawl.

“You better watch it.” She shook her finger at me. “I’ll still bake your biscuits.”

I laughed even louder, motioning down to my cock. “Is that what you call it?”

“You are
entirely
too shameless for your own good.” Her glare was fierce but her grin wider.

“Yup. And you can’t get enough of it. Come back here, Tilly girl.” I folded my arms around her, rocking her back and forth.

“That’s not what
he
called me.”

“He who? Do I need to put a hit out on this
him
?”

“Oh God. You wouldn’t!” She blazed up with wide eyes.

I met her look with a hook to my eyebrow.

“Would you?”

“Do it my damn self if you give me his name.”

“You
are
a bad boy. I can see why my father warned me away from you.”

Her father I’d deal with later. Right then I wanted to hear about the asshole who’d treated her badly.

“What did this first class fuckwit call you, Tilly?”

Her gaze skipped aside.

“Silly Tilly,” she whispered.

Anger ripped through me like a red haze. “What?”

“Silly Tilly.” She swallowed. “I didn’t fit his mold, apparently.”

“I should fucking hope not, woman. You don’t fit any mold, and I for one am goddamn glad about that.”

“You are?”

“Christ. You threw biscuit dough at me and nearly took my head off. You send messages in Arabic via Morse code. You’re a photographer, a solid markswoman, and I’ve crossed my sword with you more times than I can count, and I can’t stop myself from coming back for more. I wanted to have you the first moment I saw you and every single second since then. Just because we’ve had sex twice doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near done with you because I could fuck you, talk to you, listen to you for hours, and then eat some tasteless lumpy biscuits just to make you happy.”

It was as close to an announcement of love I’d ever made since Jennifer, and the truest one yet.

I leaped up, pacing like a panther around the gym.

“Oh!” Tilly exclaimed.

“Yeah.
Oh.
” I stopped in my tracks. I hung my head. “I’d probably like those biscuits though.”

“
Oh
,” she whispered.

“Can I come back to bed?” I scowled at the floor.

“Of course!”

“Good,” I said gruffly.

When we were snugged tight, I asked, “So, who was this no-good piece of shit?”

Tilly flipped her hand in the air. “Nobody.” She rushed on, her eyes glittering. “Jeremy Peabody Nobody. Just a political advisor to Daddy.”

She tried to sit up but I held her against me, keeping her flapping hands in mine so she wouldn’t take off.

“Political advisors. Nasty breed,” I said.

“
Oh.
He was the worst. And you know what?” Flinging her hair back, she slapped my chest. “He had bad breath.”

I sobered my features. “Hate that.”

“
Ah
swear, he practically rolled out his Ivy League diplomas for me the first time I met him. Of course Daddy loved the idea of his protégé marrying me.”

“’Course he did.”

“I think he bathed in his cologne. Too bad he never stopped to gargle with mouthwash.” Her animated features lit up with every single thought, and for the first time Tilly looked childish, but not enough I could ignore the way our naked skin met beneath the covers.

I pulled her hands around my neck, and she reclined against me, huffing and puffing. “What did he do to you?”

“Belittled me.” She buried her face in my neck. “He never hurt me, outwardly. Just little things, hateful comments, the kind that eat away at you before you even realize you’re biting your tongue. He was a prude. Thought I was too
licentious
—”

“Licentious? Hell, I call it sensual, and that’s a good thing. A very good thing.”

“He wasn’t very good in bed, Justice.” She looked up at me, biting into her bottom lip. “He never made me come. Not like you do.”

“Tilly,” I groaned, rubbing my fingers lower down her spine.

“
And
he wore seersucker suits with bowties.” She continued to ramble.