Authors: Lea Griffith
He knew his team, knew his co-owners. He trusted the men who had served with him for years. Dray couldn’t for a moment think that Con, Surrey, Bleak, or Itchy would have betrayed him. But he was going to do what it took to make sure nobody had a chance to hurt Sasha, and that meant moving her immediately to the bunker.
The bunker was Surrey’s brainchild. He’d overseen the development and construction of the underground area two years ago after he’d convinced Dray that a fully functional, stand-alone facility needed to be built beneath the warehouse to ensure that whomever they were protecting would be completely safe from any threat. This included bombs, atomic blasts, weapons fire, chemical warfare, gassing, fire; anything you could name had been considered in the construction of the bunker. The only drawback was that in the event of warehouse structural collapse, it could take days for help to get you out. And that was assuming that the men of Presidio were still alive to either tell someone you were there or to get you out themselves.
The bunker was concrete with specialized, reinforced Kevlar coating the outer walls. Special ventilation led directly from the bunker through pipes that traveled fifty feet underground before coming out at a plateau above the Charles River. It had been constructed with one thought: safety. When they’d hired Dawn a few months ago, she had taken steps to make it a more comfortable living space, but it would never be considered “homey.” Hell, all they’d needed was functionality and safety.
If needed, they could remain in the bunker for up to three months and be self-sufficient. Food stuffs were stocked for that period, and the bunker had a nifty little DOD water system that not only cleaned new water but recycled the old and made it good as new. You could live without food for a while. Without water, death could occur within seventy-two hours. Everything was contained within the thirty-six by thirty-six structure: bed, kitchen, and bath. It was one big room where there was no privacy, but hey, when you were trying to save your life or someone else’s, who cared about personal space?
Plans were in the works to build another beneath the safe house in Colorado. But for now, this was home, and the bunker was where Sasha was headed. He needed to lock her in and get prepared to demolish Dempsey.
He walked into the kitchen and spied Sasha standing at the sink washing dishes while Con cleaned the table. Dray had been down to the bunker after speaking with Kel. The bunker was ready.
Dray rubbed his chest. He dreaded putting his woman down in the hole that was the bunker, dreaded telling her, but knew it was necessary.
Sasha hadn’t noticed him but Con had. The other man offered a small nod and left the room. Goose bumps dotted his arms as he watched the woman who’d captured him totally, completely. She was so tiny and fine-boned, he often worried any small thing could break her.
Those thoughts would pierce him with concern, and then the logical part of his brain would remember how he’d found her outside el-Din’s. How she’d not only survived but come back even better. Small didn’t translate into helpless.
But she held the biggest part of him now. Surely she’d understand the need for shelter within the bunker. She’d bitch, but she’d understand.
“So, Con, you got a woman?” she asked. Her ass swayed sweetly as she dried a dish.
He licked his lips, her taste a phantom in his mouth.
When she didn’t receive an answer, she glanced over her shoulder toward where Con had last been. “Lazy man left me to do it by myself.” She sighed and then went back to washing.
Then she went to singing. And as earlier when he’d heard her in the shower, overwhelming lust poured through him. His scalp tightened, his breathing went shallow, and his hands ached to feel her flesh under them. This time she was singing about giving what you take—some song by George Michael. Smiling to himself, he thought about the audiotape of her and Hal’s bet. Sasha was a huge George Michael fan. Who’da thought it?
Her hips swung in time to her singing, and all his thoughts drifted south to the head of his dick. Pulled by invisible strings, he found himself directly behind her and just breathed in. The smell of lemon drops finished him off.
He lowered his head and touched her ear with his lips. “What do you care if he’s got a woman?”
Determined not to touch her until she made the first move, pleasure shifted inside him as she relaxed against him.
She didn’t turn around. “Maybe I want to set him up with somebody.”
“Really?” he drawled. “Well, maybe you need to worry about setting yourself up. With me.”
“Maybe
you
need to do some
setting
? Huh, what about that?”
He winced and then chuckled. Her attempt at mimicking his Boston accent was horrid.
“Baby, the only thing I’m thinking about setting is my dick inside your pussy within the next five minutes. Turn around.”
She obeyed him so sweetly. Yeah, he had plans. He made sure every inch of her came into contact with as much of him as possible. She lifted her scotch gaze up to meet his and slowly, so fucking slowly, reached for his fly. She unzipped him, and when his hardened flesh fell into her hands, she licked her lips.
She sank to her knees, looked up at him, and said, “Let’s see if we can get you there sooner.”
“Baby, we’re in the kitchen. Con could walk in at any minute.” His voice was hoarse. Electricity arced from the tip of his cock, now bathed with her warm breath, to the top of the head on his shoulders.
“Then I suggest,” she punctuated each pause with a silken lick along his shaft. “That you make him aware the kitchen,” lick, “is occupied.” She inhaled, relaxed her throat, and took him all the way in.
His knees buckled. With what little sanity he had left, Dray withdrew the phone from his belt clip, hit Con’s speed dial, and barked out, “No kitchen.”
Con chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
He could give a shit what else the man said because with the next swipe of her tongue she stole what little sense he had left. He was absolutely lost to the depths of her hot, wet mouth.
“That is so good, Sasha. Yes, baby, take it all.” He watched her, full lips wrapped around his cock, and he almost wept. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. Release tingled at the base of his spine, and he hissed in a breath. “Stop baby, no more, it’s too good; I won’t last. Get up.”
His woman looked up at him from where she kneeled on the floor with his cock in her mouth and blinked. There was a distinct challenge in that look, and every one of his muscles locked. She was his match in every way.
But he wouldn’t spend in her mouth. No, he wanted to get lost in her body, give her everything he was, and push her as high as she’d pushed him.
“Come on,
leanbh
. Stand up.” It was a guttural command.
Pouting, she did as he asked, releasing him with a small pop that almost had him coming on the floor. She licked her lips and a small drop of precum beaded at his tip, a warning and a promise. She reached down, caressed his cock, and gathered that bead of semen, brought it to her lips, and licked it off her finger. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
She was going to pay for that.
He pointed to her blouse. “Take it off.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Now.”
She peeled her shirt off and never took her gaze from his. She licked her lips, moaned, and lifted her hands to her breasts.
She seemed determined to kill him.
“Show me what you like, Sasha.”
She massaged her gorgeous breasts, pinching the nipples lightly, her eyes bright with need and a building fire that seemed to flash amethyst before her lids fell and covered it. He shook his head and blinked. That’s how hot she made him. He was seeing shit.
“Touch me,” she whispered. “I want your hands.”
He replaced her hands with his, reverently molding them. He could lose himself in her.
Damn, she had beautiful breasts, large for her tiny frame, a handful for his extra-large hands. The tips were of the pinkest coral. They were hardened and rouged from her desire, and unable to resist them any longer, he lifted her up, turned her around, and placed her on the cherrywood dining table. His hips flexed and settled in the notch of her thighs. Her heat beckoned him.
“Baby, I wanted to do this right. I’m sorry. I can’t wait to have you again. You deserve so much better than me, but I can’t stop,” he moaned against her.
Taking a tip into his mouth, he pulled and suckled and laved each peak in turn, neglecting neither, loving both.
“Dray,” she used her hands to lift his face. “I’m yours. I don’t want you to stop,” she said solemnly.
“Then I will love you the only way I know how. And I will keep you safe, baby, safe from Dempsey, el-Din. Anyone who threatens you or what you are to me will die. Feel me baby, feel what you do to me.” He pressed against her tightly, moving from side to side until she moved against him, making it impossible for him to breathe.
“Love me, Dray,” she whispered.
And he did. Right there in the kitchen on the beautiful cherrywood table. He loved her like a wild man, leaving no spot on her untouched, no spot unsatisfied. Leaving a part of him embedded in her soul.
And he knew the truth. There was no Dray without Sasha.
* * * *
After they showered and changed their clothes, Dray walked Sasha down the flight of steps that would rescind upward into the warehouse floor once you locked the inner bunker door. It was a fail-safe. Nobody outside of Presidio would be able to get into the bunker. The stairwell was programmed to collapse if the system’s security measures weren’t met.
The steps were steep, and he urged her to be careful over and over. She stopped at a small platform on the stairs, glaring at him with murder in her eyes.
“Okay, tough man, since you feel I can’t walk down a flight of steps without your help, how ’bout you give me a piggyback ride?”
He leered at her. “How ’bout a piggy
front
ride?”
Surprise shot through him as she called his bluff.
“You’re on.”
“No, but you will be in just a second if you’ll hop up. And no cheap thrills either, you little hussy. I know I’m, let’s see, what did you call me in Afghanistan?
Hot
, but even one as hot as I can’t be called on to pleasure you twenty-four hours a day.”
She turned a sly eye to him and tapped her upper lip with her index finger. “I cannot be held accountable for any words out of my mouth as I lay practically at death’s door. Maybe there’s somebody out there that can be called on though, you know, to work twenty-four hours a day doing nothing but bringing me to orgasm.”
He growled low in his throat.
She smiled sweetly. “I’ll just practice on you and see if we can whip you into shape.”
“Yeah, because if you go with the previous plan, the only one being whipped would be you,
sugar
.” He glanced down at her, sure his face was hard as stone at the thought of someone else touching her. “And your mythical somebody would have to be alive to pleasure you. In order to maintain life, they would have to be breathing. In case you’re missing my point, they wouldn’t be breathing because I would kill anyone who dared touch you.”
“Oh, I love it when you talk all caveman,” she teased as she hopped up onto his back.
It wasn’t easy. He had to hunker down a good way, and the platform was small. Sasha launched herself onto his back, and he groaned at her nonexistent weight. She laughed, which made his heart feel lighter than air, and he started back down.
“The steps will rise back up once you’ve locked the inner door to the bunker. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s nice down here. If you have claustrophobia, say so now because we’ll need to handle that before I lock the door. Unless something happens, I’m staying with you tonight, so we’ll think of this as a test run before we lock you in, without me, tomorrow.”
At the bottom of the steps, he let her off his back and faced her. He cupped her cheeks as he placed a light kiss on her lips. “If there was another way to ensure your safety, I’d take it, baby. I hate the thought of being away from you, but I can think of no safer place for you to be while I eliminate Dempsey than here. Nobody but Presidio knows of this place.”
He kept his tone light but filled with his purpose.
She nodded. “I understand, Dray. I’m not a ‘let the guy handle it’ type of girl, but I know this is what you do, and I’ve had to realize over the past two years just how physically vulnerable I can be. All I can say is that if anyone else tried to stick me fifty feet underground, they’d get a black eye. Since it’s you who’s doing it, I can let it go a little easier. Now open the door so I can see this almighty bunker you keep talking about.”
Dray placed his eye to a monitor and then his hand, first palm down and then palm up, in a little cubby inside the wall. The mysterious English woman’s voice came from speakers recessed into the ceiling above her.
“Thank you, Mr. Bonner Number One. Do you have guests?”
“Yes, Sasha Bennoit. Prepare her scan please.”
“Certainly, sir.”
He motioned Sasha toward the sensors, and she followed the same protocol he had. She flinched and threw him a dirty look.
“What the hell? Did she just bite me?”
He pressed his finger to her lips, grabbed her offended digit, and pulled it gently into his mouth. He sucked on it until he felt sure the pinprick had stopped bleeding. He watched her the entire time her finger was in his mouth. Her breathing went shallow, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes dilated.
Dray smiled wickedly, knowing the effect he had on her, and her eyes flared. Molten honey surrounding the comb of her sweetness, and that mysterious light purple flame that intrigued him.
“No, we do blood matching for this sector. Anyone who tries to enter must first pass a state of the art DNA matching through blood. That’s the bite you felt.”
Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Better my finger than my eye, I suppose.”
“Thank you, Miss Bennoit; please proceed.”
She ducked as the bolts locking the door disengaged. He stilled her and she glanced up at him. “Multiple bolts must be released for the door to open. It’s concrete, reinforced with Kevlar, and surrounded by steel. It’s a heavy bitch to move and even heavier to unlock. It takes about three minutes to disengage the twelve locks holding this door.”