Sake Bomb (45 page)

“Ah, yes, the terms. I know what I
want.”

She chuckled nervously, made a right to get
onto the main road. “Remember, my funds are limited.”

Xander paused, the kind of weighty pause
that let Kizzie know he was about to ask for Jupiter.

“Understand I’m being selfish in ways you
can’t possibly imagine.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Come with
me.”

“To?” Far enough away from the government
vehicles surrounding the monument, Kizzie flipped on her lights.
“And when am I coming back?”

“You don’t. You come with me and have no
more contact with Connolly, or your team. No more CIA. No more
Agent Baldwin. Not now. Not ever again.”

Kizzie spun the wheel hard, doubling back to
pick up the street that would take her to the freeway. “Give up my
career to come be your sub? And when I’m not getting spanked or
flogged we knock over banks and break into vaults?”

“Something like that…” Xander said, a smile
in his voice. “As for being my sub that choice is yours. You have
all the control, Princess. Always have. And you’ve had everything
I’ve got on 3-19 since we left France.”

France? Kizzie scrunched up her face, trying
to recall when he could have possibly given it to her. And then it
hit her. The flight to Japan. Not “stealing music.” Xander had said
he “put something on there she might like.” Which meant he’d
dropped the data onto her iPod long before she needed his help
getting Harvey.

“Trust me, Kizzie.”

Clear of the monument, she pressed down on
the pedal, urging the SUV faster and praying DC police didn’t
decide to show up. It really wasn’t a good night for evasive
maneuvers. “Where are you, X?”

“You know where I am, baby. Question is, why
aren’t you with me?”

She made a left.

“What if I can’t agree to the terms?”

Another deliberate pause that lasted close
to forever. “Then admit you’re running.” She opened her mouth to
protest and shut it. Xander continued. “You’re not afraid of me
finding out there’s nothing left to get close to
,
not anymore
. What scares you is having everything business
in your possession, which means
this
—you and me—
‘us’
is strictly personal. Hidden beneath all the badass, the snark, and
the job, there’s a woman who’s ready to let go…submit to her
Dom.

“You’re scared shitless that you’re on
sixty-four, Kizzie, and you don’t know if I’m in the same book but
you’re ready to turn the page…”

Her eyes narrowed, but a slow smile crept
over her lips. “And humble, too.”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me…say the words,
Kiz, and me and my humble ass are out of your life.”

“You’re…” Kizzie exhaled a breath. “You’re
married
, Xander.”

“But am I wrong?”

“Yeah… Dead wrong. I’m nowhere
near
page sixty-five. Though I might be reading the dust jacket.”

He chuckled. “Good enough. So, how we met,
why we married and do I love her: your three questions. You’ve got
your gear, Harvey, and what I have on 3-19. You owe me nothing. If
you want, we go our separate ways. If you want your questions
answered, I’m wheels up in ten.” The call disconnected.

The light up ahead was green. Kizzie eased
to a stop; drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

She wanted to trust— She trusted him. For
all his criminal activity, his hot and cold ways, his secrets, his
Xander-ness, he’d proven he would keep his word; showed, on more
than one occasion, that he’d protect her. That he cared about her.
But—she glanced at the clock—9 minutes and 26 seconds wasn’t
exactly enough time to think about a major career change.

“Impulsive Kizzie” would go with him. Hell,
“semi-sane Kizzie” wanted to go, and
she
was the voice of
reason. But if she went, could she live with only being Xander’s
submissive? Would that be enough to turn a blind eye to his other
lifestyle? When the novelty of the new sub wore off, when he got
bored with her, would she end up lost like Sumi?

And then there was the wife…

In her back pocket, her secure line beeped
once, beeped again. In spite of her own secrets, Kizzie had worked
too damn hard to become an agent. Xander wanted her to just walk
away from everything that defined her. Give up the woman she knew
to be his good girl?

The light cycled through to yellow
again—Kizzie floored it. She raced across the bridge, covering the
short distance to the airport far faster than the law intended. She
drove through the gates leading toward the private hangars and
stopped.

Dawn hovered at the horizon, the sky a dark
purple instead of coal black. The plane was out of the hangar,
stairs down but otherwise ready to depart. Phil emerged from the
building, a man Kizzie hadn’t seen before at his side. Her gaze
drifted to Xander, who stood at the foot of the stairs in fresh
jeans and a jacket, hands shoved into the pockets. The smile on his
face told her everything she needed to know, and she hopped out of
the car.

If Paris in the rain was cheesy, meeting
each other halfway between the plane and the SUV in a Virginia
drizzle was cheesier. Kizzie found it kind of endearing. She
started on the trek, Xander started from his end, and then her
secure line beeped once, a gunshot in the silence.

She slowed, retrieved the infernal device.
Thumbed over the screen. Looked at the messages. Fletcher. She
could deal with him later…or never again.

She flipped to the first message, the one
that had come in while she was in the car, and let out a deep sigh.
Her feet were still moving toward Xander, but her focus was on the
phone. The decryption software did its thing and then the text
appeared.

Her whole world turned on its head.

Xander was directly in front of her now, the
smile replaced by an expression she’d never seen on him before.
Uncertainty. Just as quickly as it appeared, he locked it away.

Kizzie heaved a sigh. “I’m not running,
Xander.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re Kizzie
Baldwin. You kick ass for a living. You don’t do safe, you don’t
scare easy, and you. Don’t. Run.” He cracked a grin that dissolved
into something serious as he glanced down at her phone. “You owe
him.”

“I owe him… I might always owe him.”

“
What
do you owe him?”

“Everything you think I am,” Kizzie said.
Xander frowned, intense gaze steady on her face. She shook her
head, not really knowing what to say. “I’m… sorry, X.”

“Don’t be.” A sad smile on his lips, he
engulfed her in a tight hug that warmed her to the bones. Then his
mouth was on hers, moving in a slow, sensual kiss that brought a
hot burn to her eyes and a tight knot to her throat. One last peck
and he pulled back, murmured in her ear.

Kizzie’s eyes widened. “But–“

Anything she was going to say got lost in
another kiss. She kissed him harder, arms wrapped around his waist.
If this was all she’d ever get, it was going to have to last.

“Take care of my sub for me,” he said when
he tore away. Then he turned and strode across the tarmac, covering
the distance to the plane much too quickly.

“But, X,” Kizzie called, genuinely concerned
with his whispered words. “What if we never—”

“Not without my permission, Princess,” he
said, backpedalling. He flashed a smile that would blind the sun.
“And don’t mess with your hair!”

The unknown man was in the cockpit, buckled
in.

Phil popped his head out the doorway, gave
her a salute.

Xander turned and jogged up the stairs.

Kizzie, the good agent, the good sub,
watched what she wanted most fly away.

August 7
^th

Zitácuaro, Mexico

L
ennox shifted so
his feet hung off the bed, set them on the tiled white floor. Then
he laid back, torso resting comfortably on the narrow mattress as
he dragged the woman along with him so she straddled his ribs.
Mocha hair tumbled down her shoulders and back, demurely draped the
rose red nipples of her creamy breasts. They were huge, like two
punching bags. Biggest knockers Lennox had seen since…Friday. Well,
Friday if today was Sunday, and he wasn’t too sure about that.

Losing interest in the calendar, his palms
smoothed up her thighs, fingers splayed over her wide hips and
digging into the soft padding of flesh. Maria—was her name
Maria?—looked down at him with coal black eyes and a crooked grin.
She tipped forward and dropped those heavy pillows on his face.
They’d have smothered a lesser man, but Lennox was
not
a
lesser man; shook his head back and forth and blubbered against her
skin.

She laughed, the two soft bags muffling her
complaint that his beard tickled.

A nudge at his knees and Lennox remembered
her friend, spread his feet wider to give the other woman access to
his cock. Wet heat enveloped his length without warning, and he
hissed against the body over him.

That
one
had to be Maria.
Right? Her mouth felt like it. Hell, at this point he couldn’t
remember and didn’t really care. All he knew was the twin bed was
much too small for two, let alone three, and he was glad his brain
still functioned enough to make the necessary adjustment, thus
solving a problem without too much interruption.

But that was Lennox. The problem solver.
Though he usually used his talents in a capacity other than
figuring out how to get some ass, every now and again those talents
came in handy in the ass-getting department.

Working his way over Maria’s ripe
nipple—dammit,
one
of them was named Maria—he moved in time
with the other woman’s strokes on his cock. Felt damn good. She
spread the love to his balls, gently sucking one into her mouth
before returning to grace his dick with her oral skills once
more.

He sucked in a mouthful of flesh and sank
his teeth into the meat, hands moving down Maria’s back to spread
and knead her soft ass cheeks. A moan came from one, a gag from the
other. And while Lennox’s hearing rivaled that of an owl, the twin
noises almost masked the feather-light footsteps approaching.

Gasping for breath, he drew his head back
quickly, lip dangling a thin web of spit from Maria’s erect skin.
His abs clenched tight from the knob job courtesy of Maria
numero dos
. Shit, the woman was going to suck him dry. His
toes curled and a tingling shot up the backs of his legs. She
twirled her tongue around the head and then poked it in the slit.
Lennox groaned, some dark corner of his mind hoping the newest
person to arrive wasn’t sent to kill him. Or, if they were, that
they’d at least have the common decency to let him nut first.

“Way…” he inhaled, swallowed hard, “wait.”
Didn’t help any, and he had to reach deep into the recesses of his
liquored-up brain to find the word he needed. “Uhh….¡Espere!”

That slowed the action at his groin.
Breathing rough and erratic, Lennox angled his head around the
Maria on his chest to look at the one on the floor. “Christ, woman
you’re gonna kill me.”

She had no idea what he’d said, he knew, but
she smiled and dragged her nails up and down his thighs anyway. If
this was the way he was going to die, Lennox was ready to go—in
another 15 or 20 minutes.

Another huff to catch his breath and he
finally twisted his gaze toward the newcomer, expecting a pistol.
Instead, brassy blonde hair and a peach-colored robe met him.

He drunk her in with glassy eyes. Even with
her features hard to distinguish, she was beautiful. She stopped
close enough to the bed for the sweet smells of
conchas
and
duvalin
to filter to his nose. “Maria?”

She nodded.

“Hot damn!” Lennox chuckled happily. Now he
just needed to figure out the names of the other two. Better yet,
fuck it. Three Marias. Why the hell not?

“Plenty of room for one more,” he slurred in
Spanish, and she didn’t hesitate, dipped low to press her mouth to
his in a searing kiss. He inhaled through his nose, pushed his hand
through her hair, holding on as her tongue swept round and round
his mouth. His other hand sought out the mounds of the woman he’d
neglected moments before, blindly fisting the nipple and rubbing
over the tip with his thumb. The blow job started again and he
jerked his hips, rocking into that Maria’s throat.

Viva Mexico!

In another time and place, his phone rang,
loud enough to defy physics and interrupt his present party. The
one he kissed pulled back. His hand trailed down the silk robe when
she regained her height, and he wondered why she still had it
on.

More ringing; the robed Maria stepped away.
In the interim, Lennox busied himself with the Maria on his chest,
laving at her tits like ice cream melting too fast in the blazing
sun. When the other woman returned, she handed him the device. He
really wasn’t interested, but thumbed the connect button and said,
“‘lo?” in between two messy licks of his treats.

“Tate.”

Lennox closed his eyes and sighed, dropped
his head back against the thin mattress. “Well, if it isn’t my old
pal Bill. What can I do you for? And make it quick, I’m busy.”

The robe slipped from Maria’s shoulders
revealing sun-kissed skin and long, lean thighs. Hot damn! He liked
‘em sporty. He shifted his gaze a bit to the Maria over his
chest—liked ‘em thick, too. He recalled the petite brunette doing a
fabulous job of spit-shining his dick and came to the conclusion he
just liked ‘em.

The blonde head made contact with the mocha,
the two women kissing each other while waiting for Lennox to get
off the phone. Holy hell, why was he still holding the phone?

“Stateside, ASAP.”

One Maria—did which really matter?—dropped
her head to the other’s chest and sucked with reckless abandon.
Glazed eyes transfixed by the sight, Lennox gave a noncommittal
grunt. Unless this exact situation could be duplicated on the other
side of the border,
and
he could get away with calling all
three women Maria, Lennox wasn’t going any damn where.