The Asset (25 page)

“That felt...phenomenal.” He hugged me between his legs.

If he felt phenomenal, then I felt phenomenal too. It struck me then that his therapy was working for me, because I hadn’t once felt fear or regret and I’d been so focused on pleasing him that the memories had stayed away. I felt light, as if the past couldn’t touch me. I felt renewed.

“More?” he said.

“More,” I agreed.

He lifted me up and settled me on my hands and knees on the mattress. He knelt just behind me. His weight bent the mattress and the old frame protested with a chorus of squeaks. He reached over my back, casing my body with his as he grabbed my hands and wrapped my fingers around the bronze spindles. Then he lifted off me and caressed my pussy, which flowed for him like an open spigot.

“Christ, Lia, you’re so wet,” he murmured. “You’ve made me so hard all over again. I want to take you like this.”

I moaned when his fingers breached me, my body tensing with pleasure. “I want to feel you inside of me.”

“In that case...”

He glided into me slowly. Then he stopped to give my body time to accommodate to his bulk, a throbbing, delicious presence that filled me up completely and had me shivering with pleasure.

“I’m going to move now.” He journeyed through me in slow, exquisite strokes that had me whimpering with need and my hips angling for more. “Jesus, you feel so good.”

The only sound I could muster was a groan of delight.

He steadily increased his pace, deepening and strengthening his strokes in a way that thrilled my body. He drove me to the edge and then...stopped.

“Ash?” I protested.

He leaned over me, pushed my hair out of the way and nipped at my earlobe. “Remember our game?”

“I do,” I rasped, caught in a surge of lust.

“So now I want to love you really hard.”

I swallowed a dry gulp and braced on the mattress. “How hard?”

“As hard as you’d like.” His breath was warm on my ear. “As hard as you’d let me love you.”

“Okay.” My body trembled with anticipation.

“Hang on,” he said.

I tightened my hold on the rails and groaned when he started again, stern, demanding, delicious strokes that traveled through me and sent pangs of bliss to every corner of my body. I balanced precariously on my knees, absorbing his strokes and yelping softly, trying not to scream out loud from the pleasure.

He was ferocious at this game; he played to win. His strokes grew into a rhythmic pounding. My flesh shook with his passion. My body smarted with pleasure. But I was determined to play well too. I loved this kind of therapy. My hands tightened around the bars with each stroke and yet I didn’t let go. I answered his strokes with the swirl of my hips.

“Christ, I love the way you feel.”

He brought his hand around to stroke my clit. I buckled but he held me in place and made me endure his excruciating touch. He was strong, stern and forceful and I liked that he wasn’t holding back. He wasn’t making love to me as if I was frail, damaged or delicate. He didn’t tiptoe around his wants or hold back on account of my history or my fears.

On the contrary, he defied and defeated all of that with his passion. He restored and rebuilt me with his confidence in my body. He loved me hard, as if I was indeed a good fuck, and that made me exactly so. In his hands, my body was hale, whole and sturdy, a tool for his pleasure, which might have been unfair, except for the fact that his pleasure also meant mine.

“You’re mine,” he said. “Say it. Who do you belong to?”

“You,” I rasped. “You.”

“This is mine,” he said, caressing my ass. “These are mine.” He squeezed my breasts in his hands. “And this little jewel is mine too,” he added cupping my pussy in between delicious thrusts.

“Yes,” I whimpered. “It’s all yours.”

I groaned, flowed and reared beneath him, about to go off.

“Not yet,” he said. “You have to ask me.”

“Oh.” This game was harder than I thought. “Can I?”

“No.”

I protested, begged and even tried to coax him by rocking and twisting my hips like a belly dancer, but although he urged me on and matched my moves with a charge of his own, he wouldn’t budge. He pushed me into that mindless state where pleasure ruled. I dangled over the precipice by his will’s capricious rope.

I tried to explain that I had to come, that I couldn’t bear it any longer, that if I didn’t come I might die on the spot, but he just laughed it off and kept up those divine strokes while I panted the short little breaths that kept me in the game, but not by much.

“Christ, you’re a joy.” He kissed my back and shifted his weight. “Hold on real tight.”

I clung to the bed as hard as I clung to my sanity.
Pant, pant, pant
. It was all I could do as he packed me to the rim with pleasure’s explosive charge.

He tilted my head, grabbed my chin and claimed the space between my parted lips. His tongue dipped into my mouth with the same ferocious rhythm as his cock. He deepened his kiss then raked my lower lip with his teeth as he bore down on me.

The room quaked around me. My body absorbed his delicious pummeling. His cock ground ever deeper into me. I gritted my teeth, braced my knees wide on the mattress and arched my back to meet his strokes straight-on.

“That’s my brave girl,” he rasped. “Hell, yes, you’re a sex goddess. You hear me? The universe’s best fucking ride.”

The universe’s best fucking ride was ready to go supernova. “Please?”

He kissed my ear, flattened a hand on my back and, pressing down, pumped into me with renewed zeal. “You may come. Now.”

I let go like a BASE jumper leaping from great heights. The long, protracted orgasm kidnapped my body and overthrew my brain. I plummeted out of control. My body rattled as a tremendous force tore me apart, obliterating reason, memory and thought, enveloping me in brilliant flashes of blinding pleasure. This type of therapy? I could handle it every day. I pressed my cheek against the pillows, bit down on the sheets and roared until I ran out of voice and air.

I didn’t remember a lot after that. At some point Ash must have pried my fingers from the headboard. If it wasn’t a dream, I think he made love to me again later on, this time slow and tenderly, with due consideration to the better-used parts of me. I woke up, late in the night, snuggled in his arms, utterly satisfied with the new additions to my growing collection of earth-rattling orgasms, and brimming with his seed as he’d promised.

He was awake. He kissed me as soon as my eyes fluttered open.

“I had to love you like that,” he whispered in my ear.

“I know,” I said. “Who won?”

“Won?” he said.

“Who won the game?”

He chuckled. “You looked like you did well for yourself,” he said. “As for me, you won’t hear any complaints. Hell, all my prizes were extraordinary.”

I fell asleep smiling.

Chapter Eighteen

The next three days stretched like the dark molasses syrup Wang thickened in a pan for his pancakes every morning. The nights, on the other hand, passed rather quickly. Maybe it was because Ash and I kept busy in bed, starved for each other. Maybe sex was my new way of coping with stress. Perhaps we were having trouble regulating the attraction between us. Whatever it was, I was glad for it. It kept me from lying awake all night, worrying about the guys, the courthouse and Red.

But as the date for the trial loomed closer and Steiner finalized the arrangements for my transfer to New York, sleep evaded me altogether. I fought with Ash, who in his Everest state insisted he was coming to the courthouse. He was by far the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.

With only two days to go before our departure date, I was groggy when I came downstairs. A chorus of grunts answered my halfhearted morning greeting in complete contrast to Neil’s happy
woof
.

“Good morning, handsome.” I scratched Neil behind the ears. “You too,” I said kissing Ash on the cheek in passing.

I grabbed the largest coffee mug I could find and filled it to the rim. The guys didn’t look much better than I did. Dark stubble and bleary eyes prevailed around the kitchen table. The unlit cigarette hung from Steiner’s lip. Wang’s prosthetic arm lay on the table as he fiddled with the electronic components. Manny and Ash gathered around Will’s laptop.

“It’s like 3.3 milliseconds,” Will was saying. “You can’t possibly get an electronic monitor off in milliseconds.”

“If you can detonate a charge in 3.3 milliseconds,” Ash said. “Isn’t it at least theoretically possible that the lapse indicates a disruption pattern?”

“It happened once, yesterday, so it’s not a pattern,” Will said. “It looks more like a minor signal fluctuation.”

I looked at Manny. “What are they talking about?”

“Will found a slight anomaly in the data of Rojas’s electronic monitoring device,” Manny explained. “Heads up, guys. ETA three minutes.”

“ETA?” I said. “Who’s coming?”

“Fish and Wildlife is on the way,” Manny said. “That mountain lion must really be eating lots of sheep, ’cause they’re back, and they’re bringing the trap they talked about.”

The live shot on Manny’s laptop showed the truck approaching on the road, the same one from a few days ago, this time towing a trailer with the trap strapped beneath a tarp.

“I’ll take Fish and Wildlife.” Ash checked his Sig Sauer’s magazine before clicking it back in place and shrugging on his vest. “Manny, you’re on coms. Will, cover me.”

Everyone around the table inserted their earpieces and clicked on their coms, even Steiner. Belatedly, I did the same. Outside, Izzy and Ozzie began the breakfast racket. I put on my boots and grabbed my gloves and jacket.

Ash gave me a look. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Ah, yes, I need my keys to unlock the shed.” I grabbed them from the peg and dropped them into my pocket.

“No, not the keys,” Ash said.

“Oh.” I fetched my gun from the coat rack, checked the clip—to show Ash I’d learned something—and tucked it in the back of my pants. I headed for the back door, where the bleating and the braying had achieved epic proportions. “Those rascals can con anyone into believing they haven’t been fed in years.”

“Wait up.” Wang grabbed his rifle and, fitting his prosthesis on the go, opened the door ahead of me and scoured the yard beyond the animals gathered by the door. “I go first, remember? You’d think by now, I’d have you better trained.”

“Me, trained?” I laughed. “Never.”

Steiner rolled his eyes and pushed off from the table. “I’m coming too.”

The air chilled my nostrils and stung my lungs. My breath came in visible bursts. A leaden cover of clouds hung low in the sky, roiling over the mountains and trailing dark skirts of precipitation in the distance. Followed by my animals, I went to the trough first. A layer of ice had formed over the water.

“Hey,” I yelled over to Steiner. “Can you grab the shovel by the kitchen door?”

Steiner, who’d just lit a cigarette, cursed under his breath and went to get the shovel. I was chiseling at the ice with a small trowel when I heard Ash’s voice over the com, terse and controlled.

“Athena,” he said. “I repeat. Athena. Athena. Athena.”

The com in my ear went silent seconds before a windowpane exploded. White plumes burst out of the cottage’s windows. Shouts echoed all around me, together with the unmistakable plink of gunfire. Several canisters landed in the yard, streaming tendrils of smoke that streaked my view.

My heart shot up my throat. I didn’t have to be Special ops to understand what was happening. I couldn’t see Ash anymore. I got a whiff of spice in the air. My lungs buckled and my eyes stung. Smoke bombs? Worse, some sort of toxic gas?

Another canister landed nearby. Thick dark clouds drifted in my direction and choked the breath out of me. I pressed my hand over my mouth and, crouching low, moved toward the barn. The shots were louder now. An engine throttled somewhere to my right. Time screeched to a halt as I squinted through the smoke.

With a bang and a whoosh, the red flash of flames ignited. It came from somewhere on the other side of the cottage and it must have hit something, the RV maybe. A wave of heat reached all the way across the pasture. A goat bleated pitifully.

Ike trotted across the lawn and disappeared beyond the broken fence. A burst of wind sent the plume of smoke directly at me. It stung my nostrils, scalded my lungs and brought tears to my eyes. My home, my animals, my friends. Ash, where on earth was he? I tripped, fell and, croaking on all fours, dry heaved.

Steiner staggered out of the smoke halfway between the house and the barn. His eyes were red and swollen and his clothing was ripped and stained, but he clutched the cigarette in his mouth, the shovel in one hand and his gun in the other.

I grappled with my gun. I aimed it at the smoke, at the noises beyond the smoke, at Steiner, who stumbled wide-eyed toward me.

“Really?” he said. “Are you aiming at
me
?”

Wang skid-landed by my side, bracing his assault rifle against his shoulder, which was also aimed at Steiner. “Keep your head down and move toward the tree line,” he barked. “Now!”

I staggered to my feet just as the Fish and Wildlife truck barreled through the smoke. It roared across the field, spraying the pasture and the cottage with automatic gunfire. Steiner turned, aimed and shot. The truck never slowed down. It ran over Steiner as if he was but a pothole on the ground. Then it turned toward us, front grill soaked with blood.

Wang and I ran, weaving toward the shed where the trucks were parked. I glanced behind me. Three men rode on the trailer hooked to the truck. They’d been concealed beneath the tarp. Two of them were armed with heavy machine guns. The third man held an RPG launcher on his shoulder. It was aimed in our direction.

A projectile sped by and slammed against the shed ahead of us. It exploded, cutting off our escape route. Jagged fragments came at us like blades slicing the air. Wang tackled me from behind. We hit the ground hard. The blow knocked the air out of my lungs.

Beyond the smoke, the battle continued. Shots sputtered from every which way. I slithered out from beneath Wang. A nasty gash bled on his temple. I groped his torso, looking for injuries. His vest looked normal, but it felt compact and hard to my fingers. Had he been wearing a bulletproof vest all this time? More gunshots. I had to hurry. I checked his pulse. He was alive but unconscious. I knew exactly what would happen if our attackers found him.

I took advantage of the black smoke streaming from the burning shed and dragged Wang behind the pile of rusting oil drums piled up at the back of the property. I tipped one of the steel drums and, after stuffing Wang in it, rolled it behind some of the other drums.

The survivor’s switch in me flipped. My personal contingency plan kicked in. Nobody else was going to die instead of me. Red wanted me alive for the moment. Right? So all I had to do was lead the killers away from Wang, Ash and the rest, so they could make their escape.

“Over here!” I waved and ran up the hill.

Shouts chased after me. I sprinted toward the forest, leading the men away from the cottage. I heard the truck’s engine accelerate, but when I looked back, the wheels sank in the muck, spinning without traction. I raced up the slope and dove into the tree line.

I had no air left in my lungs. My legs shook with the effort, but I ran some more, even though I kept tripping. I wasn’t sure where I was heading. Away. To the woods. To give the others a chance.

I’d been such a freaking fool. How could I have believed that anybody could stand between Red and what he wanted? Running was my life’s only fate. Running was all I could do. So I ran, for the guys, for Ash, for me.

I heard the men before I saw them. A new group trampled through the trees, cutting off my escape. Shouts echoed in the forest along with heavy footsteps and the crackle of radio communications. A helicopter buzzed the top of the woods. Some of the men lingered along the trail, doing what, I couldn’t tell. One of them spotted me and called out the alarm. I took off in a different direction, but they were closing in on me like the rope of a tightening noose.

I stepped quietly over a creek. My feet crunched on a thin layer of mud.
Snap
. The sound hit me an instant before the pain. The steel jaws of a trap closed about my leg, cut through my boots and bit into my ankle.

I suppressed a scream. The pain. It was unbearable. Bastards. Planting leg traps. That’s what those men pretending to be Fish and Wildlife officers had been doing in the bushes, seeding the forest with the cruel snares. They didn’t give a hoot about the innocents who’d get snared. I clenched my gun and, cursing under my breath, tried to shake off the trap.

The steel teeth sank deeper, scraping against my shin. The men converged around me. I aimed my gun from one man to the other, but none came closer. They seemed to be waiting, for what, I couldn’t tell. The roar of the helicopter shook the earth. After a few moments, another man showed up at the clearing, this one surrounded by a group of bodyguards. He stepped forward and took off his cap, freeing the hair that framed his face with a halo of curls. My breath caught in my throat.

At long last, the Devil of Caquetá had caught up with me.

“Rose,” he said in his velvety bass. “
Mi Rosita
Americana
.”

Red’s grin chilled me down to the marrow. Lord help me. Red was here. Frantically, I considered my choices. Surely by now, Ash and the others had made their escape. I prayed that was so. Only one option left. I pressed the Beretta’s muzzle to my temple.

“Now, now,” Red said, palms in the air. “You really don’t want to do that. You might be in a bit of a pickle, but surely an out can be properly negotiated.”

I remembered that I had promised Ash I’d fight to stay alive. I also remembered the type of negotiations Red favored. Any settlement with Red would translate into unspeakable horror for me. My courage shattered like an egg hitting the floor.
Sorry, Ash
. I broke a promise and put my finger on the trigger. I wasn’t going back to Red.