Walk on the Striped Side (3 page)

Crossing her arms over her chest,
Elena snapped. “You’re damn skippy I’ve got a problem! My problem is that the
station received a report of possible vandalism in this building. So I had to
drag my ass out here in the middle of the night just to find you lot rolling
around here like a bunch of morons. Get a life, would
ya
?
Next time, don’t bother mine!”

Turning on her heel, she stormed
towards the front door. Shoving one of Ivanov’s unit members out of her path on
the way out. She heard movement seemingly following behind her, but chose to
ignore it since she knew none of the men would hurt her. Making her way back to
her vehicle, Elena rounded the front of the car and reached for the driver’s
side door handle. A large hand reaching around to land on her door stopped her.
Even if he hadn’t reached that hand out in front of her, she would have known
he was too close to her body because she could feel the heat off that too large
body of his along her back.

Breathing out a frustrated sigh,
“What do you want Master Sergeant Ivanov?”

Warm breath whispered across her
ear lobe. “To make your trip out here worthwhile.”

“Yeah? And how do you plan to do
that?”

“By offering you the opportunity of
a lifetime.”

“You mean you’re going to let me
put you in handcuffs and arrest you?”

He snorted. “You’re not arresting
me. And you’re definitely not putting me in handcuffs. I could return the favor
for you though. Use your own handcuffs on you.”

Shaking her head no, Elena laughed.
“Sorry pal, but last time I checked, I was the one with the power to use them.
Not you.”

“Only here, on base, and only when
you’re on duty. I was talking about later. When you get off shift. I could come
over to your place and demonstrate who really has the power in this dynamic.”

Elena turned slowly until she was
facing Gage Ivanov. Those strangely beautiful eyes of his almost seemed to glow
in the night as they slowly dragged upwards from where they’d been glued to her
ass and then focused on her face. Cocking her eyebrow at his apparent and
shameless ogling of her backside, she gave a short laugh. “I know you special
ops guys think you’re the best thing around since sliced bread, but don’t get
too full of yourself.”

He slowly leaned forward to run his
nose from the base of her throat, skimming her skin lightly as he inhaled
deeply, before stopping his lips so that they were touching the shell of her
ear. Then he whispered, “I’m not looking to get full of myself. I’d much rather
fill you
.”

Her mouth instantly went dry as the
Sahara Desert, and other parts of her, ones much lower than her mouth, seemed
to fire up. Except there was no dryness involved down there. No, her panties
were practically sopping wet right now. Elena had to lock up every muscle in
her body so that she wouldn’t lean forward an inch and a half and rub all over
him like a cat in heat.

This was a bad, bad idea. If she
went and did something as stupid as hooking up with him, someone could make
some whack ass claim of favoritism on this call she’d responded too. So she
needed to move herself away from the hottest man to ever push all of her
naughty buttons, and drive away from here like her career depended on it.
Because if she gave into this insane attraction between them, with any claim of
favoritism or fraternization against her, her career might go down the shitter.
As good as the man probably was in bed, it wouldn’t be worth the career she
adored in the Army.

Right?

Elena put her hands on his chest to
push him off of her, because he hadn’t moved away at all, but ended up gasping
instead when his teeth nipped her ear. Now her fingers were clenching his shirt
instead of shoving him away because those lips of his were on the move. Placing
a lingering kiss on the skin just under her ear, before continuing their
journey south where he stopped again to gently bite at the base of her neck. It
took Elena a second to realize that the sound she heard was her moaning as she
pulled the infuriating man closer until nothing but clothes separated the
fronts of their bodies.

She felt that hand of his come off
her car as he used it to grab the back of her neck seconds before his lower
body pinned her to the car. She could feel the hard length of him push into her
stomach. His other hand slipped in between her butt and the vehicle so that he
could grab her ass hard, squeezing his fingers into her soft flesh in a slow
rhythmic pattern that reminded her of a cat kneading. Dropping his mouth down
to hers, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. He licked her
instead. Swiping a deliciously wet, but slightly rough tongue right over her
lips. Her breath caught in her chest from the erotic feel of that tongue and he
groaned. His chest vibrating slightly under her hands from the sound. That lick
alone was the most understated but sexy thing that any man had ever done to
her.

That was the moment her common
sense went out the window.

Elena stood up on her tip toes and
crushed her mouth to Ivanov’s in a desperation she’d never felt before. Would
probably never feel again. And as he thrust his tongue in her mouth and tangled
it with her own, she knew without a doubt that he really would make this trip
out here worthwhile.

She just hoped that giving into her
hormones didn’t backfire on her later.

CHAPTER-THREE

January 2012

Elena

The sensual rumble of a gruff
baritone voice from the other room woke her up. Man she loved that voice. There
were times when he was buried deep inside her, making her feel like no one else
ever had, that he would say something in the moment with that growl, some
command, some encouragement, and it felt like a freakin’ purr. Of course, she
knew the walking wall of muscle that called himself Gage Ivanov wasn’t truly
purring. That had to be anatomically impossible for a testosterone laden guy
like him. Oh, but to some very sensitive girly parts she owned, probably the
only parts of her body that were feminine at all, they quivered at that almost
purr. It was sexual nirvana, that purr-
tastic
voice.
And after doing something that she’d never done before, which was maintain
something that resembled a monogamous relationship for a span of six whole
months, she was ready to admit that she was definitely in love with that voice.
She’d fallen head over heels for the man who owned it.

Not that she’d confessed that
little bit of information to Gage. Oh no, she’d kept that under lock and key
from the moment she’d figured it out a little over a month ago. It had taken some
time to even convince herself that it was genetically possible for her to
experience the emotion called love for anyone other than her family. After all,
she was a Demos. And as her mother always told her, the Demos women did
not
marry. Nor did they let a man tie them down with such stigmas like a
relationship. No, they simply found good specimens to scratch the occasional
itch when it was needed. That might sound crude to the rest of the world, but
she’d yet to see her mother or two sisters settle down with a man for a long
term run.

So the fact that she, Elena Demos,
middle child of the biggest anti-monogamy supporter in the known universe, was
lying in these sheets that were twisted around her naked body in her lover’s
bed, and considering becoming a one-man kind of woman, was just craziness. The
idea that she would ignore every warning her mother had ever lectured her about
in regards to men, and how they would only break your heart, so that she could
profess her newfound love for the man in the other room, was a big deal. There
was no telling how her mother or sisters would act when she let that cat out of
the bag. Hell, her mother who’d been so sick she was bedridden now, wouldn’t
cut her any slack at all. More than likely, Momma Demos would chew her up and
spit her out with a lecture to end all lectures. That might not scare other
grown adults, but anyone who knew her mother should be shaking in their
flippin
’ shoes. It didn’t matter that Momma was a petite
package who only looked to weigh one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet.
Elena had watched that small powerhouse of a woman put a grown man two times
her size on his knees, cupping his junk with both hands, and crying a river for
giving her mother a pat on the ass in a bar. In other words, she was scary.

But as Elena listened to her lover
presumably talking to someone on the phone since she hadn’t heard any other
voices yet, she couldn’t help but think that it was time to tell everyone how
she felt. Gage had to feel something for her if he kept coming back to Fort
Bragg to spend time with her when he wasn’t even coming or going from his
latest mission. And he’d risked an awful lot in taking the chance to get
involved with her since it would be severely frowned upon should their
relationship come to light.

But in retrospect, they hadn’t been
able to avoid what was between them. It wasn’t always pleasant. There was
something about the combination of their two personalities that just begged for
them to grate on each other’s last nerves. Gage had later said it was the
strain of animal like sexual attraction between them. But for Elena, it had
been lust at first sight. Now it was the dreaded four letter L-word. And how
she wished that
lust
, was still the word that fit that description, but
instead it was
love
.

She was holding out hope that her
mother was wrong. That all men weren’t lying, conniving, cheating dogs who
couldn’t be trusted with a woman’s vulnerable heart. She could tell Gage how
she felt, and then hopefully he would tell her that he loved her too. Perhaps
then, Elena could then take him home, introduce him to her man hating mother
and wary two sisters, and show them that there were in fact good men out there.
Maybe after that one of her two sisters would break the Demos ‘no long term
man’ rule and go out and find a stud of their own. Cynics could be converted
into believers.

All she had to do was break the
news to the man she loved first. Which needed to be done tonight since she was
out processing from the Army and headed home to Swansboro, NC in two days. She
probably should have mentioned it to Gage beforehand that she hadn’t renewed
her enlistment due to her mom’s baffling illness, but had never got around to
it. It was hard learning to open up and share your personal life with someone of
the opposite sex when you weren’t used to having anyone around to care about
these things. The two of them would need to talk about how often they could
visit each other now that her living arrangements were going to be drastically
different.

Easing silently out of the bed, she
picked Gage’s t-shirt up off of the floor and pulled it on over her naked body.
Not that she had a problem with nudity, especially in front of her insanely
sexy man, but his voice was starting to get louder as if he were irritated with
someone. She didn’t exactly feel comfortable butt ass naked if he was going to
be in a foul mood. Curious as to what had riled her lover up, she tip toed to
the closed bedroom door and convinced herself that it was not wrong to
eavesdrop on the man you planned to inform had been elevated to boyfriend
status. Being someone’s girlfriend gave you rights to snoop a little. It was
written down in the women’s laws somewhere, she was sure.

Placing her ear on the door, she
closed her eyes and concentrated on what was being said on the other side of
it. There was a muffled sentence before a short span of silence, and then Gage
spit out a “Fuck you Alec.”

Aha. He was talking to his brother.
Elena had been astounded when Gage had told her he was one of triplets. At his
size, she could only imagine how big of a baby he must have been. And while he
said his sister Lulu was nowhere near his height or size, apparently Alec was
just as tall and broad as his brother. She could practically feel her womb
rejecting the idea of carrying even one baby that size. Let alone a second one
or a third spare smaller one for the hell of it. All of her internal parts that
scientifically classified her as a woman threatened to jump out into oncoming
traffic if she even entertained the idea of two of them.

Returning her concentration back to
Gage she heard a few more murmured sentences, and then he seemed to snap. “Hell
no she’s not my mate! Do you take me for some kind of idiot? There’s no way it
could ever work out between someone like her and someone like me. Elena’s a hot
piece of ass, but it’s not worth going through all of that trouble to make this
something more than that.”

In that moment, her heart felt like
it was shriveling up in her chest and dying an excruciating death. Every dream
she’d barely realized she’d been having, withered away and disappeared. Leaving
gaping holes inside that she wasn’t sure could ever be filled again. Even her
uterus, which had been protesting almost violently moments ago at the imaginary
future triplets she and Gage might have one day, seemed to throb with pain now.
How could she have been so wrong? Why in the world had she ever thought that it
was going to be okay to hand her heart over for someone to love? Momma had been
right. Men weren’t capable of deep emotions such as love.

The self-preservation that had been
ingrained into her from puberty kicked in and said it was time to get the hell
out of here. There was no way she was going to give that jackass the pleasure
of knowing that he’d thoroughly crushed the heart she’d just learned to use.
Moving as quickly and quietly as the highly trained man on the other side of
that bedroom door, she pulled her pants on and slipped her feet into her tennis
shoes. Luckily his apartment was on the ground floor, so all Elena had to do
was slide the window open and ease out of it until she was standing in the
grass outside of his building. She didn’t bother with taking the time to close
her portal of escape. Instead, she ran to her SUV, digging her keys out as she
hauled ass, and hopped in that sucker faster than the Duke boys could ever hope
to get into the General Lee. Tearing out of the property’s parking lot, she
didn’t bother to look back and see if Gage Ivanov had even realized she’d left
him. Besides, with her too tight chest, lack of air to breathe, and the kind of
pain that felt like it could take down a thousand pound elephant, Elena was
sure she no longer felt anything at all for him. Yeah. He’d effectively killed
everything inside of her that could have been constituted as loving, or
otherwise known as stupid. So on that note, he could watch her dust fade behind
her for all she cared.

And somehow, she’d find a way to
make herself believe that eventually.

***

Gage

He set the silent phone down on the
couch beside him and listened to her scurry away from the door. Clenching every
muscle, locking every bone in his body, he forced himself to listen to the
rustling on the other side of his closed bedroom door as Elena frantically got
dressed and prepared to leave. The faint sound of a sniffle almost broke his
resolve to stay put. Knowing his mate, she hadn’t even realized that she was
crying. The woman was simply too tough and too proud to ever admit to such weak
emotions. It was one of the things he admired most about her. But he could go
over all the reasons why he loved the woman who was now lifting his bedroom
window to climb out of it, and it wouldn’t change the cold hard facts.

She was human. He was not. He could
take the chance of telling her the truth about himself, pray that she wouldn’t
flip that proverbial hot headed wig of hers, and see what happened. But doing
that would only solve one problem before leading to another. If he told her the
truth, and she didn’t accuse him of lying, or try to kill him for being what he
was, then they’d have to disappear or both risk a death sentence. Sure, with
enough time, ten or fifteen years or so, of Elena staying quiet and keeping his
secret, the Other community would come around and pardon the customary death
sentence that was standard for letting humans know what you were. But he didn’t
want to sentence them to a life of isolation on the off chance that they could
shoot for that unlikely goal. He knew deep down in his gut that his contrary
mate would never forgive him for cutting her off from her family for that long.
Hell he couldn’t imagine being away from his family for that long. So, in
short, he knew it was back to square one for them.

She was human. He was not.

He had to let her go while he still
could. Because Gage knew, he’d almost done something tonight that would ensure
he’d never let her go. While they’d been making love, his fangs had lengthened
and he’d almost buried them in her shoulder. Marking her as his mate forever.
Or at least for the short human time span he’d have with her. And that, simply
put, was unacceptable.

Thank God her eyes had been closed
and she hadn’t seen his teeth shift. Elena had been so lost in her orgasm, lost
in that amazing feeling that flowed between the two of them, that she’d completely
missed his fuck up. He’d really been so damn closed to ruining everything for
both of them. It was hard not to give into all of it too. His feelings for her.
His instincts to make her his. Especially when she’d looked so beautiful, so
fucking radiant, lost in that moment of pleasure he’d given her.

As he listened to her SUV tires
peel out, he reminded himself again that this was what needed to be done.
Breaking her heart now, and forcing her away from him, was for the best. For
both of them. Then he heard the crunch sound fill the air. Felt the small
trickles of warm blood start to seep down his hand from the phone he’d broken
into who knows how many jagged pieces cutting his skin. He tried to tell
himself then that his heart was broken into jagged pieces like his now
demolished phone. He tried really hard to make himself believe he absolutely
had done the right thing. He kept trying all that night, the next day, and the
following week after that.

But he failed to make himself
believe it.

And when he went to find his mate
to apologize for what he’d done… she was gone.

Which, he reminded himself, was for
the best.