Текст книги "Hard Beat"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Chapter 16
“This is Tanner Thomas reporting live for Worldwide News.”
I wait for the Skype connection to end like usual, make sure the feed is dark, before I shut down and close my laptop. I find myself staring at the world beyond as I take a deep breath, wondering where exactly Omid is in that mix. Is my number one source gone for good now that his face is on record? My texts to him saying the pictures have been destroyed have gone unanswered.
I just hope my relationship with him isn’t gone too.
“That went well,” Beaux says, pulling me from my thoughts so that I turn to watch her as she exits the bathroom, hair wet and robe knotted with a tie around her waist.
I snort. “Thanks. It’s the same boring shit, though,” I say, scrubbing a hand through my shaggy hair that’s starting to drive me crazy. “I’m here to report conflict, action, not repeat the same repetitive crap,” I groan to her. “I’m getting antsy. It’s been what, a little over two weeks since Sarge called and still nothing.”
“Lest you forget the Scrabble tournament. I mean that was scintillating entertainment,” she teases, drawing a chuckle from me over one of the lame ways we tried to pass time last week with an impromptu Scrabble challenge amongst all of the journalists. “Who knew qwerty was a legitimate and legal word?”
When I meet her eyes, I’ve got a lopsided smirk on my face over our first real fight over nothing. Every relationship has to have those, and the fact that we hit that milestone makes me feel a little more like we’re a normal couple despite this crazy-ass set of circumstances. There is supposed to be a war going on and it’s my job to report those events. And not having anything happening makes me feel useless, even though I don’t appreciate the evils of combat. Despite the company I get to keep nowadays, I’m feeling bored.
Although that company is definitely not a hardship to look at. I glance back as Beaux walks toward me and take her all in: ebony hair wet and falling over her shoulders making a dark mark on the fabric of her robe, her toned, tanned legs making me wish the thigh-length robe were even shorter, and the press of her nipples through the thin fabric.
“Nothing from Omid?” she asks as if she’s been reading my thoughts – and like it’s perfectly normal to be talking about sources when my libido is thinking about everything that’s beneath the light blue fabric of the robe.
“No.” I sigh loudly, my frustration audible. “Not from him or any of my other sources. It’s complete radio silence. I think that’s part of the problem. I know something is in the works. I agree with Sarge. Everyone is lying low, waiting to see who makes the first move. I know Omid knows something… That’s why he’s lost in the wind again. If only he would text me back, then I’d feel so much better knowing that there isn’t some huge meet going on that we’re going to miss, you know?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she murmurs as she walks up behind me, presses a kiss to the crown of my head, and runs her fingers through my hair, playing with it where it curls over the tops of my ears.
“That’s my story. I’ve been tracking it for months, worked my ass off to get the contacts to ensure that I’m there when it goes down, and now I feel like it’s going to slip through my fingers.”
“I understand why you think that… but you’re just antsy from being stuck in this damn hotel. Maybe you need to get out. Take a walk. It helps me when I do.”
I snort out a laugh. “Yeah, I know it helps when you take a walk,” I say sarcastically, aware that she’s probably rolling her eyes right now. But at the same time I know those solo walks of hers are nonexistent now since I’ve made a habit of being with her each and every night.
And being smothered never felt so damn good. Especially when it’s the weight of her body on top of mine.
“He’s probably just playing it safe. He seems totally loyal to you. I’m sure if there was something going on, he’d tell you about it.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, leaning my head back against the warmth of her belly, while part of me worries about Omid, hoping that he really is okay and nothing has happened to him. “I spoke with Rafe when you were in the shower. He reiterated what he said to you about how much the brass really loves the pictures you’re turning in.” For some reason I need her to know how incredible they are, especially after all of the shit I gave her in the beginning about not being good enough.
“Thank you,” she whispers softly as her fingers thread through my hair, nails scratching my scalp in the most hypnotizing of ways.
“He asked me how we were getting along.”
I love the throaty laugh that follows with that hint of the unique rasp of her voice to it. It sounds almost as if she’s holding a secret and I’ll be the only one she’s going to tell. It also causes that slow burn of desire that’s always on low flame to start to simmer inside me.
“And what did you tell him?”
“Hmm… that we were managing one day at a time. That I still found you irritating and a know-it-all. That it was a real feat for me to sit hours on end with you and not want to strangle you. But that at least you were good at taking photographs because you can’t play Scrabble for shit,” I deadpan as her hands still in my hair and I wait for her reaction.
“Irritating, huh?” She removes her hands from my scalp and steps in front of me. She lifts an eyebrow in challenge as I try to figure out just where she’s going with this.
“Yep. And a know-it-all,” I say with a nod and a smart-ass smile on my lips as my eyes flicker down to the deep V of where her robe parts. Only about a foot-long section is closed now, affording me a killer view of her cleavage down to just above her belly button and a lot of leg, and damn if I don’t suddenly lose all train of thought.
“Well, Pulitzer, I’m so sorry that it’s so taxing for you to have to sit with me all… day… long,” she says in the breathiest of voices, drawing every single word out at the same time she steps forward and stands so that her legs straddle both of my thighs. I slide my eyes ever so slowly from her legs up her torso to meet her gaze, my hands itching to reach out and touch, but shit, I’ll let her take the reins for a bit to see just where she takes this because I’m liking the direction already.
“It’s a hard job, but somebody’s got to do it,” I say with emphasis. And of course at that same moment she lowers herself to sit astride my lap, ass on my knees, placing the enticing heat of her pussy right atop my cock. I have to hold back the wave of dizziness that threatens to assault me from the downright mind-rattling sensation.
“I like hard jobs,” she whispers as she leans in and brushes her lips against mine so that I can smell the toothpaste on her breath and the lotion on her skin. I lean forward to try and deepen the kiss, but she pushes her hands against my chest to keep me still in my chair while her hand snakes between her parted thighs to cup me.
And while damn those fingernails felt incredible on my scalp, the muted sensation of them scraping over the fabric hugging my nuts is Heaven. I groan, a man wanting his woman and not ashamed to show it. “Beaux…” My head falls back as the feeling of her more-than-competent hands on me shifts my train of thought from one frustration to a whole different type.
“Don’t speak, Tanner,” she says, causing me to snap my head forward and catch the taunt in her smile and desire in her eyes. “I’m annoying.” She slides backward off my lap. “And irritating.” She drops to her knees before me. “And while I may suck at Scrabble, I can suck other things much better.”
Yes. Please.
Our eyes hold, her lips twist with humor, and as I look at her on her knees before me with her hands running up my thighs, her thumbs stroking over my khaki-clad cock, the only thought I can process is what a lucky man I am.
We never break eye contact as her hands push my knees apart so that she can wiggle her way in between them and her hands begin to work the button and zipper on the shorts. In perfect sync with her, I lift up as she tugs my clothes down, and my dick springs free.
I love watching her eyes light up at knowing I’m hard and waiting for her without much if any foreplay. Shit, she could blow a cold breeze my way and I’d be ready for her. Even better than the look in her eyes is watching her have to make the conscious decision to tear her eyes from mine and look down at what’s waiting for her.
And call it male ego, call it machismo, I don’t give a fuck, but it’s such a turn-on watching her eyes widen and her tongue dart out and lick her bottom lip when she looks down. Every part of my body feels like it is standing at attention, waiting for the next touch, her mouth to take me in, the enticing visual of watching her suck me off.
Her eyes dart up to meet mine one more time as she lowers her head and puts my dick in her mouth. And it’s not like she teases me, puts the tip in and licks her tongue around the head to taunt me with promises of what’s to come next. Hell no. She lowers her mouth onto my cock and keeps going all the way until I hit the back of her throat.
“Goddamn,” I moan brokenly.
The sensation is so damn overwhelming that I want to close my eyes and savor it and at the same time don’t want to miss the sight of her working me in and out between her lips. One hand cups my balls, fingernails teasing the sensitive skin there while the other wraps around the base of my cock, following her mouth up and down with an added pressure that drives me fucking insane. She takes me all the way to the back of her throat again so that I can feel the vibration of the moan she emits against my dick. Her green eyes flutter up to meet mine as she holds still there.
And the sight of her cheeks hollowed and lips stretched around me, stuns me motionless. Something passes between us. Something more than just the desire coursing through us or the act we’re engaging in. And it’s fleeting, but it’s unmistakable.
The mix of sensations, tight grip followed by soft lips, her quiet moans of desire mixed with my harsh grunts of pleasure, my hand fisted tightly in her wet hair, and the endless pleasure of going deeper and deeper in her mouth catapults me to the edge of reason so damn fast that I’m holding her head still and bucking my hips in natural reflex.
I come fast and hard; my pants are harsh, my heart is lost, all sensibility thrown out the damn window as the grenade of sensation explodes within me, streaking up and back down in a fiery flash of everything and nothing all at once.
And she’s so fucking incredible as she rides out my orgasm, her mouth sucking me dry, her fingers becoming more gentle as my muscles contract and my dick becomes hypersensitive. My muscles start to relax, and she must sense it because the vibration of her chuckle around my cock still in her mouth is like a little aftershock of sensation that breaks through the fog of my climax.
She pulls back and just looks at me with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “How are we going to explain that one to Rafe, huh? That’s all you, my wordy friend.”
It takes me a minute to get my wits about me, my mind still reeling from the unexpected but completely welcome blow job at the hands of BJ Croslyn. The irony.
“Up to me?” My voice sounds drugged and drowsy, and fuck if I’m going to apologize for it. “I seem to think you have journalist in your title too.”
Her laugh is low and seductive as I reach out and pull her back up to sit astride me, my hands working on undoing the knot of her robe, needing to feel her skin on skin. “Oh but you forget, I report with pictures, so I don’t quite think we’re going to document what exactly just happened.”
“Mmm, probably not.” I look up to her, our positions allowing her face to hover slightly above mine so I can see her eyes widen as I slide my hands inside her robe, my rough palms against the smooth skin of the undersides of her breasts. “But I might want to document a few things myself with your equipment of what’s going to happen next.”
“Oh really?” she asks, the words starting out strong but then ending in a sigh as my thumbs flick over the hardened tips of her nipples. I love watching her like this, eyes hazy with desire and her lips fallen lax from the pleasure I can bring her. “What’s going to happen next?”
Without saying a word, I reach down in the space between our thighs, brush my fingers over her pussy, and find it slick with desire. And the fact that she’s wet from sucking me off has my own libido already stirring back awake, her ability to make my body expedite my recovery time almost frightening. She gasps at the feel of my fingers just barely touching her as they find the tie of her robe and place it between her legs with one hand so that it falls through the opening that both of our parted thighs make. I grab it with my other hand so that one hand holds the robe tie at her back while the other holds it just above the front of her pelvis.
“Uh-uh,” I command as she looks down. “I want to watch you, want to see in your eyes what I do to you. Keep your eyes on me.”
And a quiet hush falls around us so that the anticipation thickens, our eyes locked, her mind wondering exactly what I’m going to do next. Drawing things out, I take the sash and press it against the cleft of her sex. Her legs tense at the feel of it there, but when I slowly start to rub it back and forth, I work it between the lips of her pussy so that it rubs with perfect friction over her clit. The first time her eyes widen and her breath hitches at the newness of the sensation before her head falls back for a moment to absorb the unexpected feeling. But then as I continue to move the tie ever so slowly back and forth and watch the sensation swamp her as she fights to keep her eyes from closing with the pleasure of it, the moan that falls from her mouth tells me she likes it.
Her hands flash out to grip my shoulders, and her hips slowly begin to move opposite the pull of the sash as she tries to chase the release. The strained moans she makes, the bite of her fingernails digging in my flesh, the heat of her ass rubbing back and forth on my bare thighs – all of it and then a thousand other things I can’t even put in words make me fall for her ten times harder than when her lips were wrapped around me.
Because there is something so damn powerful in making a woman come. With men, an orgasm is basically a given, but with women? As a man you have to work at making them climax, have to know where to stroke and just how hard to rub. It usually takes communication, a lot of trial and error before you learn each other’s bodies enough to not have to speak other than to praise and enhance the moment.
But with Beaux, she doesn’t have to instruct and I don’t have to ask. Our bodies just know, just respond and react without so much as a word exchanged between us.
I vary the pressure and speed as I pull and rub the sash along her body, my mouth closing around the peaks of her breasts as she arches her back when the pleasure starts to become too much for her body to absorb. Her legs tense over mine as her head falls forward onto my shoulder. Her control begins to give way to pleasure and incoherency. We remain like this for a single, powerful heartbeat of time with her teeth nipping my shoulder and my hands working her into a fever pitch.
And when she comes, her strained voice calling my name, her hips bucking wildly against my body, her wetness evident on my own thighs, the only thought that remains in my head is it doesn’t get any more powerful than this.
Physically.
And emotionally.
She’s my little piece of Heaven in this land full of Hell.
Chapter 17
The heat has my clothes plastered to my skin from sweat as the sounds and scents of the city around me permeate my pores and all five senses. It’s a feeling you think you’ll get used to the longer you spend on-site but never do. I’m pulling a Beaux, I think to myself with a smile as I walk through the city’s dilapidated streets, venturing out without telling anyone.
I needed the fresh air, the time to myself to sort some shit out in my head while finding a few things to complete the surprise I have planned for Beaux, because as much as it pains me to admit my sister was right, she was. Beaux and I are in a relationship. We may not have verbalized it, but I think I silently erased that fine line between dating and relationship a while ago and just pretended like I wasn’t looking. And as for the three words that most people hang their hat on, we may not have said them, but it doesn’t matter. When you spend almost every waking minute with someone – with as much time in the sheets as you spend talking and getting to know each other out of bed – over a several-month period, you’re in a relationship.
And since that’s the case, I figured I ought to up my game some in the boyfriend department. It must be a miracle, because for the second time in a day, I’m caving in to something Rylee said… I’m trying to manufacture an out-of-the-ordinary night for Beaux without anyone knowing.
She needs it. We need it. Something simple in nature but special at the same time. We’ve both been climbing the walls with boredom as we wait for a story, any story, even a human interest story. Anything besides rehashing the same shit ad nauseam, because as much as I don’t long for international conflict, there is no denying it prevents people in this instant-gratification day and age from flipping the channel to find something newer and more spectacular.
So I’ve got most of my night for Beaux planned. I’ve bribed the hotel manager with cash to help get the rest of the items I don’t have the ability to get myself. And now I’m just searching for the final few things while Beaux is back at the hotel sleeping in my bed with strict instructions for Pauly to interfere should she wake before I get back and wander downstairs to the lobby.
There is definite irony in the fact that I find myself sneaking out to wander the city’s streets at night.
But I’m so lost in thought, so consumed by Beaux’s and Ry’s comments, that when I look up, my feet falter when I notice where I’ve unconsciously veered. My breath catches in my throat as I stand in the one place I’ve yet to come since being back, the place where Stella died.
The market front looks so benign, nothing like the horrible nightmares that flash through my sleep every so often now. The smell of death is gone, the dark stains of blood nonexistent, the fear riddling through my soul absent. All I feel is a bone-deep sadness when I take in the open windows with wares hanging all around the canopy and the cart out front displaying random items – there’s not a single thing to commemorate the loss of someone so damn important to me.
Immediately, I long to walk away and quiet the images that keep coming back into my mind, but at the same time I can recognize that I need to face this for a moment, allow myself to say good-bye one last time in the one place where my world was turned upside down. Maybe then I can finish finding a bit of the peace that being with Beaux has allowed me to start to feel.
So instead, I take a step forward, my fingertips running over the woven bags and childish trinkets on the table, my eyes searching for any sign that Stella existed here. I know it’s stupid and that it won’t prove anything, but I feel like I need something to be here, to validate my grief in order to help lay it to rest. I begin rifling through the bags hanging off the canopy in front of the crumbling walls of the storefront. I tell myself I need a bag like this for Beaux’s surprise, but there’s no denying I’m reaching for an excuse until I find what I’m looking for.
Then I move closer and lean over the table, my hand reaching out so that my fingertip fits in the bullet hole that’s been left unrepaired in the store’s facade. My finger stays frozen there, the nightmares of that night colliding at a ferocious pace with the good memories of the ten years Stella was in my life until they crumble to pieces, falling with the guilt laid at my feet.
I inhale deeply through a clenched jaw and face all the emotion that’s overwhelming me right now, good, bad, and irrevocable. I shake my head softly, a soft smile on my face as I remember our last full night together. Our kiss. Our promise. That smile of hers and the friendship we had for so long.
“Good-bye, Stella,” I whisper, my words carried away in the sounds of the streets around me and the music coming through the store’s window before me. I hang my head for a moment and close my eyes. I’d be your once-in-a-lifetime, your goddamn everything if you’d come back.
But I know she can’t.
And I know that she was one of the most incredible people I’ll ever meet. I know that I’d live the lie if given the chance to make her happy even though I know now that she wasn’t my once-in-a-lifetime in return. I’d have been cheating the both of us of that chance to find it. Our friendship was the strongest one I’ve ever had the fortune to experience, but that sexual chemistry wasn’t strong like it should be.
Not like the way it is between Beaux and me.
So maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe I’m saying good-bye to one woman so that I can give myself completely to another. And yes, Stella and I were more like siblings than a romantic couple, but when you’re that close to someone for so long, you still feel like you are cheating on them in a sense when you start to move on with someone new, sharing a friendship, your confessions, your laughter, your comfortable silence.
Once I’ve had my moment with her memory, holding on to the image in my mind of Stella laughing from behind her camera and shedding the horrible ones of that night as best as I can, I’m determined to leave the pain here and move forward with the happy memories.
With my head still angled down, I open my eyes, and something about the sight in front of me makes me smile. There is a bowl on the table filled with small bottles of bubbles. Although it’s amongst a hodgepodge of items, it’s such a welcome sight nonetheless because it brings up memories of Rylee and me growing up. Her theory at eight years old that blowing bubbles makes everything better because you can’t say the word bubble without smiling. How when the bullies in third grade picked on her when I was home sick from school one day, I brought out a bottle of bubbles to where she sat sniffling on the swings in the backyard and made her blow bubbles until she smiled. And then of course I went to school the next day and earned some detention for persuading them with my fists to not pick on my little sister again.
Or how, years later, after her eighth grade formal when she came home upset that no one had asked her to dance, I brought out a bottle of bubbles, again to the swings that hadn’t been used in years, and made her blow them until she laughed.
With a huge smile on my face, I immediately know that even though Beaux doesn’t know the significance of bubbles to me, she’d love them and the small piece of normality that they represent.
Besides, who doesn’t love bubbles?
With the bubbles and a colorful tote bag stuffed into my backpack so Beaux won’t see them, I leave the shop, the weight of grief a little lighter in my heart for the first time since Stella’s death. Glancing at my watch, I realize I need to get my ass back to the hotel before Beaux wakes up and discovers that I snuck out.
Just as I’m crossing the street, my phone alerts a text, and I cringe in fear that I’ve been caught. My mind is already scrambling for the excuses I’d prepared, but suddenly my feet falter as I look at the name lighting up my screen. It’s Omid with a text: They are here. Many in my village. I think the meet happened today. Sorry. Did not know.
My heart sinks as soon as I read his message. Mostly because I didn’t come through for Sarge and the good guys but also for the lost opportunity of reporting on a meet that no one else knew was happening. Fuck. That single word sums up how I feel and then some so much that it bears repeating. Fuck.
I stop in my tracks on the sidewalk and type out a text as fast as I can: When? How many? Where? Meet me. I could go on endlessly with the questions, but the language barrier would make it impossible to persuade him to give me any further information. I need to see Omid face-to-face; I need to have Beaux there to translate if there’s any hope of having this situation not be so damn fucked.
“Answer, Omid,” I groan into the night as I stare at my screen with the hope fading that the harder I stare, the quicker he will respond. After a few minutes I realize that standing here is not going to help anything, so I start hurrying back to the hotel when at last I get his reply.
Not now. Dangerous. Trust gone like I said last week. No more.
My mind races as I try to figure out the text. Last week? Did he text me last week and I didn’t get it? Trust is gone? From Beaux taking a picture? Yes, but what I don’t get is I didn’t speak to him last week. What the fuck? I growl out in frustration. Fucking cell phones and their limited service in this godforsaken land. What did he text me that I didn’t get?
And no more? No more what? I want to yell. No more people there? No more information? No more being a source? What?
I’m frustrated and disappointed and just disheartened at the missed opportunities all around. Defeated, I look at my screen one more time before picking it up and dialing a number. The phone rings several times, and just as I’m about to hang up, he answers.
“Hello?”
“Sarge. Here’s what I’ve got…” And I tell him what I know.
