Every strum of his tongue over hers ignited her. Her heart pounded faster. Ribbons of lust curled in her lower belly and yanked a cord between her thighs.

  Heartbeats turned into minutes while their kisses raged out of control like they were making up for all five months and countless missed encounters. She curled her fingers into his pecs and dragged her tongue over his.

  When he broke the kiss, she issued a moan. Their gazes locked.

  “I want you so damn bad, angel.”

  The pet name he used for her sent a stab to her heart. Only Crew ever called her angel. Until she met Crew, she never considered herself a girly girl and definitely not somebody’s angel. Somebody’s wife.

  Her eyes flitted shut on the term of endearment.

  Rough knuckles skimmed under her chin as he lifted her head to meet his gaze. “I want nothing more than to fuck your brains out…angel.”

  She shivered. She’d missed this so much. The dirty talk, the gritty promises of pleasure. She missed her husband.

  His eyes blazed down at her. “But I want to hear what you have to say first.”

  Her body tried to catch up and understand his words. All she could think about were his hot lips sealed to hers and his thick cock buried in her pussy.

  He let out a groan. “You keep looking at me like that and I’ll forget about the talking part.”

  She laughed, throaty and low. “We both have some confessions to make. But I’d rather have you fuck me.”

  Another hot groan crashed through his chest and he slammed his mouth over hers, ignoring swollen lips. She no longer cared about cuts and bruises and ripped at his fly.

  When she reached into his briefs and stroked the silk of his erection, he grabbed her shoulders and whipped her around to face the wall. She barely had time to gasp before he yanked her pants and underwear down.

  She tipped her ass toward him, and he nudged her feet into a wider stance. The feel of his bare, mushroomed cock head set against her pussy’s folds ripped a cry from her.

  “You’ll always be mine.”

  In one slick shove, he filled her.

  NINE

  How many times would Crew have fucked his wife in the past five months since they’d been together? Once a day at least, but Teigen was always in the mood.

  He rolled his hips, dragging his cock through her slick, clenching walls. Had she always been this goddamn tight? Wet?

  Fuck, he wasn’t going to be able to hold out long. Her soft cries were husky in his ears, and he automatically sent out his senses beyond the cocoon of passion they stood in. He was confident he could protect her and pleasure her at the same time.

  He sank deep inside her again, grinding his cock against her G-spot to drive her crazy. She flattened her hands on the wall and rocked into him, swishing her hips with that dainty little flick that made him crazy.

  They might both have secrets from each other but this wall never went up. She could always get to him, and it seemed he could still get to her, too.

  Passion blasted him, and his balls throbbed, on the verge of blowing. He had to get her off before he shot five months’ worth of cum inside her.

  His hands anchored on her hips as he drove into her with swift strokes. He slipped one between her legs and found her soaking seam. As he dug his fingers between her plump lips and found her straining clit, a louder cry broke from her.

  He set his lips at her ear. “Shh. Don’t make any noise. We don’t want the team to come running.”

  “Ahhhh!” she gasped.

  Swirling his fingertip around her clit, he tuned into Teigen’s body. All cues pointed to her being close to coming too. He flattened his finger on her clit, grinding it into her body as he pumped his cock into her in a steady rhythm.

  He felt her body sag. Juices slicked his fingers, and he pressed her clit into her body at the same moment he shoved deep.

  Her ass cradled his. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pulse of her pussy to let go.

  He came with her in long, teeth-grinding spurts. Guttural sounds burned on his lips and soft pants wringing from Teigen filled his ears. The lust morphed to passion…tenderness…love.

  All the emotions flooded back. He fucking loved this woman. Nothing would make him let her go. Not when he could still own her body. Because if he owned her body, he owned her heart. Teigen would never fuck for pleasure alone. Not with him, not like this.

  He buried his face against her throat, breathing the sweet scent of her. His orgasm faded but he kept his cock rooted deep inside her. She didn’t move away, only turned her head.

  Trailing his lips lightly over the succulent spot below her ear, he took the time to woo her just like he had from the start. If she gave him another chance, he’d never stop.

  He drew a line with his tongue up to her earlobe. “I’m still hard enough to take you again.”

  She shuddered. “I feel you.”

  With a testing rock of his hips, he drew his cock out and thrust inside her again.

  “Oh god,” she rasped.

  He’d keep her coming for him throughout the rest of the day and the night too. But first he needed answers.

  Planting one more soft kiss on the side of her neck, he withdrew from her pussy and pulled up his pants. She regained her wits and did the same. Slowly, she pivoted to face him, her back pressed to the wall.

  He took in her appearance. Even swollen and bruised, she was the most beautiful woman alive. Her face could only be described as lovely. If she were an actor, her looks would cast her in historical roles with her fine bones and almond eyes. Her lips—

  Christ, he’d made the wrong decision to stop fucking her.

  She fixed her stare on his chest. Struggle played over her features.

  “Teigen.” He tangled his fingers with hers. In the early days of their relationship, he discovered that when they were touching, even hard words came easier. He didn’t know why it happened, but if one of them saw the other struggling to find the words to say, a touch opened the trust to let the words flow.

  She met his stare. “This is all my fault, Crew.”

  “Start at the beginning. Tell me how you got involved in all this.”

  Her fingers squeezed his. “I didn’t lie to you about the translation work. I really started there.”

  He searched her face. “Okay. What happened?”

  “I came across some files with a lot of scrambled information. I figured it was just part of my job, and I unscrambled them and sent the files to the correct places.”

  His chest burned. This didn’t sound good. “Go on.”

  “A guy approached me in a parking lot. I was at the store to pick up a few supplies. He told me that he knew about the files.”

  Crew had to concentrate to keep from squeezing her hand too hard. He wanted her to keep talking…but he wanted to punch something too.

  “He said he worked for the CIA and those files were planted as a test. I don’t know if they thought I could really decode them or they just place random files in front of random people in order to find their next employee.”

  Fucking hell. They’d headhunted her. The way he’d been recruited into Blackout wasn’t much different. Could they both have been targeted?

  “He gave me a business card with a phone number.”

  “And you called it,” he said in a low voice.

  She nodded. “It was interesting work. A challenge to unscramble those words and find the real meaning in them. So I agreed to try it again, just to see if I could.”

  It didn’t surprise him that she went for a challenge. She was competitive to the core. Even a simple game of Monopoly with Teigen turned into an hours-long battle of wills, usually ending with him tossing her legs over his shoulders and licking her pussy just to distract her from the gameboard.

  He smoothed his thumb over her knuckles. “What happened next?”

  “He took me on and became my…”

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “Handler,” she breathed out.

  The word stabbed him with fear. It was the kind of shit he dealt with daily—meetings in dark alleys and stalking terrorists from continent to continent. Something he never, ever wanted his wife to get dragged into.

  But here they were, standing outside a safehouse after he’d just rescued her and been captured too.

  “So all this time you’ve been doing this work?”

  She bit down on her lower lip and nodded.

  His stare snagged on that plump lip. He hadn’t spent nearly enough time ravishing it.

  He planned for her to wrap them around his cock too.

  “So how does unscrambling codes get you kidnapped from a marketplace in Egypt?”

  She shivered. “I was here to meet someone.”

  “Why?” His voice was sharp.

  “I don’t know who these people are.”

  “These people?” He practically blew like a bomb. “Why is a person who unscrambles codes doing fieldwork? How many times have you done this?”

  She released his hand.

  She was pulling away from him, both physically and emotionally.

  He had to calm down.

  Taking her hand again, he meshed their fingers so she couldn’t withdraw. “I’m sorry. Please tell me more.”

  After a moment, she nodded. “My orders were to meet a person. They told me where to go but not what to look for. Usually these people are given my description—”

  His gaze jerked up to her darker hair.

  She reached up and twisted a lock with her free hand. “My real color’s too recognizable. I needed to blend.”

  “You could never blend, angel. You’re too fucking beautiful.”

  Her lips opened on a puff of air.

  He couldn’t resist another minute. Leaning in, he brushed his lips over hers. The overpowering need between them sparked and she swayed into the kiss, curling her hand around his nape to drag him down.

  By the time he came up for air, his cock was pounding and he had her nipple pinched between his fingers. She gulped at his touch, and he only applied more pressure, knowing just how she liked it.

  Wasabi.

  Goddammit.

  He tore from the kiss and skidded his hand back to her waist. It took moments for her eyes to register that he wasn’t giving her the mind-blowing foreplay she needed.

  “You use our safe word for your work.”

  Guilt rippled over her delicate features. “I had to give him something on the fly, and it was the only thing I could think of. Don’t be angry, Crew. It brought you to me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did you want to bring me to you? After breaking apart our marriage?”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “I had to do it, Crew. I was getting in too deep and couldn’t drag you into danger.”

  “I was already in danger,” he practically thundered.

  A door closed behind her eyes, cutting him off from the emotion he needed to see.

  “I couldn’t know that. You weren’t exactly truthful with me either,” she said.

  “I didn’t have a choice. I’m black ops, but deeper underground.”

  She lightly shook her head in apparent confusion. “What does it mean to be deeper underground?”

  “It means not one of us is on the radar anymore. Not on any map. We don’t exist, Teigen. They call us dead men walking.”

  Confusion blasted through her eyes. “But if you don’t exist…how can you be married?”

  Jaw flexing, he cupped her cheek. “That’s just it. I’m not supposed to be. Now we need to find out why they let me be the exception.”

  * * * * *

  Teigen was so tired, even her hair felt limp from exhaustion. She didn’t even care that she was sitting on a dirt floor in a hut with only a few pieces of furniture. The stone wall was as good as any pillow in a luxury hotel.

  As soon as she got a chance, she needed to thank Sparrow for allowing her to remain in that safehouse until they got Crew back. She also needed to gain his agreement for her to contact her handler, or at least get word to him that she was alive, even if her op was in the toilet.

  She closed her eyes and let the murmur of male voices lull her.

  From what she did hear, they weren’t saying anything sensitive—who could blame them after Sophia’s betrayal?

  For the hundredth time she wished she’d never begged Crew to rescue the scientist. And while she understood Blackout had no choice but to keep her close, Teigen could barely stand to look at the woman after what she’d done.

  The scent of food—garlic and tomatoes—wafted under her nose. Her eyes popped open and she stared at a small tray of food.

  A military ration.

  She followed the strong, capable hand holding the tray up to a thick wrist and then to a forearm roped with veins and sinew.

  Crew.

  “Here, angel. You need to eat something.”

  She roused and accepted the dish. “Spaghetti? You made me spaghetti, baby?”

  The endearment flowed off her tongue so easily that she didn’t realize it until she caught the flash of Crew’s smile.

  “Your favorite.” He produced a fork like a magician pulling a quarter out of nowhere.

  With a small smile, she took the utensil and raked the tines through the pasta coated with red sauce.

  Crew plopped to the floor beside her, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He tore open his own ration.

  She took a test bite, rolling the flavors around in her mouth, and found it wasn’t as unpalatable as she expected.

  “How is it?” he asked.

  Mouth full, she made a noise of approval. When she swallowed, she said, “It’s been a while since I ate my favorite dish. While traveling, I always promise myself that when I get home I’ll order spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread from Michelangelo’s.”

  He glanced up at her, his stare direct and intense. “But you don’t?”

  “I don’t get much downtime.”

  Creases of concern ringed the outer edges of his eyes. “I could choke whoever recruited you into this dangerous game.”

  Her insides fluttered at his harsh yet empty threat. It was never so evident to her that Crew was dangerous as it was right now.

  “I could have backed out anytime. I chose not to.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her. “Why?”

  She took another bite while mulling over how to respond. How many times had she asked herself why she did this work? Teigen wasn’t a thrill-seeker. She hated amusement park rides and haunted houses, and cracking sensitive correspondence for the government was about as terrifying as it got.

  Sure, she enjoyed the thrill of breaking a code. But that didn’t make up for the cloud of fear hanging over her every single day of her life.

  She met Crew’s gaze. “You weren’t happy just being a Navy officer. You had to push yourself and become a SEAL. Then you took the offer to move to Blackout when you could have remained with your SEAL team.”

  His chest inflated and he stopped stirring the sauce packet into his own pasta. “I knew I could do more good.”

  She nodded. “So did I.”

  She twirled the pasta on her fork but didn’t bring it to her lips. “I feel guilty, Crew. This is all my fault. We wouldn’t be hiding out if I hadn’t insisted you rescue Sophia.”

  She threw a look across the space to the corner where the woman lay on her side facing the wall. Teigen wanted to feel sorry for her, but she was too angry.

  “You thought it was right. You’re not the first person to make a mistake.”

  “I also feel responsible for her calling the terrorists. I saw her with the phone; I should have run over and ripped it out of her hand. But I’ve been making a lot of wrong decisions lately, and I thought that would only add to the list. Besides, I thought she was calling her parents even though we were ordered not to.”

  He swiped some sauce off his hard lips with his tongue. The manly action had her pussy contracting with need all over again. One quickie up against a wall with Crew was not enough.

  Focus on the conversation, she told herself.

  She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “How does one even go about getting phone numbers for terrorists, anyway?”

  Crew’s jaw muscle flexed, a dead giveaway that he was holding his anger inside. “I don’t know. Maybe in the course of sleeping her way through the terrorist organization, she exchanged digits with a few.”

  Her jaw dropped. “That’s a little mean.”

  “What did you want me to say? She called 1-800-TERRORIST? I hear they have a safe word to make sure you get through to the right operator.”

  She bit down on her lip but a small giggle escaped anyway. “It’s mayo.”

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “Not everyone’s safe word is a condiment, angel.”

  She couldn’t hold back another laugh. Several of the guys turned their heads to look at her, smiles on their faces. She ducked her head, hiding her happiness that they were thawing toward her.

  Crew nudged her arm. “You should finish eating. Rule one of Blackout is you eat when you get the chance.”

  “I’m not in Blackout.”

  “You are today.” In one big bite, he devoured most of the slice of bread that came with the meal.

  She watched him chew for a moment, thinking of touching Crew. He was bigger and more intense than when she’d last seen him. She felt like she didn’t know him at all and yet knew everything.

  She fought back a shiver of desire. God, she missed her husband. The way he walked, talked, ate and fucked made her fall for him at first sight. Then the emotional stuff came in a rush as soon as they started sharing their hopes and dreams. The whirlwind didn’t fade even after their first year of marriage.

  Her head was still spinning just being in his presence.

  But those hopes and dreams they’d shared were different now. What did a man who wasn’t even supposed to have a wife dream of? Did he long for that house on the beach they shared on the rare times he came home on leave? Did he want kids or a dog anymore? Could he even have a real family?

  He ran the last bite of bread around the pouch, swiping up the remainder of the sauce. He popped the food in his mouth and smiled at her around the bite.

 

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