Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(69)

She smiled at him when she was done. “So. Looks like we did OK, right? As far as dangerous carnival rides go, I mean.”

He shook his head, took the glass, put it on the floor, and pulled her hand onto his lap, curling her fingers around the breadth of his penis. He was hard again. Very. His heart throbbed under her hand.

“That wasn’t the ride,” he said. “That was just the lead-in.”

Her breath got caught in her constricted lungs. “Ah. I, uh, see.”

He splayed her knees open and slid his hand up her inner thigh until he reached her muff, and then slid two fingers inside her *, tenderly parting the gleaming folds. “That was just to soften you up.”

Her chest hitched with nervous laughter. “I had no idea that I needed, ah, softening up. What, am I too hard? Too tough?”

“No.” He piled pillows behind her shoulders and rolled onto her body, settling between her thighs, shoving them apart wider. “Just tight,” he murmured. “Just small. You hug me.” He nudged the head of his cock between her * lips, teasing it deeper, lazily swirling himself until he was slick and gleaming. “But you’ll take me now. Right?”

She arched, wordlessly trying to take in more of him.

He grabbed her chin, forced her to stare into his eyes. “Right?”

She could only nod, but even that evidently wasn’t enough for him. He still waited. She swallowed. “Right,” she whispered.

“Good.” He thrust inside her, a slow, wonderful, tight slide.

His cock stroked and squeezed and caressed her inside parts, surging deliciously in and out. Every swirling move a sweet, wet, candy-lick kiss. She bucked and squirmed in delight, straining for more.

He kissed her ravenously as her legs twined, trapping him closer.

He surged in deep, his hips jarring hers. She gasped with delight.

“Now’s when the carnival ride begins,” he said.





Nadia waited in the dark, her vehicle hidden by boughs of evergreen and darkness. She was in an altered state, as alert as a coiled snake, repeating DeepWeave DeepCalm sequences. She’d doubled her dose of the endorphin and serotonin regulators, too, to guard against inconvenient surges of emotion for Reggie and Cal. She felt their loss, but after taking the patches, it felt very far away.

Headlights sliced and flickered through dense trees. She pressed down on the excitement before it unsettled her. She had gotten lucky. Only two hours, and her target was on the move.

It had taken Hobart forever to drag together what scraps of information were available about Alex Aaro, and Hobart was the absolute best at information mining. They’d pinpointed his residence, but she knew better than to get physically within a mile of the place. If it took that long to get dirt on him, then he was very good. Careful to the point of pathologically paranoid. Ex-Ranger, raised in an arms-dealing Mafia family, security specialist. She would be very careful.

The approach had to be subtle. It required luck, patience, cunning. And here he was. Crawling out of his den, after only two hours. Her heart rate kicked up as she saw the vehicle turn, and she lifted the infrared binocs to check the vehicle. He drove a Chevy Tahoe, a bland is-it-gray-or-is-it-bronze color. And yes . . . the figure in the driver’s seat was him, and he was alone. More luck. Yes.

Hope thrilled her. This could be the successfully completed mission that would get her noticed by King. Maybe more than noticed.

Like Zoe. She wondered if the rumors were true. That Zoe had been so blessed, so graced. It wasn’t fair, after the way the stupid bitch had f*cked up four years ago. She’d been buried at the nuthouse to pose as a nurse, and now he was rewarding her? Making her team leader? While Nadia was special series, with a string of successful missions under her belt. A spotless assignment history. Unfair. Particularly since Zoe was putting on airs now, as team leader. Carrying on like the favored concubine. Stupid, arrogant cow.

Her tires crunched as she drove through the blind of pine boughs and pulled onto the road after Aaro. Maybe her time would come. Maybe it wouldn’t. None of them were worthy of that supreme blessing. She would do her duty, with all her heart, expecting nothing in return.

Although she did have an uneasy feeling that she might have to prove herself all over again, after what had happened to Reggie and Cal. King might be wondering about the viability of the entire pod.

In truth, Nadia had a guilty secret that tormented her dreams. She had not betrayed her podmate, but she’d known about Reggie’s secret rebellion. Natasha’s, too. Both of her podmates had actually sneaked outside books and read them, for almost a year before the all-important age fourteen testing date. It was an unspeakable offense that called for instant culling. Reggie had pulled himself together, covered his ass, avoided the cull. Natasha had not been so lucky. On her, it had shown.

But she, Nadia. She had never done such a wrong, stupid thing. Never. She had stayed pure, absolutely obedient. Perfect.

Her intense awareness of her own virtue made her almost giddy.

She used night vision goggles as she drove, keeping a careful visual on his taillights. As soon as he reached a major intersection and turned, she flipped her lights on and hurried to keep up.

He was pulling in at . . . oh, God, yes. Thank you, thank you, yes! A bar. Couldn’t be better. She was being tongue-kissed by Fate tonight.

She pulled over, waiting for him to get out of his vehicle and go inside before pulling into the parking lot. She parked and opened her purse to organize herself. She had to get him alone, preferably at his home, to download the software onto his phone. If Fate continued to be amorous, perhaps she could plant some other devices as well. She had the spray kit, the quick-acting knock-out pill, and a tasteless, odorless hypnotic pill with aphrodisiac properties. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t need any of them. After all, she herself was the aphrodisiac.