Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(71)

“H-how?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t when he described, in clipped, no-bullshit terms, the brutal deaths of the Secret Service agents.

“Sweet Jesus!” she wheezed when he was finished. “Not again!”

“Abby.” He tried to pull her into his arms, but she refused to let him, refused to be comforted when six more people were dead because of her. “This doesn’t fall to you, cari?o. Wait…what do you mean not again? Has something like this happened before?”

She realized her mistake. “I-I can’t…I don’t…No. No, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ve lost them, too,” she finally managed, shaking her head.

His expression cleared, and this time when he wrapped his big hand behind her head to pull her dripping face down to his chest, she let him. Lord forgive her, but she needed him right now. Needed his warmth, his strength, his support.

Six dead…

“Shh, shh, ne?a,” he crooned, running his wide-palmed hand over her hair as she gnashed her teeth and soaked his chest. “You have to know this wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. And those agents were well aware of the risks they faced when they joined the Secret Service.”

Yes, maybe she hadn’t done anything wrong this time, but she couldn’t help but feel responsible. Those agents never would have been in Malaysia, in the same realm with a skinny bunch of bloodthirsty terrorists, if not for her. Marcy Tucker, LaVaughn Silver, Tony Bosco, and the others would still be here if she’d only—

“You’re breaking my f*cking heart, Abby.” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her completely atop him so he could wrap both arms securely around her. Her knees fell to either side of his narrow hips, scraping against the mat. “But it’s okay, mi vida.” He lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger to pepper her wet face with gentle kisses. “It’s okay to cry. I’ll kiss each tear away.”

Only when he was holding her like this, loving her like this, the last thing she wanted to do was cry. In a blinding flash of clarity that seemed to coincide with a blaze of lightning through the hut’s walls, she realized this was it. These few moments, right here, right now, were all they had left. The rain would let up soon and their time together as friends, as lovers, would end with the fury of the storm.

I’m not ready for that. Not yet. Not yet…

And despite the soul-sucking pain and grief slicing into her chest like a garden spade, she was determined to make one more beautiful memory. One that would last her a lifetime. “Make love to me again,” she whispered before claiming his lips in a deep, penetrating kiss. She could taste the salt from her tears mixing with the sweetness of the rambutans and her own flavor on his tongue.

He stilled beneath her, hesitating, even as his tongue eagerly met hers stroke for stroke.

“Touch me, Carlos,” she husked. “I need to feel your hands on me again.”

“Dios,” he growled, his hands sliding from her back to her bottom, the calluses on his palms deliciously scratchy. He grew hard in an instant. His plump plumb-shaped head pulsing insistently against her lower belly.

“Yes,” she breathed into his mouth, bracing one hand above his shoulder and using the other to reach down between them. The thick base of his cock filled her hand as she angled him toward her opening. And when the searing head of him penetrated her, filled her, stretched her, she watched him grit his jaw and arch his neck.

The move revealed his lovely Adam’s apple and the thickness of his carotid arteries beating heavily with excitement. She couldn’t help herself. She took a small, nipping bite of his toned, tan neck while simultaneously forcing his thick, solid length deeper inside her. All the way. Until she was impaled. Until she was full. Until she was stretched to the absolute limit.

“Cristo!” he grunted, grabbing her hips at the same time he reclaimed her mouth, sucking her tongue between his lips. Then, as if he could only allow her the freedom of control for so long, he ground her against him, forcing her hips back and forth, sliding himself deep and hard, rubbing her clitoris into an aching frenzy. “Ride me, Abby,” he groaned. “Ride me until I come deep inside you.”

She did as instructed. And all the while, tears leaked from her eyes because the world was a terrible place, because her people were dead, because this was it. It was all over. This was the last time she’d be with Carlos and—

Like a shot, she crested the peak and was instantly flung over the edge. She cried out from the intense, soul-shaking pleasure shooting through her body and from the heavy, heartbreaking sorrow squeezing her heart. With a grunt of victory, Carlos followed her into the abyss, pouring himself into her, sealing them together one final time.

And then, moments later, just as they were catching their breath, just as the last tremors of completion rippled through the place where they remained joined, the rain stopped as it had started…in an instant.





Chapter Nineteen


Penni listened with half an ear to the low drawl—uh, Dan had said the guy’s name was Rock, right?—sounding through the speakers of the iPhone. It still sat atop the little table inside the storage-closet-turned-interrogation-chamber. And, yes indeedie. She knew she should be paying attention to the information he was giving them with not only a whole ear, but both ears. Unfortunately, she was too distracted—and mortified—by her recent behavior in the ladies’ room, not to mention the seven huge, handsome…eight if you counted Dan, which she totally did…soldiers occupying the tight space with her.