Page 105 of Peace Under Fire

A ripple of electricity shot straight from the skin he was suckling to the sheath he was stroking. She started rocking her hips, driving his finger deeper. He added a second finger, stretching her, and then those clever callused fingers started scraping and rubbing. Tingles spread out in waves. Good lord, she could feel her pulse down there, feel the muscles of her vagina quiver and contract. That spiraling tension cranked higher and higher. Her vision went gray and then black.

The urgent need to be filled built. She pushed down on his fingers, trying to force them deeper.

She vaguely heard him make some kind of sound—like a grunt or a growl.

And then the internal quivers turned into spasms and her body disintegrated. Or at least that’s what it felt like. One long, violent spasm and poof, she was just a floating blob of consciousness with no body attached.

The disconnected feeling faded quickly. The tiny quivers and quakes rippling through her pussy drew her back to the moment.

At some point, she’d collapsed on top of him and was plastered across his torso. She sighed, too replete to move. He didn’t seem to mind her weight on top of him, or the way her sweaty skin was sticking to his.

So that’s what an orgasm felt like—glorious and effervescent.

Would it feel even better—richer and fuller—if he’d been filling her with his penis instead of his fingers. She couldn’t wait to find out.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Pure male satisfaction resonated through each word.

Before she had a chance to pretend disappointment, the cell phone he’d left on the coffee table buzzed. He sighed and leaned over to look at the name lighting up the screen.

“It’s Tex,” he told her, stretching out an arm to grab the phone. He put it on speaker.

Her heart, which had slowed, picked up speed again. Maybe Tex had news about her sisters.

“Hey,” Jacob said.

Before he got more out, Tex was talking. “Lucky made contact through a phone in Tichewa, Peru a couple hours ago. Grumpy and Alpha squad are already wheels up out of Ecuador on target for a 0500 rendezvous. If you want a meet and greet, I can get you on a MAC flight out of San Diego headed to Sao Paulo. But you need to get your ass to the Los Alamos airport ASAP. The connection is tight.”

Jacob sat straight up, dislodging Mandy from his chest. “He okay?”

“He has some eye issues, but he’s breathing and alert,” Tex said. The clacking of a keyboard was so loud, Mandy figured he had his phone on the desk beside his computer.

Mandy slowly slid off Jacob’s chest and stood, watching as Jacob pulled up his underwear and pants. Their interlude was over. He was completely concentrating on the conversation with Tex.

The sudden shift in focus wasn’t a surprise. Lucky was his friend, the man Jacob had asked her to find. Of course he’d go to him.

As he should.

There was no reason for this sudden sense of foreboding, or the eerie certainty that everything was about to change. Yet, that certainty was there, steadfast and terrifying.

She wished she’d been braver. That she’d skipped a couple of steps on the sensual journey they’d been taking. She wished she’d taken him fully inside her body this last time and experienced her first orgasm while grinding against his penis instead of his fingers.

Because once he walked out that door, she might not get that chance again.

CHAPTER 28

Mandy took a deep breath, hoping to calm the urgent beat of her heart and release some of the pressure in her chest. Patti’s sketch book sat on Brick’s kitchen table. It was open to the drawing of her and Jacob. The one that depicted him dead and her screaming. She took another deep, slow breath, just like the relaxation app on Alaska’s phone suggested. Her heartbeat took off even faster, and the tension inside her chest increased to the point of nausea.

“Honestly, Mandy,” Alaska said in a warm, soothing tone. But there was worry in her eyes when she glanced up from the sketch pad. “Maybe you shouldn’t be combing through these.” She looked down again, her lips twisting in distaste. “There’s no question your sister is a talented artist, but the images are so violent. They certainly don’t have a calming effect.”

While Alaska’s assessment was correct, she didn’t know Mandy’s history or her family’s abilities. Patti wasn’t any fonder of the drawings than Alaska was. Her sister hated the reminder of what was to come, or what had already happened.

But maybe Alaska was right. There was nothing in the drawings to explain this unbearable anxiety. She still didn’t recognize the t-shirt she was wearing in the sketch, which meant that vision wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Nor did she recognize any of the other images strewn throughout the sketch pad either. And yeah, all these violent pictures couldn’t be conducive to relaxation.

“He’s coming back. You know that, right?” Alaska’s voice rose slightly, like she was confused that Mandy would even question that. “He’s called you every night. A man doesn’t do that if he’s lost interest.”

Alaska had picked up on Mandy’s tension within hours of Jacob dropping her off at Brick’s cabin. What she hadn’t picked up on was the reason for the anxiety. She assumed it was Jacob leaving.

Mandy wasn’t sure herself what was causing the heart palpitations and raging pressure. But she didn’t think it was about Jacob leaving. All she knew for sure was that Jacob had been gone for four days now, and the certainty that they were on a collision course with disaster grew stronger with every hour.

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