Page 43 of Callen's Captive
“On my honor. I won’t touch you. Not unless you want me to.” He grinned, and her cheeks turned red.
She eased onto the bed, lying down beside him. He spooned her, placing an arm over her stomach, just as he had last night. She remained tense and stiff, even as he burrowed his face into the back of her neck, right below her hair.
His breath must have hit her in the wrong spot for she giggled and squirmed. It was a glorious sound to hear coming from her, so he blew against the back of her neck, and that caused her to squirm again.
“Not fair,” she said, her voice light once more, like the Kate who had no trouble telling him off one minute and sucking on his finger the next.
Callen couldn’t help himself. A steady stream of breathing on her neck turned into a whole bucket-load of giggling, and the next thing he knew she was wiggling her ass against his cock. A little fun was turning into something he’d promised wouldn’t happen.
Then she stopped squirming, stopped moving altogether as his fingers danced over her stomach. Even as her body relaxed against him, she was too quiet. Was she thinking of Janie again? Or that clerk. Hell, Callen really wanted to go back there and beat the shit out of that guy, but he wouldn’t leave her, and he’d promised to try to be better, for her. She was more important than some asshole clerk.
“I’ve done more than steal their money,” she whispered.
He moved his hand down her arm until their fingers laced together. Several minutes passed with him simply holding her, then she pulled her hand out of his.
“I deal in information more than anything. It started when I was researching what happened to my parents. They were involved with some shifters. A deal or something went wrong. I still don’t know all the details. I read rumors on the dark web about files the WSSO kept on shifters. So, I hacked the WSSO.”
Hell, she talked about hacking a dangerous group like the WSSO as some people talking about going into a convenience store and buying a pack of gum. Callen continued drawing lazy circles on her stomach. He didn’t want to interrupt her, not when she was finally opening up to him.
“The more I dug into the WSSO’s files, the more I realized someone had to expose them. Not just for the propaganda that turned people like Brad and Paula into monsters, but for what the WSSO intended to do to shifters long term. Genocide, Callen. I still can’t wrap my head around how anyone could want to kill an entire group of people. But that’s part of the reason I can’t stop what I’m doing. It’s too important.”
“Shifters, not people,” he corrected. She couldn’t understand genocide because she was nothing like the humans who feared and hated shifters. His Kate was kind and caring. That was also her problem. She cared too much for everyone, more than she cared about herself.
She fell quiet again, and for a moment he thought she’d fallen asleep, until she pulled his arm tight around her, like a blanket. Kate was scared and still she refused to go with him to his pack.
“That’s how I found Anna. I was digging through their files. I read their plans for her. There have been others like Anna, good people they’ve either blackmailed or coerced into working with them. If they don’t cooperate, the WSSO destroys them.
“That’s when I started stealing their money and sabotaging them anyway I could. Destroy their database, lay trojan horses and viruses that cause crashes, loss of information, and worst of all, exposure. Except they have their connections in the media, so the files I’ve sent there never make it to the public. And what I post online is quickly taken down.”
His stomach sank. She was in over her head.
“I took something from them, something they want back.”
“Give it back,” he said immediately even as a new fear slithered up his spine.
“You don’t even know what it is.”
He closed his eyes, picturing what would happen if they caught her. How Briggs would torture her and finally kill her. His wolf clawed at him to act, to take control of the situation and protect her.
“It’s not worth it, Kate. You’re too important. Please don’t make me beg, but I will if I have to.”
She turned on her side to face him. The way her dark eyes watched him was too much for him. Before he knew it, his hands were traveling the length of her back, cupping her ass, pulling her tight against him. It didn’t take long before he rolled her on top of him, with his lips pressed to hers.
He wanted to explore every part of her, but this right here, his tongue learning her delicate, silky lips, opening to let her taste him as he tasted her was intoxicating. His cock stirred, anticipating, needing to be in her. His Kate needed slow, but not too slow or she’d think too much and pull away. Deftly, without breaking the kiss, he unbuttoned the top of her shirt, exposing her red lace bra beneath. He slipped a single finger beneath her bra to stroke the side of her breast. She moaned and rocked her body slightly, pressing against his hard cock.
When he maneuvered her under him and straddled her hips, he took a moment to really look at her. She was a vision, her hair messy, cheeks rosy, and the shirt half-open, revealing two lush breasts. Her smile though wasn’t there as she began pulling his shirt out of his pants.
“Kate?”
He didn’t know what was driving her, but this wasn’t how he wanted to be with her. She fisted his shirt in her hands and pulled him down, capturing his lips with her own. As he started to lose himself in that kiss, her hands traveled lower toward his pants.
He needed to slow her down before things got out of control. This wildness wasn’t like Kate. That was his last cohesive thought as her hand stroked him through his pants, making him so hard he ached.
Callen slid down her body, kissing a path down her neck to the smooth valley between her breasts. He circled her tight buds through her bra, pinching each when she least expected. Her moan heightened his need to claim her as his. Callen shoved the bra down, exposing creamy flesh and the dark peaks. As he pulled one tight bud into his mouth, her moaning grew. Her hands stopped moving, almost as if she didn’t know what to do. Then, she cupped his head, holding him to her breast. Her legs were opening for him and the lovely scent of her arousal filled the air.
“I never thought. . .” She was panting. “So good.”
Callen lowered his forehead to her chest and simply stayed in that position while trying to calm more than his breathing. The need to take her was overwhelming. She didn’t know what she’d been doing to him, who she was getting involved with. Her eyes were pools of uncertainty and lust all rolled together.
