HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11) Read online

  A moan vibrated in her throat as his hands roamed her body. Such strong hands. Such competent, pleasure-inducing hands. She’d clutched his bare arms for support when he first kissed her, but now her fingers hooked into his towel and let it drop. She reached for him, and he groaned as her hands closed around him.

  So hard. So hot. She wanted to drop to her knees and take him in her mouth, but his grip on her didn’t ease. Instead, he ripped her T-shirt up and over her head. Her bra followed in an instant. All without breaking their kiss for more than a second.

  When he swept her off her feet and into his arms, she gasped. She hadn’t expected it, but maybe she should have. Johnny had always been dominant in the bedroom. Whenever she’d taken control, she’d known it was because he let her. Because it pleased him at that moment to allow her to do what she wanted.

  Now, however, she knew she wasn’t going to get to do anything he didn’t let her do. And he wasn’t going to let her make him come first. It wasn’t how he was wired. He was an alpha male, all decisive and macho, and his primary goal in any sexual encounter was to make her melt into a puddle of orgasmic bliss.

  He dropped her on the bed and reached for the button to her tactical pants. For a second, his eyes searched hers.

  “Anything you need to tell me?”

  She knew he was talking about the scar. Her pulse thumped. Guilt flared. “No, nothing.”

  Her jerked her pants down her legs and stopped cold. “A tattoo,” he said. “A fucking tattoo.”

  “Is that a problem?” A full-color dragon wrapped around her thigh. She’d gotten it to remind herself that she was tough and capable and wouldn’t be defeated. That it also covered the site of her childhood scar—which had faded to white in the years before she’d had the tattoo done—was a bonus.

  He traced her skin where the scar had been. There was nothing left to give it away, not even a ridge.

  He laughed disbelievingly. “I know you didn’t have that done in the past couple of days, but it sure is a coincidence.”

  She started to push herself up and reach for the comforter. He stopped her with one word. “No.”

  The command in his voice sent a shiver down her spine. And a thrill of anticipation back up the same channel. But she wasn’t as biddable as she’d once been. She sat up anyway. She did not, however, pull the cover over her body.

  “You aren’t my boss, John Mendez. If you want to stop this, we can.”

  Such brave words. She didn’t mean it, however. She didn’t want to stop. She was far too wet and far too needy to stop.

  He yanked her pants the rest of the way off and dropped them. “No, I really don’t.”

  He pushed her backward with one hand. She resisted for half a second, just to spite him, but then she obeyed. Her gaze strayed to his cock. It was as beautiful as she remembered. Thick, hard, and capable of giving her the most insane pleasure.

  He put a knee on the bed—and then he straddled her, her hips trapped between those knees. She reached for his cock, but he gripped her wrists and shoved them onto the pillows.

  “No touching,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Everything. Everything.

  “I want your cock inside me. I want to feel you deep and hard…” Her breath caught. “I want to come. It’s been a long time since I’ve come with anyone but myself.”

  “Show me,” he commanded, letting her wrists go.

  She gaped at him. And then she touched herself, her fingers sliding against her clit. She bit her lip as fire streaked through her. It felt good, but not as good as it would when he did it.

  “I could do this alone,” she moaned. “I don’t need you at all.”

  “You could. But you don’t want to.” He took her wrist again and stopped her from stroking her pussy. When he sucked her fingers into his mouth, her belly clenched tight. “I wanted to lick you first,” he told her when he finished. “But right now I think I’d rather fuck you.”

  “God, yes,” she said, her body trembling with need and anticipation. Because as much as she might like to feel that beard against her tender flesh, to have his tongue lapping at her and driving her over the edge, she had a much stronger need to be connected to him more intimately.

  His body inside her body. Face-to-face. Breath mingling, limbs wrapped around each other. Mouths fused together, tongues stroking as bodies strained.

  But she should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. He rolled her onto her belly, tucked a pillow under her hips to lift them—and touched his mouth to the back of her neck. She dropped her head to the side, moaning.

  Fingers glided down her spine, slipped over her ass, and then around to flick her swollen clit. His tongue continued to do things to her neck. When he bit into her shoulder—lightly, sensuously—she moaned louder.

  “So fucking pretty, Kat.”

  Kat was her name now, had been for a very long time, but she wanted him to call her Valentina again. Just once. She wanted to hear her true name on his lips the way she once had. She wanted to hear the love and devotion he put into every syllable, the way he dragged out the a when he was whispering to her.

  “Johnny,” she said, and he stilled. She panicked. Maybe she should call him John instead. Maybe she shouldn’t say his name at all.

  But he moved his mouth over to her spine, glided his lips along the sensitive groove all the way to the small of her back. It didn’t last long. He brought his mouth back to her neck. This time he nibbled the lobe of her ear as shivers wracked her body.

  “We don’t have a condom,” he said.

  “Bathroom,” she told him. She’d ransacked the drawers out of habit. Yuri had everything in there.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered as the weight of his body disappeared from the bed.

  She stayed put. He was back in a heartbeat, his body lowering onto hers again, his front to her back. He skimmed his mouth down her spine again while she shivered, and then he gripped her hips and lifted her ass in the air. She started to rise up on her arms, but he pushed her head back down onto the pillow.

  She wanted to turn around and tell him no, not like this, not this time. And she wanted it this way worse than she allowed herself to admit. Panic stole into her lungs as his cock slipped against her seam. She wanted him, and she feared him too.

  Feared what being possessed by him was going to do to her heart. To her soul.

  “You okay with this?” he asked her, the tip of his cock barely penetrating her body.

  She loved that he asked. He needed to be in charge, and yet he asked for her permission at the last second before it was too late. Her fears melted away. Her body craved his.

  “Yes.”

  He eased his way into her, filling her, stretching her. And then he was still, his cock throbbing deep inside her. She began to wonder if he was having second thoughts—was it possible for a man to have second thoughts at this point? Was he capable of pulling out and walking away?

  Yeah, he was. He was John Mendez, the baddest-ass warrior she’d ever known. He had more self-discipline than a priest. If he changed his mind, he’d walk. She held her breath, wondering.

  And then his fingers strummed her clit and fire streaked across her skin. When he began to move, to pump slowly in and out of her body, she didn’t know how long she’d last. She gripped the pillow and buried her face in it to muffle the sounds she was making. Her heart flew. Her eyes burned. Her throat closed up with emotion.

  His hand came down on her ass, a stinging slap that shocked her as much as it sent her arousal into another sphere. She needed that slap. Needed it to shake loose the emotional chains and let her enjoy the pure physical delight of sex with him.

  “Yes,” she gasped as he slapped her ass again. “More.”

  He didn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t have wanted it then.

  He slapped her ass once more, and then he gripped her hip
s and drove harder into her.

  “Oh hell yes,” she moaned. This time she did lift herself up onto her hands, driving backward onto his cock. He didn’t chastise her for it. She wouldn’t have listened anyway.

  It felt too good, too amazing. But then his fingers dug into her hips and stopped her from moving. Another moment and he slipped from her body.

  “What the hell?” Kat cried out.

  Chapter 24

  Mendez flipped her over. Her lithe body was pink, flushed with the heat of arousal. The silver locket he’d so recently given her gleamed between her breasts. Heavy-lidded eyes worked to focus on him. Wouldn’t take her but a second since he’d deprived her of his cock.

  His aching cock that was ready to explode. But that wasn’t why he’d withdrawn. He had a sudden need to see her face as he fucked her. To watch those eyes as they lit up with pleasure. He also needed to taste her nipples. And he wished like hell he’d gone with his first plan to lick her into oblivion, her sweet taste on his tongue as her body detonated.

  “We’re not done,” he told her roughly. And then he entered her while she wrapped her legs around his waist. He held himself above her, not moving. This was sex. Fucking. Nothing more than a release he desperately needed.

  And yet there was a thought chipping at the back of his brain that he couldn’t shake.

  It’s more than sex.

  He let his gaze slide to her thigh. She’d gotten a goddamn tattoo right where the scar would be if she were really Valentina. There was no way for him to ever know the truth. She was Kat. And he was caught up in her in ways he didn’t want to be but couldn’t seem to extract himself from.

  Had Ian Black known this would happen when he’d sent the two of them to New Orleans?

  She reached up and ghosted a finger over his lips. “What are you thinking about, John?”

  “You.” It was certainly true.

  Her eyes clouded. She knew what he meant. And yet she didn’t know as much as she thought. “Don’t. Not now. Please.”

  She was right. He lowered himself on his hands, hovering above her as if he were doing a push-up, and sucked a pink nipple into his mouth. She arched her back, giving him better access as he flicked his tongue against her flesh. She wriggled her hips, trying to make him move, until it was too much and he had to move.

  Their mouths fused as he pumped harder into her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then let go and grabbed his ass. He lost whatever control he might have been holding on to. He fucked her hard, driving her across the bed as their bodies lifted and slammed together again and again. It was bliss and need and hot dirty sex all wrapped into one stunning, ball-draining package.

  He just had to hold on until she came.

  “Johnny,” she cried out as her orgasm slammed into her. He could feel it happening, feel the tightening of her body and the spasms gripping his cock as she shattered around him. Her back arched, her legs shook, and her moans grew in intensity. “Don’t stop,” she gasped.

  As if he would. He tilted her up with a hand under her ass and drove into her, grinding against her clit as their bodies slammed together. The tension in her limbs drained away as she went limp with satisfaction.

  He couldn’t hold back another moment. He stroked into her rapidly, his release starting at the base of his spine, rolling out to his balls. His brain buzzed. Sweat popped out on his chest and neck. His orgasm hit him like an Abrams tank, leaving him gasping and spent and wondering what the fuck had just happened to him.

  He couldn’t move. Kat couldn’t seem to move either. They lay tangled together, arms and legs entwined. He was still hard inside her, still ready to go again. Not impossible at his age and with his level of fitness, but not exactly a guarantee either. Like most men no longer in their twenties, he needed recovery time.

  Not with her. Right now, if she wasn’t finished, he could keep going until she was.

  Eventually he managed to shift to the side so as not to crush her. He was still hard, but he’d have to move soon and take care of the condom. Kat opened her eyes to look up at him. They were shiny with moisture. A low-level sensation of panic rolled through him.

  “No crying,” he told her.

  She sniffed. “I wasn’t going to, asshole.”

  He didn’t believe that for a second—but no tears fell and relief poured through him. The sex had been pretty intense. Maybe that’s what the glassy eyes were about.

  “You okay?” he asked, just to be sure.

  “I’m fine. Honestly.”

  He traced a finger along her collarbone, over the locket chain, even though he told himself he should disengage from this madness right now. Get up and get dressed. Put the whole thing behind him and get on with the mission. Time to Charlie Mike this trip and get back to work. Time was running out.

  “Good. I wouldn’t want you to be upset.”

  “I’m not. But are you?” she asked. “Fine, I mean?”

  Was he? “Yep. Maybe I can think again,” he added. “Now that the blood’s returning to my brain.”

  She laughed. “Makes two of us.”

  He didn’t like how intimate this thing between them felt. “I don’t think we should do this again. Too distracting and too dangerous. Maybe when it’s all over…”

  Except that was probably a bad idea too. She was one of Black’s Bandits, and he hoped to return to his job as the commander of a top secret organization. He couldn’t fuck a former Russian FSB agent turned mafia enforcer turned mercenary while having access to the things he normally had access to.

  Her expression didn’t change, but he felt the sudden chill in the air. “I agree completely. Too complicated.” She patted his arm. “It’s only sex. I can get that anywhere. Now, if you don’t mind shifting a bit more, I want to get dressed before your friend returns.”

  Chapter 25

  By the time Yuri Budayev returned, they were dressed and waiting for him in the living quarters. He came in smiling, looking far more like a poor old farmer than a wealthy arms dealer. Kat watched him with Johnny. He seemed genuinely pleased to see the man who’d once saved him. A good thing for them, certainly.

  Not that she wouldn’t watch the Tiger for signs of treachery. One wrong move and she’d pop him in the head with a bullet. But the fact he hadn’t forced them to disarm was a point in his favor.

  “Come,” he said to them. “You can tell me what the trouble is after we eat.”

  Kat followed behind the two men as they walked together and talked. Her eyes were pretty much glued to Johnny’s ass. Such a fine ass. An ass she’d gripped in both hands not so long ago as he’d thrust into her again and again.

  A shudder rolled from her scalp to her toes and back again. A good shudder. The kind of shudder that said she’d been thoroughly satisfied and couldn’t wait to do it again.

  She frowned. There was no again. There couldn’t be. She couldn’t take the emotional hit anyway. That’s why she’d totally fobbed it off when he’d said they shouldn’t have sex again—but, oh, maybe they could when the mission was over. She’d been hurt, and she didn’t like it. So she’d told him she could get sex anywhere and then acted like it hadn’t been anything special.

  He’d frowned, but he’d moved so she could go clean up and get dressed again. She’d even returned to the bedroom to dress in front of him since her clothes were strewn across the floor, lazily pulling on underwear and pants and then her bra and shirt. She’d stretched her arms over her head, letting her breasts jiggle as she slipped into her bra. She’d taken her time because she could feel his eyes boring into her.

  She’d pretended the sex had been ordinary, but it had been spectacular. Like always. From the first time they’d frantically ripped at each other’s clothes over twenty years ago to now, there’d never been another man who made her feel what he did.

  The guilt waiting in the deepest recesses of her soul flared its ugly head. She’d lied to him. Let him think he was with someone new. Was it fair that she was the only on
e who’d known it wasn’t their first time? That she had all the memories while he had none? Or maybe he’d been remembering those times while also thinking he was fucking her twin.

  Still, she knew the answer to the question of whether or not it was fair. And she didn’t like what it said about her that she’d allowed it to happen. That she still wasn’t telling him the truth.

  They reached the dining room and Yuri gestured to their seats. A beautiful older woman walked into the room from another door, carrying a tray, and Kat stiffened. There’d been someone else here the whole time? They hadn’t seen or heard a peep out of anyone. Were there more of them?

  And what had they heard when she and Johnny were in bed together? Because they hadn’t exactly been quiet. She hadn’t, anyway.

  Johnny must have had the same expression on his face because Yuri laughed. “She is deaf,” he said. “She cannot hear what we say. She does read lips, however, so be careful.”

  The woman was looking at Yuri, so she grinned. He swatted her on the bottom as she disappeared again.

  “She loves to cook, so I do not bring in anyone else to do it.”

  “Your wife?” Johnny asked.

  Yuri took a slug of liquid from the glass she’d set in front of him. “She refuses my proposals so no, not my wife.” He uncovered a dish. The smells wafting from it were heavenly. “Thankfully she is not so stingy when it comes to sharing my bed.”

  The woman returned, bearing more dishes. By the time the table was groaning, she stopped and signed something to Yuri. He signed back. Then she walked out.

  “She knows we must talk business, so she is leaving us to do so.”

  “It can wait until after we eat,” Johnny said, though Kat knew he was growing impatient. “She should join us.”

  Yuri shook his head. “No, she ate while preparing the meal. She says she is not hungry. Now eat.”

  They dug into the shchi, the cabbage soup flavored with meat, vegetables, and hot spices. There were also pelmeni, little doughy pillows filled with minced beef, lamb, and pork—similar to Chinese dumplings, actually, but not quite—and roasted chicken with marinated vegetables. By the time they got to dessert, Kat was too full to have even a bite of it.