Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) Read online

  “Was it Richard Stockton’s men?”

  “There were six of them, and they piled into an SUV and drove away the moment we all saw the police lights flashing as their car came up the hill,” Lijah continued briskly as he saw Callie wasn’t about to be fobbed off with his attempt at levity. “But yes, I’d say it was a pretty good guess that Stockton sent them.”

  “Are the others okay?”

  “All good.” Lijah nodded. “I think a couple of Stockton’s men might be seriously injured, but I doubt they’re going to report it to the police any time soon.”

  “I’m just so glad you’re all alive!” Callie’s arms tightened about his neck.

  “That makes two of us,” Lijah drawled, walking into the bedroom still holding her in his arms, kicking the door shut behind him. He flicked on the switch that turned on the two muted wall lights behind the bed. “Callie, is that a loaded pistol you’re waving about behind my head?” His eyes narrowed.

  “This?” She held the gun up in front of his face.

  “Jesus Christ, Callie!” He wrested the pistol out of her hand before placing it out of harm’s way on the bed. “Are you trying to finish what Stockton’s men started?”

  “I was going to use it to defend— What do you mean?” she prompted sharply. “Are you injured? Have you been shot?” she gasped.

  “It’s just a flesh wound—”

  “Where?” She pulled back completely at the same time as she lowered her feet to the floor and struggled to be released from his arms. “Where were you shot?” She looked him over critically.

  “If I tell you it’s on my ass, will you offer to kiss it better?” Lijah gave her a challenging grin.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You really don’t want to play with me right now. I’m a woman on the edge, and there’s a loaded pistol in the room,” she reminded him.

  His grin turned to a chuckle and then a full-blown laugh. Callie stood maybe five inches over five feet tall, and for all his teasing a minute ago, she probably only weighed half as much as he did. He doubted that she and the loaded pistol combined could do him too much damage.

  Although that warning glint in her eyes told him he would be wise not to take the risk…

  “Something amusing you, Mr. Smith?” she challenged.

  Any more wise than explaining the reason for his humor. “A bullet grazed the back of my hand, that’s all. It’s fine, Callie.” He gave a wince as she instantly made a grab for his bandaged hand. “Jonas cleaned it up and put on the bandage once we’d gotten rid of the police.” Lijah had kept his bleeding hand in his jeans pocket during their conversation, adding to his discomfort. But he didn’t need to tell Callie that when she was already upset and, as she so succinctly put it, “on the edge.”

  Callie stared down at that bandage. Physical evidence that Lijah and his men had been involved in a gunfight this evening. It was one thing to hear gunfire, something else completely to see the physical evidence of it.

  “I know of a good way to take off some of that edge,” Lijah murmured as he moved purposefully toward her.

  Callie stood her ground as she eyed him challengingly. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Take your nightshirt off and get on the bed, and I’ll show you.” He continued to stalk toward her, a heated recklessness in the darkness of his eyes.

  Callie knew that look, knew the air of recklessness was caused by the gun battle. She felt that same heat after the last half hour of waiting to see if Lijah lived. It had been more frightening than anything she had ever suffered through before.

  More so than Michael being shot and killed?

  More than the worry over her father and then finding him only to lose him again, forever?

  Yes!

  She had cared for Michael and loved her father dearly, but if Lijah died— She couldn’t even bear the thought of it. He was too vital, too immediate, too Lijah for her to survive losing him to death too.

  Even so, she couldn’t resist challenging him a little. “The bed where the gun is?”

  He gave a slow, confident smile. “I’ll wrestle you for it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take advantage of an injured man,” she came back mockingly.

  “Get on the bed naked, and I’ll show you just how injured I am,” he drawled softly.

  He was standing so close, Callie could smell him: sweat, hot male, with an underlying odor of sex. Which, she realized belatedly, was probably coming from her, considering she hadn’t had a chance to wash or shower since they last made love together. She had been too busy worrying about whether or not Lijah would come back at all, let alone want to have sex again.

  And she didn’t care to do anything about it now either, wanted Lijah as much as he wanted her. It didn’t matter why. An adrenaline high. An affirmation of life. Didn’t matter. She wanted this, wanted Lijah.

  She held his gaze as her hands moved to the bottom of her nightshirt before lifting it up and over her head and throwing it on the floor, completely un-self-conscious in her nakedness.

  A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “Now get on the bed.”

  “You know”—she crawled onto the bottom of the bed on her hands and knees—“this macho thing of ordering me around may appeal to a lot of women but—”

  “Stay just like that!” he instructed harshly.

  Callie stilled before turning her head to look at him over her shoulder, her breath catching in her throat as she saw Lijah had already thrown off his T-shirt and that he was now unfastening his jeans. Under which she already knew he was commando.

  “Don’t move,” he bit out tightly as he pushed his jeans down his muscled thighs, revealing that he was already fiercely aroused, pre-cum glistening moistly on his purple and engorged glans.

  He looked almost pagan in the golden glow of the wall lights. His face all sharp angles, hair dark and disheveled to his shoulders, muscles taut and bulging beneath his golden skin, his cock—Oh Lord, his cock really was perfection. A work of art.

  And Callie wanted it.

  Wanted him.

  Yes, she felt vulnerable and exposed in this position, but it wasn’t anything Lijah hadn’t seen or touched before, kissed before. And was about to touch and kiss again, she hoped.

  “I’m waiting.” She wiggled her backside at him enticingly.

  His eyes glittered darkly as he moved to kneel on the bed behind her. “I’m going to lick you all over now, and you’re going to love it.”

  Callie felt the heat wash over and suffuse her whole body before centering and moistening between her thighs. “I haven’t washed—”

  “Good.” His breath was warm against her lower back. “I want to taste myself on you and in you.”

  “Oh God…” Callie trembled as she felt the slow moist rasp of his tongue from her lower back all the way down and forward to where her clit throbbed and ached.

  “Lean on your elbows, put your head down, and push your ass in the air,” Lijah encouraged gruffly as he took a firm hold of her hips. “Good girl. Now close your eyes and just feel.”

  The pleasure of that moist tongue licking and entering her was even more intense with no outside visual stimulus to distract her. Hot and wet and— “Oh God…” she groaned weakly as that moist tongue continued its intimate assault from the base of her spine to her clit, only pausing to lave and enter, until she was so sensitive, the lightest rasp was enough to cause her to shudder and tremble. “Lijah, please!”

  “Not yet, little Callie.” His wet tongue now circled and moistened virgin territory before gently probing, questioning, and receiving no protest, entered. At the same time, his hands moved from her hips to pinch and squeeze the heavy plumpness of her nipples as they angled down toward the bed.

  Callie’s orgasm released with the force of a volcano erupting, and it was just as hot and fierce.

  Lijah pushed his tongue in even farther as he twisted her nipples. That pleasure pain prolonged her orgasm, and she pushed back against that thrusting
tongue, her juices gushing freely between the plump lips of her desperately grasping channel.

  “Stay just like that.” He moved onto his knees behind her. “Part your legs a little more. That’s it,” he approved, reaching out and parting the glistening red and plump lips of her labia.

  “I need you inside me now, Lijah. Please!” she begged.

  “Here?” He took his cock in his hand and positioned it at the entrance to her channel. “Or here?” He moved back and higher, rubbing his cock against her so that his pre-cum moistened and prepared her.

  “I don’t care where!” Callie cried desperately. “Just fill me up, Lijah. Fill me now!”

  He chuckled wryly at her urgency. “I think we’ll save here for next time.” His cock rubbed tenderly over her before parting her labia and entering her in one fierce thrust.

  “Yes!” Callie hissed as she pushed back against him, taking him deeper still. “Oh God, yes.”

  Lijah grasped her hips, holding her in place to pull back and almost out before thrusting back inside her, ramping up his own pleasure as he began to pound into her harder and deeper.

  “Stroke and rub your clit for me, Callie,” he bit out between clenched teeth. “Let me feel your pleasure as you come with me inside you.”

  Callie’s hand moved tentatively to her swollen clit, uncertain, unsure—

  “Do it, Callie.” Lijah pressed his thumb into that second entrance, stretching in pleasure pain, at the same time as she began to stroke her clit, instantly sending her into a second, even fiercer, climax. “Again!” His thumb thrust in the same rhythm as his cock began to piston inside her.

  Fast and hard, taking her from one orgasm to the next, until she was sobbing from the pleasure overload. “No more, Lijah. I can’t—”

  “I’m going to come now, Callie, and you’re going to come with me,” he promised fiercely, removing his thumb to thrust two fingers inside her, the sight of her stretched fully open, completely claimed, enough to send him completely over the edge.

  His balls tightened, and the cum pumped fast and burning hot down the length of his cock at the same time as he felt Callie’s orgasm spasm and contract the sheath enclosing him, prolonging his ejaculation, continuing to thrust inside her even after he was completely drained, never wanting the pleasure to end.

  “I thought we were in the shower to get clean, not to get dirty again?” Callie looked down at Lijah almost shyly. The two of them had soaped each other all over beneath the powerful jets of the shower, and he now knelt in front of her in the huge glass cubicle, his face buried between her thighs as he licked and laved her clit.

  His eyes glowed wickedly as he glanced up at her. “But I like getting dirty with you much more than I like getting clean with you.”

  “I do too.” Embarrassed heat blossomed in her cheeks. “You seem to be having a very bad effect on me.”

  He paused in his ministrations long enough to give her a confident grin. “Complaints, Miss Morgan?”

  How could she possibly complain when Lijah had given her pleasure and taken her to places she had never known before or even dreamed of going? Having a completely naked Lijah kneeling in front of her, tonguing her, in the bright light of the bathroom was—

  “Sore?” he murmured as she drew her breath in sharply when he eased two fingers into her.

  “A little,” Callie acknowledged. “I-It’s been a long time for me.”

  “Want me to stop?” Lijah found that sensitive bunch of nerve endings inside her and stroked slowly and gently.

  “God, no!” she groaned throatily, hands clinging to his wet shoulders as that now-familiar heat began to blossom and then bloom inside her.

  Lijah focused all his attention on lightly tonguing her pulsing nubbin until he felt her walls contracting and tightening about his stroking fingers and she rode out the fullness of another orgasm.

  He knew he should stop, that the last twenty-four hours had been traumatic ones for Callie, emotionally because of losing her father and then coming face-to-face with Richard Stockton again, physically because of the intensity of their lovemaking. But giving Callie pleasure was fast becoming an addiction for him.

  She was becoming an addiction for him.

  Her taste.

  He had tasted her cream only seconds ago, and yet he licked and drank greedily again now as her juices flowed over his fingers.

  Her silky skin.

  He couldn’t seem to stop touching her, wanted to know every inch of her. Everywhere and anywhere.

  It was as if he wanted to brand her, put his mark on her, and pleasure her so thoroughly she never wanted another man to touch her.

  Which was ridiculous.

  As soon as this assignment was over, he was going to find the last kidnapper and ensure that a six-year-old-boy could stop being afraid someone would come and take him away from his parents again.

  Callie would return to England and—

  And what?

  Her father was gone, her boyfriend was gone, and her career as an art restorer had barely begun.

  So what was she returning to?

  Not your problem, Lijah, he told himself sternly as he rested his head against the dampness of Callie’s thigh. First rule of an assignment: never become personally involved with the victim or their family.

  Like he hadn’t become involved with little Alejandro?

  Well, yes, of course he had become involved, but Alejandro was a six-year-old-boy, for Christ’s sake, whereas Callie—

  He couldn’t do this now. Couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. Lives were at risk. Not just Callie’s but the team of men who were depending on him to lead them with his usual expertise and cool practicality.

  “Time for bed.” He rose to his feet to lift Callie up in his arms before stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel, and handing it to her on the way out of the bathroom.

  He had a job to do, and once the job was over, then whatever this was with Callie would be over too.

  Whatever it was.

  Chapter 16

  “Suggestions, gentlemen?”

  Callie had been grudgingly allowed to sit in on the meeting Lijah was presiding over with three of the four men from Grayson Security—Rory was still outside patrolling the grounds—but only after she had pointed out that she was the one Richard Stockton’s men had come for last night, so she needed to know what was going to happen next.

  She had slept in Lijah’s bed with him for the rest of last night, but she hadn’t been surprised to find him gone again when she woke up this morning.

  He had seemed distant after their shower together, the teasing and passion gone, as if he regretted their physical closeness. If Callie hadn’t still been so shaken by the events of the night, she would have returned to her own bedroom. But she had needed Lijah’s physical proximity last night, even if emotionally he had cut himself off from her.

  So she had stayed with Lijah in his bed, but it had seemed as if there was a brick wall between them. Of Lijah’s making. She would have welcomed snuggling up and falling asleep in his arms. Instead, he had turned on his side facing away from her and fallen asleep instantly, something she knew he had learned to do in the army. Her father had been able to do the same thing. “Sleep when you can” had been another one of his mottos, and one he had obviously trained his men to follow too.

  In contrast, Callie had lain awake for a long time in the darkness, trying to assimilate and accept the changes that had happened in her life in just three days.

  She had lost so much these past six months.

  In exchange, she had found Lijah.

  Except Lijah didn’t want to be found. He certainly didn’t want to be in a relationship with any woman.

  Toughen up, Callie, she now told herself sternly. She had never been into self-pity parties, had spent the last six months in a state of inertia. It was time to kick ass. Richard Stockton’s arrogant ass.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation between the
four men. Or rather, argument, because Lijah was arguing fiercely against a suggestion from one of the other men. From the direction Lijah was glaring, it had to have been Jonas, the one who had the look of a Native American—in the British army?—with his long flowing black hair and bronzed skin, the latter emphasizing the sky-blue of his eyes.

  “Surely, in the circumstances, that’s Callie’s call, not ours?” Jonas replied softly to Lijah’s last comment.

  “I’m in charge of this team and—”

  “And I’m the one Richard Stockton wants to silence, because without my testimony, there’s no one to speak against him. Whatever you know is only hearsay,” Callie pointed out. “So whatever this plan is, I think I should hear it, don’t you?”

  He turned that glare on her. “There is no fucking plan without my say-so, and I’m saying no to this one.”

  She looked at him for several seconds before turning to Jonas. “Your plan is…?”

  “Lijah’s right, it’s more of a suggestion than a plan.” Jonas shrugged broad shoulders. “Stockton is going to keep sending his men until he gets to you. I’m suggesting we circumvent that by arranging for the two of you to meet to discuss the situation.”

  Lijah stood so suddenly, his chair scraped noisily across the marble-tiled kitchen floor and hit the kitchen unit behind. “Over my dead fucking body is Callie going anywhere near that murdering bastard!”

  Callie wasn’t too enamored of the idea herself. She had absolutely no wish to look into those killer-cold eyes ever again.

  But Jonas was right. Richard Stockton wasn’t going to stop now until he had silenced her forever. And he didn’t care how many of Lijah’s men, including Lijah, he had to eliminate to achieve his goal.

  These men had been outnumbered the night before, and it was pure skill and experience on their part that had prevented any of them from being killed or seriously injured. They might not be so lucky to get away with a graze on Lijah’s hand the next time they came under attack.

  “The meeting would take place out in the open, where we can ensure that you’re protected,” Jonas continued doggedly. “We’d have you fitted with a wire so we could listen in and record the conversation, and hopefully get some sort of admission of guilt from Stockton. In my experience, men like him enjoy boasting about what they’ve done. It couldn’t be used in a court of law, of course, but playing it for Daddy Stockton might be enough to put a stop to Junior’s nocturnal…activities, and at the same time ensure he retires permanently from public life.”