Bad Attitude (B.A.D. Agency #1)(28)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

This was different. He wanted to claim her, which was a completely bizarre thought. But he did. He wanted to feel her wrapped around him as he came inside her. Wanted to hear her cries of pleasure in his ear and feel her nails scoring his back.

Syd wrapped her body around his before she rolled over with him in her arms and pinned him to the mattress.

Then she pulled away.

Had she changed her mind? Steele frowned until he saw her reach over to the nightstand and grab a small foiled pouch. It was a condom.

Damn, the woman really was prepared for anything. “Where’d you get that?”

“They were in the bathroom.”

He laughed. “Jack, you sly dog.”

“Yeah, but you should be lucky that every dog has his day. Otherwise you’d be waiting until we had time to find a drugstore.”

He swept a hot glance over her lush, nak*d body that beckoned him in the worst sort of way. “Believe me, I am grateful as all get-out to him.”

Steele watched as she opened the condom, then slid it over him. His heart was racing at the thought of having her.

Syd thrilled at the sight of Steele lying on the bed, at her mercy. All that tanned, masculine flesh begged her to taste every inch of him. She toyed with his hard c*ck as he sucked his breath in sharply between his teeth. Smiling at him, she ran her hand down to his sac, where she took her time stroking and teasing him. Unable to stand it, she bent down to gently lick and tease that most sensitive spot.

She felt him tense around her as he groaned. That sound made her even hotter. She didn’t know why, but she loved giving this man pleasure.

She pulled back to look at him. “Tell me what you like, Steele.”

His eyes were dark and heated as he watched her. “I’d like for you to call me Josh.”

Those words shattered something inside her. This man hated intimacy as much as she did. Yet he was giving her a name she knew he didn’t allow anyone else to use. In that moment, she felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone.

“What else would you like, Josh?”

“To be inside you, Sydney.”

Syd locked gazes with him before she slid herself onto him. The look of ecstasy on his face thrilled her, as did the thick fullness of him finally inside her. She hissed as he drove himself in so deep that it pierced her with pleasure.

Oh yeah, this was what she’d been craving too. She ran her hands over the hard strength of his chest.

Syd leaned forward so that she could take him in even more. Deeper. It’d been so long that she’d almost forgotten just how good a man felt like this, and honestly, she couldn’t remember anyone filling her better than Steele did.

Steele pulled her hand to his lips so that he could nibble her sensitive fingertips as he watched her ride him slow and easy. Nothing had ever been sexier to her. She began to move faster against him as she felt her pleasure building. Steele lowered his hand so that he could thrust against her, driving her even closer to the edge.

When she came, she bit her lip to keep from crying out in relief.

Steele cupped her cheek in his hands as he watched the pleasure on her face. The sight of her combined with the spasms of her body around his succeeded in pushing him over the edge too.

He growled deep in his throat as he exploded inside her. Fully spent, he didn’t want to leave her. She was beautiful straddling him. He could feel the short, crisp hairs of her body tickling his skin, while her br**sts were still puckered from their play.

Their bodies still joined, Syd leaned forward to cover him. Truly there was nothing better than the sensation of her bare br**sts resting on his chest. All the pain of his injuries was completely forgotten.

But more than that, the pain of his past seemed to be dulled too, and that made no sense whatsoever to him.

Steele held her quietly as he simply enjoyed the sensation of her body covering his. Of her silken limbs entwined around him. It was one of the most peaceful moments of his life. He never wanted to get up and
leave this bed.

Syd had never been more satisfied in her life. Completely sated, she was suddenly terribly tired. She closed her eyes to rest, and before she knew it, she was sound asleep.

Steele smiled at the soft little snore. Well, that was a first. He’d never had a woman do that with him before. Usually they bitched when he fell asleep on them.

But then they’d had a long day, and she, unlike him, hadn’t had a nap.

As gently as he could without waking her or hurting his arm or shoulder, he wiggled out from under her. She sighed sleepily before she readjusted herself on the mattress. Her nak*d body was flushed from their play, her lips swollen from his kisses.

Steele took a minute to lie there beside her and just watch her. An unexpected tenderness flooded him as some foreign part wondered what it would be like to spend the rest of his life like this. Syd was a unique kind of woman.

Closing his eyes, he buried his face in her silken black hair and inhaled the sweet fragrance.

He was lying there lost in thought when all of a sudden he heart a sharp, unmistakable pop.

It was a gunshot.

Fourteen

Steele grabbed his pants from the floor and hurriedly dressed. He glanced at Syd, who was still asleep. Damn, she reallywas tired. Maybe he’d been mistaken about the sound and what had caused it. It hadn’t been particularly loud.

Still…

He reached for his handgun before he opened the door and made his way down the hallway, toward the command center.

With his weapon held out before him, he crept forward, ready for anything. He pressed the lever at the end of the hallway and waited expectantly as the door opened.

Steele’s jaw went slack at the sight that greeted him.

Jack was in the process of cleaning blood off the floor. “You smart-ass bastard,” he grumbled. “You couldn’t just sit there, could you? Oh, no, you had to go and make a mess for me to clean up. I ought to shoot you in the head again, just for good measure.”

“Jack?”

His expression completely irritated, he looked up. “I know you’re there, kid. I’m not deaf or stupid.”

Steele relaxed as he moved forward and saw the body on the other side of the couch. “What happened?”

He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “Syd had me loosen the ties on him ’cause she was afraid I was going to hurt him, and he was pretending to sleep. I was getting ready for bed when the bastard lunged at me. He thought the little old doddering man couldn’t hold his own. Well, I showed him. Now I’m sure Syd’ll have my head for breakfast. But it wasn’t my fault. What was I supposed to do? Let him kill me?”

No doubt, Syd would be pissed. Jack really had made a mess of the guy. “Yeah, she did want to question him.”

Jack paused to look up at him. “Do you really think he would have told her anything useful?”

“Not in a million years.”

“Exactly.”

After putting his gun away, Steele helped him clean up the mess, even though his shoulder protested greatly. As Jack bent to drag the body away, an awful thought went through his head.

“Hey, Jack?”

He paused to look up at him. “Yeah?”

“I’m having a bad Soylent Green moment.”

Jack frowned. “Soylent Green? What the hell’s that?”

“You know the cheesy science fiction Charlton Heston movie where they have a new food source for an overpopulated planet, and no one knows what’s in it? And at the end when he finds out what it is, he screams, ‘Soylent Green is people.’ Please tell me the steak I ate wasn’t the other guy you killed earlier.”

Jack grew silent.

Too silent.

Steele’s stomach turned. “Jack, you didn’t…”

Jack’s solemn expression ended in a smile. “Nah, I didn’t think that fast, but you know…not a bad thought, except I don’t like the taste of people. Too gamey.”

Steele wanted to think he was still toying with him, but with Jack you couldn’t be too sure.

“Cletus is the one with the taste for human.”

Steele looked over to the dog, who was on the floor, gnawing a bone. Yeah…

Unlike Petey, Cletus didn’t look particularly vicious. But then you never knew.

“So what did you do with the other body?”

Jack shrugged. “I got it stashed in the freezer where I keep deer meat in the winter.”

Thank God for small favors. “What are you going to do with the bodies?”

Jack paused as he thought about it. “I got a backhoe and a hundred acres. Guess I’ll bury them out near the road.”

Steele didn’t know what was worse, the freezer or the ground. “Leave them in the freezer for the time being. I’ll call Andre tomorrow and see if they have a way of hiding this mess and turning the bodies over to the authorities.”

Jack scoffed. “Take all the fun out of this, why don’t you? You know, in my day, you just ground them up in a wood chipper, and you got the bonus of fertilizer for your lawn. Made it really green in the spring.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you to go to jail for something I caused.”

Jack harrumphed as he seized the body and started hauling it toward the hallway that Steele had used earlier to go up to the surface.

He moved to help him.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jack snapped at him. “You’re shot. Go on back to bed and let me take care of this.”

“Okay. Um, there’s just one problem.”

“And that is?”

“I gave Syd my bed.”

Jack gave him an irritated grimace. “Fine, my bed’s—”

“I’ll take the couch,” he said, interrupting him. There was just something gross about taking a man’s bed away from him, especially if the sheets hadn’t been changed.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Where are the extra blankets?”

“Bathroom closet.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

Steele headed for the bathroom, but before he entered, he couldn’t keep himself from checking on Syd again. She was still asleep, right where he’d left her.

Jack was right, he should just crawl in beside her, but she was so paranoid about anyone knowing they’d been together that he thought it best they keep up the appearance of not sleeping together.

You are such an ass.

Yep. He wouldn’t argue that. Stupid and Steele went hand in hand. If he had a single brain cell, he’d curl up right beside that beautiful nak*d body and wrap himself around it. God, he couldn’t imagine anything better than waking up with her in his arms.

Sighing, he left her and went to get his blanket to make a miserable night on the sofa.

Syd woke up with a start as she tried to remember where she was. Then suddenly her memories rushed forward, and she remembered falling asleep in Steele’s arms.

She glanced around her bed to find herself alone. A strange sense of sadness filled her. As she sat up in bed, her gaze fell on a small note that was folded on the nightstand.

Frowning, she picked it up and opened it.

Morning, Angel,

Don’t worry, no one knows about us. Jack either. It’s just a sweet memory for the two of us alone.

Josh

Syd bit her lip at his note as she literally choked up. It was a pithy, stupid note, and yet it touched her deeply.

But even more significant than the words was how he’d signed it. Josh.

“I hate you,” she breathed. Because with that one simple gesture, he had shattered the part of her that wanted to keep him at a distance.

The man was evil incarnate. Aggravated at him, she gathered her clothes and went to the bathroom to take a quick shower before she changed into a pair of jeans and a top.

As soon as she was dressed, she headed for the command center, where Jack was busy working at one of the keyboards.

He looked up as she entered and motioned for her to be quiet. It wasn’t until she drew even with the couch that she understood why.

Steele was asleep.

Syd crossed the room to reach Jack. “Why’s he on the couch?” she whispered.

“He said he gave you the bed, and he refused to take mine.”

She felt terrible about that, especially since the man was wounded. “I didn’t mean to kick him out of the bed.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what he gets for being an ass.”

“How so?”

He winked at her. “If I’d have been him, I’d have made you share.”

She blushed, until she realized something. “Where’s the guy we captured yesterday?”

Jack looked suddenly sheepish.

“Jack?”

“He’s dead.”

She turned at Steele’s groggy voice to see him watching her. “Dead?”

“He tried to kill me,” Jack said defensively. “It was total self-defense.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“It was,” Steele corroborated. “And you should learn to wake up when you hear a gunshot, Agent Westbrook. I shudder to think what could have happened to you had Jack and I not been here.”

Now that was ludicrous. “Idid not sleep through a gunshot. There’s no way.”

“Yes, you did,” the men said in unison.

She actually felt the blood drain from her face. There was no way she wasthat tired. Was there? “Are you serious?”

By their faces she could tell that they were. She felt her face drop at least another three shades. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Jack said. “I did what I had to. I make no apologies.”

Syd believed him, but she still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t heard a gunshot. “I know you did, Jack.” She returned to the couch. “How you feeling this morning?”

“You know the pain doesn’t really set in until the next day, right?”

“True.”

“Then you can imagine how I feel. But I’m more than ready to go face Randy and kick his ass.”