Redek (Barbarian Bodyguards Book 2) Read online

  She wanted to be rough and gentle with him all at once. She nipped at his skin with her teeth and followed it immediately with open-mouthed kisses. Redek laced his hands through her hair, but she pulled them away. "It's my turn," she repeated. He was forced to fist his hands in the bed sheets instead.

  There was a deep satisfaction as she watched him struggle not to touch her as she finally pulled his pants and boxers off and wrapped her hand around his shaft.

  She'd never been in control before. Not of anything.

  But Redek gave it all to her. He lay before her, watching her with adoring eyes and letting her have her way with him.

  It was intoxicating.

  She lowered her mouth to the tip of his cock, flattening her tongue against it and trying not to be intimidated by the thing. There was no way all of it was going to fit in her mouth.

  She was a bit worried about getting it inside her, period.

  But the moment she tasted him, she only wanted more. She couldn't tease him, she didn't have the patience. She took him into her mouth, using her hand for most of the shaft as she swirled her tongue around his head and bobbed up and down on his cock.

  She might not have any experience with doing this kind of thing in person, but she'd had a lot of spare time on the compound, and access to the whole Net.

  She knew what it was supposed to look like.

  When she looked up and met Redek’s gaze, he looked so tortured she worried for a minute she was doing it completely wrong.

  At least until he bucked his hips up a little and was forced to restrain himself.

  No, she was doing it just right.

  She only managed to keep her mouth around his cock for a few minutes before he'd given in and laced a hand through her hair and pulled her up. "I need to fuck you," he said through gritted teeth. "There's no way I'm not fucking you tonight."

  Her stomach flipped and she reveled in his roughness as he dug fingers into her hips and deposited her on his crotch, shaft teasing her entrance.

  "If it wasn't for your fucking back I'd be fucking you straight into the mattress right now," he growled. He hardly ever swore, and she loved the coarse language. He sat up and wrapped his hand around his own shaft, pumping twice before pressing it against her entrance.

  There was only a small bolt of panic as she felt his head there. He was so big.

  But she was so turned on that she knew it wouldn't hurt too much.

  And she wanted him too badly to care.

  She could see Redek was scared of hurting her, and so she took control now, lowering herself slowly onto him. It stung, but not enough to really hurt. It wasn’t even as bad as the throbbing of her back wound.

  It definitely didn’t dissuade her. When she was fully impaled on his cock, she rolled her hips, nails digging into his chest as she rocked against him.

  It was almost too much.

  Being with him was overwhelming.

  She wasn’t thinking about the attack, not really, but in the back of her mind she knew this might be the only time and she felt almost on the verge of crying, though from happiness or sadness she wasn’t sure.

  Redek sat up and cradled her in his arms. Whatever he’d seen in her face, he must have understood it. He kissed her softly, fingertips dancing so gently over her back she thought she might have imagined them. She still moved her hips, unable to get enough of the feel of him inside her.

  Her hands were everywhere. They ran down his back, digging into every muscle and trying to drag him closer even though their entire bodies were pressed together. They were laced in his hair, curling it around her fingers as their tongues danced together.

  She wanted to say something, anything to tell him how much she loved him, but when she opened her mouth it was just whimper of pleasure that left it.

  His fingers dug into her hips as he guided her movements, and she could see his frustration growing that he couldn’t have her properly, taking out all the passion he felt. For her, she dealt with the overwhelming emotion by almost crying, but Redek was primal. He wanted to take her hard and fast and let it all out.

  And she desperately wanted to let him.

  She stopped moving and he groaned as she lifted herself from his lap. “What are you doing?”

  She couldn’t lay on the bed without hurting her back, but she got on all fours in front of him instead. “I want you to fuck me.”

  Rather than responding in words, she felt his tip at her entrance. There was no pain when he pushed himself in this time, only pleasure.

  And there was no hesitation, either. He didn’t rock against her, testing whether she could handle it or not. He pulled back out and started fucking her in earnest, long, fast strokes that hit a spot inside her she hadn’t even known existed.

  She gasped and raised her ass higher, arching her back and not daring to move in case it ruined the insatiable rhythm he’d set. Instead, she reached between her legs and rubbed her clit.

  She knew exactly what she needed to do to get herself off, and with Redek pounding into her from behind it was an easier task than it had ever been before.

  “More,” she begged as she swirled her fingers around her clit.

  Redek’s grip would leave bruises on her hips and she loved it. She’d have a mark to remember this by. She’d have Redek on her skin.

  When a strangled sound left his mouth, she knew he was over the edge, and that was what sent her there, too. It wasn’t just Redek on her skin, it was Redek inside her, his seed buried deep.

  She collapsed onto the bed breathing heavily, body still shaking from her own climax. “Wow.”

  Redek laughed and pulled her back to the top of the bed so she could curl into his side. He held her so tight it was almost painful, but she reveled in it. He was just as emotional as she was. She could hardly believe this was the same man who had first walked into her little house with a stoic face and no emotion behind his eyes.

  “I love you,” she murmured, peppering kisses on his bicep.

  “I love you, too.” He kissed both her eyelids, then rested their foreheads together. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “I mean… objectively I’m not sure you can really say that.”

  His lip quirked. “Love isn’t objective.”

  She kissed him. As much as she wanted to lay and talk and touch and spend every minute before the attack getting lost in each other, she hadn’t written off their chance of success completely yet.

  It wasn’t impossible.

  “We should try and sleep a little bit,” she said. “At least, you should. You’ve got to fight soon.”

  “I’m not sure I can sleep. I think I might have been having a mini heart attack for a straight hour now.”

  “You really should.”

  “I know.”

  Sighing, he lay down beside her. “Sleep, too,” he said. “I want to wake up next to you.”

  She couldn’t deny that. With their bodies entwined, she shut her eyes and tried to calm her own heart rate.

  If she was going to die tomorrow, this was the best possible night before she could have had.

  14.

  REDEK

  Redek woke to a siren blaring in his room. It was similar to the one that had sounded in the hangar, but not as loud.

  Beside him, Maddie sat up, pressing her hands to her ears. “This is the worst alarm clock ever.” Her voice was strained, though, and she couldn’t look at him.

  It was here.

  This might be the end of the line.

  “We should put some clothes on before someone comes bursting in to find out where we are,” he said, pushing the comforter back and admiring Maddie’s naked curves. “I want to be the only person in the world that’s seen that view,” he teased, taking her hand and helping her out of the bed.

  They pulled their clothes on in silence. The siren stopped after a minute, and was replaced by the sound of feet jogging along the corridor to their assigned posts.

  Ma
ddie wrapped her arms around her middle, looking tiny and frail. He wished more than anything that he could have stayed with her, but it wasn’t the most sensible way of keeping her safe. He could make a real difference in a fight. That was where he knew what he was doing.

  He had to leave her in the short term for the possibility of staying with her forever.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled on the last of his weapons and set his face in stone.

  This was it.

  This was where they were made or broken.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Maddie laced her hand though his as they joined the jogging soldiers. Redek had been given directions to where he was supposed to be meeting Tisya to get his assignment the night before, and he headed in that direction.

  Inside the room was a small group. There were only twenty or so of them, not including Maddie. All were armored and armed to the teeth. They looked at Redek with apprehension, and ignored Maddie altogether.

  In the center of the room was a teleporter. With the kind of clients Redek had worked for in the past, he’d seen them plenty of times and even used one more than once. The technology was incredibly expensive, but simple to use. You put in your target destination, and when you wanted to return to where you started, pressed a button on a small band that wrapped around your wrist. It was impossible to teleport hop, not unless you teleported to somewhere with another teleporter.

  When he was done with Damien, the only place he could return to was this room.

  “You’re all here,” Tisya said, drawing attention to where he stood beside the device. “You’ll be separated into four groups of six. We have four ships to target. You’ll teleport in and do as much damage as possible. Your lives are at stake,” he said, looking at everyone individually. “But you put them there for the lives of all who have lost loved ones to the Intergalactic Union’s terror.”

  Redek knew that the IU had been indiscriminate in their colonizing of planets and bringing them under their mandate, but he’d never heard such vitriolic rhetoric before. Most planets were happy to be accepted under the IU’s wing: it was a trade organization, and their influence was normally restricted to that sphere.

  But the hatred for the IU here was intense, and he wondered how much about the organization he didn’t know.

  It could have just as easily been a manipulation tactic by gang leaders to maintain power on the planet, for all Redek knew, but Fitan had seemed genuine when he spoke about them being a terrorist organization.

  Now wasn’t the time for that, though.

  He’d square his political opinions if he made it out the other side.

  Tisya read out the names and split the group into their four teams. Redek had no idea if they’d found out which ship was Damien’s and planned to send him there, but he prayed they had.

  He could already feel his rage brewing at the thought of getting his hands around the neck of the bastard.

  Before that, though, he had to say goodbye to Maddie.

  He ignored the first group as they went through the teleporter and faced Maddie. He’d been determined to stay strong once they left the bedroom, but one look at her and he almost fell apart.

  He was more than willing to lay down his life to protect her if that’s what it came down to—it was an instinct that had been honed since he first enrolled in the academy. If he could die for his charge, dying for the woman he loved was nothing.

  It was the images of what could have been if they’d met under different circumstances that were tearing his walls down. Without Damien, they could have just been Redek and Maddie. They would have fallen in love and moved in together and had kids and there would have been no problems.

  He could have grown old with her.

  He cupped her face in his hands and wore his emotion all over his face. He didn’t care who else in the room was watching. “I love you,” he said softly, kissing each tear-stained cheek. “And I’ll be back. I’ll be standing right here again in no time.”

  She smiled through the tears. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  She threw herself against him, hugging him tightly. He held her back, burying his face in her hair and committing the feel of her to memory.

  He’d be back.

  He had to be.

  And then it was his group’s turn to leave and he had to let go of her. With a final squeeze of her hand he turned away and put his game face back on.

  This wasn’t the emotionless mask he’d perfected over the years, though. This was pure fire. This was all the anger, hatred and despair that had consumed him for the past few days.

  And all of it was going to hit whoever he found on the other end of that teleporter straight in the face.

  They didn’t stand a chance.

  15.

  MADDIE

  Maddie watched Redek leave with her best attempt at a stoic expression.

  Inside she was falling apart. The moment he’d told her they were going to leave the compound together, she’d almost convinced herself that they were never going to be apart.

  And this wasn’t like he was just going to the shop or on vacation—this was him possibly going to his death because of her.

  Because he’d wanted to help her.

  She watched him disappear and struggled to breathe.

  And then, when the room was empty and it was just her and Tisya—who was helping to coordinate ship and troop movements from this HQ—she finally found her resolve.

  She’d had her night with Redek where she forgot about anything except the feel of him under her fingers, but now there wasn’t that distraction.

  There had to be some way to help.

  Wiping her eyes, she finally got a proper look at the room she was in. It was full of tech. The teleporter in the middle was obviously the main attraction, but a huge computer with multiple screens was in the back corner, behind which Tisya sat, speaking rapidly into his earpiece. She didn’t want to distract him, and walked over to another, smaller computer. “Can I use this?” she asked.

  Tisya nodded without speaking, and she sat down. It was unlocked.

  She stretched her fingers and started playing around with the computer. It was different than anything she’d ever used before in terms of the interface, but the fundamentals were the same. Before long she’d found a back channel into Tisya’s computer to see what he was watching. On his screens he had thermal maps of the city to track movement and a map of the sky where different colored dots represented both sides of the conflict.

  Now that it had started, it was less quiet in the tunnels.

  Explosions sounded from above, and the tables in the room rattled with the impact.

  Judging by the heat sensors, the battle on the surface was raging. It was far bigger than she’d expected. There were armies up there.

  And Maddie was below ground hiding from it all.

  Now more familiar with the computer, she tried seeing if there was a similar back channel to anyone in the fleet. They would be using the IU’s official connection provider even out here, she was sure, and she’d spent years and years working with that.

  Before long, she was into the cameras aboard some of the bigger ships in the fleet. She moved around, looking for action. She flinched when she found one that was capturing one of Tisya’s assassination squads in action.

  It looked like they were being successful. Bodies were on the floor, but more were wearing IU uniforms than not.

  She moved on the moment she confirmed Redek wasn’t one of them.

  She’d been immediately diverted from trying to help to trying to find him. It was like déjà vu from when she’d been watching him fight the intruders downstairs on her laptop, and she just needed to be able to see that he was okay. She just needed to know.

  And if something was going to go wrong, she felt morbidly compelled to see that, too.

  As she cycled through cameras, though, it wasn’t Redek that she found.

  It was Damien.

&nbs
p; He was striding around what looked like an office, and there was no one else in the room.

  It was so different than the demeanor she was used to him that she paused to just watch him for a moment. The easygoing man she was used to was pacing with hunched shoulders, his hands running over his face and through his hair every five seconds. His face was scrunched into a ball.

  And then he lashed out. His mouth was open so she knew he must be shouting as he kicked and punched a couch in the room. He threw his phone at the wall, smashing it.

  Maddie wanted to be satisfied, but as she watched Damien, she could only think one thing.

  Damien knew.

  Damien knew what had happened to her parents, about who she really was.

  He was the only person who could tell her.

  She was acting before she could stop herself. She tracked the ship and grabbed the coordinates, then stood up and walked over to the teleporter’s tablet and began inputting the coordinates from the computer.

  “What are you doing?” Tisya snapped. She’d been blocking his words out as white noise until he addressed her directly.

  “I found the man who is in charge of this whole thing,” she said, still tapping in the coordinates. “Do you have a gun?”

  “I was told you had no training,” he said, one hand to his earpiece as she interrupted probably vital information getting through to him.

  “It was a lie,” she lied. “Redek wanted to keep me safe. Give me a gun. Something.”

  Tisya curled his lip at her, though she wasn’t sure he entirely believed her.

  Either way, he pulled one of the pistols from his own belt and handed it to her. “You’re sure you know how to use this?” he asked.

  She dithered. It looked a bit different from Redek’s. “Remind me,” she said with a small smile.

  He put the gun in her hand. “It’s simple. The trigger fires the laser shot. This bar is your charge. There’s no safety, so be careful”

  It functioned the same way, then. It was easy enough. “Got it. Thanks, Tisya.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  She fastened the teleportation bracelet around her wrist, and fired a grin over her shoulder. “Better something stupid than nothing at all.”