2. All An Act

All An Act

Terra

M y legs are jelly, still. I'm doing my best to hide from him exactly how fuckin' wrecked I am, but…Jesus. He ate me out like a man dying of starvation faced with a gourmet meal.

I feel sexy. Beautiful. Desired.

Things I don't normally feel.

Most of my conquests leave me feeling meh at best. Yeah, they appreciate my giant honkers. Nice. Cool. But I'm always left with the feeling that I'm not much more to them than the sum of my parts. Tits and ass, pussy and mouth. No brain, no heart, no personality required. Just my girly bits.

Saxon…yeah, the first thing he did was look at me like I'm something to eat. And then…he ate me out.

And so far, hasn't said a damn word about what he wants in return. A good cock sucking, I'm sure. And Jesus, after the earth-shattering orgasm he gave me—or, series of earth-shattering orgasms, more accurately, because I swear I came at least three times in succession, although I admit I lost count—he's damn well earned it.

In fact, with what I felt brushing against me, I'm kinda eager to give it to him.

I have the distinct feeling that I've just gotten myself into something crazy, though. I mean, dragging him off the street to stand up in the wedding… that was crazy. But armed men shooting at us? That's a whole other level of batshit that I'm not sure I'm ready for. Sure, I grew up on the streets, but not like that . Not with gangs and drive-bys. Or, not routinely, at least. I've seen people killed, and I've known dudes who were killers. But those dudes were, as Saxon put it, two-bit thugs. Saxon is something else. Something more. A lot more. He made it look easy—and he was going out of his way to not kill them. Which seems harder to me.

A thought occurs to me, then, and I gasp. "EMILY!" I take off at a sprint back the way the way we came, kicking off my heels. I reach the door and prepare to Hulk-Smash through it, only to feel a thick, hard, powerful arm hook around my middle and swing me 180 degrees like a rag doll.

"Hold up, there, hot stuff. Let me check it out first." His voice, fuck. Low, raspy, and brimming with confidence.

He peeks his head out through the door, scans, and then shoves the door open.

"Looks like your crew made themselves scarce. No sign of 'em."

I breathe a sigh of relief. "Thank god. If anything happens to Emily because of me, I'll—"

"Because of me , not you."

"I brought you here."

"You wanna fight about it? I'll win. Point is, they're not here."

"Take me up to the suite, will you? I need to see that she's okay with my own eyes. I'll be in and out, I promise."

"Fine. Let's go." He eyes me. "You got a change of street clothes up there?"

"Obviously. Nothing too much more practical than this, but I've got Converse at least, so I don't have to trot around in stupid fuckin' three-inch heels." I groan. "Speaking of which, I'd better grab them. They weren't cheap."

"I'll buy you new ones. We gotta get out of this hotel."

I glare at him. "They match my dress— exactly match them, shade for shade. Do you know how hard it is to find shoes that exactly match your dress? No, you don't, because men get to put on all black and look like hot shit. So no, Saxon , I'm not leaving them. You may have money to burn, but I guarantee you won't find shoes in my size in that exact shade of green." I glance up at him. "Which happens to be the same shade as your eyes, by the way. So chill for twenty seconds while I go get them."

He arches one eyebrow. "You'd be back with them by now if you'd just gone to get them instead of running those pretty red lips of yours."

I blow a kiss at him and then jog back down the hallway to where I kicked off my shoes. I snag them and hold them by the straps in one hand and try to figure out what's missing in this hallway.

Oh, right. Three bleeding men: they're gone. The blood is there, but they're gone.

I trot back to Saxon. "So, um, the dudes you shot? They're gone."

"What do you mean, gone ?" He frowns down at me.

"Well, you see, gone, in my language, means not there . As in, bye-bye. No bodies, just puddles of blood."

"Well, where the fuck'd they go? Two of 'em were gut shot, and one was shot through the knee and shoulder."

I point at the linen carts—full of bloody linen, but notably not full of humans. "Well, they're gone."

Saxon's eye twitches. "Fuck. Not good."

"Why?"

"Well, contrary to what you see in movies, if you get shot, it tends to put most people out of commission. You don't just shrug off a gunshot wound, especially not a gut shot. Those fuckers hurt . Stomach acid does not feel good."

"You sound like you're talking from experience," I say, eying him as if I could see his scars through his clothes.

"I am. Took three to the gut during a hit gone very, very wrong. I was out of commission for damn near three months. I got lucky since the rounds missed major arteries and organs. Goddamn miracle, honestly. So, my point is, those dudes did not walk out of here on their own. They had help. Which means leaving the conference room could be problematic at best."

"So, what do we do?"

He glances down the hallway away from the door to the conference room. "Take our chances in the service corridors."

He leads the way, taking my hand in his. His hand is huge and rough as sandpaper, engulfing mine. I mean, yes, I'm short and I have pretty small hands and feet, but his hand is also just huge, even for a man his size.

Judging by what I felt up against me a few minutes ago, his hands aren't the only oversized parts on him.

Good grief, what the hell is wrong with me? I'm a horny chick, sure, and have been since…well, the ugly shit that happened to me. My way of coping, I guess, and I don't think I'm alone, although I don't know many women other than Emily, and—shit, where was I going with this? The man has scrambled my goddamn brains with his wicked fuckin' talented tongue.

Oh, right. I'm horny. But even with the guns going off and motherfuckers getting popped left and right, all I can think about is Saxon, and his mouth, and his fingers, and his cock. And the things I want to do to him.

Which are many, varied, and probably all sorts of sinful.

This is highly unusual. Am I in possession of a preternaturally and perpetually high-octane sex drive? Yes, abso-fuckin'-lutely. Do I normally think about sex in high-stress, super scary situations? No, nope, no way, nuh-uh, never. And I've been in way too many of those.

"You think too fuckin' loud," Saxon says in that leopard growl voice of his.

"What? What do you mean?" I opt for acting dumb. Not a task requiring too much acting, some would say, perhaps, and to them, I say fuck you. I may not be book smart, but I ain't stupid.

I do have a mental process that somewhat resembles a run-on sentence mixed with a trainwreck. Sue me—I've got a lot of thoughts. You ever see that meme that says something like, "Men, you wanna know what a woman's brain is like? Imagine a browser with 4321 tabs open all the time." That's me.

"I mean, I can hear you overthinking shit back there." He tosses this over his shoulder as he strides with his thousand-foot-long legs down the service corridor, requiring me to half-trot to keep up.

"Okay, number one, can we keep in mind that my legs aren't half a mile long, and I'm not wearing shoes? Two, it's what I do. I drink and overthink things."

"And you're about the same height as Tyrion Lannister," he quips.

"Shut up. I'm not short, I'm fun-sized."

"That shit always bugged me. Someone gives you a tiny packet of M Emily halts and goes silent. "Breathe in. Slowly. Count to ten. Good girl. Now hold it. Count to five. Good. Now let it out very slowly and count to ten. Good, very good. Now do it again. Nope, no thinking, no talking. Just breathe. Breathe. Slow in, hold it, slow out."

Emily slowly regains control, now crying silently but no longer panicking.

Saxon isn't done, though. "This is my fault, not Terra's, and not yours. This shit is on me, and I'm sorry. Ain't gonna give you your wedding day back, but it's all I got." He abruptly stops and blinks a few times. "That's a lie. Follow me." He snaps his fingers at Tom. "Get your shit, yours and hers. Terra, you too. You wanna change, do it now and do it fast."

"Wh-where are we going?" Emily stammers.

"It'll take too long to explain. You just gotta trust me."

Emily looks to me for the answer. I, in turn, look at Saxon, considering.

"Can we?" I ask him. "Can we trust you? Can I?"

"I'm not a good man, Terra." His voice is pitched low. His eyes, as Kelly green as my dress, beam sincerity. "I'm a killer. I took a vow not to, but that doesn't change who I am. I'm not good. Never been good for much but doing violent shit. What I can promise you is that I won't let anything happen to you, Emily, or Tom."

For once, I have no snark, no sass, no attitude. "Good enough for me. For now."

Emily glances at me, at Saxon, and then finally at her new husband. "Tom?"

Tom just shrugs. "I've never even held a gun in my life. If this dude was gonna do something shitty to me, or more importantly either of you, he'd'a already done it. And if there's dudes with guns who now have any of us three on their radar, then I feel like maybe our best bet is another bad dude with a gun, but hopefully a little bit less bad of a dude." He glances at Saxon. "No offense, big guy."

Saxon does that blink-and-you-miss-it smirk. "Well said, Tom. Talking is done. We leave in two minutes." He glances at an expensive-looking watch. "Starting now. Whether you're ready or not."

Emily and Tom hustle out of the room to gather their stuff. I, however, stay back, sidling up to Saxon.

"I have one question for you." I unbutton his shirt, and my eyes widen involuntarily at the physique on display—hard, bulging pecs like rounded slabs of granite and at least sixty-seven abdominal blocks, each one hand-hewn by Michelangelo himself out of raw marble.

As opposed to cooked marble, obviously.

I swallow hard, resist the urge to lick my lips, and force my hands to re-button his shirt correctly. It's a tragedy, covering up the artwork that is his body, but a necessary one, since we can't very well flee for our lives if I'm busy licking his muscles like a dog with an empty peanut butter jar.

"Your question?" he prompts, amusement coloring his voice.

"Oh, um." I lift up on my toes, snag his hair and pull him down so I can murmur in his ear. "Where are my panties?"