Happily Ever Alpha_Until We Meet Again Read online

  I bend over and open my backpack, pulling the manila folder out. I rifle through the contents, finding one of the photos. “Meet Javier Flores, sex trafficker who will soon be meeting his demise.” I hold it out to her, and she takes it from me, giving it a close look before handing it back.

  She grasps the bottom of her tank in her hands and lifts it over her head, her bare breasts swaying from side to side as she tosses her shirt down with mine. I swallow thickly before finally tearing my eyes away from her perfection to look through the folder for the next photo. “A collage of nine of the women who have been kidnapped.”

  Her hand traces a couple of the girls’ faces, her expression turning sad for a moment before she gives the photo back to me. Suddenly, she stands, the soft flesh of her front pressing to mine as she goes up on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around my neck. “Their families will be so grateful to have you avenge their babies, Bri,” she whispers, kissing the underside of my chin. “And I’m proud to call you my best friend.”

  I wish you would call me more than that, I think, but all daydreams are cut off as she takes a step back, hooks her fingers in the elastic of the pajama bottoms’ waistband, and shoves them over her full hips, letting them fall to the floor. It leaves her completely naked before me, her hard nipples just begging to be devoured. The rest of her lightly tanned skin is covered in chill bumps, and I long to warm her with my body heat. But I have to wait for her command. If I don’t, she’ll make me pay for it, withholding that sweet mouth and that delicious pussy from me until she decides I’ve been punished enough. The vixen.

  She sits on the bed and then scoots back until her legs are stretched out in front of her. I stand still, waiting for her to tell me what she wants, unknowing what’s to come. Usually, she pounces like the tigress she is, taking control and riding me until she collapses. I have no idea what’s going on in that pretty head of hers.

  After a long moment, the tension rising between us with every breath taken, her feet slide against the comforter as she spreads her legs wide, showing me her glistening bare pussy. I weaken in the knees at the sight, but I steel my stance, giving her my submission fully by not allowing myself to give in to my feebleness. She’s the only one who can do this to me. She’s the only one with the power to bring this giant of a man to his very knees with merely the promise of getting to bury deep inside her.

  She bites her lip when she sees my cock flex, a bead of precum at the very tip. She eyes it hungrily before meeting my eyes once again. “My, my, big guy,” she purrs. “I’m famished. Why don’t you come over here so we can both get something to eat?”

  That’s all the go-ahead I need before I shoot forward, turning around as I crawl on top of her. She takes hold of my hardness just as my knees push into the mattress above her head, and I bury my face in her drenched heat like a man starved. I groan into her depths as her lips wrap around the head of my dick, and I concentrate all my efforts on giving her pleasure with my mouth so I don’t accidentally thrust down her throat. She’s never topped me from the bottom before, and I’m finding it difficult not to take control in this sixty-nine position.

  I suck her into my mouth, savoring the taste that is uniquely Clarice’s, and feel her hands go to my ass. She digs her fingers into the muscles there, pulling me to her and then loosening her grip over and over, setting a rhythm for me to follow on my own as she moans around my shaft. My legs quiver as I try not to shove myself deep, remembering not to take my pleasure from her, but to receive what she’s freely giving.

  Suddenly, her knees shoot up until the tops of her thighs press into my shoulders as the practiced strokes of my tongue against her swollen clit sends her into a swift orgasm. I squeeze my eyes closed and growl against her wet flesh as she screams around my cock, forcing myself not to spill inside her mouth as she sucks ferociously. Finally, she pushes her hands against my hips and her thighs against my shoulders, signaling for me to get off her.

  Within a blink of an eye, she maneuvers herself around beneath me as I hold myself up on my hands and knees. And with her breathy “Give it to me,” I bury myself to the hilt inside her still throbbing pussy, relishing the vision before me as she presses her head into the bed and cries, “Brian!”

  With my name on her lips and her core rippling around me, combined with how close she’d already gotten me with her devilish mouth, I thrust only once… twice… three times, before my orgasm overtakes me.

  With my forehead pressed to hers as I catch my breath, I smile down at her. “That didn’t take long.”

  She huffs out a shaky laugh. “Guess I couldn’t resist you in those sexy socks.”

  My brow furrows, and I straighten my arms on either side of her head to turn and glance back at my still socked feet. I let out a bark of laughter, seeing the Gryffindor socks she got me for Christmas after forcing me to take some quiz online to see which Hogwarts house I would belong to.

  She giggles, looking up at me with her eyes filled with adoration and satisfaction. “Now if only you wore the matching shirt I got you. I could throw it on and feel like a Hufflepuff coed who snuck into the Gryffindor hall to bang the hot Quidditch player.”

  With a grin, I pull out of her gently, leaning down to kiss her quickly before going to the bathroom. I bring out a washcloth dampened with warm water and clean her tenderly. Turning her around, I pull her into my body and mold myself to her back, kissing her shoulder before swiftly falling asleep.

  Chapter 3

  We arrive in Nashville four and a half hours after dropping Clarice’s rental car off at the airport. Four and a half hours of being trapped in my truck with her playing DJ and singing every single song off-key. And it was pure bliss. I would listen to that tone-deaf but sweet voice for the rest of my life. My face hurt from smiling so much—an expression I don’t wear very often when she’s not around.

  Pausing “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips so I can hear her male British-accented Siri’s navigation come over my Bluetooth, I soon pull into the small parking lot of the nondescript building that belongs to the address Seth had given me. I put the truck in Park and reach for the keys to turn it off, but pause. As much as I want her within reach at all times, I’ve never met these guys before. I don’t want them to question my professionalism when I bring my girl— my friend inside with me to gather the rest of the information I need to complete my mission.

  “Clar—”

  “I’ll wait here, Bri. No worries,” she interrupts, and I love how she always seems to be able to read my mind. She looks over at me then and winks. “But you know you’re gonna have to download all the new deets to me when you get back.”

  I undo my seat belt, lean over, and give her a peck on the lips. “Always,” I reply, and then get out of the truck, leaving it running so she can listen to her music. As I walk up to the building, I hear Wilson Phillips singing their song of encouragement, with Clarice apparently yelling it at the top of her lungs, since I can hear her even with all the windows rolled up. I enter through the front door with a smirk on my face, shaking my head.

  The bell above the door jingles, alerting a man of my presence, because he exits the office and greets me, “Brian?”

  “That’s me,” I confirm.

  He holds his hand out, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up his nose with the other to peer up at me. He’s not short by any means, but even people who are considerably taller than average still have to look up to meet my eyes at 6’8”. I reach out and shake his hand, noting the intricate tattoos covering his arms. As nerdy as his glasses are, the sleeves are badass. It’s oddly like looking at Seth if he were to spend countless hours under a tattoo gun.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Justin. Seth wasn’t joking when he described you as ‘tall as shit,’” he tells me with a chuckle, and I follow him into his office when he turns to lead me inside. “He said he gave you all our documentation from when we were hunting Flores the first time.”

  “He did,” I state, taking a seat in the leather
chair in front of his desk as he goes to sit behind it. Before Justin can continue, we hear the bell jingle once again, and then two men enter the office, their large frames suddenly making the room feel small. I stand, assuming who these guys are, seeing how they walked in like they own the place. “Brian,” I introduce myself, holding my hand out to one of them.

  “Kenton,” he says, giving me a solid handshake before I extend it to the other guy.

  He gives it a tight squeeze in his tattoo-covered fist, rumbling, “Nico,” before they both plop down on the leather couch along the wall. Years ago, before my career in the army and as a mercenary, these guys would have been intimidating as fuck. Even with all of my experience, they definitely don’t seem like the type of guys one would want to fuck with. Unless one was asking for a hurting.

  “All right, we’re all here. Let’s get this party started, shall we?” Justin speaks from behind his desk.

  “Shoot,” Nico orders, and Justin nods, eagerly sitting up in his chair as he turns his giant computer monitor so the entire class can see.

  I shake off the déjà vu, chalking up Justin’s similarities to Seth to the years they spent together in college. I vaguely remember him telling me they were roommates, but I don’t recall if it was the entire time they were in school. Seth was much younger than all his classmates though—he was a child prodigy who entered MIT when he was hitting puberty—so maybe some of Justin’s mannerisms rubbed off on him at such an impressionable age. Or maybe the unrestrained zeal both of them have once they put their hands to their keyboards is just a computer-nerd thing.

  “Okay, so you know we put this fuckstick away a couple months ago for trafficking. He was let out two weeks ago after he was found innocent, thanks to a false confession. We’ve kept up with him, not taking our eyes off him since his release, since the fucker was so hard to catch the first go-round,” he growls, hitting his Enter key harder than necessary. It brings up a surveillance camera feed on the monitor. “He’s been keeping to a routine, not much coming or going in the last thirteen days. But he’s not the kind of person to actually learn his lesson after getting caught. He’s definitely the just-be-more-careful-this-time type.”

  We watch the fast-forwarding feed as a couple of goons come and leave Flores’s ranch just outside Nashville at the same time every day. There’s a grocery delivery, and one other random visit by a woman. Flores himself only makes one outing a day, to the gym fifteen minutes away from home at 11:00 a.m.

  “Strange,” I murmur, and Justin turns his eyes to me.

  “What?”

  “Well, with all that money and that big of a house, you’d think he’d have his own gym at home.” I shrug.

  Justin looks at Kenton and Nico. “That’s true. Have you guys been monitoring his time at the gym? Is there someone he works out with every day?”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Nico replies. “But I make sure to keep a safe distance while surveilling him, since I’m not exactly the kind of guy one forgets easily. Especially if I put you in jail.” He takes off his cap and spreads his arms, showcasing all his artwork. Jesus, he must be covered neck-to-foot.

  “He’s never seen me before so I can get on that,” Kenton inserts.

  “Just give me the address of the gym and I’ll handle it,” I tell the room, and they all eye me. “Look, I know you’ve never met me before, but Justin knows Seth. And you know if Seth sent me, I’ll get the job done. Been doing this shit for years, boys. Have you ever seen me on the news?” They all shake their heads. “You remember that asshole college swimmer who made national news when he raped and murdered that coed at his frat party?”

  Kenton shifts on the couch. “Yeah, got off with just five minutes in the timeout chair. Had to chuckle when he turned up dead in a swimming pool. Pretty poetic.”

  I give him a telling look.

  “That was you? Dude! I thought that was just karma coming to bite him in the ass,” Justin says excitedly.

  “It wasn’t me, but one of my partners. I did the surveillance on that one, and he finished the job when I got called out on another mission.” Ah, the one where I’d gotten to meet up with Clarice in the Florida Keys. I’d extended my stay for a couple days after I completed my job, just so I could soak up her beauty like it was the sun we laid under on the beach for hours.

  Kenton and Nico turn toward each other, seeming to have a silent conversation between the two of them, until they both nod and look back to me. “I can live with that. Justin will print you out all of our new intel so you can study up and get the job done. I’m willing to hand over the case to you from here on out. It’s what we’re giving you this five-figure check for, I suppose,” Kenton tells me, producing an envelope from his back pocket and holding it out toward me.

  I put up my hand in a stopping gesture. “Hang on to that for me until the job is done.”

  He nods, his eyes showing a glint of respect in them. Justin speaks up, “Here you go, Brian. Everything is in here that’s taken place since the last batch Seth gave you. I’ve already shown you everything important, his comings and goings. The rest is just the details, addresses and such.” He hands me a folder, and I stand. They all get to their feet too, following me into the reception area of the office.

  When I turn to tell them goodbye, Nico steps forward, looking me in the eye. I don’t flinch, but a lesser man would probably cower at the serious expression on his face. “Justin told us about your code. A life for a life,” he tells me, and I give him a chin lift. “This motherfucker deserves your kind of justice. Several of those girls he kidnapped died in the sea-cans he transported them in. He’d pile dozens of those poor women into a forty-foot metal shipping container, with only a few packages of bottled water and nonperishable foods, and some buckets to piss and shit in. God only knows how many died after they were sold off to the highest bidder. If anyone deserves a visit from the Grim Reaper himself, it’s Flores.”

  With those images in my head, I give them all a curt nod. “Within twenty-four hours, he’ll be taking his last breath. I won’t let you guys down,” I assure them.

  Nico reaches out his hand to shake mine one last time. “If I didn’t have my wife and kids to think about, I’d do the job myself.”

  I give him a small smile. “I understand,” I reply, and I do. Corbin has been taking fewer and fewer missions since he remarried Vi, and because Doc and Seth are behind the scenes of our mercenary missions, they’ve mostly been left up to me to carry out. But the moment Clarice ever tells me she wants more than just our friendship… there’d be nothing that could take me away from her. No matter how good I am at my job, I would give it up in a heartbeat if it meant I could have her. No risk would be worth having to leave her side.

  With one last grunt from Kenton, I head back out to my truck, hearing Clarice’s rendition of “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman’s soundtrack. I had to hand it to her. If my sexy, tone-deaf girl could hit the notes, she knows the songs well enough and sang them with such enthusiasm and dramatics that she could play a part in the movie herself. She saw it six times while it was in theaters, the first time with me. And I’d held her while her eyes filled with glimmering tears that spilled down her cheeks as the bearded lady finally came out of her shell, singing and dancing her heart out. Since then, Clarice told me if she could see anyone in the world perform in person, it would be Keala Settle. I’d done research, trying to surprise her with tickets, but had come up empty on fulfilling her dream. I ended up getting her the Blu-ray as soon as it released, and she’s watched it on repeat ever since.

  I close the door behind me, and she turns down the music. “How’d it go?” she asks, a little out of breath from her solo car-aoke performance.

  “Pretty good. I’ll fill you in once we check in to our hotel,” I reply, backing out of the parking space.

  She claps her hand and gives me a wicked smile. “Oh, goody! Another round of Strip Clues.” Her voice is both provocative and jovial.

  “Damn
right.”

  Chapter 4

  Less than a hundred yards from Flores’s home, I’m hidden in the thick of trees that border the property as I watch the surveillance feed on my phone. Just minutes ago, a white grocery delivery van backed into his driveway, and two men in white uniforms had exited the vehicle, making their way around to the back.

  They’d already made two trips back and forth, carrying brown paper grocery bags through the front door after Flores himself had answered it. After a few minutes pass, the two men exit the house and hop into their van, and the front door closes once more.

  That’s when something catches my eye.

  Just as the van starts to make its way down the long driveway, I get a glimpse of the passenger’s face. I back up the footage on my phone, zooming in. The two men who first arrived with the groceries both had facial hair—one a goatee, and the other a full beard. The man who now occupies the passenger seat, dressed in the same white uniform as the men who first showed up, is clean-shaven. And I’m sure if he took off his white ball cap, it would reveal the face of none other than Flores himself.

  “Sneaky bastard knows he’s being watched,” I murmur, and jog to my truck parked on the side of the road on the outer edge of the trees.

  Shoving the shifter into gear, I skid onto the road, knowing exactly where the van will be… and there it is. They pull out of the neighborhood, heading east. I keep a safe distance behind them, making sure not to alert them that they’re being followed.

  Forty-seven minutes later, I drive past the entrance of a shipping yard the van pulls into and park a distance away. Trekking back on foot, I stay in the shadows, carefully making my way around the stacked rows of forty-foot metal containers until I hear the voices of two men, one with a slight accent. But it’s the words, not the voice itself, that send my hackles rising.