Marked Man

MARCO

The slinky dress the dancer wears dips almost low enough for me to see the dimples above her ass, and her skin is warm and smooth under my palm.

“Do you have a name?” I ask, letting her direct me toward a curtained doorway on the far side of the stage.

She sighs. “Sadie’s always been terrible at introductions. I’m Katrina.”

“Watts seemed pretty familiar with you back there. Is there something I should know about before we do this?”

She nods slightly, her long lashes lowering when she cuts her eyes to the side to look at me. “Not that it’s your business, but we have a complicated relationship. I wouldn’t say we’re a couple, precisely. Sadie’s just…special to me.”

I glance back over my shoulder to the table we just left and meet Watts’ gaze, wondering at the uncertain look I see.

“I’m guessing you’re pretty special to her too, the way she’s making moon eyes at you now.”

Katrina looks back too. “Looks to me like she’s looking at you.”

I chuckle. “Just gloating over her victory, no doubt.”

One pale shoulder lifts and falls. “She’s been like that for as long as I’ve known her.”

She passes through the curtain into a dimly lit carpeted hallway, leading me through one of a half dozen doors into one lushly furnished room. It looks like it belongs in a house in the Hollywood hills, with rich upholstery and expensive wallpaper. It reminds me of Tasha’s place, which I haven’t thought about in years.

“Is this your first private dance?” she asks.

I nod absently while glancing around, unsure what to do next. I’m not precisely anxious, nor do I feel like I’m out of my element. Being alone in a room with a beautiful woman about to take her clothes off isn’t unusual, but this is the first time nothing resembling seduction has been involved.

“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing at the divan. Or is it a chaise? My mother would know, I’m sure. Shit, maybe I am nervous. I settle down while Katrina adjusts the music, the sultry strains of blues a sharp contrast to the music out in the club.

I say nothing else, only watching and telling myself I’ll enjoy this if I can. Coming only moments after seeing that news story about Tasha, I’m not particularly in the mood to perpetuate the exploitation of women. But something about Sadie’s challenge has elevated my mood, even though she beat me.

I’ll have to find out her arm wrestling secret later. Right now, a beautiful woman is swaying her hips in front of me, the outline of her ass perfectly accented by the clingy fabric of the sheath of a dress she wears. The sight further lifts my mood, despite my conflicted feelings. She’s beautiful, and the apparent openness of her sexuality makes her even more attractive. Hell, she did volunteer for this.

She moves in a lithe, focused manner, pushing my legs apart and nearly draping herself over me, sliding down my body with the precision of a snake down the trunk of a tree. Her breasts, squeezed tight in her dress, brush against my inner thighs, the soft, warm pressure impossibly nice. Naturally, my dick rouses.

She grins wickedly at the very physical response her attention has garnered, lingering with her breasts warm and soft against my crotch. I could do with the distraction of skin-to-skin contact. But no . . . she’s Sadie’s, even if they have an open relationship. I swore after Tasha I’d never let myself end up even close to the position of screwing over a friend that way again. Except if that sex tape got out, that means either her boyfriend Zane—my ex-best friend—was the one who leaked it, or Tasha and Zane aren’t together anymore. I hate to think it, but as kind as Tasha is, she did cheat on her boyfriend with me, then tried to turn us into some polyamorous threesome so she could have her cake and eat it too. That doesn’t make what happened to her okay, though.

Katrina stands and dances some more, gradually peeling the dress down her body like she’s some exotic fruit until she’s nearly naked. She turns, her smooth, round ass bare aside from the narrow strip of a lacy black thong disappearing between both cheeks. Jesus, this is why I hate lap dances. All I want to do is rip that flimsy piece of fabric off, spread her open, and go to town with my tongue.

“You’re very quiet,” she murmurs in my ear on her next journey down my body, every soft inch of her seeking out the sensitive parts of me and rubbing just right. My jeans are on the verge of ripping at the seams, I’m so hard. She smells amazing, a combination of subtle, almondy perfume and ~sex~ that makes my mouth water.

“Just trying to be a good boy. You guys have rules I don’t want to break.”

She pauses in a crouch between my thighs and looks up at me, her long-lashed blue eyes laughing. “I make the rules in here. And you should know the reason you didn’t see me on stage tonight is because I own this place. Partly, anyway.”

“So what are Katrina’s rules?”

“You’re allowed to touch me. You’re gripping the cushions so hard I’m afraid you might damage the furniture, but you won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know me. I might.”

“I think I can read you well enough to know you’d be gentle. What would you like, Marco? Sadie probably wants me to torment you, but I don’t work that way.”

I relax my grip on said sofa cushions and raise a hand, tracing my fingertips over her collarbone, then down between her breasts, trailing them beneath one full orb. I cup her breast in my palm, loving the firm weight of it. It’s been so fucking long since I touched a woman, I just indulge in the sensation. I let my thumb drift over the hardened tip, watching her face fall into a kind of abandon as she grips my thighs a little tighter.

“Gentle enough for you?” I ask, leaning forward.

“Oh yeah.”

I take the other breast in my free hand and repeat the motion. “You’re beautiful, Katrina, but I can’t. Watts is my friend, and you two have something I can’t get between.”

She opens her eyes wide, incredulous. “What Sadie and I have is between us. Don’t let your ego carry you away thinking that if we get busy in here, it has any bearing on what I have with her.”

“I didn’t mean that…I just have…shit.”

“Issues? I can see that. But this is my job, and while I’m not getting paid for this particular dance, I do plan on taking it out of Sadie’s hide later. Trust me, whatever we do here will be worth it, and she’ll understand.”

The images that evokes make me even harder, and I clench my eyes shut, trying to dispel them. I’ve seen Watts in action and in various states of undress, as has our entire platoon, which is nothing unusual, save for one particular event involving a giant, purple and green, strap-on dildo. But for all her tomboyish tendencies, Hearn is right: she’s gorgeous and irreverent, and her total disregard for popular opinion makes her damn sexy, though hard to get close to.

“You’re imagining us together, aren’t you? I can invite her back here, if you want.”

“Jesus, no. She’s my friend.”

“Your friend whose back you’ve had through three years of deployments. She’s told me stories about how you and—what’s his name? Jake?—have stuck by her. I think she worships you just a little bit. Him too, but mostly you. You remind her of her dad.”

“Bullshit.”

She shifts up onto my lap and runs her fingers through my short hair. “You’re sweet to a fault, do you know that? The girls here would love you if I hired you.”

“What, to strip?”

She laughs. “No. As a bouncer. You’d be perfect.”

“My life’s a little complicated, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Of course it is,” she says. “That’s one of Sadie’s favorite lines too.”

While she talks, I’m painfully conscious of her hip resting against my erection. Then to top it off, she begins sneaking her fingertips underneath my T-shirt and pushing it up. I let her pull it off over my head, trying to ignore the little voice telling me to stop, stop now before this goes places I’ll feel guilty about, no matter how nice it’ll be.

Then she’s up again, body swaying and dipping to the music, sliding her breasts against my bare chest. She turns around and straddles my hips, laying back against me while undulating her ass against my groin. I don’t resist this time, letting my palms skim over her. Jesus, her skin feels like hot silk.

She rests her head back on my shoulder and she whispers in my ear, “What do you want, Marco? Let me give you something.”

Too many goddamn things I can’t articulate.

I move my hands lower, gripping her inner thighs and spreading them farther apart. Her creamy skin shines with a sheen of sweat from her dancing, and her hot breath gusts against my neck. I tease my fingers up her thighs, finding them slightly slicker at the juncture of her hips. Goddamn, she’s wet as hell just from dancing and rubbing on me.

“How often do you do this…private thing?”

“Depends what you mean. In the club, almost never. I have a friend who I see regularly, though.”

“It’s gotta be frustrating, I think. To get this worked up and not leave satisfied. You asked me what I want…I’d love to taste that wet pussy, but I’m worried it’s a bad idea all around.”

She shudders under my touch where I’ve taken my index and middle fingers and stroked down the center of her, feeling the slick heat soaking clear through her panties.

With a weak and breathy voice, she says, “As a general rule, yeah…but you don’t get to be the boss by being stupid. I’m only with you now because Sadie wanted me to be. And honey, my pussy is magic.”

I chuckle. “Aren’t they all?”

I tease back up the wet fabric and apply pressure at the top, earning myself a soft gasp in response. There’s her magic button. Cupping one breast and thumbing her nipple, I rub her clit through her panties, gratified when she arches her back and lets out a full-on moan.

Her hand moves between us to my crotch, gripping my hard cock. I carefully grab her wrist and hold it at her side, whispering in her ear, “Be still. I just want to make you come. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” she murmurs, nodding, then letting her head fall back onto my shoulder.

I tease both her nipples with one hand as I work her clit harder. Her panties are so saturated they cling to every fold and contour of her pussy. She rocks her hips into my touch, and my dick throbs at the same tempo. I know if I asked to fuck her right now, she’d say yes, but somehow that would cross a line this doesn’t.

“So close . . .” she whispers, and I rub a little faster until she utters a soft, melodic cry, her entire body arching and her thighs clamping around my hand. Her hips rock as I keep rubbing her through her climax, her panties soaked through.

I stop when she relaxes and takes a couple seconds to catch her breath. The next thing I know she slides off my lap, turning to kneel between my thighs. I grab her hands when she goes for my belt.

“No, Katrina,” I say. Christ, do I want it, but it all feels all wrong. Not after the shock of seeing what some asshole did to Tasha, and absolutely not after that look Sadie had watching me leave with Katrina.

“Why not?” she asks, sitting back on her heels.

“Sadie’s still out there waiting for you, isn’t she?” I say, looking at her intently.

“Probably. She waits when she’s home. We go to my place together and she stays until she has to leave again.”

“I don’t like the idea of…me all over you when you two are together. It just seems like a violation of your thing…the thing you have with her.”

“You really have no idea what girls do together, do you?”

“Oh, baby, I have ideas, but they might be all wrong. All wrong.” She rolls her eyes and I laugh. “What? I can’t think about what you guys do? Mostly it’s just kissing and rubbing your titties together, right? That’s enough to get me going.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t like you as much as I thought I did,” she says, giving me another playful smack while she slips back into her dress.

“Kat… Can I call you that?” I ask, remembering Sadie talking to her that way. “You two seem to have this beautiful girl thing going on. I don’t know anything about girls. Lesbians, I mean…”

“I’m bi, but I’m listening.”

“Whatever you are to each other, sullying it with my evil man juice would make me feel weird. I’d rather imagine you two together without me in between you. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather Sadie didn’t know I even touched you tonight. Tell her…I dunno. Tell her I said no. You gave me a dance, and we talked the rest of the time.”

“That’s all we did,” she says. “I don’t count you touching me as anything special, no matter how hard I came.”

She sighs and gives me a very tender look that’s bordering on maternal, except that her nipples are still impossibly hard underneath her sheer dress, and I have to resist the urge to reach out and pinch them.

“You are so fucking delicious.” She grasps at the air with both hands, and I worry she might actually pinch my cheeks, but she doesn’t. She just tilts her head back in exasperation.

“I don’t think you have any idea how much women would just eat you up. Even women like Sadie, who thinks she’s gay, but she really isn’t. She just has daddy issues she hasn’t resolved yet—not that resolving daddy issues is a cure for being a lesbian or anything. She thinks she can’t be intimate with men, but I saw the way she looked at you earlier.”

“Trust me, I’ve known enough women with daddy issues to know better.”

“See? You know things about women. That’s what makes you so fucking precious. Marco, if I could keep you, I would in a heartbeat. No, I won’t tell Sadie what we did. But she’s smart. If you two are around each other out there, she’ll figure it out. She’s devious that way.”

“Yeah, she is.” I chuckle, remembering conversations I’ve had with her in which she niggled at me long enough to get the dirty detail she was looking for. It was like she was trying to pull out a splinter, and the process was both as uncomfortable and as liberating after the fact. But I don’t like what Katrina is insinuating.

“Take care of her, will you?” she asks me.

“I don’t even know if she’s staying in EOD. She’s talked about transferring a few times, but the only thing she wants more is becoming a SEAL.”

Katrina’s expression darkens and she lets out a mirthless chuckle. “That again. God, she’s talked about that for as long as I’ve known her. I think she only chose EOD because the SEALs weren’t an option.”

“They are now. As of earlier this year, anyway. You think she’ll actually do it?”

“Knowing her, yeah,” she says, giving me a helpless, exasperated look. “In which case, my request is even more important. Please take care of her.”

I frown and shake my head. “I’m not…”

I’m about to say “not interested in becoming a Navy SEAL,” but I know that’d be a lie. It was my first choice too, but following in the footsteps of two older brothers with reputations for having issues with authority made it a challenge to be taken seriously. None of my COs would approve the application. Maybe I’ve earned my shot now too.

“Rocket’s always been pretty good at taking care of herself,” I say instead.

“Maybe a little too good. I just worry that this obsession of hers is going to come back to haunt her someday. She’s so dead-set on proving she can do all the things, she forgets there are other people who care about her besides her dad.”

I nod and rub the back of my neck. We all know about Commander Ben Watts, thanks to the stories Watts has told us over the past year since she joined the squad. But I always found it odd that not once has she ever mentioned her mom. Anytime one of us asks, she changes the subject.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” I say.

Katrina sighs. “Well, it would mean the world to me. And I meant it about the job. If you need it afterwards, come back. No strings.”

I might just take her up on that, at some point. After what, I’m not really sure, though.