His suite at the Port Charles Hotel was dark and still as Jason Morgan slowly pushed the door open. It had been a long night. A long day. A long week. Time had slowed to a crawl ever since Manny Ruiz had first kidnapped Elizabeth eight days ago; ever since he and his brothers worked around the clock to bring her home safely.

Blackie had called in all of the family’s contacts that frequented the casinos, knowing that they would know who had taken their sister. When they had proved reluctant to offer up information that might be helpful, Ric had brought up certain matters that would implicate all of them in pending lawsuits, and the men were suddenly more talkative. Max dealt with the interrogations, as they were, personally and all signs pointed toward a senior colleague of Manny Ruiz who had claimed that he hadn’t had contact with the man in years. Patrick, however, knew better and he and Jessie had paid him a visit at his estate. While the young doctor charmed both the older man and his daughters, Jesse had managed to break into the man’s records and find several locations that Manny had used in the past as safe houses when he had worked with the man.

Sonny and Milo had organized the men into small battalions and sent them out to scour the area and find Elizabeth. The men reported back in orderly fashion and when Milo was certain they had the right place, they swooped in. In the deadly gunfight that ensued, they had lost several of their men and would have lost Jesse, too, if Patrick hadn’t performed an emergency surgery on his younger brother on the warehouse floor. Elizabeth, as it turned out, had saved them all. Just when Manny was convinced that the Alcazar boys were down for the count, Elizabeth had succeeded in capturing his attention and then getting away as Sonny and Jason moved in for the kill. They succeeded in capturing Manny’s top lieutenant, but Manny had managed to escape.

They’d see him again another day – Jason was fairly sure of it. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights; the moonlight streaming in through his open windows was light enough. Instead, he made his way straight over to his wet bar, shucking his shoes along the way. Every muscle in his body ached, and the bandage that Patrick had hastily wrapped around the flesh wound on his upper arm would need to be changed soon. But right now, all he wanted was a good, stiff drink.

Jason let out a slow breath as he sloshed the amber liquid around in the glass. Scotch on the rocks – single malt. It was Lorenzo’s drink of choice and had become his after he moved in.

The moonlight made the ice in his glass glitter, and Jason set it down on the counter and shut his eyes. But whenever he closed them, all he could see was a terrified Elizabeth in Manny Ruiz’s arms as he carried her away from him. Cursing, the enforcer ran his hands through his hair and tried to compose himself. The last time he had flipped out in this room and broken everything he could lay his hands on, security had been called and once Lorenzo called them off, he had received a stern lecture.

Sucking in a gulp of air, he once again picked up the half-empty glass of scotch. The liquid burned a fiery trail down his throat as he finished it off. Outside, the streets of Port Charles buzzed and twinkled with late-night passengers who knew nothing of the turmoil that had just passed. Elizabeth was safe now, at home with her brothers and her father. She was safe…for now.

He clenched his hands into fists and leaned over the wet bar, feeling that familiar hot, encompassing anger bubble up in him again. Seeing Manny Ruiz with her – seeing him touch her and pick her up and stroke her face – had done something to him. He hated the other man for it; hated him for the familiarity, the intimacy, with which he touched Elizabeth. They had only recently discovered that the felon was mildly obsessed with Lorenzo’s only daughter and had watched her since she was a young girl, even before she left for boarding school ten years ago. The man was sick and twisted and he wanted Elizabeth. It would only be a matter of time before he came after her again, and Jason didn’t know what to do about it. Manny seemed to have nine lives – no matter what he and the Alcazar boys did, he always kept coming back, more and more dangerous each time.

Letting out a ragged sigh, Jason pushed himself away from the wet bar and stood in the middle of the room, staring at his black sock clad feet as he waited in a square of moonlight. The clock ticked quietly somewhere in the distance, and the still of the room was almost unbearable.

He was about to retreat to his bedroom to get some rest when he stopped, thinking he heard footsteps in the hall near his door. He waited as they approached his door and paused. After a moment of strained silence, the hesitation palpable, he heard a gentle knock on the door.

Frowning, he turned and walked toward the door to his suite like a robot, still functioning on auto-pilot after the trying day’s events. Pulling the door open, his startled blue eyes met the sober sapphire ones of Elizabeth Alcazar.

She was dressed in a pair of silk pajama bottoms and a matching camisole, and her long hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, the side-wept bangs falling in her face. Her hands were clasped together, resting gently over her stomach and she stared up at him, seeking his piercing cerulean eyes in the darkness.

He opened his mouth, trying to form some word, to ask her what she was doing here, to ask her never to leave. But as soon as he had opened his mouth, he shut it once more. Instead, his intense eyes simply bore into her own solemn ones, searching for some clue or answer hidden in the deep midnight blue orbs.

But she was the first to speak, dispelling all his doubts and questions.

“Jason…I need you.”

His heart was hammering in his throat, the implication of her words weighing down between them both. Need. Necessity. Comfort. Contingency. The tremor in her hands matched that in his voice when he opened his mouth to attempt to speak. No words came out.

Instead, his large hand reached for her, groping for her delicate frame in the darkness. She came willingly, eagerly, powerlessly. Jason gripped her waist frantically, his rough palm finding the warm, petal-soft skin underneath her flimsy camisole, and pulled her desperately to him.

No words were spared in the quiet darkness. There was no time for words anymore – no room for words. Instead, there was only the sound of her back hitting the wall as he kicked the door shut, blocking out the peaceful but intrusive natural hum of the hotel.

Jason heard a panting noise but didn’t even stop to decipher whom it belonged to. Instead, he dropped his hands to her hips in order to anchor her firmly against the wall next to the door, and lowered his mouth to hers. Her small hands gripped the still-crisp edges of his omnipresent oxford shirt, pulling him closer until their bodies were pressed flush against one another, leaving no room for either to question the other’s motives or sincerity. All that mattered was what was currently transpiring between them, the utterly raw and very familiar connection of their warm, trembling young bodies.

He insinuated his leg more firmly between her supple limbs, his mouth catching her gasp as he gently applied pressure with his knee. The same small, delicate hands that had given him untold pleasure in the past now splayed out against the hard planes of his bronzed chest, having made quick work of unbuttoning his shirt.

Jason let out a low groan when her thumbs found his nipples and responded by applying slightly more pressure with the knee that was pressed intimately to her womanhood. She had responded to his kisses and touches beautifully and was quite aroused at the moment, as evidenced by the flaring pupils he could distinguish in the pristine moonlight.

His lips moved to her jaw and then trailed down her back. Finding her height to their disadvantage, he quickly wrapped his broad hands around her tiny waist and hoisted her up a few inches. With her back still pressed firmly against the wall, Elizabeth took his cue and wrapped her legs nimbly around his waist, inadvertently grinding up against his burgeoning arousal and making him swear under his breath.

Again, his lips found her earlobe and nipped the soft flesh without a hint of gentility before moving lower. She gasped and mewed from his savage ministrations, as desperate for the contact and the release as he was. Her fingers managed to rip his dark suit jacket from his shoulder, shoving the material to the floor with little preamble before moving on to his mostly untucked and entirely unbuttoned shirt. Jason shrugged, attempting to help her as he simultaneously peeled off his socks using only his toes.

She was panting hard as he nipped and bit and suckled the porcelain skin of her neck, leaving marks that her brothers would no doubt see in the morning. But Jason didn’t care. Hearing her lusty, sultry moan as her nails scraped against his scalp, he straightened and once again captured her mouth. He nipped the soft pink flesh between his teeth and then soothed the sting with his tongue, already feeling her grow restless against him.

Having had enough of his torture, Elizabeth now pulled away to exact some of her own. Her long fingers played along his defined muscles as she lowered her lips to the spot just behind and under his ear that drove him absolutely wild, flicking it with her tongue several times and swiveling her hips when she felt his arousal grow.

Jason braced both hands flat against the wall, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his hard pants. Unconsciously, he began to rock his hips into hers, pushing her more firmly into the wall with each thrust. Elizabeth’s lips trailed hot, wet open-mouthed kisses down his neck, tasting the light saltiness of the sensitive skin and inhaling his masculine scent of leather and spice.

Her small hand then slipped between them, gently stroking his arousal through the fabric of his dress pants, and Jason knew he was done for. She raked her nails over his rigid length, petting it gently before reaching for the zipper. The rumble of the silver snap moving through the metal teeth sounded like thunder in the quiet room, and Elizabeth gasped when Jason snarled against her ear.

His arm went around her waist, a free hand grasping her ankle and helping her loosen her hold on his hips. Jason lowered her until her toes met the thick carpet, then reached for her flimsy camisole. He whipped it over her head in one smooth motion, sending it sailing over his shoulder to land in the moonlight in a puddle of silk. Not to be outdone, Elizabeth set to work on his pants and boxers, managing to divest him of them both as his rough palms grasped her narrow hips.

One arm lifted her, anchoring her to the wall with his thighs as the other fairly ripped her silk pajama bottoms off of her. Completely naked now, she was trembling slightly when he skimmed a hand down the back of her thigh, hooking it behind her knee and encouraging her to once again wrap her legs around him.

Her skin was dewy with sweat and stuck to his as Elizabeth wrapped herself around Jason’s strong body. Her breasts flattened against his hard chest as their parted lips once again met. His teeth clinked against hers as Jason immediately thrust his tongue into her mouth without waiting for permission. He stroked hers tenderly but forcefully, demanding an immediate response from his willing partner.

Elizabeth was breathing hard, feeling a coil build low in her belly. The pressure was mounting, the incredible need getting harder and harder to allay, and Jason could feel the tension in her lithe young body. Taking a brief moment to exercise rare caution, he situated her firmly against the wall, supporting her with his arms as he cupped her bottom.

Her lashes fluttered, shielding her expressive liquid eyes from his enraptured view as Jason shifted against her, guiding himself to her entrance. A low wail, desperate and astonished, slipped past her plush lips as he slipped only a fraction of an inch into her, moistening her already slick folds and making absolutely sure that she was ready for him.

Elizabeth gripped his shoulders firmly, the nails biting into his tanned signal in an attempt to convey her desperation and need. Jason closed his eyes, steeling his iron jaw, and drove himself fully into her. She muffled her own keening cry and wound her arms tightly around his neck, burying her face in his thick, sandy hair.

Shielded to the hilt by her soft, compliant body, Jason let out a slow, ragged breath. He braced his hands flat against the wall once more as her warm lips brushed over the shell of his ear and began to pull out slowly. She moved with him, her tight walls reluctant to relinquish his girth, until he was almost completely free.

But then he was driving right back into her, his thrusts hard and fast and deep. Her teeth sank into her plump-as-a-pillow lip, stifling any further cry as the enforcer buried his face in her neck. She panted in perfect rhythm with his thrusts, which started out regular and then grew increasingly frantic and frenzied. His hips moved in time with hers, having finally found their familiar rhythm, and Jason wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on.

Elizabeth was close – very close. He could feel her walls quiver around him, and Jason sucked in a gulp of air as he bit the soft skin of her neck. “Ella…”

It was the name her brothers had used since before she could remember, the name he only used in the throes of deepest passion. Her fingers speared through his wheat-colored locks as her entire body tightened and burst into flames at the incredible release he had built up. Jason followed immediately after, his face still buried in her neck, and spewed his seed violently into her womb.

It was a long time before either one caught their breath. Elizabeth’s arms remained wound around Jason’s neck, her breathing eventually slowing and matching his in time and rhythm. Jason didn’t look at her. Instead, he nuzzled her neck and remained buried within her, waiting for her first response.

Her fingertips danced across his broad shoulders as her lips brushed hesitantly against the shell of his ear. “Jason…take me to bed.”

 

To read more, be sure to tune in when NINE is released!