by Lora Leigh
He did something in between. Right over the heavy vein throbbing in her neck, his teeth gripped, raked over it just before his tongue lashed at the heated flesh.
“Oh my God. Just kill me now,” she whimpered as lightning-fast trails of exquisite sensation raced from her neck to erogenous zones she hadn’t known she possessed. All of them combining to create one hot ache between her thighs as she felt heated moisture spilling from her body.
This was a major problem. It was a problem of enormous magnitude, because it was a weakness, and Graeme always made use of any weakness he discovered.
“Kill you?” he growled, his lips moving along the column of her neck as she found herself helpless to do anything except tilt her head to the side and allow him access. “Killing you isn’t on the agenda, little cat. Fucking you is.”
Why did her womb clench in such sudden pleasure at the threat that it stole her breath?
There wasn’t a damned thing romantic about his declaration. It was pure lust, pure hunger.
“Not a good idea,” she panted, though her lashes drifted closed and she arched closer, the feel of his lips at her collarbone dragging an unbidden moan from her lips.
“Like hell.” One hand moved to the back of her top and in the next breath it was a piece of torn material drifting to the floor.
He’d ripped her shirt off?
She stared back at him, uncertain if she was outraged or completely turned on.
His gaze dropped to her breasts, the amber color of his eyes darkening at the sight of the swollen curves, even contained as they were in the sensible cotton bra she wore.
“I saw lace and silk in your drawers.” The glare he turned on her had her lips parting in surprise. “Why don’t you wear it?”
“Ever try running or fighting in a lace bra?” she snapped back breathlessly. “It’s not real durable.”
“Wear the lace and I’ll do the fighting for you,” he rasped. “I’ll kill for you to see you in it.”
His hand lifted, a single claw extending before it slid beneath the material between her breasts and sliced it apart, brushing the cups aside to allow him to stare down at the bared flesh.
“Graeme, this is crazy,” she whispered.
“As you said, I’m insane,” he answered absently as he brushed his cheek against the side of one swollen curve. “Why would I pretend sanity at this late date?”
His breath wafted over her nipple, the slight caress of heated air nearly dragging a whimper from her.
“You’ll regret it later,” she assured him. “You know how angry you get when you regret things later.”
She would definitely regret it. She already regretted it. Yet her head was falling back, her back arching and her fingers sliding into his hair to hold him to her as his lips covered the hard point of her nipple.
A cry tore from her when his lips surrounded the tender tip, pulling it into his mouth and suckling at it with firm draws of his mouth. His tongue lashed at it, laved it, licked at it. Sharp teeth gripped the tortured peak. Holding it there, he rubbed his tongue against it then flicked over it. The caresses set it afire with such pleasure she was arching against him, riding the hard ridge of his erection, desperate to ease the throbbing need growing between her thighs.
Dampness spilled from her vagina, coating the folds beyond and dampening the silk covering her sex. Each draw of his mouth, each lash of his tongue or rake of his teeth against her nipple sent such sharp spirals of sensation exploding between her thighs that she found herself helpless against them.
She’d never known pleasure like this. She’d never ached like this or found herself so helpless against a man.
And it was Graeme. Graeme who had destroyed her, who had taken everything she could have fooled herself into believing might actually be hers.
“Enough.” Her voice was weak, faint. She’d had to force the protest past her lips.
She’d be damned if she would reward him for tearing her life apart.
“Stop, Graeme. Just stop . . .”
His head jerked up, his lips swollen and sexy as hell. And she hated herself for noticing it.
“I won’t regret it,” he suddenly snarled in answer to her earlier declaration. “But I have no doubt you will regret letting that nonsense that just passed your lips free.”
Before she realized what he intended, he released her.
Holding her hips until she was standing on her own, he moved back, amber fire still filling his eyes as he stared at her, his breathing hard, erratic.
No doubt she would regret it. Hell, she already regretted it.
“You need to leave.” She might never get her breathing back under control. The breathless sound of it was something she’d never heard from her own lips before.
Her claws were digging into the wall behind her, her bare breasts still holding his gaze, her nipples still tight and hard, as though begging him to ignore her words.
Her body was betraying her just as eagerly as Graeme had betrayed her years before.
“Of course I do,” he snarled. “God forbid you might have second thoughts, right?”
“Exactly,” she hissed back at him, the feline sound harsh and filled with her own inner conflict. “God forbid I should actually depend upon you to do anything but make my life hell, is more like it. Why should I reward you for that?”
“Reward me?” Amazement filled his voice as well as his expression. “Trust me, baby, you were the one about to get the reward.”
“Really?” she all but purred as she slid away from the wall, her gaze sliding over him slowly as she passed him, knowing better; the scent of his lust was far stronger, far hungrier than her awakening senses and she knew it. “Then it won’t bother you a bit to know how I’ve fantasized about having a lover.” Fantasized about him while she slept, helpless against the images. “And all the ways I’ve imagined rewarding him for being the man I’ve ached to have.”
The shadows of the primal Bengal pulsed beneath his flesh as a growl rumbled in his throat.
“Don’t push me, Cat,” he warned her, his tone guttural as she gripped the step railing and started up the stairs.
“How I wondered what it would be like to taste his flesh, to lick over hard, hot flesh like I would lick a favorite treat. Or to rise above him and lower myself . . .”
The snarl that left his lips sent her racing up the stairs, all thought of teasing him fleeing beneath the sound of a fully aroused, lust-filled Bengal Breed intent on one thing and one thing only. Pure mindless sex.
She slammed the bedroom door behind her, locked it and stepped back from it warily, wondering if he would dare to breach it.
“You like to play very dangerous games, mate,” he called out through the door.
“Go mate yourself. I wouldn’t have you on a bet,” she informed him mutinously. “Sorry, asshole, go find someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
A dark male chuckle met the dare. “Think you know me, little cat? Is that really what you think?”
“That’s what I know.” Retrieving another bra from the drawer, she hurriedly clipped it in place before reaching for a shirt to cover it.
Damn him, that was a new bra he’d destroyed too.
“Then you should be well aware of the fact that what I claim, I keep.” The low, furious warning in his voice had a chill racing up her spine. “Don’t test me on this. Let another touch you, let another spill the scent of his lust around you, and you’ll see just why those stupid Council scientists whimper at the very thought of me.”
“Because you’re fucking crazy?” she suggested mockingly, glaring at the door. “Because they know the strain of rabies they coded into your defective genetics?”
He made her so mad it was all she could do to keep from jerking the door open and confronting him again. The problem was, she’d probably find herself begging him to touch her again instead.
“Because I have no problem reaching inside their chests and allowing them to watch as
I rip their hearts out.” Animalistic, so primal and rough, his voice had chills racing up her spine and filled her with a heavy sense of dread. “Remember that, my little cat, if that bastard Lincoln Martinez ever even thinks to touch you. Except I’ll rip his dick off first and shove it down his throat.”
She blinked at the threat, almost allowing the sudden spurt of humor she felt to slip free at the final threat.
And Jonas had called her overdramatic? He hadn’t heard drama yet.
The slamming of the kitchen door assured her the enraged Bengal was gone. Thankfully.
Sweet Jesus, she was in trouble here.
Pressing her hand to her stomach, she inhaled deeply, frantically trying to figure out a way out of the mess she found herself in. And yes, it was a mess. Because he might have left, but the arousal he’d created inside her hadn’t.
She was going to have to change panties, because she’d definitely soaked hers with the hot spill of moisture his touch created.
And she didn’t consider that a good thing. It wasn’t a good thing at all.
• CHAPTER 5 •
She would be the death of him.
Graeme had always sworn she would be the death of him. From the moment she’d begun crawling, he’d known that woman was going to be more trouble than he would know how to deal with.
Moving quickly through the tunnels between the small rental and the Reever estate, Graeme remembered how tiny she had been even then, and how she seemed to find trouble no matter the effort made to ensure she was safe.
He’d been only eleven when Brandenmore had placed her in his arms, giving the responsibility of her care to him. Her survival was up to him; he’d known it in such a heartbeat of realization that it had been shocking.
Until that moment he’d never really known a point of time when he could designate that he’d felt his animal genetics in such a separate, fierce flow of energy. It had happened in that moment, though. The boy and the immature Bengal had stood side by side inside him. The boy staring at the child, bemused by how to care for such a sickly creature. In that moment, the feral displacement between Breed genetics and human had disappeared, the animal bonding with him completely to claim that child.
He’d known she was his. The animal, as immature as it had been, had claimed her instantly. At first he’d excused it as claiming her as part of the Pride he’d always sworn he’d have. Yet he’d known better.
Judd was his brother, his twin, and though the bond of twins was always there, his affection for Cat had still been different. She would belong to him once she reached maturity. In a blink, boy and animal had known that. It hadn’t been a sexual knowledge, it had been instinct. He’d found his other half, if he could ensure her survival.
His intelligence even then had been far superior to anyone he’d come in contact with. The depth of knowledge he could amass had been driving him insane, tearing his mind apart as his humanity fought the animal merged with it.
Staring into her weak, pain-ridden eyes, the bonding of the often volatile parts of all he was happened in an instant. And very little of it was actually human.
His intelligence, both human and animal, would have torn him apart if it hadn’t been for that moment. Cat had centered him, had given all those jagged pieces a place to fit.
A job to complete. Her survival.
Her survival meant not just curing the genetic malfunction in her body, which he’d immediately sensed, but also ensuring such a human frailty never weakened her again.
He and Dr. Foster had isolated the genetic function of the serum created before Dr. Foster was assigned to the project. The doctor and Graeme had known that part of it could never be revealed, and they’d fought to keep it hidden. It would cure Cat, just as it was curing Honor, but with Cat the genetic virus, isolated and for the most part taken from the serum, would be added back in once Foster coded in the Breed genetics needed to activate it.
Bengal genetics.
Entering the large main cavern beneath the estate, he strode to the desk and bank of computers set up in the nearest corner. She’d managed to find most of the cameras, but he’d known she would. There were still enough left to monitor her, to ensure her security.
The grounds were heavily covered with cameras, electronic sensors and alarms. He wouldn’t take her safety for granted.
Checking each level of the security he’d installed, he was aware of the scent of the approaching distraction.
Lobo Reever rarely visited the caverns beneath his home that he’d turned over to Graeme. They were Graeme’s domain, it had been agreed. And now, he was visiting twice in once week.
Stepping from the rough-hewn stone staircase, the Wolf Breed moved silently into the main cavern before striding to the security monitors located on the wall to Graeme’s side. Those monitors, nearly two dozen in all, encompassed the estate as a whole. His gaze lingered on one displaying the pool area and the young woman stretched out beneath the rays of the sun with lazy abandon.
“Need something?” Graeme questioned, his attention on the monitor displaying the status of the various security measures on the rental.
“Jonas was here.” Lobo’s attention remained on the pool area, his gaze brooding as he answered the question. “He wanted to speak to you, but it seems you weren’t in.”
“I had something to take care of at the rental,” Graeme informed him. “Sucks to be Jonas.”
Lobo’s mocking grunt was more an agreement than anything else.
“Aren’t you curious what he wanted?” the Wolf Breed asked after several seconds.
Was he?
“Not really.” He was more intent on isolating a particular anomaly that appeared in the security programming. “Jonas rarely concerns me and what he wants is never in line with what I seem to want at the time, so I normally don’t worry about it.”
Amusement flickered around the other Breed.
Lobo had an odd sense of humor, though. Graeme had learned to tolerate it. After all, the Wolf Breed tolerated his often bloody hobby of interrogating Council Coyotes, so they tried to agree to disagree on such subjects.
“He’s insistent I allow two of his enforcers to watch the rental,” Lobo revealed. “So insistent, actually, that he’s making it a Bureau request. I do have an agreement with the Bureau, Graeme. One I’d prefer not to break.”
The statement wasn’t a request of any sort. He was informing Graeme that, in this case, the Bureau could take precedence over Graeme’s disagreement.
An irritated growl slipped past his throat. “That Lion is going to push me too far,” he murmured as he set the security program to isolate and eradicate the anomaly in the security protocols he was evaluating. “Keep him away from her.”
“Graeme, as much as I rarely give a damn about your various little projects in my caverns, I must point out that I don’t answer to you. The favor you’ve extended in giving Khi this small period of time to consider her options is greatly appreciated. But I won’t go to war with the Bureau of Breed Affairs for it.”
Graeme lifted his lashes, staring up at him for long moments.
“At least not easily.” The Wolf Breed exhaled in frustration. “That woman will be the death of me.”
“It would seem we face similar ends, then,” Graeme pointed out in self-disgust before pushing back from the holo-board and deactivating it. “What’s Jonas’s argument?”
He’d rather just rip the Bureau director’s throat out, but that might upset his daughter a bit and Graeme had become fond of the toddler over the months that he’d secretly given her the serum needed to save her life. Brandenmore had found a way to initially inject the infant in an attempt to force Jonas and the Breeds to find a cure for the destruction of his own body that the serum he’d injected himself with was creating. He’d convinced Jonas the same would happen to Amber.
Lobo lowered his gaze as Graeme slid his chair from the desk and tilted the back to rest against the wall behind him before propping his feet on top of
the desk. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he watched the Wolf with narrowed eyes.
“Your level of disrespect astounds me,” Lobo pointed out with lazy humor.
“Your level of supposed superiority often amuses me,” Graeme assured him. “But I rarely hold it against you. So what does our esteemed director want?”
The Wolf almost let a mocking grin of acknowledgment curl at his lips but held it back at the last second.
“Besides your hide?” Lobo asked.
“Well, yes.” Graeme nodded. “Besides that. I’m aware it rates fairly high on his list, though.”
“I’d say it tops his list,” Lobo grunted. “But other than that, he’s demanding that I allow Bureau surveillance of the grounds surrounding the house. He seems a bit put out that his satellites are having trouble zooming in on it. Seems there’s some atmospheric or magnetic interference.”
Graeme smiled, he couldn’t help it. Satisfaction could be a wonderful thing.
“I’m quite pleased with the interference as well as its cloaking.” The Wolf’s gray eyes mirrored Graeme’s own satisfaction. “I’m especially pleased that it’s untraceable. So far.”
“The algorithm only kicks in when satellite detection is intercepted and it’s changing constantly.” Graeme shrugged. There were also protocols that helped detect any attempts to trace it. It was one of his most ingenious programs yet. He loved it.
“I consider myself quite lucky to have acquired your loyalty for the time being.” Lobo sighed. “But Wyatt has the potential to become a problem, Graeme. On-the-ground surveillance could also pinpoint the location of the satellite interference.”
Graeme restrained the urge to roll his eyes.
“On-the-ground surveillance won’t pinpoint the problem, Lobo,” he assured him. “I told you that.”
“But you haven’t told me why.” Ice coated his voice.
No, he hadn’t told him why. He hadn’t explained to either Lobo or his head of security how it worked, and he wasn’t about to. But tracing it would be impossible where Jonas was concerned.
Dropping the chair to all four legs, Graeme rose to his feet and moved away from the monitors as he kept Lobo in sight.
“Why doesn’t matter,” he reminded the other Breed. “It works.”
“It’s not magic, therefore, it’s vulnerable,” Lobo argued.
“Is this becoming an issue, Reever?” Facing him fully, Graeme narrowed his eyes on the Wolf and waited.
Losing Reever’s loyalty would be a problem, but it wasn’t insurmountable.
“Not an issue.” Lobo shook his head, not at all concerned by Graeme’s stance. “Simply an observation. At the moment, my only issue is Wyatt. As I said, a war with the Bureau would be a problem at this time. I’d prefer to stay on the friendly side, if you don’t mind. But I’d also prefer not to have enforcers lurking around my property.”
In that, Graeme didn’t blame him a bit.
“Tell them they can watch the house all they like from the property line,” he suggested, unconcerned with the problem. “Your agreement with the Bureau does not arbitrarily allow for Bureau surveillance on the grounds itself.”
“Graeme, they’re already watching from the property line.” Reever sighed, crossing his arms over his chest, likely wrinkling the pristine white silk shirt he wore.
Lobo didn’t like wrinkles, Graeme remembered in amusement.
Damn. If he had to make this a personal favor, then he was going to lose one of the debts he’d gathered over the years. Likely several of them. He didn’t like the thought of that.
“Doesn’t the new division director of this area owe you a favor?” Graeme asked then, his eyes narrowing on the Wolf. “You allowed the use of this cavern to take care of a little problem he had not long ago.”
The execution of the man who had betrayed Rule Breaker’s mate wasn’t exactly a nominal debt. Reever had given the use of the caverns, supposedly, as well as a promise to keep the location and Breaker’s part in it secret.
“That’s the only debt Breaker owes me,” Lobo growled. “I’d prefer not to use it.”
Graeme stared back at him in surprise. “You want me to use my brownie points?”
“You have far more than I do in this instance,” Lobo drawled knowingly. “It seems only fair you use one from what appears to be an abundance of points rather than using the only one I’ve acquired with the new division director.”
“I’ve an abundance because I don’t spend them without thought or give them away like fucking candy, Reever,” he growled, irritated at the thought of spending one of the precious debts he’d managed to acquire.
“I want this to go away, Graeme.” Smooth, without command but definitely a warning, Lobo gave a brief inclination of his head as a farewell before turning and walking away.
“Yeah, well, and I want to let the freak loose, but I keep him contained,” he muttered, striding furiously back to the computers and throwing himself back in his chair.
Dammit, he didn’t have time for what Lobo wanted.
Glaring at the computer screen, his eyes narrowed at the program’s response to his earlier command. The anomaly wasn’t part of the programming, but neither was it identified or located.
Pulling up the holo-board he went back to work.
Jonas would have to wait until later.
• • •
She’d been certain she could find at least some measure of peace at the small Reever guest estate, Cat thought as she opened her eyes the next afternoon and stared across the pool at Graeme. She’d sensed him watching her, known before she even opened her eyes that he was there.
Drifting lazily in the pool behind the house, dressed in nothing but a miniscule bikini, Cat admitted that the urge to enjoy the water might have been a mistake. The Bengal was watching her like an afternoon snack after missing breakfast.
“What do you want?” she muttered.