On the Hunt

by Alexandra Ivy

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. He wanted to infect Lynne, so maybe he wants to infect other people. Perhaps part of the bacteria’s strength, when it strips the brain, is to push for more infections. There are contagions with similar symptoms.” Nora clasped both arms around her knees, looking unbelievably fragile.

  Deke remained still. “Great.”

  Nora leaned her chin on her knees. “You should’ve seen Lynne’s chest. It turned blue. I mean, her heart glowed almost aqua. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ever.”

  “You’re sure you’re not infected,” Deke said.

  Nora huffed. “No, I’m not infected, they did plenty of tests and they know how the bacteria works.”

  His temper pricked his shoulders as if the old fury really wanted out. Yet his woman had been through an ordeal, and now wasn’t the time for him to lose it. “If there’s a chance you’re infected, then I want you in the hospital with doctors all around.”

  She dropped her gaze. “He didn’t touch me after being in the containment area. There’s no way, Deke. I’m going to head back into the lab and find something new to work on while I wait for more results.”

  “No.” Deke kicked off his boots and set a knee on the bed, the pressure in his chest easing. He believed her, and thank the gods. All of them. “We have a couple of hours to sleep, and then I need to go out hunting again.” He’d spent hours trying to find Barter, with no luck; he had to contain the bastard, and soon. “Now we sleep.”

  Dark smudges marred the pale skin beneath Nora’s eyes, and weariness hunched her shoulders, yet her eyes shot sparks. “Just because we’re in a crisis right now doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do.”

  He lifted his chin. “You’re right.”

  She blinked. “I am.”

  “Aye. I’m telling you what to do because we’re together, and it’s my job to keep you safe. If you’re passing out from exhaustion, it makes my part more difficult.” He kept his voice level and tried to add some humor, but he spoke the truth, and damn it, she could tell.

  “We’re barely together, and that doesn’t give you rights,” she muttered.

  He needed sleep, as did she. So he skipped the argument and instead grabbed her up and shoved her under the covers. Her halfhearted struggle did nothing but make him more determined. Then he reached over his head to turn off the lamp before lying down.

  “You’re not getting in?” she asked, her voice small in the darkness.

  “No.” Deke could get enough sleep lying on top of his covers. Getting through the security system he’d installed that morning would be nearly impossible for a guy not trained in systems. Even so, Deke would be prepared. “Go to sleep, Nora.”

  “Fine.” She rolled over, and even the rustle sounded huffy.

  He shut his eyes and relaxed his body from the bottom to the top as he’d been trained. The slightest of movements in the bed caught his attention. Then another. A soft, muffled sob came from next to him. Well, shit. He stood and kicked off his pants and shirt before sliding under the covers and turning her to face him. Her fight this time was a little more impressive, but he was patient, and before long, he’d tucked her wet face into his neck. “Let it out.”

  She smacked his ribs. “I thought you had to be vigilant.”

  He sighed against her hair. “No way can Barter get inside this place without my knowing it.” Truth be told, Deke had wanted to sleep on top of the bed to keep from reaching for her. Even now, with her so warm and soft against him, his groin stirred.

  She hiccupped, and the slight knock of her knee against his balls seemed deliberate. “You’re not the boss here, and I’m going back to work, jackass. Now let me go, and get out of my way.”

  So she wanted to fight, did she? A good brawl would make her forget her troubles for a while, but she’d have to cry it out and face them sooner or later. “No.”

  She pushed against his chest. “I’m not going to sleep, so I might as well head back into the lab and work.”

  “You’re exhausted, and that’s where mistakes are made. Rest a little, and you can go back to work.”

  She shoved against him, her nails digging in. “Let me go.”

  “No.” His quick smack to her ass reverberated up his arm. “Knock it off.”

  Her gasp heated his collarbone. “Oh, you did not,” she hissed.

  The roar of his blood through his veins filled his head, and he struggled to contain himself. “Go to sleep, or I’ll do it again. I’m in no mood, Nora.” Wrong thing to say, and he knew it the second the words left his mouth. But enough was enough, and his hold on his temper was rapidly failing. A sociopath wanted his woman enough to taunt Deke in a fucking journal. “Go. To. Sleep.”

  She kicked against him and landed a punch near his mouth.

  Damn it. He rolled them over, flattening her to the bed.

  She got off another good punch, this time nailing his bottom lip.

  “Fuck.” He grabbed her hands and manacled her wrists.

  Her tight nipples scraped across his chest, and she groaned. Then she widened her legs, making room for him. “Deacan,” she breathed.

  “No.” He could barely make out her face in the darkness, so he lowered his closer. His emotions were raw, and he needed time to gather himself. “I’m garna release you, and you’re going to roll over and go to sleep. You feel me?”

  She wiggled her butt in the bed and rubbed her wet cunt against his dick. “I definitely feel you.”

  Hunger clawed through him. He shut his eyes, struggling for control. While he understood her need to escape reality, and sex was a good way to do that, he wasn’t ready. Gentleness lay nowhere within him at the moment. Shit. From the second he’d busted his ass to get to the hospital and seen her, so pale and frightened, huddled under a blanket as the medical teams tested her, he’d wanted to beat somebody bloody. So he took a deep breath and slowly released her wrists. “Nora, heed me.”

  “I’m trying to heed you,” she hissed, rubbing herself against him.

  He swallowed, his biceps quivering with the fight to keep from implanting himself so deep danger never found her again. “I’m not in control.” Damn, he hated admitting that. “If I take you, baby, it’s gonna be my way, and that ain’t gentle.” Nowhere near, actually.

  She laughed, the sound deep and throaty. “No kidding. Geez. What do you call the other day?”

  He paused and blinked. The other day? What other day? Realization dawned. “That was play. We were playing.” The woman really didn’t know him if she thought that was him out of control.

  She leaned up and licked along his jawline. “Let’s play again.”

  His cock hardened to the point of pain. His chest burned, and his vision hazed. “Let go. Time to sleep.” His voice sounded as if he’d eaten glass.

  She shifted against him, her nails scraping his palm. “Stop being such a pussy. You want me? Take me.”

  His body actually jerked as if held by invisible chains. Her use of the word was deliberate, and he bit down a retort. He drew in air through his nose, trying with every ounce of strength he had not to take her up on the offer. Or dare. “Trust me, Nora.”

  “I do.” She freed her hands and reached for his hair to yank, and the pain shot straight from his scalp to his throbbing dick. “You’ve always held back, haven’t you.” Wonder filled her voice as she made the statement that didn’t remotely sound like a question.

  “Aye.” The breath caught in his chest, and he forced it to remain there. Held. Waiting. Like a jaguar about to strike, everything in him coiled.

  She went still beneath him as if instinctively knowing how close he was to the precipice. Then slowly, with pure deliberation, she released his hair and caressed down his neck, back, and buttocks, her nails lightly scraping. She reached his hip bone, and he stopped breathing.

  Tension filled the room, smothering any oxygen still left.

  Then she slid over his hip and wrapped her hand around the
base of his shaft. Tight.

  He growled, the sound more animalistic than human.

  Her shoulders came off the bed, and her lips brushed against his. “You want me, Deacan McDougall? Then fucking take me.”

  Nora knew the second his control snapped. She not only heard it, she could feel it. After the fear of the day, after the sadness, she just wanted to get lost. Pushing Deacan McDougall to lose control was by no means a smart move. But it was all she had, and once she’d started, she couldn’t stop.

  He reared back and flipped her around.

  “Hey—” she protested, trying to lift her face from the pillow.

  He grabbed her hair and pulled back—hard. She scrambled up onto all fours to keep the ache at bay, her mind swirling. Her chest filled until her lungs protested, and she tried to breathe out. Deke had taken her from behind before, and this shouldn’t feel like a big deal. But something . . . was different.

  One broad hand was planted between her shoulder blades and shoved down. Her arms gave, and her face hit the pillow again, leaving her ass in the air and exposed. Desire, raw and hot, warmed her head to toe. He grasped one cheek and squeezed, shoving a knee between her legs to widen them. “Move from this position, Nora, and I swear to fucking God I’ll make sure you don’t sit again by giving you the spanking I should’ve years ago.”

  A protest rose in her, and she began to lift her head, when the bed shifted. He pulled up on her thighs, tilting her, and his mouth found her core.

  She cried out, sparks of light flashing behind her eyes. Strong, determined, and with a mission, he ate at her. From behind, his head between her legs, somehow he found the right angle. No finesse, none of the teasing licks he usually used. The scruff on his jaw scraped her thighs, and he went at her for his pleasure. Damn hers.

  The first orgasm hit her with a flash of light, and yet she fought it, fighting him. But the waves took her over, pounding through her, and she came down with a soft moan. He moved again, and his fingers replaced his mouth. His chest arched over her back, and his heated breath brushed her ear.

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “You will,” he said, his free hand squeezing one nipple, his cock hard against the back of her thigh. “Your mind may not be clear, or your heart. But your body knows who owns it.” His brogue thickened to the point she could barely understand him. “Before this night is over, I’ll hear it from you.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he pinched her clit, and she went off again. His talented fingers prolonged the ecstasy until she moaned into the pillow, pleading for relief. Finally, he relented.

  Air whooshed from her lungs, and she turned her head on the pillow to breathe.

  Both hands grabbed her hips, he levered himself up, and in one hard thrust impaled his cock so deep, he’d always be there. She gasped, and small tremors rippled inside her. That quickly, that easily, a renewed craving for him consumed her.

  He tethered her hair again, this time drawing back. “Now you get up,” he said. She planted her hands and knees and rose, forced to arch her back as he kept a tight hold. The sensation of being controlled, of being vulnerable, filled her with a hunger so hot it burned.

  His thighs settled on the outside of hers, one hand tangled in her hair, and the other clamped on her hip strong enough to bruise. Then he thrust. Harder and faster than she would’ve thought possible, he hammered into her, taking everything. Her arms trembled, and her vision hazed.

  The devastating pleasure he pounded into her edged close to pain, all the sharper for the thin line. A set of mini-detonations exploded inside her, and she gasped, her body stiffening. The next thrust threw her into such an intense orgasm, she vibrated head to toe and screamed his name.

  Her body stopped shaking, and her sex relaxed.

  Still, he pounded.

  “You’re killing me,” she moaned, trying to free her head.

  His mouth nipped at her earlobe. “Definitely not my intention.” He reached around her and slid two fingers along her clit.

  She moaned. “God, Deke. So much.”

  He continued to hammer into her without even a hitch in his pace, his fingers sliding, plucking, and pinching. Sensation upon sensation whirled through her, taking over, stealing her will. She rose higher and higher, her breath catching, her heart maybe stopping. Time extended with no beginning, with no ending, and he showed no sign of slowing. Of weakening. As if he had a point to make, one he’d held back, he gave her everything he had without mercy.

  She kept climbing, bombarded by sensation. When she reached the top, the world stopped. Then she fell.

  She screamed his name, pummeled by waves, the explosion so powerful she’d never recover. He held her tight, his body jerking as he found his own release.

  Then he stopped moving. Still inside her, with the aftermath of the pounding still echoing in the silence, he placed a searing kiss between her shoulder blades.

  He released her hair, and her head dropped forward. Breath panted out from her lungs, and her mind blanked. Sleep half claimed her, right then and there. Deacan pulled out and turned her around.

  She flopped onto her back, her body beyond exhaustion. Everything inside her quieted almost to the point of numbness. Yep. She was going to be sore the next morning.

  He smoothed the hair off her forehead and traced a path between her breasts to her still-vibrating core, his broad hand hot. “Say it,” he murmured, his green gaze intent.

  She frowned, trying to follow his words. “Hmm.”

  His hand flattened over her already sore mound, and her eyelids flew wide open to study him as a threat. “I said to say it, or we’ll go for round two.” The set of his jaw didn’t allow for any misunderstanding.

  She blinked, her body too satiated to find any outrage. “You’re such a throwback. Highlander.”

  His chin lifted. “Aye. Now, Nora.”

  Sleep tried once again to entice her, and she wanted to fall into it. “Fine.” She yawned. “You win. I’m yours. Do with me what you will . . . after I sleep.”

  In the early dawn light, his face changed. Not in an obvious way, and not in a way she would’ve noticed had she not been watching. What she saw there was absolute and carved in stone as ancient as those around his homeland. “Again, Nora. Without the yawn, in this moment and in this place. Ye will say it.”

  Her mind cleared to razor-sharp focus, the feeling unpleasant after her dreamy state. Her body felt well taken and overcome, and her heart beat in tune with his. On some level, a purely feminine one that had nothing to do with logic or reason, she felt his call. His demand. She also knew, after she’d pushed him, after what they’d just shared, he wouldn’t allow her to evade or diminish the moment. He wouldn’t let her deny what had passed between them, whether she liked it or not. Whether she fully understood it or not. “Fine, but it goes both ways. If I’m yours, you’re all mine.” It was as close as she could come to finding some balance.

  “True. One more time. No qualification.” The look on his face, determined and dark, stole her breath.

  Nerves tingled across her abdomen at the possessive tone, and she had to take a deep breath before speaking. Sometimes words held meaning that changed lives, and he was demanding acknowledgment of something easier left unsaid. Knowing full well what he was doing, to be sure.

  Yet she had to answer. “I’m yours.” She gave him the only words that would satisfy him.

  His chin lifted and for several long, quiet moments, he studied her. “You are mine. And you won’t be forgetting it again.” He lay next to her and rolled her into his embrace, covering them with a blanket.

  Warmth seduced her, but something, a flare of awareness, opened her eyes. His hard body all but enclosed her. “I never really knew you, did I?” she murmured.

  His breath brushed her hair. “You knew half of me.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “Now I know all.”

  “Aye, you do. God help you, Nora.” His hold tightened. “Now yo
u have all of me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After only two hours of sleep with Nora in his arms, Deke jerked his truck to a stop in a small driveway just as a local squad car screeched to a halt behind him. “Stay here,” he muttered to her, halting her reach for the door handle. When the call had come in, he hadn’t had time to get her to safety, and he sure as shit wasn’t leaving her at his apartment, alarm system or not.

  She nodded, her face pale, her eyes wide. “The newest nanoparticle results will be available in about two hours, maybe three. I need to be there to see if the charges reversed when the particles found the bacteria. I’ve been working with zinc oxide nanoparticles, since Lynne thought zinc affected Scorpius somehow.”

  He had no clue what charges she was talking about. “I’ll make sure you’re back by then.” He jumped from the truck and squinted in the sun before giving a short nod to a gnarled Metro Police deputy. “The FBI has secured the scene. Keep the neighbors back.”

  The cop rested his hand on his hip, his bushy eyebrows rising toward Nora.

  “Keep an eye on her. She doesn’t come near the house.” Waiting for a grim nod, Deke stalked toward the front door and knocked, leather gloves covering his hands and making them sweat. An FBI agent in full black suit opened the door. “What?”

  Deke flashed his badge, the serious one nobody fucked with.

  The agent’s eyes widened, and he stepped back. “All righty. Want to tell me why I was called down to secure an attempted rape scene?”

  Deke sighed. “No. Go outside and wait for the CDC.”

  The guy pivoted and took off, mumbling something sounding suspiciously like dickhead.

  A trilling ambulance siren blasted through the day, and Deke glanced back toward the cop, who waited far away. “Don’t let them come in unless the CDC is with them and geared up.” Deke had called the CDC workers at the hospital the second he’d gotten the report of the assault.

  “Yep,” the cop said, hand on his holster.

  Deke walked around the vestibule to a quaint living room where a young woman sported a nasty black eye and split lip.