“Not even close,” she heard him growl as his mouth came down on hers with merciless passion. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, thrusting deep inside. His hips were against her, the bulge at his thighs prodding against her lower belly.
He dragged his mouth from hers. “Tell me what you want,” he demanded. “You have to ask me to do it.”
“Please,” she begged. Nothing in her five years of sexual activity could have prepared her for this onslaught of dizzying hunger. She felt herself being lifted and gripped him between her thighs as he turned and dropped to the blanket on the ground.
“Ask me,” he snarled at her, his fingers shredding the blouse from her body.
“What?” She had no idea what he wanted, but she knew full well what she wanted: His magnificent, powerful body inside her own.
“Ask me to take you. It must be of your own free will,” he said and his hands were at the waistband of her jeans, tugging them viciously over her hips.
“I want it,” she echoed. Heat, throbbing and moist, was crawling inside her belly and making her hips undulate as the jeans were yanked down her legs.
“Ask me to take you!” he demanded as he threw the jeans away into the darkness.
He was over her, braced on his hands and knees, paused above her, still clad in the sleek leather britches and dark silk shirt.
“I want you,” she agreed. Her hands went to his shirt and ripped away the buttons as she threw the material back from his wide chest. She could see his chest heaving in the faint sky glow shifting through the lacy branches overhead and ran her hands over the thick muscle of his powerful chest, her fingers threading through the crisp chest hair.
“You have to ask me to take you,” he snarled.
Her hand went down to the closure of the leather britches. It didn’t take much to free the throbbing, pulsing member that leapt out at her with intent. “Take me, Syn. I want you to take me.” She curled her eager fingers around the steel of that massive manhood, feeling the blood coursing through it, wanting it so deep inside her that it would hurt.
“It will,” he promised.
Blair felt the flesh in her hand expand beneath her touch, grow, broaden, elongate. The silky flesh turned hard and callused and ice cold to the touch. She jerked her hand away.
“What’s the matter, Blair?” he crooned to her, seeming to loom over her more than ever. His body was expanding like the flesh of his penis. She heard the leather ripping at his hips as his lower body grew heavier on top her own.
“Wanna see something really neat, Blair?” she heard him ask in a snide tone.
Blair smiled into his handsome face then the smile slipped as she watched his face change.
“Like what you see?” he sneered as his face disappeared, dissolving into a moist plain of warty, horny protuberances.
As his eyes sank deep in his head, his forehead bulged forward to a broad ridge that shot out over his flat nose with its wide, flaring nostrils, he smiled at her.
The last thing Tiffany Blair VanLandingham ever saw was the wicked canines so long and sharp, they glinted in the moonlight.
Gathering up his own tattered clothing, as well as the girl’s, Syntian Cree wrapped them in the damp blanket and buried them beneath a mound of debris and leaves deep in the pine thicket where he had brutally ravaged Blair VanLandingham. Calmly, with a smile on his lips, he opened the trunk of his car and took out a pair of blue jeans and T-shirt, pulled them on, then got back into his sleek black Porsche and drove away.
Chapter Eleven
Lauren recognized the girl’s picture on the news. She’d seen her only a few days before driving the car that had almost run her over as she’d crossed the street on her way home. Shaking her head, wondering what had happened to the teenager, Lauren sat back in her chair at the dinette table and sipped her coffee.
“Anyone knowing the whereabouts of the VanLandingham girl or who might have seen her on Highway Ninety last Friday night is asked to contact the Santa Rosa County Sheriffs office at...”
She stood up, leaned over and switched off the television, finished her coffee then carried the cup to the sink where she rinsed it and turned it upside down in the drainer. As she dried her hands on the dishtowel, she peeked out the window over the sink and smiled.
“Well, hello there. Who’re you?”
The black cat that was sitting on the picnic table on Lauren’s postage stamp-sized patio lifted one graceful paw and began to lick the fur, dipping its sleek head as it swiped at its ears. The feline studiously ignored Lauren as the human female came to the opened screen door of her kitchen and watched him.
“Are you hungry?” Lauren asked. She eased open the door, wondering if the cat would stiffen then bolt at her approach.
It did neither. Instead, after craning its head to look around at her, the cat continued his morning bath.
Lauren watched the feline for a moment then went back inside to pour a small bowl of milk for it. She opened the back door once more and stepped out onto the first riser, her movements slow and non-threatening, but the cat still sat on the top of the picnic table, licking its chest.
“Who do you belong to, big fella?” Lauren asked as she moved over to the table and placed the bowl at the opposite end where the cat was sitting.
The feline stilled in its ablutions and looked around at her, shook its head, stood up and padded gracefully to the bowl of milk, sat down, dipped its head and began to drink as though he had been expecting just such a tribute.
Lauren’s smile turned to a pleased grin. “Trusting sort, aren’t you?” she asked, wanting to reach out to stroke the cat’s head, but afraid her actions would scare it away.
As a child, she’d never been allowed to have pets, and as an adult, on her own, she’d never let the thought of owning one cross her mind. Idly, she wondered if her lease precluded her having an animal.
“You’re a pretty boy, did you know that?”
The black cat lifted its head, flicking out its pink tongue to clean the milk from its mouth, and then moved over to the edge of the table where Lauren stood. With a low sound of pleasure, it bumped its midnight head against the woman’s hip, purring deep in its throat as a soft human hand came down to stroke its long back.
“If I were to get you a bed and some litter, would you stay with me?” Lauren asked, scratching the cat behind his pointed ears. A deeper purring was her answer.
Lauren laughed and slowly put her hands on the cat to lift it, holding her breath in the hopes the animal wouldn’t mind being picked up. When there was no adverse reaction to being held, and a soft mewing sigh of pleasure when Lauren kissed it on the top of the head as she rubbed its ears, Lauren made up her mind to keep the cat.
She put the animal on the table. “I guess if you belong to someone, they’ll come looking for you, huh?”
The cat shook its head then strolled back to the bowl of milk. It sat down and went on with its meal, not bothering to look up as the woman went back in the house and shut the kitchen door.
“Onyx,” Lauren said as she locked the back door, watching the cat through the slats of the mini blinds. “That seems a fitting name for you.”
The feline lifted its head, looked up at Lauren and seemed to nod as though it agreed. Returning to the last few ounces of milk, it didn’t look up again until it was finished. When the last drop of milk was gone, so was the cat, leaping agilely to the ground in a smooth arc and then trotting carelessly away, never looking back. It disappeared under the row of azalea bushes that separated Lauren’s house from Anna and Agnes Black’s, the two old maid piano teachers who had originally owned the house in which Lauren lived.
Tearing off a sticky note, Lauren made a list of things to buy at the variety store around the corner from the bookstore on her way home that afternoon. At the top of the list was cat food.
Grabbing up her purse she stuck the day-glo note to the vinyl and left the house to begin her morning walk to work. Just as she made it to the side
walk, the sleek black Porsche pulled up beside her and stopped, its idling engine sounding like a giant cat in the early morning stillness.
“Need a ride?” he asked as the window on the passenger side slid smoothly down in its track.
Lauren shook her head. “You are spoiling me.”
Syntian grinned at her. “That was my intent.” He leaned over and opened the door for her. “Hop in.”
Aware of being scrutinized by her nosy neighbors, Lauren climbed into the low-slung sports car and shut the door. She turned her head as Syn laughed.
“If I want to know what you’re doing every minute of every day, which one of those busybodies should I ask first?” He popped the clutch and allowed the Porsche to leap forward. “My sixth sense says the Black sisters.”
Lauren giggled. “You’d do better with Mrs. Malone, I think. The sisters Black are afraid of men.”
Syntian glanced in the rear view mirror, spying one of the ancient crones craning her neck down the street to watch their leaving. “Maybe I should go talk to them.”
“Why?” Lauren asked, studying his cleanly chiseled profile.
“They’re going to be seeing a lot of me,” he answered, braking for the stop light at the end of her street and flicking on his left turn signal. “I just want them to know my intentions are honorable.”
She stared at him, thinking that the sweetest thing any man could have said to her and knowing full well Syntian meant it. He was being careful of her reputation, didn’t want her neighbors to think her a loose woman of easy morals. When he turned his head and smiled at her, she saw the concern for her showing on his lean face.
“Does that surprise you?” he asked, moving into the intersection as the light changed.
“This is all new to me,” Lauren admitted. “If I still had a father and was living at home with him, would you come ask him for the honor of escorting me?” She had meant it as a gentle tease, but his next words went straight to her heart.
“That is the proper way of seeking a lady’s company,” he told her. “I’ve already asked your mother.”
He couldn’t have said anything else that would have stunned Lauren as much as those five words. She stared at him, her face showing her surprise. “When?” she finally managed to ask him.
“Before she left.” He turned right at the courthouse to make the block so he could pull up alongside the bookstore to let Lauren out.
“And what did she say?” Lauren asked, expecting the worst.
Syntian shrugged. “Let’s just say I charmed her.”
There was nothing to say to that mysterious remark. If anyone could charm her mother, it might well be Syntian Cree, although Lauren had strong suspicions that no man could ever still the beastess in Maxine Fowler, especially not after what Mrs. Hellstrom had told her about her mother.
“Is that a shopping list?”
Lauren looked up as he stopped at the red light, became aware of the clicking tic of his turn signal as he waited for the light to turn green. “List?”
Syntian reached over and tapped the fluorescent orange sticky note clinging to Lauren’s purse. “List,” he stated.
She glanced down. “Oh, this.” Her laugh was almost apologetic. “I seem to have adopted a cat.”
“Did you adopt him or did he adopt you?”
“He’s been hanging around the backyard for a couple of days now. He climbs up on the picnic table and stares through the window at me.” She glanced up and noticed the light had changed just as he began to make his turn on Highway 90. “I fed him this morning, so I guess I own him now.”
Syntian shook his head as he pulled up in front of her store and put on his right signal to let the car behind him know he was letting someone off. “Cats aren’t owned by their mistress, Lauren, they own their mistress.”
She opened the door. “You’re probably right.” Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she bent over to thank him for the ride.
“I’ll come back and pick you up after work,” he told her. “We can go out to K-Mart for the cat stuff.”
“You want to go shopping with me?” she asked, surprised.
“I like shopping with women.” He grinned. “I find it fascinating.”
“You would.”
Glancing over her shoulder as she unlocked the door to the bookstore, she heard him tap lightly on the sports car’s horn as he turned the corner at the end of the street and disappeared from view.
“You’re a lucky woman, Miss Lauren.” Lauren turned and found Gina Busbee, one of the new sales clerks staring wistfully down the street. “I’d give anything to have a man like that courting me.”
A dull red infused Lauren’s cheeks and she started to protest, to tell the girl Syntian wasn’t courting her. But she realized, much to her delight, that that was exactly what the man was doing.
If any of the customers in the store that day noticed the fresh bloom and glowing look on Lauren Fowler’s face, they didn’t mention it. If they took note of her laughing smile and the easy way that she made conversation with anyone who entered the store, they certainly didn’t comment on it. And if they sometimes saw her staring off into space, a dreamy look in her sparkling eyes, they simply didn’t recognize it for what it was.
But Angeline Hellstrom did when she came to take the day’s receipts to the bank with her.
“Has he kissed you, yet?” she asked Lauren in a whispered aside.
“Certainly not!”
“He will,” Angeline assured her. “When he feels the time is right.” She grinned. “And that man does know how to kiss, let me tell you!”
Lauren had to escape to the break room.
When the shiny black car pulled up to the curb just as she was locking up for the night, Lauren felt a tugging at her heartstrings that she had never thought to ever experience. As the door swung open and he grinned at her, putting out his hand to help her into the car, Lauren knew a wild, soaring moment of sheer ecstasy.
“Shopping first,” he said as she shut the door behind her, “then supper, then I’ll take you home.” He paused, turning so she could see the devilment in his face. “Where I will dutifully wait outside for you while you change into something really nice.”
“For what?” she asked.
“To go dancing,” he told her, pulling out into the traffic.
“Dancing? I don’t know how to dance!”
“I do,” he said with a finality that left no doubt in her mind that he did and was very good at it, too. “The man leads; the lady follows.” He glanced at her. “That you can do.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she said, her heart hammering in her ribcage. She’d never gone to a dance the entire time she was in high school and college; had never even been asked to go to one.
“There’s a place over in Fort Walton.”
Her shriek made him turn to look at her. “Fort Walton? That’s forty miles from here!” she said.
“She knows the distance between Milton and Fort Walton!” he said in a voice filled with wonder. “Is there no end to the woman’s talents?”
“Be serious.”
“I am being serious,” he replied. He slowed down for an elderly woman whose right turn signal had been on for the last five blocks. He glanced at his passenger, his face smug. “You know you want to go.”
Lauren knew she did, too; was dying to go. She shook her head at him. “You’re incorrigible.’’
“I am, ain’t I?”
Everywhere they went inside K-Mart, women followed Syntian with gazes hot with both desire and wistfulness. That he didn’t look their way, not even once, turned their looks to Lauren with speculation.
“What kind of food should I get him?” Lauren asked, studying the variety of cat food cans on the shelves. She looked up at Syn. “I read somewhere that cats should eat only canned food.”
He picked up a can of Whiska’s with bits of beef, studied it for a second and tossed it into her buggy. “That sounds good.” She watched him read
ing the label on a can of Kal Kan Optimum with chicken and rice. “And this, too.” He dropped it in the buggy then added several more.
“Are you buying this for Onyx or for you?” she asked with a laugh.
Syntian smiled as he took a stack of Whiska’s from the shelf. “I know what he likes,” was the reply. He reached for a bag of dry food. “And he likes variety. He’ll want you to add a cup of this in with the canned food every morning.”
“Oh, he will, will he?” Lauren asked as she watched him push her buggy toward the end of the aisle where there were bags of cat litter. “What about a flea collar?”
Syntian turned and glared at her as though she had offended him. “He doesn’t have fleas.”
Lauren cocked an eyebrow at him. “How do you know?”
“I just do,” was the tart reply. Lifting a bag of clumping, allergy-free cat litter into the cart, he pushed it on around the corner, leaving Lauren smiling after him with wonder.
“And do you know what kind of bed I should buy him?”
“He’ll be sleeping with you,” he told her.
“Oh, no!” Lauren answered, shaking her head. “I don’t want to get him in the habit.”
“Of what? Keeping you company?”
“Getting fur on my bedspread!”
He stared at her then shrugged. “He won’t.”
“I’m going to buy him a bed.”
“He won’t use it. He’ll sleep at the foot of your bed.”
They argued about the feline as they took their purchases up to the front. Syntian nixed her idea to buy flea soap and sprays, worm pills, and any number of other products designed to insure the cat’s good health.
“He’s an animal, Lauren,” Syn had sighed with exasperation. “A creature of nature, not science. Let him fend for himself; he knows how to take care of his own needs.”
“But it says on this bottle...” she protested.
“No!” came his firm correction as he took the bottle of fur ball medicine from her hand and put it back on the shelf with a thump. “He won’t need it!”
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 16