Dawn's Awakening

by Lora Leigh

  She hated this. She had no business dealing with this man; he made her insane, he made her want to claw his eyes out and taste the blood of that vapid little witch he kept laying his hands on. If he didn’t stop—

  She forced herself to inhale, to control the pain burning inside her. She didn’t have a choice. Seth had made his feelings clear, and he clearly didn’t want her.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Lawrence.” Lawe’s voice sounded in the earpiece once again. “Agent Daniels has requested that you remain inside.”

  Dawn winced. She was going to have to have a talk with Lawe about the best way to handle these situations, especially with Seth.

  “Has she now?” Seth drawled, his voice coming through the link and sending a surprising shiver racing down her spine as she heard the mockery in it. “Please inform Miss Daniels that I specifically required that the entire island be well secured. If she ignored that request, then she can personally play escort as Miss Carrington and I enjoy the gardens.”

  The son of a bitch.

  Dawn gritted her teeth as she moved along the side of the room, aware of the bodies that slid quickly out of her path and the wary looks she was given as she passed by. She made people nervous, she knew she did. Especially non-Breeds. They watched her like they expected her to turn and snap at any moment. Just as she had earlier when that Carrington person had surprised her.

  “Merc, do you have him in sight?” Dawn murmured into the mic as she headed for the doors Seth had passed through.

  “In sight.” Merc’s gravelly voice came across the line. “He and Miss Carrington have taken the stone path toward the pond.”

  To the grotto and the intimate little padded bench set beneath a vine-covered arch.

  Dawn’s stomach tightened at the knowledge that Seth had every intention of marrying that woman. That he wasn’t Dawn’s. It was inconceivable that he wasn’t hers any longer. Especially when every part of her cried out for him.

  She slid past the garden doors, ignoring Lawe’s mocking look as she took the stone path with a determined stride. She could hear the murmur of their voices farther ahead, and her lips thinned with irritation at the seductive drawl Seth used. His voice was edging into arousal, she could hear it. It was ripping through her. She didn’t know how to bear this pain. It took everything she had not to howl out in agony.

  “Mr. Lawrence.” She kept her voice smooth, emotionless, as she rounded the curve of the path to find them standing next to the grotto.

  Her hand clenched on the butt of her weapon again. Seth was leaning against the arched shelter, one elbow braced on the wooden post as he brushed back a stray strand of raven-black hair from Miss Carrington’s cheek. The other woman flicked her an irritated, enraged glance. Anger filled the air here. Blazing, furious rage, and for a moment Dawn wondered if it was her own.

  Dawn smiled back, satisfaction thrumming through her as the woman’s gaze flickered warily at the sight of Dawn’s canines flashing in the early evening light spearing through the sheltering branches overhead.

  “Miss Daniels.” Seth lifted his head, his gunmetal gray eyes flickering over her uniform, the hand on her weapon, then to her eyes.

  She met his gaze with a cold smile. “I believe the chairman of Foreman Motors is looking for you inside, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced, a blatant lie. “I told him I would be more than happy to hunt you up and send you right to him.”

  Seth’s lips quirked bitterly. “I see,” he murmured before glancing down at the too-lovely Miss Carrington. “It appears our discussion will have to wait, Caroline. Would you like to accompany me inside?”

  “Well, I don’t want to stand out here alone with her.” Caroline’s red lips thinned in displeasure. “Really, Seth, I’ve been here for days and each time we get a moment alone, we’re disturbed.” She flicked Dawn an accusing glance.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all her fault. Dawn crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at the other woman coldly, and fought to remind the bitch that she had just arrived today. If she hadn’t been able to screw Seth in the days before, then that was her own fault.

  She didn’t like Miss Caroline Carrington. The woman was the worst sort of opportunist. And she was ovulating. Dawn narrowed her gaze, inhaling slowly. And she wasn’t using birth control.

  Dawn began to shake, and fought to hide it.

  Son of a bitch. She had been trying to get into Seth’s bed tonight for a reason, and it wasn’t just lust. She was fertile. She thought she was going to trick Seth into giving her a child? Forcing him into marriage? Of course, Seth would marry the bitch.

  “Dawn, are you growling?” Seth was staring at her in surprise.

  Dammit. “No I’m not growling, Mr. Lawrence,” she bit out. “I’ll escort you back inside.” She gave him another tight smile.

  Seth’s gaze narrowed on her. “Come on, Caroline, I’m sure we’ll find time to talk after the party.” His voice was harder now, determined.

  “I’ll need to meet with you first, Mr. Lawrence,” Dawn informed him. “There are a few security matters we need to discuss when you have the time.” She flashed the woman another cold smile. “If Miss Carrington can do without you that long.”

  “If I must.” There was a challenge in the other woman’s brown eyes, one Dawn recognized. She was staking her claim on Seth, which was fine and dandy, but first she had to get through the Breeds that were going to be placed around him like a living barrier. She would be damned if she would let Seth walk into such a trap.

  Roni, his sister, would never forgive her. She would make Dawn’s life hell if she allowed it. And Roni was her friend. Dawn had known her forever. Roni would pout for years if Dawn allowed Caroline Carrington to end up tricking Seth into knocking her up.

  She was doing this for Roni. And for herself. Otherwise, she would end up killing Miss Caroline Carrington.

  She followed the two back into the party. As Seth moved through the crowd, she glanced around to make certain she wasn’t overheard.

  “Keep Lawrence and the bimbo from doing the nasty at least until after the party,” she growled into her mic.

  Lawe snorted into the line. “Hell, let the man get some, Dawn. It’s been a long dry spell for him, hasn’t it?”

  Her lips thinned. Fat lot he knew. “Who’s lead on this little party, Lawe?” she snapped. “According to my information, I’m commanding here, not you.”

  “Didn’t know Seth’s sex life was included in your area of jurisdiction,” he stated mockingly. “But sure, I’m all for fun and games. I’ll keep him high and dry until you can meet with him.”

  She caught her lip on the edge of a snarl before her gaze tracked the room again, only to be snared by Seth’s. He was standing next to the president of Foreman Motors, his gray eyes watching her with mocking knowledge and an edge of anger. She could see the anger in the tight curl of his sensual lips, in the narrowed, dangerous gaze.

  Her heart began to race, her mouth dried out and her tongue itched. It itched to the point that she ran it over her teeth to ease the irritation. She was jumpy, agitated and too aware of the way Seth continually glanced at her. There was a hint of retribution in his gaze, a promise of retaliation in the hard set of his expression.

  He was angry with her, and he had good reason to be. She avoided him like the plague whenever he came to Sanctuary, and through the years had fought every assignment Jonas had tried to give her in Seth’s vicinity, until now. Because she knew the danger in being around him. She knew the nightmares, the fears and the incomprehensible pain of turning away from him. But could anything hurt more than this? Right now?

  He affected her, and she couldn’t allow that now, because he didn’t want her.

  He made her flesh tingle, her tongue itch to kiss him, and her body ache for his touch. And Dawn didn’t enjoy touch. No one’s touch. And it had only grown worse over the years. It was irritating. It made her flesh cringe and old nightmares resurface. She couldn’t stand the nightmares. She couldn’t
face them.

  But she also didn’t know if she could live another day without his touch. Without his tongue along hers, his body pressed against her flesh.

  She fought back another shiver as Seth’s gaze raked over her black uniform, pausing at her breasts, her thighs, before moving back to her eyes. She could feel the response beating through her bloodstream, tightening her nipples and her sex, making her clit awaken with the dampness that only he could call forth, to torment her.

  Sexual response. She knew what it was. She knew and it terrified her even as it sent blood pounding through her veins as though in anticipation. Anticipation of something he had no intention of giving in to now.

  She forced herself to turn away, to return to the party and the headache of ensuring his security. Seth wasn’t big on helping with that. As one of the Breeds’ leading proponents and supporters, the Breeds took his security very seriously. His death, right now, would be a major inconvenience.

  She ignored the little voice inside her that howled in fury at the thought of anything happening to Seth. Her palms were sweating, her instincts going into overdrive. Nothing could happen to Seth. It was her job to protect him; she didn’t fail. Not anymore. She had failed when she was younger. Failed to protect herself and to warn others of the danger coming. Failed to find the strength she needed to fight back.

  She was strong now. She knew how to fight back. She knew how to protect herself and those she was assigned to protect. And Seth could hate it, and her, all he wanted to. But she would protect him. With her life, if need be.

  The door closed with a bang that would have caused a lesser woman to flinch. Dawn merely glanced at it, then at Seth as he tore his tie from around his neck and glared at her from the center of his home office.

  “What the hell was so damned important?” he snapped at her, his gaze roiling with anger.

  Dawn’s lips thinned. “Your precious Miss Carrington just slipped naked into your bedroom. Were you aware of this?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know it, but what business is it of yours?”

  “She’s ovulating and she’s not on birth control. Fuck her and she’s going to end up conceiving.” Her fists clenched at the thought.

  “For God’s sake, do you think I leave such protection up to the women I fuck?” he asked her incredulously, his voice rising as he glowered down at her, his sharply defined face set in savage, arrogant lines. “And I’ll ask you again, what business is it of yours?”

  Dawn could feel the anger, and the arousal, rolling off him in waves now. It stroked over her flesh, heated it, made her jumpy. This was why she hated being around Seth; he made her jumpy. Made her too aware of the fact that she was indeed a woman, and that she had never touched a man in pleasure. Had never known a lover’s touch.

  She stepped back. “You’re right, not my business.”

  Something exploded in her head. Some sensation, some instinct that she couldn’t make sense of. She shook her head, feeling her lip twitch into a snarl as a blistering curse left Seth’s lips.

  “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” His dark voice was colder, more arrogant now.

  Dawn could smell the arousal coming from him, and it pissed her off. She had no right to be angry with him. She had no right to care whom he fucked.

  “Eager to head to your bed, Mr. Lawrence?” She was shocked at the snarl in her voice then, at the anger that surged through her. “A willing sacrifice to Miss Carrington’s plans for impending nuptials?”

  “Well, I’m not getting any younger, Agent Daniels,” he sneered in return. “And I’m sick and damned tired of a lonely fucking bed.”

  Dawn flinched at the accusation in his voice even as something primal, something she couldn’t understand, began beating in her heart. The blood was racing through her body, awareness spiking in her head. He was going to do it. He was going to go to that woman’s body, spill his seed inside her. He was going to actually let another female touch him.

  She didn’t try to stop the growl that pulled from her chest this time.

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?” He arched a brow as sarcasm echoed in his voice. “You have no say in the matter, Agent Daniels. Your job is to keep me from being kidnapped during the act, not keep me from the act itself.”

  Her fingers clenched, itched. Her tongue felt thick, swollen within her mouth. A strangely spicy, heated taste began to fill her senses as she tried to draw enough air into her lungs to keep from strangling on her fury.

  “She doesn’t love you. You don’t love her,” she hissed.

  He laughed at that, a jeering sound that raked over her nerve endings like shards of glass.

  “Love isn’t required,” he informed her.

  Heat spilled to her womb, spasming through it as denial raced through her brain.

  It wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it.

  “If there’s nothing else you require, Agent Daniels,” his voice was clipped, tight with anger, “I believe I have someone waiting on me.”

  Someone waiting on him? A fertile bitch with every intention of sucking his seed from his body and conceiving a child that would bind him to her forever?

  “No.”

  His lips thinned as his eyes darkened ominously. Seth might not be a Breed, but he was still dangerously powerful. An ex–Special Forces soldier who took over his father’s company, he had learned how to fight in the most violent gutters of the world.

  He shook his head as his lips thinned with disgust. “Jonas made a mistake assigning you here. Go back to Sanctuary.”

  She was shaking her head. She couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t believe him.

  “You would let her trick you like this?” Her voice was unrecognizable, even to herself. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. A haze seemed to fill her vision, her mind, making it hard to find the hard-earned control she had fought to achieve for eleven years now.

  “It’s only a trick if you don’t know about it,” he pointed out mockingly. “I’m not getting any younger, Dawn, and I’m damned tired of going to bed horny. At least she’s woman enough to go after what she wants.”

  He turned away from her.

  He was leaving. He was going to walk out? Go to that ovulating cow waiting naked in his bedroom?

  The hell he was.

  She didn’t know who was more surprised by the vicious snarl that left her chest, Seth or herself. He turned to her quickly, surprise flashing across his expression as her hands gripped his upper arms, powerful arms, muscular and steel-hard. She was on her tiptoes, against his chest, one hand gripping his neck and pulling him to her.

  Her lips met his. They were parted just enough to allow her tongue to slip past them. Spicy heat filled her mouth and she shared it. Sweeping over his lips, against his tongue as she felt his arms surround her, jerking her to him as he bent his head closer. His lips caught her tongue, and a shattered cry filled her throat as he began to draw the fiery hormone from her.

  It filled both their mouths. It pumped into her bloodstream, sent lust tearing through her system, pleasure quaking through her body. She wanted to crawl inside him. No, she wanted him inside her. She wanted his hard body covering her, the thick length of his cock, which was presently pressing into her belly, fucking into her.

  She wanted him now. Hard. Hot. Deep.

  She wanted her mate.

  CHAPTER 6

  He hadn’t meant for this to happen, Seth thought hazily. He had been furious when she followed him and Caroline outside. He wanted to send the other woman home without too much anger, without hurting her, without humiliating her.

  Caroline had been a friend. He didn’t love her, she didn’t love him, and they both knew it. They would have made a society match, little more. But there would have been children, a legacy, someone he could love and receive love from unconditionally. He had known the second he saw Dawn earlier that day that it wasn’t going to happen.

  He had known, and he’d made the deal with
Dash. Now look at him. Ah, God, she tasted so fucking sweet, so hot. He licked and sucked at her tongue, then groaned with desperate pleasure as she sucked at his.

  And he was touching her. Jerking her shirt from her pants, groaning against her lips, nipping at them as her hands dug into his hair and held him closer to her.

  She was kissing him. Her lips were moving beneath his, she was moaning for him. Rich, earthy moans that vibrated with purring little growls. The sounds of it went straight to his dick and had it fully engorged. He was harder, hotter than he could ever remember being in his life. And he was tearing her shirt from her. He heard the material rend and cursed himself. He cursed himself but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t keep himself from revealing that plain little bra, the one that held her breasts perfectly for him.

  “Seth.” She whispered his name, a thin, hungry sound that he couldn’t believe he was hearing. That he couldn’t believe was falling from her lips.

  And her hands. As he pushed her shirt from her shoulders and his lips moved down the graceful column of her neck, he felt the buttons pop on his, heard cloth tear.

  Hell, he had never been so desperate for a woman. Never felt a hunger burn so deep inside his gut.

  Then her hands were on his chest. Her fingers were pushing through the mat of hair that covered it, and she purred. A real, fucking honest-to-God purr left her lips, and he almost came in his trousers from the sound.

  Seth jerked his head back, stared down at her, and God help him, he knew, from this moment on, if he wasn’t touching Dawn, loving her, tasting her, then he would be completely alone. Because no other woman’s touch would do.

  Dawn stared at where her hands pressed against the soft, short curls on Seth’s chest. The light pelt was warm from his body heat, the short curls tickled her palms, the heat of his flesh warmed them.

  She stared at her fingers, so small against the expanse of muscular flesh and male hair, and felt her knees weaken at the knowledge that she was finally touching him. Touching him, kissing him. And she could taste him.

  She leaned forward and put her lips against his flesh, opened them, let her tongue lick at it. The muscles beneath the skin flexed and jumped and a hard groan tore from his chest.

  “You like my touch?” she whispered in awe as she looked up at him, saw the dark thunderclouds in his eyes and the flush on his cheekbones.

  “Like isn’t a good word.” His teeth were clenched as she let her fingers circle the flat, hard discs of his nipples.

  No, like wasn’t a good word if it felt anywhere as close to as good as his hands felt on her.

  “Seth?” She was panting, just trying to breathe as so many sensations tore through her, unknown sensations, pleasure unlike anything she’d thought she would know in his arms.

  “Anything, Dawn.” He must have heard the question in her voice; maybe he heard the longing she couldn’t disguise.

  “Touch me.” She tried to breathe.

  She felt light-headed, off balance. His hands were at her hips, his fingers clenching, caressing, but she needed more. She ached in places that she didn’t know how to ease, didn’t know how to describe.

  “Dawn.” His head lowered as though he couldn’t stop the action, and hers fell back with a cry as he bent over her, his lips moving to the swell of her breasts above her bra. “Sweet God, Dawn. You taste like life itself.”

  Shuddering, racing arcs of pleasure ripped through her as his tongue licked over the swell of flesh. He wasn’t even touching her aching nipples and she was ready to scream from the pleasure.

  “Seth, I need more.” She arched into his arms, feeling them surround her, feeling his hands flatten on her back, draw her closer to him, loosen the clip to her bra.

  She was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. From pleasure. Her hands gripped his shoulders as his tongue swiped over a nipple. Her nails bit into his flesh as his mouth covered it and he sucked her into his mouth.

  And still it wasn’t enough. Before she lost consciousness, she wanted to know it all. Because she knew she was going to faint. Rapid, white-hot streaks of sensation were tearing from her nipple to her womb. She could feel the juices easing from the swollen, sensitive flesh between her thighs, felt her clit throbbing, her heart racing.

  And if she didn’t get some ease—she had suffered arousal in the past but nothing like this.

  “Seth, please.” She arched in his arms as he moved from one breast to the next, as he sucked and licked, rasped with teeth and tongue and sent her senses spinning.

  “It’s not enough,” she panted, trying to get closer, trying to crawl into him. “Seth, help me. It’s not enough.”

  One hand slid from her back, over her rear. It jerked at her thigh then slid forward and cupped her between her thighs.

  They both stilled. His breathing was harsh, heavy in the still air of the study, his forehead pressed against her breast as his hand moved, his fingers pressed into the humid flesh.

  “I won’t stop,” he groaned, his voice agonized, tortured. “Dawn, if we keep this up—”

  “Don’t stop,” she breathed out roughly. “Seth, please.”

  She felt close, so close, to a pleasure she couldn’t define. One that had eluded her, but had tormented her for so many years.

  Before she had time to cry out at the defection, he slid his hand from between her thighs as the other moved from behind her back as well. They met at her stomach, jerking, tearing at the metal buttons that secured her pants and sliding his palm inside.

  Dawn froze, staring up at him as his head lifted and his hand slid inside her panties. His fingers inched over her lower belly, slowly, so slowly.

  “I can already feel your heat.” He grimaced, his expression tight, savage. “I know you’re wet. So wet for me, Dawn. I’ve dreamed of touching you like this. Dreamed of feeling your sweetness against my fingers.”

  She jerked, jumped as his fingers slid into the thick, slick juices that coated the bare folds. They slid between the lips of her sex, stroked, and she came to her toes as a long, desperate wail left her lips when his palm pressed against her swollen clit.

  “God, yes!” Savage, guttural with arousal, his voice tore across her senses and wrapped them in eroticism. “Fuck. Dawn. It’s not enough.” His other hand was working her pants down, pulling her panties with them.

  He jerked them over her butt, struggled to push them over her thighs, then went to his knees in front of her.

  “What are you doing?” Wide-eyed, uncertain, so hot she could feel the perspiration pouring down her back, she stared down at him.

  His shirt, expensive silk, hung on his shoulders, gaping open to reveal his chest as his hands gripped her thighs and encouraged her to part them.

  “Just a taste,” he whispered, his expression twisted into lines of sensual desperation. “Just a taste, Dawn. Right here.” And he lowered his head to that wet flesh.

  “Seth, unlock this door.” Striking, furious fists pounded on the door to the office as a