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“Not reeatt, riatt,” he corrected absently, depositing the glass sliver in the empty trash bag hanging from the SUV’s central floor hump.
“It’s kind of a computer-induced berserker state,” Freika explained, thrusting his head between the seats. “Increases his strength by a factor of ten. The drawback is that his judgment goes to hell. He doesn’t feel pain in riatt, and without combat armor to protect him, he tends to break bones and cut himself all to hell doing something the human body isn’t designed to do. Here, let me lick that....”
“Ack!” Jane planted an elbow under his jaw and pushed his head back. “Get away from there. You want to give him an infection?”
“Freika’s computer secretes antibiotics in his saliva when I’m hurt,” Baran explained, raising his hand for the wolf’s swiping tongue.
“Which taste nasty,” Freika noted, licking.
Jane fastened her eyes firmly on the road. “Y’all are making me sick. Anyway, can’t your own computer do the antibiotic thing?”
“It does, but Freika does a better job on topical treatment.” He lifted an eyebrow. “ ‘Y’all’?”
“My Southern accent comes out under stress.” Spotting a likely place to pull over, she whipped the SUV off onto the shoulder. Deciding it was time for a subject change, Jane asked as she opened the driver’s door, “What are we going to do about Druas?”
“Personally, I think killing him’s a dandy idea,” Freika observed.
“Dun,” she said, getting out of the truck and leaving the door open as she started around the SUV’s massive hood. “I mean, how are we going to stop him from killing whoever he’s planning to kill?”
“I have no idea, but I’m damn well going to try,” Baran told her as she opened the passenger door and stepped to his side. “There’s another piece in my right hand. I can’t seem to get it out with my left. Can you try?”
She flinched mentally, then gave him a determined smile. “Sure. So what are we going to do now?”
“Exactly what we were doing before our little detour— check the hotels. If he’s at one of them, I should be able to sense him.” Baran handed her the tweezers as she cradled his hand in one of hers.
“What if he’s not there when we go by?”
‘Then we’re out of luck, and his next victim’s dead. She may be already. Or close to it.” He clenched the other fist on his knee. “If I hadn’t dropped out of riatt...”
“If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t even have gotten that close to him,” Freika pointed out. “Druas knows better than to allow a berserk Warlord within striking distance.”
Jane’s delicate probes with the tweezers discovered something hard buried in his bloodied flesh. “You’ve got it,” Baran said.
“Joy,” she muttered between her teeth and tried to close the tweezers around the tiny object. “So in riatt you’re stronger than Druas, right?”
“Possibly,” Baran said.
Her tweezers slipped. She growled.
“Then again, possibly not,” Freika observed, leaning around Baran’s seat. “He’s got cybernetic implants that increase his strength, but it’s not clear by how much. He could be weaker than Baran, but then again, he could be a lot stronger.”
The Warlord nodded. “We won’t know for sure until I fight him.”
Jane clamped her lower lip between her teeth and jerked the piece of glass free. “Has anybody ever heard of the concept of firearms?” She tossed the piece into the trash bag and looked at Baran. “Is that it for the glass fragments, please, God?”
“Yeah.” He extended his hand to Freika. “But nobody but an idiot would try to make a Jump with an energy weapon. The Tachyon power packs would react with the temporal field and blow you to hell and gone.” Jane looked away as the wolf started cleaning the injury. Taking the water bottle out of his lap, she dumped part of its contents over the tweezers, washing them off. After tossing them back in the first aid box, she rummaged around in it for the roll of gauze to wrap his wound with. When she found it, she ripped it open and took his hand again.
“So what about weapons from this time? Like a gun, for instance.” Jane remembered her father’s pistol, buried in his stuff somewhere in the attic. “Couldn’t you just shoot him?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but it probably won’t do any good. According to the sensor readings I just took, that T-suit Druas is wearing is armored. I doubt one of your contemporary firearms could puncture it.”
Still thinking, she wound the gauze around his hand. “So does he wear a helmet?” She knew from covering cops that all the body armor in the world wouldn’t protect you against a head shot.
“No, but his skeletal system is reinforced, so I doubt a bullet would get through his skull, either.”
“On the other hand, they still haven’t managed to do a damn thing about the fragility of gray matter,” Frieka pointed out. “If you battered him enough, you could bounce his brain around in that thick skull until he died of cerebral swelling.”
Baran shrugged. “If he didn’t manage to kill you in the meantime.”
Jane sighed. “Damn. It just can’t be easy, can it?” The Warlord’s hand felt deliciously warm in hers. Suddenly she found herself uncomfortably aware of him.
An image flashed through her mind: Baran moving over her, his head thrown back so the cords stood out in high relief in his powerful throat.
Then she flashed on the sight of his big body, sprawled and helpless on the pavement. Her grip tightened convulsively on his hand. She’d thought she’d lost him.
She still could. If he fought Druas and lost...
You don’t have him to lose, Jane told herself fiercely, tying off the bandage. He’s not going to stay with you, you idiot. As soon as this is over—one way or another—he’s going back to his own time.
And she couldn’t afford to let him take her heart with him when he did.
Clamping her lower lip between her teeth, she started wrapping his other hand. Despite the injuries he’d suffered, his palm was broad and square and solid, Ms fingers long, beautiful. She remembered how skilled they’d felt, teasing her nipples into tight points, sliding into her sex in deliciously seductive strokes. Something hot gathered below her belly button.
Cut that out. We don’t have time for this.
Which was when she glanced down at his lap—and the thick bulge that swelled behind his fly as she watched. She looked up to find his eyes were locked on her face again, heavy-lidded and hungry.
And glowing.
Jane started to draw back, but a gauze-wrapped hand lifted to cup the side of her face. The touch made her breath catch. Slowly he leaned forward until his mouth touched hers in a velvet-gentle kiss that made her heart pound. His tongue slipped over her upper lip, tempting her into opening for him.
When she gasped, he slid inside slowly, taking his time. She heard a helpless, needy moan and realized it was her own.
“Well, if you’re going to do that, I’m going to go catch squirrels,” Freika announced. He slid between the seats and hopped out the open driver’s door. “Maybe /’// get a little tail.”
Jane didn’t even register the quip. Her every sense was focused on Baran—the taste of his mouth, the warmth of his gauze-wrapped hand.
So even though she knew it was the wrong place, the wrong time, and the wrong man ...
She didn’t care.
They didn’t have time for this.
He knew it. Knew he should cage his growling hunger and get back to work. Normally he’d be able to do just that, despite the hunger riatt had touched off. All it would take is a single order to his comp, and neuronet would chemically cool his ardor and let him concentrate again.
But she felt so damn fragile.
Every time Baran remembered Druas’s smug voice spewing those poisonous threats, rage and desperation rolled over him, and he felt the driving need to touch her, reassure himself that she was alive.
So very hot and alive.
She shouldn’
t mean this much to him. She was, after all, only another mission. He’d protected women before in situations every bit as dangerous, and it had never affected him like this.
But there was something about Jane.
Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t know enough to back down from him. Every other woman of his acquaintance would have hesitated to challenge, infuriate, or tempt him the way Jane did. A Warlord was not, after all, someone to take lightly. Particularly him. The Xeran did not give a nickname like “Death Lord” for no reason.
Yet he strongly suspected that even if Jane had known what he was capable of, she wouldn’t have acted any differently. After all, she was already well aware of his greater size and muscle, but that had never stopped her, either.
Which was why keeping her alive was not going to be easy.
Sweet goddess, what if Druas hadn’t been lying when he said this would end in her death? What if Baran really couldn’t save her?
No, damn it. No.
With a low, desperate growl he twisted in the seat until he could drag Jane against his body, feel the giving warmth of her belly against his stone-hard erection.
Soon women would be dying, and Baran knew with a black, hopeless despair he’d fail to save at least some of them.
But Jane was here, warm and soft, so deliciously soft, and he was going to protect her no matter what he had to do.
She was his. And right now he was going to claim her.
Even if, one way or another, he’d eventually have to give her up.
Baran had taken her before in calculation and in heat, but this desperation was new.
Jane could taste it in the way he kissed her, open-mouthed and fierce, his long fingers curling around the back of her skull, angling her head just the way he wanted it.
He took her in a long, sweet stroke of tongue and lip, hot and wet and hungry. Somewhere in the endless tumble into delight, she heard the rumble of a passing car, accompanied by the short, mocking toot of its horn. A tiny measure of sanity returned. Prying her mouth away from his, she panted, “We can’t do this on the side of the road, Baran!”
“Yes, we can,” he growled, and captured her mouth again, the kiss drugging, hungry.
Jane wrestled free and threw a desperate glance around them, trying to determine if they were being watched. She realized she knew the area from her wild teenage years. “There’s a spot down by the woods. A stream. We could...”
He looked down at her. The lust in his eyes was so intense, it didn’t seem quite human—and not just because of the fiery glow.
His lips pulled back from his teeth in a slow, erotic smile. “Run. Before I take you on the hood of the truck.” His powerful hands reluctantly relaxed their hold.
It wasn’t an idle threat. Jane whirled and fled as if chased by something that would eat her. And with a little squirt of heat, she knew he intended to do just that.
She ran flat out, recklessly, plunging through the tangle of brush and trees, leaves crackling and flying around her booted feet. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she saw Baran still standing by the truck, almost crouched, anticipation hot on his face. Even from yards away she could see the erection tenting his jeans.
Then he exploded after her.
Jane sucked in a desperate breath, whipped her head back around, and ran for all she was worth.
Her heart banged in her chest as she ducked between a stand of trees and jumped a bramble bush. She could hear him gaining already.
God, he was fast.
Her nipples hardened as she imagined just what he’d do when he caught her.
Every running step Baran took chafed the massive erection throbbing behind his fly. He had to consciously drag back on the instinctive need to leap across the distance separating them and take her down. Spread her. Fuck her.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman with this much hunger.
And every deep breath he took carried the growing scent of her desire, carried on the cool April wind. She was creaming for him, as turned on by this impromptu game as he was.
Breathing hard from lust more than exertion, he watched her round little ass roll with every step, the flash of her long, jeans-clad legs, the desperate pump of her arms. She was running with everything she had.
But she wanted to be caught almost as much as he wanted to catch her.
His hunger growled, dark and feral, demanding an end to the game. He lengthened his stride and reached for her delicate shoulder, meaning to jerk her off her feet and into his arms.
But to his amazement, she twisted with the instinct of something small and delicious and shot behind a tree, eluding his lunge. He growled and spun after her. For an instant their gazes met. Hers was bright with desire and humor, until whatever she saw in his made those brown eyes widen in feminine alarm. She yelped a giggle and took off again, ducking and dodging, using the trees as barriers to slow him down. He growled and charged in her wake, ignoring the brambles that dug into his shins as he shot through a bush instead of around it.
It was time he stripped that pretty little body and got those long legs spread.
Running for everything she was worth, Jane heard the chuckle of the stream over the crackling crash of the chase. She burst into the clearing with a sense of triumph, skidding into the wide, flat area beside the snaking creek. The spot hadn’t changed from the days when she’d been a teenager and it had been the favored make-out spot.
Before she could stop, a big bandaged hand clamped over her shoulder, whirled her around, and snatched her against a hot, rock-hard body. She barely had time to register the raw lust on Baran’s face before he was kissing her so hungrily, all the strength ran out of her knees.
One hand tunneled into her hair, holding her still for his mouth. The other clamped boldly over her butt, dragging her lower body into his. His erection felt thick as a baseball bat against her belly.
Heat snaked through her as he claimed her with lips and tongue, licking, sucking at her mouth, gently biting her chin, strong fingers tugging her head back by the hair so he could rake his teeth across her banging pulse.
“Jesus, Baran,” she managed as he lifted her off her feet and took her down into the crunching leaves.
No sooner had her back touched the ground than he was dragging up her shirt, then jerking her bra over the curves of her breasts to get at her hard nipples. Before she could even gasp, he was suckling one, teeth scraping and teasing as his tongue flicked the hard, pink point.
She grabbed at his massive shoulders to steady her spinning world. He went on feasting even as one big, impatient hand plucked at the button of her jeans, got it open, worked the zipper down. Reached inside. Tested her swollen outer lips.
“Mmmm. You’re slick.”
A thick finger slid inside, tore a gasp from her mouth. “Oh, God, Baran, you make me ...”
He grinned darkly. “I noticed. You liked being chased, didn’t you?” With his free hand, he pinched and rolled her nipple. “Didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” She whimpered softly.
His glowing eyes narrowed as he studied her with predatory calculation. “You do realize I can do anything I want to you?” The question was asked in a velvet purr that would have made her wet even without the stroke and slip of those possessive fingers. “You’re totally helpless.”
Jane swallowed at the jolt of desire that sliced through her at the dark promise in those words. “Not totally,” she managed, as feminist instincts rebelled.
‘Totally.” It was a soft growl. The hand tormenting her sex slid away. She looked down just in time to see him reach into a jeans pocket and pull out a familiar length of gold cable. “Or you’re about to be.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Jane started to sit up.
“Oh, yes,” he purred, “I do.” Before she manage more than an outraged yelp, he grabbed her shoulder and flipped her over on her belly. She tried to push up, run, but he slung a leg over her butt to pin her. Grabbing one wrist, he whipped
the cable around it.
She gasped as he captured her other hand and pulled it down to join her captured wrist, then looped it in cable. The cool, slick metal tightened its grip, binding her hands at the small of her back. As her spine arched helplessly with her position, dried leaves teased her erect nipples. “You big jerk!”
“The operative word there is big,” Baran said, a dark chuckle in his voice. He grabbed the waistband of her jeans and jerked downward. Cool air flowed over her backside as he bared her. “And getting bigger by the second.”
He pulled her jeans down to her knees, trapping her legs in denim as effectively as the cable had bound her hands. Sliding an arm around her waist, he lifted and manipulated her body until he had her arranged the way he wanted—on her knees, ass thrust out, head pillowed on the leaves. She was so wet and hot, the air felt cold on her spread labia.
He made a deep, rumbling sound of satisfaction. Leaves rustled. Jane squeaked in surprise as warm fingers spread her lower lips and his tongue slipped into the creaming seam. She quivered in pleasure as he licked her like a man enjoying something hot and melting. His tongue played over her flesh with a wicked skill that had her thigh muscles jumping.
He drew away a moment, then slid a forefinger deep inside her, testing her readiness. “Very nice,” he murmured as she writhed helplessly. The dry, papery leaves rasped over her nipples, and she moaned in need.
“You’re driving me insane!” she managed.
Baran laughed softly. “Good.”
Then his mouth sealed over her clit, and she jerked at the sudden, intense pleasure as he began to circle the wet nubbin with his tongue.
Baran angled his head slightly until he could slide two fingers deep into her core while he tongued her. The combination of those thick fingers and that wicked tongue sent pleasure whipping up her spine. Jane, wrists bound and legs trapped in her own jeans, could do nothing but shiver.
Eyes squeezed shut, she gasped, inhaling the rich, loamy scent of the leaves. Birds sang overhead, warbling background music for the tiny wet sounds Baran made as he licked and sucked.