JANE'S WARLORD

by user

  Jane frowned at the surge of tenderness she felt. Lust somehow seemed less complicated than this sudden need to comfort him.

  It was hard to believe that this time yesterday, she hadn’t even known him at all. The hours they’d spent together had been so crammed with terror and passion they’d felt elongated into weeks. Now it seemed she knew more about the elemental core of Baran Arvid than she’d learned about her college lover in the entire year they’d dated.

  Jane frowned, shifting on the lowered toilet seat. She had offered to shower with Baran, knowing his desire should be running high after spending so long in riatt, but he’d declined. He’d claimed washing away blood was not considered a romantic activity even in his own time, but she suspected the real truth was that he wanted to punish himself.

  “You weren’t supposed to save her, Baran,” she said, knowing his keen hearing would pick up her words even over the hiss of the shower. “Don’t torment yourself.”

  He looked at her over the edge of the door. His hair was slicked tight to his head, shining and black. His gaze was brooding. “And who else am I not supposed to save?”

  The bottom fell out of Jane’s stomach. “Do you think...” She had to stop to swallow her rising gorge. “Do you think he’s going to get me?”

  With a sharp, violent gesture he cut off the water. “No.” His determined voice rang on the tiles. “No, he’s not going to get you.”

  She tightened her grip on the beads until her fist went white. “How can you be so sure?”

  Baran swung the shower door open with a hard thrust of his palm and stepped out, gloriously naked. “Because I’m not going to let him.” Grabbing the towel from its rack, he rubbed it roughly over his gleaming tanned skin, his face set as cold and hard as iced steel. “I’m not going to give him the chance.”

  She knew he meant every word. Baran would die before he let Druas touch her. A cold knot of fear inside her loosened. “Sit down and I’ll do your hair.”

  He took her place on the commode seat as she went to get her comb. He was toweling his black mane when she returned.

  She stepped close and pushed his hands aside so she could begin. His hair was surprisingly long; she wondered how many years he’d been growing it out.

  Picking up a silken fistful, she started gently working the comb through a knot that had formed while he’d been scrubbing out the blood. The activity was so mindless, so sensual, that she felt her anxiety beginning to fade.

  He, however, seemed immune, judging by the way he was restlessly rubbing the towel up and down his belly and wet thighs. “I’ve killed people, Jane,” he said suddenly, his voice sounding strained.

  She hesitated, then went back to tugging the comb through the knot. “Yeah, I think you mentioned that.”

  “Other soldiers, enemy commanders. Mostly with a beamer, some with a knife, some bare handed.” He leaned forward, the towel hanging limply from one big hand. She dropped the handful of smoothed hah- and picked up another tangled hank. Patiently she began working out the knots.

  “I watched their eyes when they died,” he said. “There’s a look they get—you never forget it. Sometimes I close my eyes, and they’re there, looking back....”

  Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this, but she sensed he needed to say it, so she kept her mouth shut and kept combing.

  “With a couple of them, I felt a sense of triumph, but most of the time I didn’t feel anything at all. Nothing. Just dead inside. It was a job, one the high command said needed doing. So I did it.”

  “I’m sorry.” The phrase felt inadequate, but she couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t be.

  “I’ve known a few who got a taste for it. There was a soldier in my unit once ... I never liked having him at my back. I often wondered if there’d been a moment when he got the hunger.”

  Jane stopped hi midmotion as she processed the idea. “Druas is like that,” she decided.

  “Yeah.” He sat up. “I want to kill him, Jane. For that girl today, and for Mary Kelly, and Jennifer’s family. And most of all, because he put fear in your eyes.” His voice dropped to a low, deadly register. “I think I’m going to like killing him.”

  “You afraid you’re going to like it too much?”

  His shoulders stiffened, then slumped. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  Jane moved around in front of him and knelt between his spread thighs. “Baran, you’re not like Druas. Men like that—there’s something missing in them. Something that makes the rest of us human. But you’ve got it.”

  His expression was bleak. ‘The Femmats always said Warlords aren’t human. Not really.”

  Jane snorted. “The Femmats are full of bull.” She reached out a hand and laid it across his high cheek. “Look, I don’t care if you can rip the doors off a Toyota, you’re still human in all the ways that count. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be doing this to yourself because that girl died in your arms. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t care.”

  Jane tilted her face up toward his. “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t want to do this.”

  Slowly, with exquisite tenderness, she took his mouth in a slow, deep kiss.

  Baran groaned as Jane settled into the kiss, her mouth hot, wet, and silken. Her slim body came to rest against his, all velvet curves and gentle heat. He went still like a man approached by something small and wild, instinctively afraid to do something to scare her off. Before, he’d always been the one to seduce her. To have her reach out to him now struck him as a sweet, dark gift.

  Her long hands cupped the sides of his face, fingers threaded through his wet hair as she kissed him, drinking from his mouth, tasting him, filling him with the taste of her. She drew back, just slightly, and his arms tightened in protest around her slim back. He hadn’t even been aware of wrapping them around her.

  Against his lips she murmured, “Come to bed. I refuse to make love to you sitting on a toilet.”

  She stepped back, her eyes sultry with invitation. He rose as if hypnotized to follow her as she turned with a roll of her slim hips and sauntered for the bedroom. His erect cock pointed longingly at her sweetly curving backside as he strode after her.

  When Jane peeled her top off over her head, Baran felt the breath catch in his throat at the long, sensual line of her torso stretching upward. She tossed the shirt aside with a careless flip of her wrist, then bent to pull off her jeans. His cock jerked in lust. He squelched the impulse to stride to her and snatch her off her feet. Normally it wasn’t in his nature to let a woman take the lead, but he wanted to feel the quiet acceptance in Jane’s touch.

  He hungered for it.

  For a moment he started to wonder why, then pushed the thought away. He didn’t want the distraction.

  She stepped from her jeans and reached behind her back to open the catch of her bra, her elegant spine twisting with the movement.

  When she turned toward him, lust stabbed him at the sight of her bare breasts, perfect pale hemispheres topped by long pink nipples drawn hard with need. Saliva flooded his mouth. He swallowed hard.

  She stepped up to him dressed only in tiny silken pink panties he was seriously tempted to rip away. Before he could yield to temptation, she touched him, raking her nails delicately across the arch of his chest. He inhaled sharply as she swirled her fingers through the wiry curls covering his chest, then traced the muscled ridges of his rib cage.

  Closing his eyes, Baran let his head drop back, savoring the sensation. Then she stepped closer until the head of his erection nudged her flat stomach, and his eyes popped open again. Her breasts were temptingly close to his eager hands. He managed not to reach for them, wanting, needing, to see what she’d do next.

  She bent forward as her hands moved to curve around his hips. Slowly, delicately, she pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, right over his heart. The heat of that delicate touch seemed to spear through him. He gasped.

  Jane made a purring sound and began kissing her way to one tight male nipple.
He shuddered as her hot, swirling tongue danced over his skin.

  Then long fingers closed gently around his balls, and his body jerked. She stroked. He moaned. She raked her teeth softly down the ridges of his ribs, stopping only to flick his skin with her tongue. He resisted the impulse to grab her, knowing where that soft, teasing mouth was headed, inch by delicious, maddening inch.

  Then she was there, her soft little hand wrapped around his shaft, holding the head of his throbbing cock steady for her mouth.

  She used just her tongue to first, swirling it over the velvet flesh until he had to battle the need to force his entire greedy length between her lips. The battle grew fiercer as she gave him more by slow degrees, sucking the very tip first, then a fraction more, then a fraction more.

  “God, Jane, you’re playing with fire!” he groaned as she nibbled delicately.

  He felt her smile around his cockhead. “I know.”

  Suddenly she swooped her head forward and engulfed half his straining shaft, ripping a started gasp from him. Shuddering, he wondered how much of this he could take.

  God, it was intoxicating, playing with him like this, taking the lead for once, feeling the tension in his big, male body as she toyed with him.

  Jane worked him in deeper and felt him quiver. Savoring the taste and feel of his broad cock, she decided it was like teasing a tiger.

  Sooner or later, you’d get eaten.

  The thought sent wicked heat blooming through her as she remembered just what it was like to be at the mercy of this particular big cat. Smiling, she drew her mouth completely off his cock to swirl her tongue lazily over its velvet head.

  Sometimes it was fun to live dangerously.

  “God, Jane, deeper!” The low male growl held a faint note of threat.

  She smiled and gave him a teasing lick. A powerful hand came to rest in her hair, capturing a handful of curls in silent warning.

  “Jane ...” The growl was deeper now, rumbling as if his control was straining to the breaking point.

  She nibbled, feeling herself cream. Finally drawing back, she purred, “Is there something you want?”

  The sound he made was closer to a snarl than anything else. Big hands closed around her shoulders, jerked her off the floor, and tossed her lightly on the bed behind her.

  Jane shrieked out a giggle as he loomed over her, grabbed the waistband of her little pink panties in both hands, and ripped the silk in two. Without pausing, he snatched her up so only her head and shoulders rested on the bed as he braced a knee on the mattress.

  Then it was her turn to gasp as his massive shaft speared between her swollen, cream-slicked lips. He lifted her into his thrust as if she were a doll, nothing more than stuffing and air. Yelping at the depth of his entry, she fisted the bedspread in both hands and held on for dear life.

  Standing beside the bed, he held her thighs draped over his powerful forearms as he cradled her butt, pulling her body into an arch while he fucked her in long, deep strokes.

  Wide-eyed, she looked up at him from the mattress and writhed with every delicious entry. He felt so damn big, so damn merciless as he took her. And he looked so triumphantly feral as he stared down at her, his eyes blazing red fire, a dark smile on his handsome mouth.

  Just the sight of him made her hot. She twisted as he impaled her. “God, Baran, you’re so deep!”

  “That’s what you get for cockteasing a Warlord,” he said with a low, wicked laugh.

  The orgasm caught her by surprise, swamping her in heat so intense, it dragged a scream from her throat.

  He came a heartbeat later, hauling her against his hips as he spilled himself into her, roaring.

  Much later they shared cartons of Chinese in the living room, watching television and feeding Freika bites of sweet and sour chicken. Jane’s scanner sat crackling on top of the set, but though they looked up every time the dispatcher’s voice carne on, the police did not get called out on another murder.

  Later, Jane carried the scanner into the bedroom with them and set it up beside the bed. She fell asleep to its constant chatter, curled in the warm, muscular shelter of Baran’s big body.

  She jerked awake from a blood-drenched, confused dream when she felt him jolt against her. “No!” he groaned in her ear. “No ...”

  Blinking, Jane looked over her shoulder at him. She could see nothing but his broad silhouette against the moonlit window behind him. “Baran?”

  “Get away from me!” he roared, bolting upright in bed, one powerful fist drawn back, ready to take somebody’s head off.

  She rolled over quickly and started to grab his shoulders, then thought better of it and turned on the bedside lamp instead. “Baran, you’re dreaming!”

  He glared at her, fear and rage on his face. She knew from the look in his eyes he didn’t recognize her.

  “Baran, it’s me,” she said carefully, clearly. “Jane. You’re all right. You were just dreaming.”

  Slowly recognition flooded his eyes, followed by chagrin. He slumped and raked a big hand through his tangled mane. “Jane. I’m sorry, I just...”

  “Must have been a pretty bad nightmare,” Jane observed carefully, taking in the faint quiver in his hands. What could have been bad enough to make Baran Arvid shake?

  He swallowed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.” He lay down again and turned his back.

  Jane eyed its muscled width and frowned, then turned off the lamp and curled into a ball, back to back with him. For a long moment she listened to him breathe in the soft darkness.

  Then abruptly he turned over, encircled her waist with a massive arm, and hauled her tight into the spooning curve of his body. She tensed, waiting for another of his delicious sensual assaults.

  Instead he sighed in her ear, settled her more fully against him, and relaxed. Something about the way he did it reminded Jane of a small boy cuddling a teddy bear—an incongruous association to make in connection to a man who could bench-press a Buick.

  Almost as incongruous as the wave of tenderness she felt.

  She settled against the warm width of his body as his breathing deepened and the scanner crackled and droned. It wasn’t long before she joined him in sleep.

  After the terrorized pace of the previous day, Sunday was almost ridiculously quiet. Jane carried her scanner and cell phone around the house with her, but there were no calls on either.

  “Wonder if the creep’s taking the day off?” she said to Baran as she fixed lunch for them and their furry companions.

  “Maybe,” he said grimly, watching Octopussy lunge headfirst into a bowl of tuna. “Or maybe they just haven’t found the bodies yet.”

  Jane gave him a sour look. “You’re such a cheery soul, you know that?” She took a ferocious bite of her ham sandwich and stalked into her office to call the Highway Patrol about the previous day’s fatal accident. She spent the rest of Sunday harassing Tom and writing copy, in between listening to the scanner and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  But it didn’t.

  Normally, she’d have been relieved, but unfortunately she knew a little too much about the way Druas operated.

  What was the bastard planning now?

  Jane opened the door on blackness. Her heart gave a single hard thump, and she fumbled quickly for the light switch. Harsh white illumination flooded the attic, but still she hesitated.

  “Jane?” Baran asked behind her, sounding puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She swallowed and stepped onto the rough plywood floor, picking her way past boxes of Christmas ornaments and the thick white box that held her artificial tree.

  Off in one corner, isolated from the Rubbermaid tubs of winter clothing, stood a pile of cardboard boxes.

  Somewhere in one of those boxes was her father’s gun, Jane told herself. And it was past time she got it out. They might need it. After all, they had a living killer to worry about. That should outweigh
the lingering presence of a dead one.

  She forced her feet to carry her closer to the stack. Looking down at them, she felt her stomach clench.

  Coward, her father’s voice whispered in her mind.

  Jane took a deep breath and knelt, aware of Baran’s puzzled gaze as he stood watching.

  “You’re afraid,” he said suddenly. “Your heart is pounding. What’s got you so frightened?”

  She swallowed past the stale taste in her mouth. “Memories.” She reached out and grabbed a box at random, popped apart the folded cardboard flaps to open it. Looked inside.

  Notebooks. Piles and piles of old reporter’s notebooks, jumbled together with ancient floppy disks. She picked one up at random. Her father’s spidery scrawl sprawled over the pad’s narrow cardboard cover: “County Council, January 30, 1986.” Notes from an old meeting.

  “Reporters aren’t supposed to keep these,” she told Baran, tossing the notebook back in the box, feeling subtly contaminated. “If you get sued, they subpoena them.”

  “I didn’t know that.” There was compassion in his voice.

  Jane reached for another box, opening it as she began to talk, trying to drown out the voice of her fear. “I really should have thrown all this stuff away, but I kept hoping I might find answers here sometime.” She pried the flaps apart. “When I could stand to look.”

  “What answers are you looking for?” Baran asked, moving to kneel beside her.

  She didn’t even hear the question. The box was filled with neat stacks of her father’s clothing. And on the very top lay a leather belt.

  Jane felt the blood drain from her face. She could remember the slap that belt made, the bite of the metal cutting into her skin. “He used to wrap the leather end around his fist and hit me with the buckle.”

  “What?” Baran sounded startled.

  Her stomach churned at the memory. When she’d cried, he’d beat her even harder. If she dared look as if she disapproved of anything he did or said, that bought another beating. He had taught her a perfect doll-like poker face, complete with plastic smile.

  And somewhere in these piles of boxes was his gun. The gun he had probably used to murder her mother.