Hidden Embers

by Tessa Adams

  It was his turn to gasp, his turn to tremble, as her warm heat closed around him like a fist. And then she was moving, her slick, hot body sliding against his cock, and he almost forgot how to breathe.

  “You feel so good,” he muttered, his fingers flexing against her hips as he struggled to remember not to hurt her.

  “I think you have that backward.” She slid her hips forward and backward slowly—so fucking slowly he wanted to beg her to end it. But she didn’t look particularly merciful at the moment, and besides, this was still the most amazing feeling he’d ever had. Being in her without actually being in her, being cradled by her body without the heavy thrusting that would push him over the edge.

  Jazz slid back again, until the tip of his cock was resting against her entrance, rising high on her knees to keep him from taking control. And then she slid a little ways back down so that his tip once again worked its way inside of her.

  “You’re killing me, Jazz.”

  “Again, I think it’s the other way around,” she gasped.

  They were the words he’d been waiting for, the tacit permission he had to take them to the next level. Rolling his hips against her, he pushed himself a little deeper into her pussy.

  She whimpered, arched, her eyes closing as the pleasure jolted through her, and he couldn’t resist a grin. Or doing it again—this time with an added zip of heat that he knew would light her up from the inside.

  Her eyes widened and her body clenched around him so tightly that he repeated the process, focusing his power and sending it directly inside of her.

  Just that easily she went over the edge, her hands grabbing his and squeezing as her orgasm slammed through her.

  Quinn watched her come, overwhelmed by how beautiful she was like this. If he had his choice, he would keep her like this all the time—making love to her again and again until she was so sensitive that one jolt of heat from him sent waves of ecstasy rippling through her.

  He waited for her to come back down before shifting his hands so that they tangled in her short, sassy locks. Then he pulled her down so that her face was only inches from his. Her eyes were glazed and satisfied, her mouth swollen from the kisses he’d already given her.

  Still, he couldn’t resist her like that, so he pulled her the last couple of inches until her mouth met his in a kiss so deep he could feel his own orgasm beckoning. Desperate to be inside her every way he could, Quinn ran his tongue along the seam of her lips and nearly shouted in triumph when she opened for him.

  He slipped inside, explored her. Curled his tongue around hers and sucked until she was as much a part of him as he was of her.

  Jasmine moaned, her tongue tangling with Quinn’s as she took her time exploring every part of his mouth. She wanted to go on kissing him forever, never wanted this moment to end as she savored the incredible taste of him. Tequila and desert and sweet, wild rain.

  But he was growing desperate for his own orgasm. She could feel it in the muscles bunching under her hands, sense it in the restless movements of his hips beneath her own. So she took one more minute to taste him as he had done to her earlier, sliding her tongue over his teeth and the little piece of skin that connected his upper lip to his gums.

  He jerked when she touched it, his entire body going rigid, as if electricity had shot up his spine. And perhaps it had—that piece of skin was incredibly sensitive and totally erotic.

  Before she could prepare herself, long before she was ready for her exploration to end, he stood and pushed her against the dresser. Grasping her hips, he plunged upward, entering her with an urgency that had her trembling on the edge of orgasm.

  “Take me,” he muttered, plunging deep again and again. “Take all of me.”

  “God, yes.” Twisting her hands in his hair, she smoothed them over his powerful chest. Clutched at the strong muscles of his back. She wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted to feel every part of him against her as he took her higher than she’d ever gone before.

  And then he was cursing, pulling her up and off of him so quickly that she had no time to prepare. She locked on to the dresser with desperate hands to keep from falling. “Why—”

  He growled something unintelligible at her as he reached for his jeans. Pulling a condom out of his back pocket, he ripped it open with his teeth and started to roll it on. She stopped him.

  “Let me.” His eyes were blacker than she’d ever seen them as he handed her the condom, and her hands were shaking so badly she wasn’t sure she’d even be able to do the job. She knew only that she wanted to touch him, to do this intimate thing for him before she took him back into her body.

  So with trembling hands, she slipped the condom over his tip and stroked him—hand over hand—as she rolled it on.

  “Enough,” he growled, grabbing her hands and pinning them behind her back. “One more touch and I’ll come before I get back inside you.”

  She purred, arched her back so that her nipples were in his face. Luxuriated in the feeling of being taken. Wallowed in the strength he wore so effortlessly.

  Then he was leaning down, pulling one of her nipples in his mouth. Her knees buckled and she cried out, reaching for him in an effort to stay upright. He caught her easily, lifted her off the floor and continued to suck as he lowered her onto his raging-hot cock.

  She bucked against him, tried to rush him, but he used his free hand to hold her hips still. “I want to touch you,” she said, gasping, yanking against the tight hold he had on her wrists. Her arms were still pinned behind her and she was completely at his mercy, able to take only whatever it was he chose to give her.

  “Not now. I’m too close.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, bit her shoulder in an effort to establish dominance—as if she didn’t already know who was in control.

  It grated on her—not the bite, but Quinn’s sudden bid to control her. He was already driving her crazy, taking her higher than she’d ever dreamed possible, but that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted, needed, to make him as out of control as he made her.

  With that thought in mind, she pushed her knees into his sides and slowly—oh, so slowly—clenched the muscles of her sex around him. She felt his response in the jerk of his cock, saw it in the clenching of his jaw as he fought to maintain control.

  She did it again, squeezing a little bit harder, a little bit longer before she released him.

  “Stop it,” he growled, his free hand coming down hard on her ass.

  She threw her head back and laughed, even as she tightened the muscles again and again. “Make me.”

  “Jasmine.” His voice was low, warning, more animal than human as she continued to caress him with her body. He was getting ready to lose it—she could feel it in the thighs that trembled beneath her own and the hand that clenched more firmly around her wrists.

  But she didn’t care. She wanted him to lose it, wanted him to plunge inside of her with all the darkness and passion and emotion he had inside of him. She wanted him as crazy as she was.

  She wanted him every way she could have him.

  “Come on, Quinn,” she whispered tauntingly. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

  He released her hands with a roar, his fingers clenching on her ass to keep her in place as his hips began to piston against her. Harder, deeper than before, he pounded into her. Again and again he slammed his cock inside her, until she was overwhelmed. Surrounded. Completely taken over by him.

  And still he surged inside of her. Desperately. Furiously. Each quick, hard stroke of his cock a branding that told her exactly how much he wanted to possess her.

  Jasmine moaned as she wrapped her arms around him and held his shaking, furious body against her own. She’d wanted to push him, to see him without his infernal control. To show him that she could take whatever he dished out. And she was taking it, but, God, she’d never felt anything this intense before, not even the first time he’d made love to her. She was completely in his thrall.

  Overwhelmed.
<
br />   Taken.

  Dominated.

  She was lost in the fire of his possession, explosion after explosion, as the most unbelievable orgasm of her life tore through her—one that put those she’d experienced a few hours before to shame.

  “Jasmine!” Quinn’s groan was low, hoarse, his body jerking spasmodically against hers as he emptied himself inside of her in long, jetting streams. His shudders set off another explosion, and she was screaming, wailing, burying her face against the heavy muscles of his chest as her body spun onto a whole different plane, one where the pleasure went on and on and on.

  They stayed that way for a long time, her back against the wall, Quinn’s heavy body crushing hers as he leaned against her. His mouth trailed kisses down her neck, over her chest, between her breasts, little nibbles that had her shivering in reaction despite the climaxes that had just seized her.

  But he couldn’t seem to stop touching her, and she understood, felt the same way. Her hands smoothed over his back, down his arms. Her fingers clenched in the cool silkiness of his hair. She never wanted him to let her go, never wanted her feet to touch the floor again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Quinn had disappeared. He had walked out of the clinic two days before and hadn’t been heard from since. It was perfect, exquisite. The only thing that would have been better was if he was still at the clinic—as a patient. Laid up with the beginning symptoms of the disease.

  Though it was more dangerous for her to be here than at the clinic, she stood in the back of Quinn’s main laboratory and simply watched as things went to hell around her. Interesting, wasn’t it, how the entire operation fell apart if he wasn’t there to keep it running smoothly? Despite her arguments to the contrary—she hadn’t wanted to give Quinn that much credit—Brock had been right all along.

  He’d told her that striking at Michael was a better move than infecting Quinn—a big payoff with none of the unsightly consequences. Michael’s death had gotten the healer out of the way, his feelings of grief and incompetence sending him off somewhere to lick his wounds, at least temporarily. Yet it hadn’t raised Dylan’s suspicions. And if the virus somehow managed to infect Quinn as well, then so much the better. At least it would have been “accidental.”

  If she’d infected Quinn first, as had been her original thought, she could only imagine how different things would be. His death would have struck a new kind of terror into the hearts of the entire clan, which would have jibed nicely with her agenda, but it also would have looked odd, since he’d attended so many of these deaths and had never before been infected. Like Dylan, Quinn seemed to have a natural immunity to the virus in its more basic form. Which meant that questions would have been asked, and people would have been sniffing around—two things she and Brock definitely didn’t want.

  Brock had warned her—the last thing any of them needed right now was for Dylan to figure out he had a traitor among his people. Security would tighten up, and the narrow windows of opportunity she had been carving out for herself would close completely. She couldn’t afford that, not if she was going to accomplish what she’d told Brock she could.

  At the front of the lab, Phoebe banged her hand down onto one of the marble lab tables in frustration. A couple of lab techs rushed up to her, started to soothe her, but she shooed them away and continued fumbling through the information she had in front of her.

  Earlier, she had tried to get close enough to get a peek at the info Phoebe found so fascinating, but she didn’t really belong in this part of the lab. Someone might notice, and though one slip-up wouldn’t give her away, she didn’t want to worry about anyone putting the pieces together. At least not yet. Not when Brock wasn’t ready for her. Not when her job here was unfinished.

  No, she would just follow the plan. Brock hadn’t steered her wrong so far. He had, in fact, come up with a lot of really good ideas. Like injecting Michael.

  After all, Phoebe was supposed to be some hot-shot scientist, some miracle-working doctor, and yet she was clueless in the lab without Quinn. She hadn’t done anything all day but fiddle with the report she had in front of her, glance at the clock and stumble over the other employees in the lab. If Quinn didn’t come back, or if Michael’s death drove him away from the clan for an extended period of time, then the Dragonstars would never recover.

  They would be doomed—just the way she wanted them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  He woke alone, sleepy and satisfied, his dragon curled up and relaxed inside of him.

  It was an odd feeling, and one so unfamiliar that it took him a moment to place it. When it hit him—when he realized that he was at peace for the first time in longer than he could remember—Quinn sat up abruptly. After all, being with a woman had never made him feel like this before. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Wasn’t sure what to make of her.

  She was prickly enough to slap down an entire room full of interested men, yet had melted like warm honey the first time he’d touched her.

  She was honest enough to strive for her own satisfaction, but at the same time gave so much pleasure that he had nearly drowned in it—drowned in her—throughout the long night.

  She hadn’t been afraid of a confrontation, hadn’t been afraid to bully him out of his bad mood, but had also held him more tenderly than anyone ever had.

  Jazz was a puzzle, a strange amalgamation of parts and emotions that shouldn’t fit yet somehow did. Adventurous and sweet, brave and sexy, confrontational and so confident that it bordered on arrogance, she was everything and nothing like what he wanted in a woman.

  Not that he was looking for a woman right now, he told himself hastily. His plate was more than full without adding the extra complication of trying to turn a one-night stand into a relationship.

  And yet he wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye to her, either. He wanted to take her out for breakfast and watch as she glutted herself on food that he had provided. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her one more time before they parted for good. And, more than anything else, he wanted to make her smile once more.

  He would take that smile, hold on to it and use it to get him through the bad times that were bearing down on him—and his clan—with the power and destructive force of a twenty-foot tsunami.

  As soon as that thought invaded his head, others quickly followed—ones that were nowhere near as pleasant as his fantasies about getting Jasmine naked for one last round.

  Once the pain of his losses caught up to him, as well as his worries about the future of the Dragonstars, they crowded in on him, ripping away his satisfaction and replacing it with the ever-present guilt.

  How could he have just flown off like that? What were they doing for Michael? Had his funeral already been arranged? As his brother, that job fell to Quinn, but it would be just like Dylan to take it on if he thought Quinn couldn’t handle it.

  He closed his eyes again as the reality of his brother’s death hit him like a one-two punch to the gut. Instinctively, he reached across the bed, searching for Jazz, though he knew she had already gotten up. But her side of the bed was still warm and fragrant, so he rolled over onto it and tried to absorb the very essence of it—of her—into himself. He wasn’t sure what that woman had done to him last night, but whatever her powers, she had turned him inside out.

  Because even as the worry and the pain converged, even as he started wondering what turmoil his absence had caused back home in the lab, it was as if he were buffered. It was as if there was a barrier between him and the emotional maelstrom he’d found himself locked in these last few days, weeks. The time he’d spent with Jazz had made everything, if not all right, at least more bearable than it had been twenty-four hours before.

  The mere idea that a woman—a human woman—could have such an effect on him should have set off every warning bell he had, but it didn’t. Nor did the beast snoozing within him seem alarmed.

  Glancing around, he noted that the door to the bathroom was closed, though there
was no sign that anyone was in there. No sound, no movement, no heat signature for the dragon to pick up. The room around him was silent, the only noise the hum of the air conditioner and the steady beating of his heart. Outside he could hear the rumble of cars as they pulled out of the parking lot in a fairly steady stream.

  Stretching lazily, he climbed out of bed and pulled on his jeans. He wasn’t worried about waking alone. He figured Jazz had gone down to her car for some clean clothes. After all, he hadn’t gotten around to changing her tire yet.

  He grinned at the thought, looking forward to doing something small to pay her back for the peace she had given him. He knew under normal circumstances she would have been able to change the tire herself—probably faster than he could—but she was injured, her body healing from something that had nearly ripped her apart.

  His smile faded when he realized that he still didn’t know how she’d been hurt. He’d done his best to dispel the pain, to help the injuries heal more quickly, but she was human, not dragon, and he could only do so much—especially when he was still so drained from what he’d done with Michael.

  As if he’d conjured it up with his thoughts, that same strange, searing pain he’d felt while making love to Jasmine the night before sizzled along his bicep. Glancing down, annoyed, he froze as he watched a tribal band magically work its way around his arm, winding its way through the other two he already possessed until it was completely joined with them—becoming as much a part of him as the other bands were.

  Eyes widening with a huge, alarming heap of what-the-fuck, he prodded it with a finger, then hissed out a curse when his fingertip blistered at the first contact. Bending closer, he examined it without touching it, and what he found was far from reassuring.

  This band was different from the ones he’d had since puberty. To begin with, it was much more ornate—much more feminine—than the other two, one of which joined him with Dylan, and one with the other sentries. Even more important, it wasn’t black like the other two. It was a deep, dark violet almost the exact color of Jasmine’s eyes.