by Meg Ripley
She cried out and he cursed himself, unable to let her go completely but trying to ease off. But as he reduced the suction he was applying to her nipple, she struggled hard and freed her wrists from his grasp to grab hold of the back of his head and press him more firmly against her.
A lightning bolt of desire shot through him so violently that he felt it jolt his entire body. He sucked harder as he tried to ignore her hands as they began to move lower, and the way his cock was pressing painfully against the fly of his pants. All of a sudden, the pain vanished as he felt the cool air of the apartment on his engorged cock, and he realized she’d unzipped his fly while he’d been trying not to pay attention.
She reached out to touch him, and he jerked away. God no, if she touched him, if he felt her fingers encircle his throbbing shaft…
“Freya, you can’t…” He didn’t know how to tell her that if she so much as touched him, he wasn’t going to be able to keep from fucking her senseless. He ripped off the skirt she was wearing and groaned when he saw she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. She was perfectly smooth, and her wetness glistened on her thighs, and when he touched her, shoving two fingers into her wetness, he reveled in the feel of her—as soft as silk. She grabbed onto his shoulders as he fucked her with his fingers, and the quiet moans escaping her lips drove him closer to losing his grip.
She reached for him without warning, her hand wrapped around his cock before he could stop her, and the fire blazed further. He could feel it in his extremities. He couldn’t wait another second. He needed to fuck her.
He grabbed her hand and pulled it away, pinning it against the wall while he hoisted her off the ground with one arm. He lowered her onto his cock in one swift motion, filling her, stretching her. God damn it, she was so tight around him that he had to fight back the urge to come right then. But he held on and lifted her up until only the tip of him remained inside her and then lowered her back down, trying to keep himself in check, to give her time to adjust to the size of him inside her.
He knew she was ready when she started to move against him. Her legs wrapped around his hips, holding him there tightly, and her back was pressed against the wall for leverage, which also afforded him an incredible view of her breasts.
He gripped her hips, guiding her up and down while her hands latched onto his shoulders. She lunged for his lips once more; this time, her kiss was frantic. She nibbled and sucked on his lower lip, and he returned the gentle assault.
Her moans grew louder as he continued to increase his pace, and it wasn’t long before her moans turned to cries. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and his pace grew frantic. He was so close, but he could tell she was almost there. He fucked her harder…faster…he filled every inch of her over and over again until finally she surged forward, digging her teeth into his shoulder while she bucked wildly against him.
Her velvety walls spasmed around his length, and it was just too much. He’d held on longer than he’d thought possible, but with one last thrust in to the hilt, he emptied his seed deep inside her.
Chapter 9
He laid on the floor, tracing idle circles across Freya’s naked back. He needed to stop; it had only been minutes since the most intense orgasm of his life, and yet feeling her against him, touching her soft skin, he wanted her again already.
But he couldn’t. Their coming together had left bruises all over her body, and guilt ran almost as hot in his veins as desire. He’d suffered his own fair share of injuries; her nails had left deep scratches down his back, her teeth had broken through the flesh of his shoulders, and she’d wrapped her legs so tightly around him, his hips were no doubt bruised to the bone. But his injuries would fade quickly, and he didn’t regret a single one of them.
Damn it! he cursed silently, sliding out from underneath where her head laid on his chest, surging to his feet. “Freya, I’m sorry,” he started, looking down at her and watching as the last of the bruises he’d left on her arms faded away to nothing. He’d known she would heal quickly after watching the speed with which her wounds had recovered last night, but it was still strange to see. He wasn’t accustomed to other beings with abilities that were in some ways similar to his own.
“Why are you sorry, Grant?” she asked, looking genuinely perplexed.
But before he could answer, every muscle in his body tensed. He could sense him: the dragon. He was nearby, no more than a mile away, and coming closer every second. There were others with him, but he could tell no more, not like this. He’d know more if he could shift, but he couldn’t do that in the middle of her apartment, even if he wasn’t concerned about her finding out more about him than she already knew.
“Get dressed, Freya,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended, and she stared up at him, baffled and stung by his words.
“We need to get out of here.”
“Look, if you think I’m the kind of woman you can boss around, think again, Grant.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” he remarked wryly, looking down at the scrapes, bruises and bite marks on his own body that were healing quickly, but not as quickly as hers. “The men from the other night, Freya. I can protect you, but I don’t know what they want with you, so unless you know something you aren’t telling me, then it’s best to stay clear of them until we know more.”
“Oh, okay. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said, apparently satisfied with his answer, throwing on her clothes and darting off to the next room. She returned with her cat in her arms seconds later, and something else in her hand.
The medallion.
She still had it…but how?
“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing her purse off the table, already starting toward the door. She held the ancient pendant in her hand, not even trying to hide it from him. She really had no clue!
They hurried out the apartment’s door and down the steps to the main lobby. She was calm; too calm. Any other woman in her position—finding out the same man who’d nearly killed her was on his way—would be surging with panic. But her heartbeat was steady, her breathing hadn’t sped up. Did she not understand the danger of the situation? That seemed unlikely, given the intelligence she’d exhibited thus far.
So, did she not experience fear the way other humans did, or had she just learned to master her fear response? It was an interesting question—and either answer was an intriguing one—but also a question he didn’t have time to analyze at the moment. He’d be sure to return to it later, though. The woman was downright fascinating.
Out the front door, he looked up and down the street, but they were still half a mile away.
“My car’s just a few yards up there,” he said, motioning to the left and urging her forward from behind.
Inside the car, she placed the cat on the back seat, but the animal remained perched at the edge of it, seeming to glare at him intently—a conundrum he’d have to investigate later. There was something odd about that cat, who he was beginning to suspect wasn’t an ordinary cat at all.
He revved the engine and maneuvered the car onto the road, but she put her hand on his thigh.
“This doesn’t feel right, Grant. I shouldn’t be running away like this,” she said as he slipped into the stream of traffic flowing by.
“Why not?” he asked, not bothering to slow down. He admired her bravery—he’d never relished running from a confrontation either—but this wasn’t the time to fight to the death; it was time to gather as much intel as possible to figure out what the hell was going on. Yes, he could easily eliminate the dragon and any hunters with him, but he needed to figure out why they were after her. Killing the dragon without finding out the reason he was hunting her would only leave her open to an onslaught of unknown hunters.
And the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that they’d had no intention of killing her. They had brandished no weapons aside from the syringe wielded by the dragon, which had only managed to knock her unconscious. The dosage would have killed any ordinary human, b
ut he suspected they knew there was nothing ordinary about her. So, what was it she had or could tell them that was so valuable?
He debated taking her to his home; they would be safe there for a short while. But there were no answers to be found there, and since answers were what they needed most of all, that left only one destination in mind.
He swerved onto the on ramp of the highway, and settled in for a long drive. And since it would be a while before they reached their destination, it was time to see what answers he could discover on his own.
He glanced over at her, but immediately regretted it. The desire that was already coursing through his veins surged higher, and it took more self-control than he thought he possessed to stop himself from swerving off the road and pulling her onto his lap. But succumbing to it the last time, he’d nearly gotten them trapped. Whatever it took, he needed to keep his mind on the task at hand, no matter how much he’d rather be putting his hands all over her.
“Who were they?” she asked before he could force his mind back onto an interrogation of his own. “Do you know them? Do you know what it is they want?”
“No, I don’t, Freya,” he said, and before she could ask any more questions, he launched into a few of his own. “But you have to know something. There must be things you aren’t telling me.”
“It would seem there is plenty I’m not telling you, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“What? “
She sighed heavily. “I woke up in my apartment one morning three months ago with absolutely no memory of…anything. I had no idea who I was or what had happened. I only knew my name because it was written on a piece of paper on my dining room table and on the birth certificate in the wallet in a purse next to it.”
“Amnesia?” He hadn’t met too many genuine amnesiacs but it was a plausible explanation for why she couldn’t tell him more. However, it would also be a very good cover in order to keep her story to herself.
“I guess, but…”
“But…what?”
“There are just things that I know, and I have no idea where the information came from. Like that statue I delivered to you…I knew it was a fifteenth century relic from the Ottoman Empire without researching it at all. The information was just there. And the other night, I was terrified, and then all of a sudden one of them touched me, and it was like something else took control of my body and knew exactly what to do.”
She went on to list dozens of other examples from the past several months where she’d seemingly pulled information out of nowhere, and he had to admit that it seemed far too elaborate to be a lie. The first rule of lying was to keep it simple, and this was anything but simple.
But more than that, Freya’s distress was genuine; the way her pulse increased and her breathing sped up—it would be difficult to fake that. What could have zapped all the memories of her life while leaving behind all the remnants of information she’d gathered in it? And if her mind had no knowledge of who or what she was, how could her body have responded like it had against the hunters?
It could have been a spell, but it was unlike any that he’d ever encountered. A curse, perhaps, but that didn’t seem to fit, either. The more she told him, the further he got from any answers.
More questions swirled in his mind every minute, but questions weren’t the only thing occupying his mind. He was painfully aware of the light, heady scent of her and the heat of her skin. Her tongue darted out to lick her dry lips, and a hundred erotic images came to mind. She crossed her legs, and he couldn’t help but think of parting her thighs. He was conscious of every movement she made, and every one of them sought to distract him from the road in front of him and the task at hand.
Eventually, he swerved off the highway, taking the nearest exit, heedless of where it led. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon, and they’d covered enough distance for one day. It was time to take a break; to get out of the close confines of his car.
It wasn’t until he pulled up in front of the nearest motel that he realized his error, trading the close confines of a vehicle for the spacious confines of a motel room—with a bed…a shower…a sofa.
And yet, he found himself parking the car in the nearest available slot, and sliding out of the driver’s seat to come around and open her door. Three minutes later, they’d secured a room for the night.
“Why don’t you get settled in, Freya, and I’ll go grab some dinner?” He turned and strode away without waiting for an answer, knowing he needed to find some way to get himself under control.
Chapter 10
Freya placed Cat down on the bed and wandered about the small motel room, wondering if she’d ever stayed in a motel before. Cat hopped down and wandered through the tiny kitchenette and then the bathroom before returning to the main room, as if she’d been scoping out the place, too.
She left Cat there nestling at the foot of the bed and crossed the small room to the bathroom, turning on the shower facet and stripping off her clothes. She tried to make sense of it all as she stepped beneath the showerhead, but it was impossible.
Well, nearly impossible. There was one thing that had made sense to her: Grant. She’d been pacing, fretting in her living room when he’d appeared at her door, and though her thoughts had been no less tumultuous, something else began to invade her mind and push everything else to some place in the back of her head.
She’d welcomed it. It had been a respite, and she’d latched on, letting her desire for him overwhelm all of her senses, and the result had been cataclysmic. She couldn’t say with any certainty what sex had been like before she’d lost her memory, but she was sure it had never been like that.
Hot water cascaded over her body, gliding over sensitive flesh that was all the more sensitized after what had taken place between them. She wanted him again. Now. But since he’d left her there to go in search of food, she needed to think; to figure out what was going on.
She’d grown so accustomed to coming up empty-handed when she searched for answers over the past several months, that it almost didn’t surprise her that there seemed to be no answers to be found now. But this wasn’t the case of a few misplaced memories: men had attacked her—tried to kill her—and she’d turned into something that couldn’t possibly be human. Where did one go to find answers for that? Grant said he knew some place to go, but could she trust him? He knew things he wasn’t telling her; she was sure of it.
She shut off the shower and stepped out, toweling herself dry and slipping back into the only clothing she had with her. She walked out of the bathroom expecting to find him there, but the motel room was empty aside from Cat who still laid curled up on the bed—which didn’t seem like a terrible idea at the moment. She flopped back on the bed, enjoying the feel of the smooth mattress beneath her, one devoid of tears and broken springs, and she closed her eyes. Just for a few minutes.
When she opened her eyes next, some time must have passed. The room was dark aside from the pale moonlight that shone in through the window, and she saw him there, standing in front of the television where she’d placed her purse. His back was toward her, and she could hear him rummaging quietly—he was rummaging through her purse again!
But why? she wondered, lying perfectly still to avoid being noticed. His hand came up with the medallion she’d stashed in her purse and he placed the bag back down on the stand. Was that why he’d helped her? Had he somehow known she’d had the priceless relic?
Just then, a brief flash came back to her: a man dressed in black escaping out the balcony door of Sonya Johansen’s hotel suite.
It was him…but had he murdered the woman? She couldn’t imagine it, but then she remembered the way he’d dispatched the men who’d attacked her. He was certainly capable of great violence, but could he have used it for such a vile purpose?
In a flash, she vaulted off the bed and lunged for him, knocking him into the wall before they both crashed to the floor and the medallion went sliding toward the kitchenette. She was
back on her feet before him and across the room. She grabbed for the medallion and took several steps away.
“Is this why you pretended to want me?” she asked, dangling the chain that held the medallion from her hand.
“Pretend? You think I would have stuck my neck out last night if I was pretending? Do you think I would have been able to ‘pretend’ I wanted you at your apartment? Or now?” There was a hint of humor in his tone, but desire clearly flared in his eyes.
Distracted, she didn’t escape quickly enough, and he had his arms around her, taking her with him to the floor before she could react. But she used the strength she’d only recently discovered to roll on top, pinning him beneath her and grabbing back the medallion he’d snagged from her in their fall.
He sat up despite her weight on him, rolling her back onto his thighs instead of his waist, and when she prepared to surge to her feet, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back down.
The men from last night flashed through her mind, the ringleader on top of her, hissing threats she knew were anything but idle. And like before, her calm fled as fear rose up in her chest, and Grant flipped her over easily, pinning her beneath him and yanking her arms up over her head. He just held her there, his eyes boring into hers, and slowly the fear began to ebb.
“Listen to me, Freya,” he whispered against her ear, sending a shiver of desire rushing down her spine despite her vulnerable position. “That medallion belongs to me,” he whispered, but her mind was distracted.
She felt the length of him growing hard against her abdomen, and suddenly, she didn’t want to think about medallions or evil men. She didn’t want to think at all, but she forced herself to concentrate, “Did you kill that woman, Grant?” she asked, meeting his eyes dead on.
“Her name was Sonya,” he said, loosening his grasp on her wrists slightly, but she didn’t try to pull away. “And no, I didn’t kill her. You saw me there afterward. I got there too late. I took her body with me, but the medallion she wore was missing.”