Chase Me

by Tamara Hogan

  He picked up a clean jock and just as quickly dropped it back onto the pile. He wasn’t even going to try to wrestle his unruly anatomy into the blasted thing. Grabbing a pair of compression shorts instead, Gabe stripped out of his boots and jeans and worked the clingy fabric up over his legs and his raging erection, layering a pair of faded maroon sweatpants over them. The T-shirt and fleece jacket he was already wearing would work just fine.

  His thoughts raced as he laced his running shoes. Should he bring a blanket? Give her something soft to lie on while he lost himself in her? Somehow, such premeditated thoughts seemed way too presumptuous—even though every cell in his body was certain they’d have sex before they returned to the compound.

  The hair on his legs stood on end, scraping against the soft cotton. He was going to have sex. With Lorin Schlessinger. Out there in the woods. Probably not what Gideon had in mind when he’d urged Gabe to end his sex drought.

  Reaching into the dark corner of his duffel bag, he snatched a condom out of the box he’d almost left at home, tucking the small packet into his jacket pocket. Then he cursed and grabbed three more.

  “Hurry up. It’s getting dark.”

  He exhaled into his hand to check his breath. Not minty fresh, but…

  “Gabe. Are you knitting a new pair of socks in there?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Striding to the tent’s flapping door, he almost tripped when he saw Lorin, legs straddled and bent over at the waist, touching her palms to the ground as she warmed up. Zipping the tent door closed, he turned away and did a few perfunctory stretches of his own. If he let himself stare at her flexing ass, he’d dive on her like a slavering beast—privacy be damned. “Come on, let’s get going.”

  “Okay. Sure we need to talk first?” She jogged backwards, putting too much space between them. “I’ll still respect you in the morning, you know.”

  He made himself match her tone. “That would imply that you respect me now, and we both know that isn’t true.”

  A tiny smile tilted the corners of her mouth—not confirming or denying his words.

  The woman drove him nuts.

  What did she expect from this, from him? Just a quick, medicinal roll in the pine needles to bleed off some of her excess energy?

  Did she really expect so little?

  Probably. Her last lover, Rafe Sebastiani, had been a gorgeous, hedonistic sex demon, and he… wasn’t. Never before had he been so conscious of the weight of the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, or how long it had been since he’d been to the gym.

  “It’s just sex, Gabe.” Her smoky alto voice sounded slightly annoyed. “Do we need to negotiate a bloody contract first?”

  His lizard brain slithered into fantasy mode, with Lorin wearing a tight pencil skirt and stilettos, nibbling on a pen, as she stated the number of orgasms she expected per sexual encounter, and the penalties that would accrue if she didn’t receive them. “Details are important,” he said.

  Was that rough, growly voice his?

  Her breath hitched; her pupils dilated. “You are very detail-oriented.”

  The heat in her voice was going to strip him bare.

  “Can you talk and run at the same time? In the name of efficiency?” She shot him a final challenging glance, pivoted, and took off like a gazelle, disappearing into the tunnel of pines.

  Testosterone and adrenaline raged like class-five rapids.

  Chase. Taste. Take.

  He sprinted after her, more alive than he’d felt in ages.

  ***

  Lorin’s feet pounded down the deer trail leading to the shattered rise that had caught Gabe’s attention. Squirrels rustled in the underbrush, scurrying to safety as she approached. An owl hooted a complaint from a nearby pine. The sound of her own breath, whooshing in and out of her lungs, sounded unnaturally loud in dusk’s dim hush.

  Where was Gabe? Freyja help her, what would she do about this knee-knocking need if he changed his mind again?

  Behind her, branches cracked. A muttered curse. Ah, finally. She lifted her forearm to protect her face from the slap of low-hanging branches as she picked up the pace, her muscles warming, flexing, flowing. The rise was just ahead. She was more than ready for—

  A hand latched on to her upper arm, spinning her around and yanking her against a rock-hard body.

  Gabe.

  In the near-dark, their faces inches apart, she stared. There were pine needles in his hair, and a branch had whipped a red weal across his cheekbone. His breath came in puffs she could see and feel. “Caught me,” she murmured.

  His big, blunt-fingered hand clamped onto her ass in response.

  Lorin flexed against it, testing him. Testing herself. His fingers clenched back immediately, pressing her more firmly against his groin, his erection pushing at her through the layers of constricting clothing. “Still want to talk first?” she gasped.

  He opened his mouth. Cursed again—and crashed his lips to hers, devouring her with perfect succulent pressure.

  Lorin clutched at his hair. Who would have guessed that Gabe Lupinsky had such a wicked, talented mouth? She could wallow in his decadent, primal taste for hours—some other time. Right now, she needed him inside her like she needed her next breath.

  Lips still locked together, she tried to pull him down to the soft moss, but Gabe pinned her against a nearby birch clump with his body instead. Before she could figure out how he’d managed it, her feet were off the ground, her back scraping against bark, and her legs scrabbling for purchase around his waist.

  As she crossed her ankles behind his back, Gabe leaned into her spread legs with his full body weight, pressing her back into the cradle created by the trio of trees. Her moan of delight floated into the thick night air, and she rubbed greedily against the blunt ridge of flesh pushing under his soft cotton sweatpants.

  She’d never spared a single, lascivious thought to the body Gabriel Lupinsky covered with his conservative clothes as he glared at her across conference room tables back at Sebastiani Labs. Now, as she writhed against his rock-hard flesh, she knew she’d never be able to scrub his dimensions from her mind.

  Freyja help her. He was… spectacular.

  Damn it.

  “Gabe.” She scraped her breasts against the layers of fleece and cotton separating their chests. Supporting her weight, he lowered his head and nuzzled against her aching nipple with his cheek. Not enough. She shoved her jacket and shirt up under her armpits, exposing her torso to the chilled night air. She needed to feel his skin against hers, feel the scratch of his beard—

  Gabe unsnapped the front fastening of her bra with a dexterity that she filed away for later thought. Then, time sputtered and stalled as he explored her aching flesh with hands, lips, and teeth.

  Lorin shuddered against his mouth, her bare back scraping against the papery birch bark. She was a hairbreadth from coming, and they both still had all of their clothes on. She wanted to feel him, hot and pulsing, in her hands. “Hurry,” she demanded. Her hands tugged at the drawstring at his waist.

  This first time, she wanted him inside her when she came.

  Gabe lifted his head from her breast, his jawline lit by the sliver of moon peeking out from behind the nighttime clouds. His eyes were glittering silver slits behind his glasses.

  Her stomach jumped. She’d had a werewolf lover or two in her time, but something about the feral hunger on Gabe’s face twisted her in a knot. If she didn’t get him inside her soon, she’d combust.

  Trusting him to support her weight, her hands burrowed under the waistband of the sweats and shoved the layers down, out of her way. His cock leapt into her hands, hot, hard, and heavy, throbbing with tensile strength. She needed him inside her, now. She needed to ride him like her life depended upon it.

  She groaned aloud. Right now, she thought it just might.

  He removed one arm from under her butt, supporting her with the other as he yanked at the waistband of her running tights. She clutch
ed at tree branches. Damn stirrup heels. What had she been thinking? She’d have to take off her running shoes to get the blasted things off.

  “Hang on,” Gabe bit out, wrapping her legs tightly around his body. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a Swiss Army knife and clicked it open. Spandex snapped, sagged, disappeared, and they were finally touching, skin to skin, his cock tucking between her legs like a custom fit.

  “Shit.” When he pulled back, chilly air kissed her damp crevices.

  “What?” She dug into his ass with her heels. “Get back here.”

  “Condom. Condoms,” he muttered. “In my pocket.”

  Good thing one of them had a brain. She knew she was healthy and protected against pregnancy, but they hadn’t exactly had a chance to exchange sexual histories. “Hurry.”

  He snatched a condom from his jacket pocket, ripped the package open with his teeth, and donned it one-handed.

  She raised a mental brow. She’d never heard any gossip about Gabe’s sexual prowess on the Sebastiani Labs grapevine, hadn’t heard any morning-after whispers in the ladies room at Underbelly, but… damn, Lupinsky had some moves.

  She moaned as his heavy shaft nudged her hungry entrance. “Put me down,” she said. “I’m too heavy.” He was strong, but there was no way he’d be able to support her weight long enough for the long, rough ride she craved.

  He buried his head at the crook of her neck instead. His breathing was rough and uneven as his sharp teeth strummed up the sensitive cord of her neck.

  “Gabe.” Damn it, she’d give him maximum points for foreplay, but right now she wanted his big cock, filling her to the brim, nailing her against this tree. “Now.”

  He lifted his head and met her eyes. And did as she ordered.

  Their groans twisted together as Gabe pressed in and stretched her wide. He stopped for a second, gritting his teeth, suspending her on a rack of pleasure. She writhed, trying to get more of him, but her precarious position didn’t give her a lot of leverage. Sacrificing her handhold on his shoulders, she skated her hands down the muscles of his back, clutched his ass, and pulled.

  Gabe groaned, his knees giving a single, precarious quake, but he steadied quickly. “Lorin.” He kissed her, a gentle brush of the lips that inexplicably made her eyes sting. “You can stop this now, with a single word.”

  As if. Her skin was about to burst off her frame. She rolled her hips, gaining another precious inch of his cock. They both groaned. “Gabe,” she gasped, waiting for the rest of its blunt glide.

  It didn’t happen.

  Gabe dragged in a ragged breath. His face was all planes and shadows, his cheekbones as sharp as the knife he’d used to bare her body to his.

  “Please.”

  He boosted her body a couple of key inches—almost withdrawing from her body in the process—but before she could react, he surged, deeply, driving into her body with long, desperate strokes she could do nothing but receive.

  Lorin clutched a tree branch with one hand and Gabe’s fleece-covered shoulder with another, scissoring her legs more tightly around his churning hips. She didn’t know if it was the angle, the precarious position, his size, or some combination of the three—but damned if he wasn’t hitting every skittering nerve ending she had, and a few she hadn’t known about.

  She grasped his shoulders—the only solid thing in the universe.

  Their eyes met. Locked.

  Faster, faster.

  She tensed then caught her breath. “Gabe.” As she shattered, the tension that had plagued her for days spiraled up, up, and away, an explosion of glittery butterflies taking flight between her thighs.

  A growl. Two rough thrusts. One more, even deeper, that pushed the breath from her body and rolled her eyes back in her head. Gabe’s rangy body stuttered and stilled. His face tightened.

  And he tossed his head to the sky and howled.

  Chapter 8

  Beddoe didn’t need the tiny red light flashing in his peripheral vision to know his blood pressure was dangerously high. Approaching his personal quarters at the end of the walkway, he faced the entrance for an identification scan. “Welcome, Beddoe,” it acknowledged, opening the door with a click and a swoosh. Stepping inside, he waited for the door to close, for the lock to activate, for the soundproofing to engage.

  Then he slammed his fist into the wall.

  “Dia!” Withdrawing his hand from the hole he’d just created, he sucked his stinging knuckles. His internal organs sat up and took notice as the dark taste of blood swirled on his tongue.

  He needed to feed.

  Walking to the chiller, he loosened the stranglehold his uniform jacket had on his neck. Lorcan had wanted to talk to him, all right. The bastard had raised the TonTon’s profit target. “A stretch goal,” Lorcan had stated in his oozing, slimy voice. “Challenging but achievable, yes?”

  “Yes,” he’d automatically agreed, even as his ballocks tried to burrow into his body for protection. One did not refuse Lorcan and live to tell the tale.

  Snatching a bag of blood from the chiller, Beddoe raised it to his mouth, his fangs puncturing the receptacle with a soft pop. As he suckled, the strain slowly leached from his body. Lorcan clearly suspected something was amiss, but he must not have proof. If Lorcan had evidence that Beddoe was skimming, he’d already be dead.

  Lorcan hadn’t mentioned the beacon. Could the TonTon actually have been the only ship close enough to have picked up the Arkapaedis’s short, weak blip? Could he be that lucky?

  No. A smart man created his own luck. He needed to get back down to the surface, find that beacon, and shut it down—once and for all. Buy himself some time.

  Still suckling at the bag, he opened his storage unit and assessed the small collection of Earth attire he’d cobbled together from several of the larger entertainers Minchin had recently acquired. He’d learned his lesson from his last trip to the surface. This time, he’d dress for warmth. He finally selected stiff, dark blue leg coverings very much like the vision-impaired man had been wearing, an oddly bubbled long-sleeved shirt that pulled over the head, and the dark jacket made of a synthetic substance so light, soft, and warm that he’d taken to wearing it in the privacy of his own quarters.

  Placing the garments on his sleeping pallet, he drained the bag, stripped to the skin, and took a second bag of blood into the body care unit with him. Being it was full dark on the surface, he programmed only moderate UV protection. “Begin.” As warm chemicals misted over his body, he made short work of the second bag. Rich, thick nourishment surged through his system, sharpening his thoughts, chasing away the nerves Lorcan’s call had wrought. How could he deliver the financial performance Lorcan demanded without impacting his own portfolio? How could he cut expenditures without impacting the customer’s experience? Environmental controls in the staff and crew quarters were at the extremes of tolerance as it was, and both the time- and d-drives were overdue for retrofit.

  “Remove body hair?” the cleansing unit asked.

  “Negative.” The man he’d seen arguing with the strapping woman down on the surface had sported a shadow of facial growth. A slightly unkempt look might allow him to blend better once he reached the surface.

  “Cleansing complete.”

  Exiting the body care unit, he dressed in the strange clothes, struggled with the closures of the stiff, ankle-height animal-hide footwear—boots—and placed his Mach on the table beside his sleeping mat. He couldn’t risk taking technology to the surface without gathering more data on the culture’s current capabilities. Almost unconsciously, his fingertips skimmed the outline of his useless complant, barely discernible under his skin. In retrospect, his decision to divert the astronomical Core access fee to his anonymous account had been criminally shortsighted.

  He was data-blind. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to rely strictly upon his own powers of observation to complete a mission.

  Punching a button on the comm panel he’d barely missed hitti
ng with his fist, he asked Ta’al to meet him in Transport.

  He could no longer trust his physical safety to Minchin.

  Leaving the blessed heat of his quarters, he strode to Transport, gave Ta’al the coordinates, and stepped onto the pad. “Retrieval in three local cycles, please. You have the con.”

  “Yes, Sirrah.” If Ta’al had questions about why she was being placed in command during his absence instead of Minchin, she didn’t ask them, and if she was at all nervous about scattering her captain’s molecules across the Void and trusting they’d reassemble correctly at the desired destination, it didn’t show. Her pilot’s hands were steady at the controls.

  “Engage,” he ordered.

  “Aye. Engaging.”

  Beddoe stiffened his knees and tightened his sphincter as the transporter’s cool, stinging energy washed over him in an uncomfortable wave. Time and consciousness winked away, returning as he shimmered into place on the surface behind a building that blazed with light, pulsed with sound, and positively reeked. He rubbed his arms, waiting for full feeling to return to his limbs. The aftermath of transport felt like pinbugs on the march, each one taking a tiny bite of his—

  A screech of metal against metal. Someone was coming.

  Beddoe clumsily crouched behind the large blue garbage receptacle, barely avoiding the widening slice of light as the door opened. Rock crunched underfoot as someone approached and threw something. The receptacle vibrated against his shoulder as whatever had been thrown hit with a soft thud.

  Beddoe breathed slowly and quietly, ignoring his muscles’ burning protest as he held the brutal crouch. He heard a soft scrape, followed by a barely audible crackle. The unmistakable scent stung his nostrils. Dia, the person was smoking herb. His shaking legs would never hold him that long. He had to—

  An eerie howl echoed from the foliage.

  “Goddamn timber wolves,” the man muttered. He threw his herb to the ground and quickly returned to the building. The moment the door slammed closed behind him, Beddoe let his legs collapse, the small, cold rocks biting into his buttocks through the stiff fabric.