by Diana Seere
“I work for Eva,” she said quickly but politely. He was tall and lean, with smooth, olive skin and black eyes under winged brows. “Excuse me, please.”
His lips curved. “Working?” he asked, his gaze sliding over her body in the sexy red dress she now regretted. “Excellent.”
Just as she was about to smile through her teeth and continue on to her room, she felt two powerful arms come around her from behind and lift her to one side.
“Put your eyes back into your head before I remove them with a spoon, Nero,” Edward said, in a voice that shocked her, to the black-coated man. If she weren’t staring directly at his face, which was twisted in a snarl, she wouldn’t have believed it was him.
The mountain lion that shadowed Edward was close to the surface, almost as bright as he was.
“Sorry, dude,” Nero said. “Does this peach belong to you?”
The pause that followed that question made Molly’s heart stop.
Finally Edward said, “She belongs to no man. Nor to a bed-swerving loiter-sack such as yourself.”
Nero’s dark eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think I like it. You forget the Rosinis are guests here, Stanton?”
“I don’t care,” Edward growled. “Look at her again, and you’ll regret it.”
“Are you sure?” Nero lifted a hand as if to touch her face. “I can’t imagine regretting one second with this babe.”
The fist that slammed into Nero’s face was attached to Edward’s arm, which was attached to Edward’s body, apparently driven by Edward’s brain, but Molly couldn’t believe it.
He wouldn’t date her, but he’d beat people up for her?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Well, actually she felt great about it but felt guilty because she was supposed to be angry with him.
“What the hell was that for?” Nero staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his lip. A woman with coloring similar to his—also a jaguar, Molly noted—came over and took his arm.
“I apologize for whatever my brother said to you,” the woman said to Edward, clearly deferential. It made Molly start, because so far no one in the families deferred to Edward. Weird.
She turned to Molly. “Although I imagine it was to you. Please forgive him. A Danish supermodel just dumped him at a Malibu beach party in front of a TMZ reporter. He’s been trying to recover his mojo ever since.”
“I can’t believe you did that. What’s the matter with you?” Nero looked more shocked than angry. “You turning into Gavin in your old age, Edward? Or worse—Asher?”
His sister jerked on his arm, pulling him away with her. “For God’s sake, shut up. Don’t make things worse. Come on, let’s clean you up before anybody sees you.”
Nero’s protests trailed behind him as his sister dragged him around the corner. The rest of the family only glanced at him, shook their heads, and went back to bossing their servants around.
Edward was already hauling Molly down the hallway and out a side door. “I’m getting you out of here,” he said roughly. His grip on her arm was hard as steel. “Where the hell is Morgan? He’s supposed to be guarding you, not letting every womanizing bastard we know get his paws on you. You have no idea what these men are like, what you’re dealing with, how dangerous it is.”
“Actually, I do know,” she said. “In fact—”
“You do not.” He pulled her around another corner into a dark, chilly room—coats and snow gear hung on the walls, boots lined up along a shelf on the floor—and then out another door.
They were outside. Floodlights from the roof lit a driveway lined with semidetached garages. He grasped her hand tightly and led her across the asphalt to a small door, jerked it open, then swung her inside as his foot pulled the door shut behind them.
For a second they were in warm, intimate darkness, and then a dim light flickered on, illuminating a row of cars under white canvas drop cloths. One of them in the middle was uncovered, an antique luxury car that reminded her of Downton Abbey.
When she lost her balance on the step, he wrapped both arms around her and hugged her against his chest. “Forgive my family for putting you in this position. You should never have to breathe the same air as Nero Rosini or Lars Jensen. I won’t let it happen again.”
She struggled to put a few inches between their bodies, which only caused his hands to move to her waist and then up the curve of her spine. His pelvis pressed against hers—and then something else.
He was hard for her.
“What is going on, Edward? You’re blowing hot and cold. I’m not your responsibility,” she said hoarsely, trying to deflect. Feeling his arousal knocked the breath out of her.
“Somebody has to protect you. Somebody who—somebody who doesn’t spend his life sleeping around, getting rich, chasing power…” His hands continued to roam, over her shoulders, down her back and over her bottom, up her stomach, fingers gracefully stroking each curve with each word.
She arched into him, trembling. “Someone like you?”
His erection pressed more firmly against her as his hand moved up to her breast, cupping it lightly. Her nipple hardened under his palm, eager for him to slide his hand under the thin fabric and squeeze, lick, suck her, make her scream.
“They touched you,” he said, his free hand sliding up her neck and splaying across her cheek. “You’re safe with me.”
Oh, now he was pinching her nipple through the fabric, just the way she liked it. She noticed his knuckles, red from the punch he’d just delivered. The violence that the hand had just exhibited drained away as his movement became sensual. “They touched me, but you’re not going to?” she asked, breathless.
When he didn’t speak, she reached down and stroked his thick cock through his jeans. To her satisfaction, his eyes unfocused, his jaw clenched, and his breathing grew ragged.
“Molly—”
“Edward.” She unbuttoned his jeans and pushed her hand under his boxers into warm curls and hard velvet.
He threw his head back, groaning, and then abruptly put his hand over hers under his jeans. “You don’t know about us—you don’t know about me—”
“You’re a shifter,” she said. “Like the others. You turn into a mountain lion.”
His jaw fell open. “Who told you?”
“Nobody. I see them. I see you.”
Slowly he removed his hand from hers. He swallowed, blinking hard, eyes glittering in the dim light. “You’re a remarkable creature.”
“Not usually,” she said. “But here I stand out.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re special. Really.” He caught her up in his arms and lifted her off the floor. “I’m obsessed with you. I dream about you. I—”
“Then why fight it?” She snaked her hands behind his neck and clung to him. “Why fight me?”
He scowled at her, shaking his head, and then finally he dropped down and engulfed her in a searing, uncivilized kiss.
In her.
He’d planned to take her to his truck and drive her far away from this place with its secrets and its dangers, but he wasn’t going to make it that far.
He had to be in her. Now.
“Molly,” he said roughly, running one shaking hand through his ragged hair. The tremor in his fingers was not from fear.
It was from the unrelenting need to touch her.
For years, during shifter family events, Edward had been shy. Before falling for Vivien, he’d just been one of the awkward, unpolished teen boys who roamed the grounds at whichever estate they convened, the gathering of the four main families a rare event. Typically, his family would visit the Rosini compound in California, or the Nagys would come to them in Montana or Boston. He was the quiet misfit, accepted yet the butt of gentle teasing. He was assumed to be submissive, a beta—or even lower in the pack.
Right now he felt a surge of power, one driven by the all-consuming need to protect Molly, to claim her for his own.
Those soft hands roamed over his thick shaft, the promise of more making him ache. So many questions filled his mind. She knew his animal form? How?
Asher was right.
She was special.
He froze, torn between Asher’s warning and the uncontrollable, insatiable need to fill his senses with her, to fill her body with his, to crawl into a space where the two could become one.
To claim and be claimed.
While he paused, she looked up into his eyes and said, “Touch me, Edward. Kiss me. Take me.” Her eyes bored into his as if she would not take no for an answer.
That invitation.
Oh God, she made it hard to do the right thing. So hard.
Her hand stroked him again.
So damn hard.
He picked her up, spreading her legs around his hips, her body responding in kind until she straddled him, his hands holding her aloft, her arms around his shoulders, kissing him with a fiery rush. Riding rhythmically against him, her heels digging into his back, she used her knees to squeeze his hips, breasts smashed against his chest, hair covering his shoulders and neck as she kissed him into oblivion.
“That red dress,” he hissed in her ear. “All the men in that room wanted you. But I want the damn dress off you. I want to see you bare and full, and only me. Only me, Molly.”
He carried her across the garage to Asher’s Rolls Royce Phantom and flung open the rear door. Toppling her backward, he covered her body with his in the backseat. Her tiny, lush body and his long, lean form didn’t conform easily to the space, but it would do.
Fucking her on the concrete was far less appealing, though it would suffice in a pinch.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he growled into her ear, biting the tender lobe, making her shiver.
“You have a strange way of showing it.” She pulled at his pants as he plucked one ripe breast out of her bra cup and nipped. She made a sound that drove him on, his tongue circling her tight, rosy pebble, her body grinding against him, back arched.
He loved learning what pleased her.
“Let me show you now,” he answered, his hand sliding under her panties, his groan at the touch of warm, slippery darkness making her grasp his shaft with a tight gesture of ownership.
“Oh!” she moaned.
“I need to taste you,” he rasped, his tongue curling up the delicate shell of her ear, wanting to wend its way through other sweet, wetter curves down below.
Waiting five seconds was torture.
“What about your rule? About staying away from me?” she teased as he pulled her panties down, flicked them aside, and moved her skirt up to her waist.
“Fuck the rules,” he said as his mouth found nirvana between her legs.
“Fuck me,” she gasped.
Yet another delightful invitation.
Searching for the sash, he groped in darkness, his face buried in her, her fingers entwined in his hair, her body guiding him where his tongue was needed most. He found the sash, and with a not-so-gentle tug, her dress came open, breasts spilling out and laid bare above a corset-like piece of cloth, his hands finding her, his body covering too much of the sensual terrain of her.
One hand reached up from mons to belly, finding her breast, her hips bucking up as he pinched and moved his tongue in a circle that made her gasp his name in three octaves.
And then.
And then—
The glaring fluorescent lights in the garage turned on with a sudden, cruel brightness that made Molly cover her eyes, her elbow nearly bashing Edward in the nose as she lay under him, trembling.
“My eyes! My eyes!” a man’s deep voice bellowed. “No one told me that Asher rented the garage to porn stars!”
Edward stiffened.
“Molly?”
A woman’s voice.
“Well, well. I thought you really were a virgin, bro,” Derry joked. “Guess I lost that bet to Gavin.”
“Derry!” Jess cried, berating his brother. “Don’t make this even worse!”
“If I wanted to make it worse, I could grade his technique, my dear.”
Edward heard the sound of a sandbag being punched.
“Were you trying to hurt me, Jess?” Derry sounded amused. “Because that did not work. And meanwhile, we have my brother and Eva’s assistant in a very delicate situation not unlike the one a few months ago.”
Molly moved her forearm and glared up at Edward. “A few months ago?” Her eyebrows arched.
Edward began to lift himself to his knees, rage mingling with lust. To his surprise, embarrassment played no part in his emotional reaction.
He was beyond that.
“Don’t move!” Molly hissed.
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve seen it all,” Derry declared.
“That may be true, big guy,” Molly hollered, right in Edward’s ear, “but you’ve never seen me naked.”
While Edward had never considered the possibility, he found himself relieved by that piece of trivia.
Edward carefully reached for the two sides of Molly’s dress and closed them, wrapping them around her midsection. He turned around, blocking the view of her body with his own.
“Are you certain?” Derry asked, lips twitching with amusement.
Edward caught his eye.
Don’t even joke, his look said.
Derry’s expression faltered.
“This is embarrassing,” Jess stammered, eyes darting between Edward and Derry. “There’s an important family meeting and Morgan couldn’t find Molly and Asher asked us to quietly find you and—”
Derry put his arm around Jess and looked away from Edward.
“And now I find my little brother stealing my fabulous sex ideas. Asher’s antique Rolls is so unoriginal.” He gave Molly an impish look. “For the record, Jessica and I pioneered this sex-in-small-vintage-cars trend. I would like full credit.”
Edward huffed. Molly bit back a laugh.
“Why not defile the Bugatti? Let us take turns. Gavin and Lilah can desecrate the Duesenberg. We can have a rotation. Which one shall Sophia—”
“Shut up,” Edward barked, his body throbbing, his mind a blur.
Derry did.
Get away get away get away, he thought, fishing in his open pants for his keys, reaching for Molly and lifting her out of the backseat, into his arms, and carrying her as is to his pickup truck, parked just outside the garage.
“Um, does this mean you’re skipping the meeting?” Jess called out.
Ignoring her, he roughly tossed Molly into the cab. She scooched over quickly, and he jabbed the key in the ignition, roaring off without another word, going from zero to seventy-five in seconds.
Just like sex.
“Where are we going?” Molly shouted over the engine’s roar.
“To finish what we started.”
Chapter 12
Molly rubbed her lips, smiling as she looked out the window. Black night below, stars above, mountains between. And Edward, as serious as she’d ever seen him, driving them into the evening.
Her body was singing for him. Screaming for him. She could barely stop herself from reaching over and—
She glanced at the road. It was straight as a laser beam and not another car in sight.
Unfastening her seat belt, she wriggled against him as she slid a hand up his warm, muscled thigh to the bulge under his fly.
The truck swerved. Making a choking sound, he clamped his hand over hers. “Soon. Not yet. Very soon.” He moved her hand back into her lap, patting it lightly before withdrawing.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”
She liked the sound of that. Crossing her legs, she tilted her head and watched him drive, although it was too dark to see much more than the general shape of his handsome profile—long nose, strong forehead, bearded jaw. “I’m not wearing any shoes,” she said.
“You won’t need shoes where I’m bringing you.”
A shiver danced down her spine. “Is it far?”
“It’ll be worth it.”
She swallowed a sigh of disappointment. Maybe they could climb into the back. There was a small space back there. Why hadn’t he gotten a crew cab? This was Montana, for Chrissake.
After about thirty minutes, during which her lust only grew, turning her into a throbbing, shivering, short-of-breath mess, Edward finally turned off the highway onto a dark side road. He pulled onto the shoulder and took out his phone.
His phone? “Are you lost?” she asked, only half kidding. She was going out of her mind.
Turning to her, he lifted his free hand to her face and stroked her jaw, dragging his thumb over her lips. “Shh,” he said. And then, into the phone, “Shane, it’s Ed.” His voice changed to all business. “I’d like to visit the cabin. Happen to know if it’s unengaged?” He paused. “Yes, now.”
Molly smiled into his palm, still resting on her cheek. A cabin sounded good. Very good.
He withdrew his hand, looking annoyed, and moved the phone away from his ear. “My thanks, Shane. If you’d stop laughing for a moment, you might find the wits to inform me of the key’s location.”
Molly wondered why Shane, whoever he was, was laughing.
“Thank you,” Edward—Ed—said. “Give my love to—whomever enjoys your company this evening.” He hung up, flung the phone on the dash, and revved up the truck, pulling back out into the road.
“Why was Shane laughing?” she asked.
“Because Shane is a donkey’s flea-bitten arse,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Who is he? How do you know him?”
“He’s a wildland firefighter. Seasonal, like me.”
“And he has a cabin?”
“Not only his. He manages it. Guys borrow it for fishing, hunting, mostly. In the winter, Shane’s usually the one who goes there, and he mostly—well.” He cleared his throat.
“Mostly what?” she asked sweetly, running a fingernail up his thigh.
“Let’s just say Shane could give Derry a run for his money,” he muttered, shaking his head. Prior to pairing up with Jess, Derry had been the biggest manwhore—in size and reputation—at the Platinum Club. “A fact of which I am very grateful at this moment. The roads are plowed, the furnace lit. He keeps it running all winter.”