Deceptions: A Collection

by Shiloh Walker

  I smiled at him and moved just the same way. Again. Again—

  He slammed into me and I screamed.

  Hot, blinding pleasure shattered me as I clung to him, scrambling, trying to get closer, but that iron fist in my hair wouldn’t let me. He surged inside me and the pleasure, so harsh and deep, washed over me. It exploded and left me empty and still he moved.

  Suddenly he tensed. And then, he let go of my hair. I felt him swell inside me and he started to lower his head. Then he stopped. “No…” he muttered. “No.” He growled and then lifted his hand. The scent of fresh blood tinged the air and he sank his teeth into his own wrist as he climaxed.

  “Are you okay?”

  He stroked a sponge over my back.

  Drowsily, I muttered, “Thoughtlessness achieved. You’re a good thought destroyer.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll put that down on my resume when I’m out looking for work.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The hot water still beat down on us. “We’re not being very conscientious. We’re using up all her hot water.”

  “We’ll be out in a minute,” he murmured. He slicked some shampoo through my hair.

  “You can also put down excels at washing hair.”

  He tugged on my short, soapy hair. “Ha, ha. You should know this is a singular honor. Other than mine, I don’t think I’ve ever washed anybody’s hair.”

  “You must just be a natural.” The heat had worked its magic. Although it was possible it was the sex. I couldn’t think worth anything. When Damon turned off the water, I shivered a little, crowding against him. His arms came around me, easing me close for a minute as he brushed his lips across my neck.

  “Let’s dry you off,” he whispered.

  I nodded and climbed out, but when I went to grab a towel, he beat me to the task, stroking me down with a fat, fluffy one that felt warm and soft against my skin. Dazed, I stood there as he finished the job and wrapped me in yet another towel, a dry one. “Wait.”

  Wait, the man says, I thought. All I wanted to do was sleep. Absently, I scratched at my arm. Needed lotion—

  He appeared back in the door and I frowned when I saw my bottle of lotion in his hand. “You’re always slicking this on after a shower,” he said, his eyes lingering on my hand for a minute, watching where I’d been scratching. There were questions in the backs of his eyes. I could all but see them, if I’d just let myself look.

  But I’d had enough. Seen enough. Handled enough. I just couldn’t take any more.

  How in the world would I explain the neurosis, anyway? After years of being filthy and grubby and dirty, I had an almost obsessive need to be clean? The first few years, once I’d finally stopped running, I’d sometimes showered three or four times a day. When I had money, I’d glutted on things like nice soaps and lotions or shampoos, all because it was exactly what I’d never had.

  And still, I couldn’t forget the awful, terrible way I’d always felt when my grandmother stared at me. Dirty. Useless. Skin crawling with vermin because she wouldn’t even let me clean myself decently.

  No. I wasn’t going to try to explain any of that.

  Much easier just to stand there and let him slick the lotion on me…what woman wouldn’t enjoy that?

  “You going to add masseuse to your list of skills?” I teased him, swallowing around the ache in my throat.

  “Only if you’re hiring, baby girl.”

  I reached for the lotion, but he held it away, eying me with a glittering, watchful look in those dark eyes.

  It wasn’t exactly a chore, standing there as he rubbed me down, strong hands gliding across my skin, rubbing lotion in and stroking over my belly, my hips, lingering over my breasts, my legs. But never long enough in any of those places. Even when I might have tried.

  “You need sleep,” he muttered against my neck. “And I need to get my head on straight.”

  Why should he have that luxury? I wondered.

  But we ended up in the bed, his long body tucked around mine.

  Sleep. Yes.

  Sleep sounded nice…

  My lids drifted down. His hand rested on my chest, between my breasts with his palm just above my heart. I could even feel the slow beat of it against his hand. Sleep, I told myself. I needed it. Had needed it earlier, but then Jude—

  I tensed.

  Terror trickled inside and like the mythical hydra, the damn thing multiplied every time I tried to cut it down.

  Sleep—can’t sleep—what if he comes—

  “Kit.”

  Damon’s voice was a harsh, brutal slap against my senses even if his hand was a gentle stroke down my side.

  Gasping in a desperate breath of air, I said, “I’m here. I’m fine. I’m here—”

  “Go to sleep. Stop thinking. Just sleep.”

  “But…” I squeezed my eyes shut. I can’t I can’t I can’t! “What if I sleep and he does it again?”

  “If he tries to come in on you again, I’ll know.” He flexed his hand on my chest. “Your heart rate changes. Your breathing does. Even the feel of your body changes. I’m right here, and I’ll know. I’ll get every damn witch in here if I have to drag them in kicking and screaming. Sleep, Kit. You need it…and I’ll be right here, I swear it.” He pulled me closer and nuzzled my brow. “Just sleep. I’ll be here with you…”

  There were no dreams.

  At least not of Jude.

  I dreamt of the park.

  Of endless trails, of traps unseen. Of children who screamed for rescue and pits that went so deep, nobody could see the bottom. And all the while, people begged for help and Damon stood by watching. Watching me. Not them. Me.

  After I’d stumbled across yet another hole, I turned and stared at him. This last one…it hadn’t been empty. There were bones in it. As they shone up at me, bleached white by the sun, I glared at Damon. “This isn’t done,” I told him. “We have to stop this. We have to.”

  Wide shoulders moved in a lazy shrug. “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “Just don’t get in my way,” I warned him.

  A familiar grin tugged at his lips. “Baby girl, the only time I’ve been in your way is when you put me there.”

  He was gone before I could figure out what that could mean. Gone before I could ask a question. Gone…but there was a giant cat stalking along at my back. His tawny pelt smooth as silk, the sooty gray marks rippling over his muscled frame.

  “Damon?”

  The great cat’s head swung up to look at me and he watched me with Damon’s eyes.

  “How do we stop this?”

  He sat down and started to lick one paw.

  Fucking cats.

  Frustration chewed at me as I headed off through the undergrowth. His voice followed me. “I was just here for the kid, baby girl. That’s all My Lady wanted. The rest is up to you and I don’t think you can handle it. Nobody thinks you can.”

  I flipped him off.

  His laugh chased me.

  Nobody thought I could handle anything.

  Maybe they were right, but it wasn’t going to stop me.

  I tripped over the massive body of a beheaded snake and found myself in a pit. Surrounded by bones. I started to scream, but all that came out of my mouth was the sound of a phone ringing—

  I jerked upright in the bed at the second ring.

  Damon stroked a hand down my belly. “Sorry. I should have turned the damn thing off.”

  Laying my hand over my heart, I tried to make myself breathe. “Yeah. Like she’d really appreciate that.”

  He watched me. A brooding look entered his eyes as the phone rang a third time.

  “You have to answer that,” I said quietly.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t have to do anything,” he said flatly.

  After the fourth ring, it went silent.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked, dragging a blanket up and trying to ignore the way my heart continued to jitter around inside my chest like a hummin
gbird on Torque. I hadn’t ever touched that drug—it was speed for shifters and would probably kill me, but I imagined it would jack up my heart like this.

  “Because once I talk to her, I’m going to have to answer questions, probably gather up Doyle and head back. I’m not ready to do that yet. As long as I don’t talk to her, it’s not an issue.” Wide shoulders moved and I found myself distracted by the way the tattoo played across his skin. The stark, unyielding lines of it mesmerized me and I found myself wanting to crawl on top of him and learn it with my eyes, my hands, my…

  Shit. Now really wasn’t the time.

  I swallowed and jerked my eyes away from him, staring at the wall in front of me. “You can’t avoid it forever. You know that.”

  “Yeah. I’ll have to take the next call, but…” his voice trailed off and he sighed, lowering his head and staring at the floor while he rubbed the back of his neck.

  He looked tired. It was an odd thing, I thought, seeing him look tired. “Did you sleep?”

  Gray eyes flicked my way. “Yeah. Not a lot, but I don’t need much anyway.” He shifted on the bed, moving until he was kneeling over my thighs, hands braced on either side of my hips. “You had some crazy dreams. And you talk in your sleep. Muttering about snakes and trees and bones.”

  “I was dreaming about those kids. Whoever is behind this…” I nibbled on my lip and toyed with the sheet. “This isn’t done for me. I can’t…I can’t walk away from it.”

  His eyes studied my face. “She’ll call me back. I’ll have to go…for now. I don’t want you diving into this without me.”

  I didn’t answer him. There was just no way I could.

  “Kit…” he growled.

  “Don’t,” I said softly. “You’re going to try to make me say something I can’t say, snarl at me, try to intimidate me into something that just isn’t in me to give. I won’t do it, Damon. I won’t.”

  Threading his fingers into my hair, he tugged me close, pressed his brow to mine. “Foolish little girl…I still think you’re a foolish girl. Why in the hell am I here with you?”

  “Nobody is making you stay.”

  “Yeah, somebody is. You are. I just fucking can’t.” He growled the words against my lips and nipped me lightly.

  It turned into a deeper kiss that left my blood humming, but before I could do anything about it, he rolled off the bed and started to prowl the room. “Can’t,” he muttered. “Can’t right now…”

  “How much time before she calls again?”

  Damon shrugged. “No telling. Five minutes. Five hours.”

  “Then maybe we should have that talk.”

  He stilled. It was an eerie, peculiar stillness. Light reflected off his eyes as he stared at me. “Kit—”

  Closing my eyes, I leaned back against the wooden headboard. It was old—reclaimed wood, made from what looked like old doors and painted white. Set against the dark, burnished red woods, it shouldn’t have looked so charming, but it did. The wood felt scratchy against my back and I focused on it to give my mind something else to think about as I puzzled through the mess in my head.

  “We either have this talk now or we’re not doing it,” I finally said. “You have this idea in your head that I’m incapable of handling shit and I’m fed up.”

  “It’s not that I think you’re incapable,” he muttered. “You’re too fucking capable, even as you take on shit that I know should break you, that I know you should run screaming from, but you do it anyway. You do it, you handle it, and even when I think you’re crazy, when almost anybody else in your shoes would find a way out, you just soldier on.”

  “So am I capable or am I a silly little fool?” I demanded.

  “Both!” he snapped. “I’ve got messes of my own that I have to deal with, and the last thing I needed was a cocky little half-human throwing herself in my way. I don’t want to do this and watch myself get tangled up with you and then see you plunge into some disaster you can’t get out of.”

  Blowing out a breath, I said quietly, “That’s a little deep, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve known each other…what…a week?”

  Gray eyes stared at me. “You want to know what rut is, Kit? Really know?”

  My heart banged against my ribs. The intensity in his voice, the deep growl of it danced across my skin and I could hardly breathe. The air in the room was charged, so tight and hot.

  He came to me, all hard muscle and grace and feline beauty and I couldn’t think for wanting him. He knelt on the bed and braced one hand on the headboard by my head. “Do you, Kit?” he asked again, his breath drifting across my lips.

  When in doubt—or terror—reach for the sarcasm. Curling my lip at him, I said, “Are you going to tell me it’s some mystical fated mates shit? Sorry. I won’t buy that. It doesn’t work that way.”

  His hand curled around my neck, his thumb resting in the hollow of my neck. “No. Absolutely it doesn’t. This is all on my part, and whether or not you’ll ever feel a damn thing for me is up to you…but you already feel something. Even if I hadn’t already figured that out, I would have gotten a clue when you came muttering my name and clutching at me during the night, baby girl.” The pad of his thumb stroked over me. “No. It’s more complicated…better. Easier. Worse. Harder. It started when you pulled that fucking sword on me in your office. I wanted you then, but wanting is easy. Almost any woman can satisfy a guy when he just needs to get laid.”

  “Nice to know this isn’t just about you being horny.” Look away, I told myself. Needed to do that because the raw intensity in his eyes was killing me. Killing me—

  But that was one thing I just couldn’t do. Couldn’t. At all.

  “Your mouth was another problem for me,” he muttered, leaning in and licking my lower lip. “You fucking smart ass. Mouthing off from the get-go. I’ve never found a smart ass so appealing until I met you.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re still not explaining much here.”

  A slow smile curled his lips. The hand he had on my neck stroked down. I had the blanket tucked under my arms, but it caught under his palm and went down under the path of his hand, stopping when he paused, just over my heart.

  “Sex is easy. Rut is anything but—it’s physical, emotional, mental. We focus on one woman and I started focusing on you from day one. It got worse every damn time I did something that I knew scared you…but you just snarled back at me. I knew you were smart and quick, and all I needed was your brain and your connections—I didn’t want your mouth or anything else.”

  His thumb stroked over the inner curve of my breast as he continued. “But you didn’t just give me your mouth. If you’d just been mouthy, or if you hadn’t tried…but hell, you gave me everything. Five minutes after I all but brutalized you, we walked into a hall full of shifters and one of them dared to touch you and instead of showing fear, you busted his nose—you had no weapons and still you fought.”

  His mouth brushed over mine as he whispered, “You stood by the body of a dead kid, a wolf you didn’t know and I saw the grief in your eyes and it gutted me. You had no reason to care, but you did. I knew, then, even if the Alpha wasn’t issuing threats you would have done everything you had to do to find Doyle…that was when I really started to slip. But I’d already done the damage and I couldn’t undo it, could I?”

  Reaching up, I laid my hand over his. “If you couldn’t undo the damage, pal, you wouldn’t be in bed with me.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “Well, there is that, I guess.”

  He shifted his hand around and caught mine, lifting my wrist to his mouth. It was the one Jude had bitten. Even that single thought was enough to send a cold sliver of fear lancing through my mind.

  Damon, the bastard, sensed it and a storm danced in his eyes. “Then the vampire showed up—I wanted to tell you then that I’d keep you safe, but how could I make you believe it when you were already scared of me? When you had every right to be afraid of the Alpha?”

  Something tickled the back of m
y mind. The Alpha—

  But before I could latch onto it, he continued. “And he bit you. I knew he had, knew there would be troubles. There will still be troubles. As soon as you leave this house—” A muscle pulsed in his jaw, a growl vibrating deep in his chest. “That’s why I don’t want you going out there to work this until I can get back to you.”

  “She’s not likely to turn her favorite killer out just to help round up a couple of people who like to hunt stray shifters and witches,” I told him, resting my hand on his thigh. “So far, the only one who had any affiliation was Doyle. And that was a fuck-up of epic proportions, but still. I can’t wait idly by for you to come back. What if they go into hiding and we don’t find them?”

  “And what if he sends his fucking servants after you? In here, you are safe, but out there? Or if you get hurt, caught by some of those fuckers? Just a few seconds after he wakes for the day and you’re his, Kit.”

  I swallowed. “Not if his bond is broken.”

  Damon tensed, his grip on my wrist tightening. “Be careful where you go from here, Kit. His hold on you is temporary…mine won’t be. Don’t go rushing into this just because you’re afraid of him. Because I’ll do it. I want you that much and I won’t care if you change your mind…I won’t let you go.”

  “Who says I’m doing it because I’m afraid?” Wiggling out from under him, I moved onto my knees and stared into his eyes. “We’ve already established I do stupid things that I shouldn’t do, right? I’ll deal with Jude—no matter what happens, I’m going to find a way to deal with the shit he tried to pull. It doesn’t matter if we snap his hold or not, the son-of-a-bitch is going to pay for the number he pulled last night.”

  The storm clouds in his eyes deepened and he gripped me around the waist. “You are not going after him alone, Kit. You understand me?”

  “I’m starting to think you are the silly little fool.” Then I frowned. “Well, not little. But still. And this isn’t the topic we’re discussing. I’ll deal with Jude. I’m not doing it now because he’ll expect it and I have to figure out the right way. I’m not stupid and I don’t rush into things, nor do I think I can take him down solo. But he isn’t what we needed to talk about.”