by Cecilia Lane
She needed to believe it, too. She wasn’t there yet.
Hudson tucked some wild strands of hair behind Mara’s ears. The fuzzy look in her eyes and the plumpness of her kissed lips tempted him back for more. One tiny sip was all he allowed himself. She’d be safer in Bearden than on a wild hunt.
“The others are going to be leaving soon. You should go with them.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed and the sharp, dangerous edge to her scent returned.
Stubborn cat wouldn’t listen, but he had to keep trying. “Kerry is my responsibility. I should have known something was up with Axel. I should have taken you somewhere entirely unconnected to either of us.”
“You’re only a target because of me. Ronnie wouldn’t be digging into your life and pushing at all your buttons—”
“Cut the shit.” He lifted his head and stared down his nose. “I’m a big boy. I can decide who I help and how much. You don’t get to add this to your guilt. I fucked up. They linked me to busting up their crew. I should have been more careful.”
She watched him from under her eyelashes and mulled her words. “What happened to being clan and accepting help? You know I’m not going to stay behind. I need to do this.”
Hudson dropped his head to her shoulder. He knew it’d been too much to hope for otherwise. “No running off. No pulling another bullheaded stunt like the one today. If we’re doing this, then it will be done right. You’ll listen to me.”
“You need me, you said. I have all the information. Brawn and brain, that’s us.” Mara smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Hudson cleared his throat. The words were polite, but he was sure she was questioning his intelligence with that little display. “What did you find in here?”
Mara smirked. Bright, amber eyes stared at him even as she dragged the ledger between them and pressed it into his chest. “Records of bets placed and won from previous fights. Don’t know about you, but I think this might be a start of who to check out. There’s probably also records somewhere of which fighters are going where. Ronnie likes to keep a proper accounting of her property.”
Clever kitty.
Chapter 10
Mara paced from one end of the motel room to the other. Every five steps carried her past the open door between the rooms. The sixth allowed her a quick peek inside. The bed was empty and the sound of a shower still splashed in her ears. Hudson wouldn’t be occupied for much longer.
She knew what she’d agreed to, but the reality didn’t set in until they were once again locked behind motel room doors together. Two rooms, thank the skies above, but the doorway between them stood open. She knew what that was about, too. Hudson didn’t trust her to keep her word. He expected her to run off again.
The thrill of the chase almost made her want to try.
Mara pressed her fingers to her lips. The kisses he’d given her earlier were hard to brush from her mind. But dammit, she tried. Her rapidly reawakening desires had no right to make themselves known. The big bear would be better off without her, and a child was still in danger.
She eyed the door. She could slip out while he still showered. Her lioness dug sharp claws into her brain and roared with fury. Mara gave her word, and her infatuated other half wouldn’t let her break it.
She made three more loops before the water shut off and the shower curtain rattled aside. Mara held her breath and waited for Hudson to appear.
They’d stopped for food and clothes before driving hours to a motel not far from the camp they would check in the morning. Mara had wanted to carry on and move, move, move, but Hudson refused. He wanted her at the top of her game and rested. Logically, she knew she should be tired. She’d run through the night and fought when she found the camp. Her body, on the other hand, felt like she’d shot caffeine straight into her veins.
Mara steeled herself when the bathroom door opened and Hudson padded out. She got an eyeful of his tattoos as he scrubbed a towel over his short hair. He cleaned up well and cut a professional look with clothes on, but shirtless... Ink covered both of his sides and a good bit of his upper back. His shoulders, too, bore thick black lines curving with his body.
Mara pressed a hand to her lips and turned. She needed to get herself under control. They had a goal in sight and his ideas of what they were to each other were simply distractions. Nothing more than fairy tales and wishes.
But his hands on her... His mouth...
She swallowed hard and thought of boring things. Doing dishes. Folding clothes. Invasive thoughts of those damn kisses tried to pull her back. It was hard enough to brush them aside, and even harder to remember that he was a shifter, too. He could hear and smell everything going on with her.
A furtive look through the door showed him finding somewhere else to stare with his glowing silver eyes. A single second, and the brown was back when he looked her way again. “Mara.”
She made another circuit past the door connecting their rooms. Her eyes met his as she kept walking.
He was in the doorframe on her next leg of her loop. His hands shot out and grabbed her wrists. “Stop pacing.”
She wanted to bite him. Her lioness latched onto the thought. Bite, yes. Touch. Taste. Mark. Mate.
Bad cat. He wasn’t theirs. She’d be disaster to anyone she tried to claim. Darkness existed inside her and would rot anyone she touched. She’d already brought him and his trouble.
Hudson used her conflicted silence against her and drew her to sit on her bed.
The closeness felt right. Wrong. Dammit, she didn’t know.
Mara pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows. “So. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. We’ll scout the edge before pressing further.”
“How do you know they aren’t expecting us? Maybe they’ve checked out the other camp.”
His hand fell over hers. The touch calmed her spike in worry.
“Someone stuck around. If a phone rings or someone drives up, it’ll be business as usual.”
“You’ve thought of everything.”
“It’s my job.”
Mara fell back against the mattress. “Is that how you met Axel? Military service?”
Hudson nodded. He rested his forearms on his thighs. Every muscle in him seemed to tense all at once. “I was a year out of boot camp, him maybe a year more. He was a newly promoted prick, always strutting around with those ranked below him and falling over himself to impress the higher-ups. We hated each other from the start. Two big brawlers unable to sort their shit out with a proper fight? I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did before breaking.”
“What happened?”
“I was on janitor duty. He poured out a cup of coffee over a freshly mopped floor. And that was that. Uniforms shredded, hall gouged up, blood just... everywhere. It took the commanding officer firing off a few rounds to calm the bloodlust and force us to shift back. We were transferred to a special unit. Not quite military, not quite contractor, but definitely deadly. Our people go missing and someone needed to get to them or the abductors? We were the extraction team. Trying to pull out information? Interrogators.”
Dirty, bloody work, he described it before. She could only imagine the horrors he’d seen. Maybe they weren’t so different. “What made you leave?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I had command of the field unit, and Axel was already stateside by then. We were acting on intel that this real mean piece of shit was visiting some family. Bad, of course, but we didn’t know it at the time. We entered a little village expecting no trouble on our way to our objective. Grab and bag him, that was our mission.
“They were waiting for us. We kept to the alleys between homes. All the villagers had been slaughtered, so his men were packed inside. They shot through the walls and took us out at the knees. Horrible work. Dirty fighting. We heal fast, but there’s still the pain. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the screams of that night or the funerals the following weeks.”
Mara inched her hand
forward. The need to soothe him overwhelmed her. He hurt, and she could help. She wanted to touch him.
She brushed her fingers over his back. He sucked in a breath, but didn’t move. She crawled her fingers forward and to the hard muscle of his bicep.
Hudson cleared his throat, glanced at her, then looked away again. “I followed orders to go there, but it was my call to walk into the trap.”
“Matthew used to say that, about following orders. It never made me feel any better. I’m sure no one blames you for what you were told to do.”
Hudson’s fingers rubbed over her hand. He squeezed, then rubbed again. “Tell me about him.”
Mara’s throat constricted. She wanted to shake her head and refuse. Instead, she rolled to her side and faced away from Hudson. Those memories were hers. Only Kate had a right to them or shared in her pain.
But Hudson had given her a glimpse of the churning waters beneath his smooth surface. Her lioness practically purred and bumped her head into Mara to encourage her.
“He was... incredible. When our father didn’t come home, he stepped up to make sure we had enough to eat. He took on all the responsibility. So when I was able, I shouldered what I could. I became his manager and helped arrange matches. I networked and got him the bigger payouts and planned our travel. But he was the talent. Utter monster in the ring.”
The bed shifted with Hudson’s movement. He curled up against her, heat warming her from her back to her knees. Comforting. Even more so than a simple touch of his hand. She felt cocooned in safety.
That feeling was a lie, but she let herself believe in it for the moment.
“I know most shifters don’t like ring fights, but money is money. I don’t see much difference than brawling with your clan, you know? If you’re going to bleed, you might as well get paid.” A harsh breath blew out of her lips. They never saw a dime once hunters captured and collared them. Nothing was their own after that.
“I bet you were a savage negotiator.” Hudson’s words whispered against the back of her neck. “Right for the throat, grabbing them by the balls, threatening to walk out and take your talent elsewhere.”
“You mean I was supposed to ask nicely?” She relaxed a bit more at his huffed laugh. “We’re doing this wrong. Aren’t you supposed to buy me dinner before we cuddle?”
He snorted. “What do you call all those snacks stuffed in my pockets?”
Mara grinned into her pillow. He’d snuck in sandwiches and candy bars, even a beer once with the help of Sawyer. She was sure Mack knew, but no one said a thing about the contraband. “That was sanity fuel.”
“Then you must have thrown away every crumb the moment I was out of sight.”
Mara growled and jabbed her elbow into his side. He was too quick for her, and he closed his hand over the point with a small chuckle. His fingers caressed her skin, up and up and up, until he reached her shoulder and she relaxed back against him.
“Brave kitty.” His words were like velvet against the shell of her ear. “Bold kitty.”
A tiny purr vibrated in her throat. He did that so well, twisting her around and fogging up her mind. He took her out of herself and let her instincts rule.
Right then, her instincts didn’t want him to move.
Hudson dragged his fingers up and down her arm slowly. She sighed when his lips left her ear and let go of a soft groan when he laid a kiss right below her lobe. Wild energy swirled around him with their bodies caught in the very center of the storm.
He leaned up to watch her face. Bright silver mixed with the brown of his eyes. The light, unnatural color made him look even sexier. He was a big, tattooed badass capable of danger, but those impossibly light eyes looked at her like he wanted to devour her.
She could stop this. She knew she should, but her tongue stayed glued to the roof of her mouth and her lioness couched in the back of her mind. Watching just as much as Hudson’s inner bear watched her.
His fingers slowly circled her breast. The spiral tightened with every pass. She felt heavy and light all at once. Warmed up and chilled to the bone.
The earthy, heady aroma of fur and man twisted around her. She wanted to roll over and press her nose against his chest and live off that scent.
His hand closed over her breast and his fingers grazed over her nipple. Mara arched against him as every light touch and rough grasp made her ache. He set her on fire. Each nerve ending exploded with pleasure, and sparked the next, until her skin felt close to bursting and only one thing could satisfy her.
“Hudson,” she gasped. She tried to slide her hand between their bodies, just to feel him bucking against her palm. “More.”
His teeth closed over her shoulder and she stilled. “No. Not yet.”
A blush crept over her entire body. She wanted more from him and the solid erection pressed against her backside said he did, too. Still, caution entered his scent.
She’d given him plenty of reasons to back off. She knew she wasn’t in a good place. He didn’t even need to explain himself. The ideas were as clear in her head as they were in his voice. He didn’t want to trip her into more just to have her bolt.
He swiped his thumb over her nipple once more as his bite turned to a sucking kiss. Mara melted against him, back arching and hand flying to the back of his head.
“I want you to feel good.” He pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “Let me take care of you.”
A whimper crawled up her throat. Tension stifled the air between them. He waited for an answer.
Weak-Mara hip-checked all her objections and clawed her way to the top for control. She nodded and immediately felt Hudson smile against her skin.
Then his fingers popped the button on her jeans. The zipper screamed loudly in her ears. Without a second of hesitation, Hudson slid his hand down the front of her panties.
The world slowed to a snail’s pace and spun out of control as he slid a finger into her. Mara rolled her hips with a soft moan building in her throat.
Hudson growled against the back of her neck. His other arm shoved under her body and wrapped tightly around her to hold her in place.
She was the take charge kind of gal, and he’d effectively wrapped her up for his taking. She wanted to hate it, but her inner cat betrayed everything she knew about herself. Little traitor flashed her belly and purred. Purred!
“Fuck, that’s sexy,” Hudson groaned. “Purr for me, kitty. Tell me how good this is for you.”
Holy hot damn. His words were almost inhuman sounding, they were so thick and low. She shivered at the feel of them rolling through her mind. Another shudder wracked her body from his treatment between her thighs.
Too good. Too fucking long since she’d felt anything remotely close to the pleasure he built in her core. He knew exactly how to touch her and make her writhe against him. Each plunge of his finger and brush of his palm against her clit whipped heat and bone-deep need through her.
“More,” she whimpered. She grabbed his wrist in desperation or encouragement, she didn’t know.
Hudson shook his head against her back. His short stubble rasped against her skin as much as the growling, feral sounds melted in her ears.
He moved with her, his hips thrusting against her as his fingers plunged into her center. Helpless noises curled her tongue, and she closed her eyes against the world. She needed the darkness to ground her, keep her steady, while the man behind her worked her body expertly.
A second finger joined the first and Mara lost her battle for sanity. He drove his fingers into her, growls and groans sawing out of his chest. Purrs and cries were her answer.
The world contracted down to the bliss he provided. He wanted to take care of her, and he didn’t disappoint. She gasped as one final brush of his fingers pushed her over the edge and she was gone. Spinning out of control. Flying off a cliff and crashing headfirst into blinding, shattering ecstasy.
She was still throbbing when rough hands rolled her to her back. Her eyes slammed open to fin
d Hudson straddling her hips. He shoved her shirt high up her chest and ripped down his zipper to let his heavy cock out in the open.
Her chest heaved and her eyes locked on his length. Moisture welled at the tip. He was so big, so thick. His head fell back as he palmed his shaft and pumped himself through his fingers.
He wouldn’t fuck her, but he needed his own release. She’d done that to him, made him crazy with lust. There was power in knowing how much he wanted her. And then he groaned and thick spurts of warmth splashed across her skin.
Another growl, and he dropped back down to bed. His hands pressed into the mattress as the sides of her head. He pressed his lips to her nose, her mouth, her eyes, with a final kiss dotting the crook of her neck. Then he was gone.
Mara laid dazed and blinked at the ceiling. Disbelief fluttered across her consciousness. If it weren’t for the very obvious evidence on her skin, she could believe she’d woken from a wet dream. Hudson had been the subject of more than a few during her time in a Bearden jail cell.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and bit back her groan. Then wet warmth wiped against her skin. Shocked, she raised up on her elbows. She hadn’t even heard him return, she’d been so wrapped up in the fallout.
Hudson cleaned her skin. Smug, pleased man musk filled his scent. His lips hitched up in a smirk, too. And then to add an infuriating level to his mystery, he leaned over to sip at her lips for a single second before vanishing through the adjoining room door.
He winked. “Sleep well, kitty.”
Mara fell back against the pillows with a groan.
Chapter 11
“It’s too quiet,” Mara told Hudson without turning her head.
He stared at the two barns for a long moment. They were freshly painted and out of sorts with the surrounding, overgrown wilderness. She doubted the woods had seen any care in years and the grass lining the road coming in was as tall as her.
Nothing bigger than a bug stirred on the property. No murmurings of voices or howls of captives gave any sign of life. The stillness unnerved her more than the activity she should have seen.