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Thrill of the Hunt
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Thrill of the Hunt Copyright © 2009 Nathalie Gray
Edited by Mary Moran.
Cover art by Syneca
Electronic book Publication April 2009
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Thrill of the Hunt
Nathalie Gray
Chapter One
Interrogation room 2-D
Reykjavik, Iceland
“My name is Kane and I am here to break you.”
The male voice, a rich countertenor, at once ominous and sensual, enveloped her as his physical presence raised the fine hairs on her arms. Like verbal velvet.
“Who sent you?” she demanded. “Hammond?”
“He hired me, yes. I have one night before he deals with you himself. He has none of my patience or skill, and quite the temper. You wouldn’t like him.”
Clara snorted derisively. “If you think I’ll make it easy for you,” she snarled in the darkness. “You have another think coming.”
“I expected nothing less from a soldier.”
“We’re called agents, ‘Kane’. If you’re going to get in my face, refer to me by my proper rank.”
“Different uniform, same tyranny.”
Yeah. Her supervisors must have been busy spinning the failed extraction mission the best they could. Not that the press would buy any of it. The government had tried to get their hands on the resistance leader for years—Hammond, that slimy bastard, was hard to catch. Today had been their best chance with a rally planned for high noon in the center of Reykjavik. Broad daylight, the cocky shit. Everything had gone smoothly. Her team had landed their shuttle and set up the perimeter without drawing any undue attention, had geared up, moved out, acquired the target. All was good. After she’d pierced the rioters’ first few lines, she’d grabbed Hammond and snarled in her subvoicer to reel her back. Something had pulled at her extraction harness all right, except it hadn’t been the shuttle winch. Her bosses had forgotten to mention the enemy had recently acquired missile launchers. Her team’s hovercraft had crashed. If she hadn’t cut the line, she would’ve been pulled right into the inferno. But her stunt had left her stranded behind enemy lines. Alive.
“Can we start with the torture? I get bored easily.”
Bravado. Like a good old sweater, one she should’ve stopped wearing years ago, but it fit so damn well. Plus, she had nothing else. Already her team called her “Mom”. At thirty-nine!
The enemy had taken her gear, extraction harness, her pants, boots and shirt but left the tank top and panties then clipped her hands behind her. She’d stood there alone in the dark for hours, until a subtle presence had manifested itself. The entire time she thought herself alone, he had been there. Watching. Waiting. Like a hunter.
Clara felt him approach, felt his breath on her naked shoulder. She shivered.
“Torture? Who said I was going to hurt you?” he murmured directly in her ear.
Clara gasped when something clicked around her neck. Her subvoicer? What the hell was he doing? All she had to do was say her codename. The voice recognition tech would activate the link. Her side would get a ping on their screen. They’d know where to come get her. Well, contrary to what the press said, Hammond and his resistance movement weren’t too smart.
“Before you say anything,” he whispered, “think about this—if you call for help, two things will happen.” His breath moved from her left shoulder to her right. A whiff of aftershave reached her. Sadly, men didn’t wear that anymore. “One, your men will come get you, walk right into a trap and get killed—if they’re lucky. And two…” His lips touched her ear. She shivered again. Harder. “It means I will have broken you.”
A spasm tightened her belly, a stitch of thrill her nipples. What the hell was that about? “What if I don’t care either way?”
“If you didn’t care about casualties, you wouldn’t have kept your team on the other side while you tried to do the extraction alone.”
“You think you have me figured out, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
There was something to that voice, a tantalizing, predatory, undeniable edge. A tiger in repose, a sleeping dragon. Strength and vigor lying in wait, dormant. This guy could do some real damage but hadn’t. Yet.
Hot and gentle, a single finger landed on her upper arm, leisurely traced serpentine shapes. If the guy was as skilled in bed, he must not have had complaints so far. She should’ve shaken his hand off. She should’ve kicked out, hurt him, made him sweat for the privilege of torturing Agent Clara Steele. She did neither.
“Well, you don’t have me figured out.” That sounded more frustrated than angry. Not what she was going for. “You don’t, asshole.” Much better.
“Prove it. Don’t activate the link.”
“I don’t have anything to prove to you.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind if we start right away.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Start what?”
He chuckled. “I like you. In another life, another time, I would like you and I would trust you. You’re strong, stubborn, beautiful. Traits I value in a woman. Unfortunately, you want to kill me, so trusting you is out of the question.”
“The government wouldn’t kill you right away. You’d get a trial first.” She turned her head toward the heat of him, his breath that smelled of lemon, ginger and something spicy she couldn’t recognize. Something intoxicating. “Then you’d get a bullet.”
“For refusing to bend over and let them do to me what they’re doing to the press, to the people?”
“You’re a shit stirrer.”
“There was a time when stirring shit wasn’t punishable by death. But then again, I’m a contractor, not part of the resistance, even if I share some of their views.”
“Yeah, well, there was a time when folks thought the Earth was flat. Now we know better.”
“Do we?”
He did that thing with his finger, but instead of her upper arm, he traced her shoulder, went across her throat then caressed her other arm, up and down, slowly, lightly. She only realized then that he was writing on her skin with his finger. What was it? she wondered. What would a guy like him write on a woman’s skin? She shuddered in spite of herself. Damn. What did he look like? Tall, judging by the angle of his hand and the voice coming at her from the darkness.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, taking a step back. Her shoulder blades hit something. A wall. Metal. A ship?
“I said I wouldn’t
hurt you, not that I wouldn’t touch you.”
“Oh, I get it.” She snapped a vicious kick hard and low, caught nothing. She cursed. “Tough guy, huh? Take a woman in the dark, her hands tied behind her?”
“By the time I’m done with you,” he murmured from her right, “you’ll be begging for it.”
“Like hell I will,” she growled, leaning against the wall. At least she knew he wouldn’t be coming from behind. That left one hundred and eighty degrees to cover. In pitch dark.
“You will. I know you, how you think. You don’t believe me, but we have a lot in common. We both work for people we think often do a lousy job. Neither of us is afraid to give everything for what we believe in. And we believe in this.”
He placed a hand over her breast. Not in a proprietary way, or even a sexual way. The heat of his palm seeped through her tank top. Her nostrils flared. She meant some snarled insult but could only grind her teeth.
“Passion, loyalty.”
Clara stopped breathing. Fever-like heat spread through her chest.
“And we both believe in this.”
From her breast, his hand moved to her belly. “Guts. Instincts. Determination.”
She had to force the words out. His hand triggered something she didn’t want to deal. Something dangerous. “I’m nothing like you.”
“Maybe not,” came the whispered reply. “But I’m a good judge of character, and I doubt I’ve misjudged this.”
Was he going to…?
Slowly, he withdrew his hand, let his fingers brush against her belly where the tank top didn’t quite reach the panties’ waistband, left a trail of shivers in his wake. Cold replaced heat. As much as it burned her ass to admit it, the guy was good with his hands. Very, very good. Damn him.
“You think I’m some dumb bimbo you can wrap around your little finger?”
“If you truly wanted to stop me, you would.”
Intense heat heralded his mouth near her ear. “You wouldn’t put up with it, with any of it, if I didn’t turn you on. Even a little.”
Clara gasped when his mouth landed moth-light on her neck, right below her ear. Out of sheer stubbornness, she turned her head away, pulled against whatever held her wrists behind her back. A pearl of sweat tickled down her spine, seeped into the fabric of her panties. She grew wet between the legs, as if she’d melted there, and it wasn’t sweat.
He put his hand against the wall by her head. A cage made of man and denial. Tougher than steel. She wouldn’t break out of that one. Because she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. A tiny flame burned deep down beneath the carapace she’d built over the years, in the place where the core of her femininity resided, that spot she liked to call weak so she wouldn’t have to look at it too much. Her contemporaries would think her a dumb, weak little sissy. But still the little flame burned on. Pernicious, valiant thing. That dangerous little flame. He must have known where it was, decided to fan it. Bastard. Blaming him was so much easier than taking a good hard look at herself. Because when he pulled his hand away from her belly, when his heat left her, the first place she thought—feared, hoped, prayed—he’d go was her pussy. Instead of hating him for it, instead of fighting him off, Clara knew she’d do neither.
But he didn’t touch her. She felt more bereft than ever before. Was that what he meant by breaking her? Make her yearn for his touch? Make her beg? He’d said by the time he was done with her, she’d beg for it. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Clara Steele didn’t beg.
Kane’s fingers worked the elastic from her hair. Expert fingers. He made his mouth a satin butterfly as he grazed her neck, shoulder, her twitching biceps.
Kick his ass. Kick him. Bite his tongue off.
When something suddenly touched her on the wrist, she gasped. The bonds fell off. She was free!
Instincts kicked in. She snapped her elbow up, missed his face but caught something else. A shoulder? Man, the guy was built. A series of blind hand-chops and low kicks aimed as his vulnerable joints followed. Met air. Fuck.
She froze, crouched in a fighting position, forced her breathing down so she could hear him, feel him move. Because he was moving. There to her right…that scent she’d come to associate with him. Aftershave. She made a hammer of her fist and sent it in a downward arc that would’ve rearranged his portrait. If it had hit its mark. Instead of a face, she felt a large, hot hand close around hers. Kane yanked on her arm, sent her spinning half a rotation that had the potential of making jelly of several articulations. With a yelp, she tried to follow the angle. Her shoulder burned. The wall hitting her in the chest made her humph loudly.
Panting hard, she ground her teeth when Kane pressed himself against her, forced a knee between her thighs—the guy was good and must have known she’d have emasculated him with her heel. His physical strength far surpassed her own as he forced her hands together in one of his, planted them on the wall high above her head and rested his chin on her shoulder. At least she’d winded him.
“You’ve got some training behind you,” she spat the words through the hair in her mouth. “You’re what? Rogue agent? Wannabe merc?”
“Guess again.”
“I don’t play games.”
“You’re playing one now,” he whispered. He lipped her earlobe, released it. “Try Silencer.”
Clara gasped much louder than her pride would’ve allowed. But shit! One didn’t often meet a member from the elite brotherhood of intersystem assassins. And live to raise a beer to it. A Silencer? She was so toast.
A hot hand landed on her hip, right on the portion of exposed skin. Primeval instincts forced her to buck against him. He only pushed harder, drove his pelvis in her lower back, positively pinned her facing the wall. Heat spread from back to legs to arms. He didn’t wear a shirt. A firm and fit body, with lean, compact muscles.
“I thought your kind didn’t get involved unless you were paid.” She’d thrown the word “kind” like an insult.
“True. They paid me to catch one alive.”
“So an assassin and a rapist for hire. Wow.”
Kane’s breathing faltered in her ear. But the pressure on her wrists never lightened, the knee between her thighs, the hand on her hip stayed where he’d put them.
“Crossing iron with you is an honor, one I’d do for free.”
His thumb slipped under her tank top. By no more than an inch. But the effect was instantaneous. Goose bumps covered her. His hand rose, pulled the fabric up with it. Heat followed. She panted hard enough to see stars bursting around the edge of her vision, fizzing like tiny golden suns.
His mouth against her ear. “You can stop it if you want.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s the idea.”
Higher still. The tips of his fingers reached her bra, grazed over the cotton cup, curled into it. “You can stop it.”
Juices coated her panties. Deep down, the little flame grew.
She had at least four openings. A heel to the balls—he was tall, but she could probably reach. Snap her head back against his face—painful but effective. Push her butt back, create an opportunity there. Bite his arrogant mouth—now that’d be a treat. That wicked, knowing mouth.
Clara stood frozen still when his fingers forced the cup of her bra under her breast, brushed the pads of his fingers so lightly against her nipple she wasn’t sure if it was her tank top or what. Couldn’t be sure of anything. Except the need. In her flesh, her hands, her mouth. Winds from forced physical contact stoked the little flame in her gut, which grew brighter and hotter, embers flying to ignite other parts of her long dormant, cinders on the breeze. Tremors rocked her. She shook all over.
What did he taste like? How would it be to hold him between her thighs, vigorous, quiet, brutal? What did he like best, eating his women? Fucking them hard? Lights on or off? Her nails dug into her palms when she balled shaking fists. Still the inferno raged.
“What are you thinking about now, Clara? Ways to escape? Trying to find a chink in
my armor?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
His kiss on her shoulder made her groan. Then his tongue. His teeth. She quivered like a just-fired arrow. From tender, his hand on her breast turned more demanding, proprietary. She bit her bottom lip to keep from moaning when he rolled her nipple expertly, whispered words she couldn’t hear clearly for the liquid war drums in her ears. Heartbeat, pulsations, spasms. A mutiny of the senses. And when Kane abandoned her breast so he could slip a hand down into her panties, adept fingers readily curving to the natural contour of her pussy, a long whimper left her. He slid inside.
“Ahh.” She hadn’t meant to let that one slip.
Like a volcano erupting, everything went red and white and hot. Nothing else mattered but his fingers in her. Clara pushed back hard. He welcomed her fury with his own. Hands hopelessly pinned above her head, Clara could only receive whatever he wished to grant. So when his finger became two, she squeezed around him then whimpered as he pulled out so he could circle her clitoris ‘round and ‘round. When his mouth ravaged her neck and shoulder, she voiced her carnal abandon. And when he pushed her feet wider with his own, she arched her butt back, waiting, hoping. Ready.
Movement behind her. The sound of a zipper. Fabric rustling. The titillation of the wait. The expectation, the thrill of the hunt. She’d never been anyone’s prey. What had he made of her?
Heat heralded him. Followed by a cock seemingly made of silk. In a potent thrust, he introduced his searing flesh to hers. Her long cry should’ve mortified her. It didn’t. She was past caring what Kane’s handling unleashed. She’d deal with that beast later…if she felt like it. For now all she wanted was him inside her, pushing, taking, claiming. Fucking, fucking.
Their noisy, disorderly coupling drowned the war drums in her ears, the liquid beat of her heart. Kane spreading her cheeks wide with his thumbs so he could pound his cock harder, which made her realize he’d abandoned her wrists. She reached back. Scratching his eyes out would’ve been easy. Snapping him a good one in the throat even easier. Instead she fisted his hair.
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