Betrayal's Shadow

by K H Lemoyne

  So they couldn’t be soul mates or have a future. He still wanted her, and for one night, she would have him.

  No regrets.

  Unknown territory, his life a mystery to her—nevertheless, she trusted his actions. No matter what he said, he would never hurt her, especially not now, when he doubted himself the most. The trust and the inner strength he carried, he shared unselfishly with her, perhaps the reason her body reacted so strongly to him.

  The tension in his muscles shifted beneath her thighs, though his hands remained rigid at his side. Even with her refusal to move, he strained to hold back, waiting on her. If she said no, he would do whatever it took to stay away from her.

  All that wasted energy. She bit back a smile and moved closer, because she didn’t want him to hold back anymore.

  Her fingers splayed over his chest, the rapid beat of his heart, the tight inhalation of his breath, the heat and steel of solid muscle all resonated beneath her palms. It was almost unfair to take advantage of him when he was vulnerable. Then again, she’d come here to help him.

  Okay, Mia, that was just so bad. With a warm tingle, she briefly considered whether he would enjoy her being bad.

  He hissed through clenched teeth as she gently dragged her fingernails along his muscles and circled his nipple with one manicured tip.

  A wonderful contrast of hard and soft, his body was open to her exploration, every nook and cranny. With a light rasp of her nails, she slid her hands up to cup his neck behind his ears, ensuring his face wouldn’t turn from her.

  “It’s really important you get this, so pay attention.” She was making a choice. The way his eyes shone in the darkness, wide and bleak with despair, she knew he wasn’t ready to acknowledge her choice. Fear was obvious in the furrow between his eyes. Fear for what he might do to her, what he might force on her.

  She leaned closer, her gaze never leaving his, compelling him not to look away, her lips just shy of a touch with his. “Save your determination for the bad stuff, Turen. This isn’t it. I’m a big girl.” She kissed his lower lip and leaned her breasts into him so he could feel them against his chest. “If you want me, I’m willing. No regrets.”

  His shook his head against her palms. Obviously unconvinced, he pushed the hair back from her face, a slight shake of his fingers the only sign of what his restraint cost him.

  “I can make my own choices about my needs. I get to choose, right?”

  A slow nod and then his fingers traced her over her forehead, down her nose and across her cheekbone with a feather-light motion that said more about sensuality and want than a compulsion for sex.

  Her lips brushed across his once and then again. With deliberate slowness, she trailed her tongue along the crease of his lips. His pulse beat a faster staccato against her skin as his hand curved around the nape of her neck.

  “Mia.” One deep groan and he pressed her closer, binding her to him as his mouth captured hers in a wild and bruising kiss. His lips moving across hers, his tongue sought entrance, and she opened for him. It wasn’t tender or gentle and she didn’t care. He’d been lighting this fire for days. Each touch now only worked to stoke the flames higher.

  Fisting her hair softly, he pulled her head away just enough to let his lips trail kisses to her jaw and down her neck. With one swipe, he pushed her shirt from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor without lifting his lips.

  A sound she hardly recognized, her own murmured pleasure, filled the air.

  His exploration of her skin left trails of flames. Lifting her higher against him, he palmed her ass and pressed her closer, slowly moving her against the hard, thick length of his erection beneath his jeans. A spike of pleasure curled in her belly and flooded wetness between her thighs. Had it been so long? Had it ever been like this?

  For a split second, she wondered if his drugs were contagious. If this was the result, did she care? Her thoughts blurred as his hands traveled over her skin like a blind man searching.

  Not far from the truth, given how few details they could glean of each other in the darkness.

  His thumb stroked across her nipple again. Electric, the sensation shot in a sharp tremor between her legs. She gasped as his lips followed, sucking her breast into the wet heat of his mouth, his tongue swirling as his teeth gently raked. It was almost impossible to hold back from a climax just from his touch, yet she clung to his shoulders, shaking with need.

  Pulling his lips from the hardened nipple, he cupped her breast in his hand and turned his attention to her other breast as if determined to give equal time. At her whimper, he paused, pressed a kiss between her breasts, and circled his arms around her waist. With a firm hold, he rose from the slab.

  Mia’s fingers tightened on his biceps as she slid her legs down his thighs. His hold remained firm as his mouth sought hers again.

  Unhurried, he teased her lips, exploring her, sipping from her mouth as if they had no cares in the world other than to learn each other and play.

  When she reached between them for his jeans, he grasped her wrists, pinned them at her sides and dropped to kneel before her.

  “My beautiful warrior.” His words were muffled in the path of his kisses from her breasts to the outline of her rib cage.

  Barely able to stand the tension in her body, she held on as his tongue finally swirled around her navel and wove an intricate design above the snap of her pants.

  “Turen, you’re killing me.”

  His chuckle vibrated against her belly. He had released her hands to massage her back, his fingers plying her muscles until she was all but jelly beneath his touch.

  She was going to expire where she stood, melt right into the floor. The guards would never find her. She would be no more than the puddle of water that constituted her body, maybe less, because even that would evaporate under his attentions.

  The hiss of her zipper warned her a second before his tongue traced more patterns above her panties. Her fingers threaded through his hair and held on.

  “Mia.” His voice, barely recognizable, gruff and thick as he nuzzled against her skin like a cat marking its owner.

  “Hmmm.” Not an eloquent response. It was all she could manage.

  “Lift your foot, love.”

  He’d undone the clips of her boots and was trying, with little help from her, to remove them. The boots slid soundlessly from her feet, and cool air hit the back of her legs as her pants and underwear followed in their wake. His warm, calloused hands roved over the back of her thighs, exploring, taunting, and painting her with sensations as they worked their way to cup her bottom.

  She held her breath as he slid his fingers into the intimate folds of her body; delving into the wetness he’d stirred.

  “Breathe,” he whispered right before he parted her with his thumbs and stroked his tongue through her folds in a tender, maddeningly light touch.

  She whimpered as his fingers stroked her and his tongue dipped deeper to enter her with firmer pressure. Then he moved away.

  No. He’d roused her to such want. He couldn’t leave her this way.

  A second, no more, and his long, hard fingers tunneled inside her and turned. Strokes first slow, then quickening, built her need as his tongue worked her flesh. The moan she couldn’t contain spilled from deep in her chest as she gripped his hair.

  “Open your eyes. Look at me.” His rumble vibrated around her clit and almost forced her over the edge. She quivered in response but opened her eyes. Her breath came hard and fast as she tried to make out his expression.

  “Don’t look away. I’m right here,” he whispered. Then his tongue and fingers concentrated their assault.

  She wasn’t sure she could hold on. The pleasure curled tight and speared through her as he suckled on her. Curving his skillful fingers deeper, he pressed and drove her need until she bit her lower lip.

  Oh God.

  Her legs trembled through the onslaught of the climax, but his arm wrapped firmly around the back of her thighs su
pported her. Nothing had ever felt so good. Or so right.

  ***

  Turen feasted on Mia’s quivering flesh and watched her face. What he couldn’t see, he felt in the trembling of her skin as he held her legs steady. Her fingers were lax in his hair now, but the tingling sensation still played along his scalp and fed his desire. It added to the raging hard-on he’d had since he first detected Mia’s scent in Xavier’s lab.

  The scent was a dim memory, but the true taste of her and the satisfaction of feeling her climax around him burned alive and permanent.

  He stood and pulled her to him, cradling her against him, his mouth seeking hers. Drugs or no, he enjoyed this woman. Regardless of whether the cocktail increased his libido or decreased his inhibitions, he had conjured fantasies for her pleasure, for both of their pleasure, and he’d only just begun. He refused to leave this experience as a bad stain in Mia’s memories. She had trusted him, and carried more feelings for him than she would admit.

  Fine. He understood her need to safeguard herself, but he would damn well give her pleasure to remember.

  If Xavier remained true to his comments, it would be several days before they came for him. Turen had lived days alone, with only the routine delivery of trays of food and water shoved through the door slot. Isolation wasn’t something he could count on, though history indicated Rasheer took several days to figure out his new cell locations.

  The worry for Mia’s risk lingered in his mind, but the rush of his desire pushed it to the background.

  He jerked back to reality as she slid her hands down his chest to his pants, popping the snap and lowering the zipper on his jeans as she kissed his chest. He sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes as she covered his erection, her thumb sliding across the tip.

  Yes, he hoped they had plenty of time because he was going to burn to ash if he didn’t get inside the warm, slick heat of this woman.

  She pushed down his pants and started to kneel, but he gripped her hand. He didn’t have enough patience, no matter how incredible it would feel to have her sweet little mouth clasped around him.

  “Hold on to my shoulders.” He bent, cupped her rear, and pulled her up against him.

  With a little gasp, she held on and circled her legs around his hips. He settled back on the slab with her on his lap, nothing between them but heat and flesh. Her soft bottom tortured his shaft as he leaned forward to capture her nipple between his lips. The sweet, plump flesh responded, turning hard and succulent. He held the nub with his teeth and flicked his tongue until it puckered and Mia pressed closer for more, her passion and needs paramount over his.

  A moan escaped him as a shiver of pleasure rippled through Mia’s legs and caressed him. Her movements were so erotic he had to release the nipple to keep from biting her.

  Evidently not ready to wait, she made one quick shift and captured the head of his cock at her entrance. His hand curled in her hair as he waited. If she wanted the reins, he was more than happy to let her drive. Gripping her hair, he pulled her mouth back to his, stifling both their moans as she moved in slow, languid strokes, inch by torturous inch, until she was fully seated on his erection.

  Damn, she felt good.

  He nipped at the tender skin of her earlobe as she rocked against him, her movement a tease of shallow, rolling strokes. He let her set the pace and let her dominate while he enjoyed her pleasure of him, female seduction in an explosive package of feminine grace and power.

  His hands teased her breasts and rolled her nipples as he watched her chest rise, heard her breath quicken. She controlled the stroke, but he could tell she was nowhere near reaching her climax, and he wanted to feel that pleasured clasp of her body again more than he wanted to come.

  Sliding his arm around the back of her waist, he shifted her angle and drove high into her.

  With a gasp of surprise, she shot him a look but closed her eyes as he rose again.

  “There, love?” He grasped her hips and worked his cock deeper. With the sweet rise of her breath into a cry, he slipped his thumb into the folds of her sex to stroke her clit.

  Her head lolled back as she bit her lip, forcing back her moans. He could feel the ripple of her muscles on his cock, the tight sting of her fingernails digging into his shoulders.

  So close. He reached deeper and pressed more firmly.

  Fire erupted around him. Her muscles clasped and milked him in delicious waves. He captured her cries in his mouth as she came only to return a groan when he thrust with his own release, wild and glorious, and so beyond normal it was almost terrifying.

  Yet it wasn’t enough.

  Drenched in sweat, with Mia draped against his shoulder, and still the touch and taste of her kept him rock hard inside her. He rolled them both to their sides where he could hold her against him until she caught her breath. A bond of skin to skin, their legs and arms entwined around each other.

  The closeness didn’t diminish the desire, but it cloaked Turen in a blanket of peace—an unfamiliar sensation. He withdrew from her body and tucked his erection against the soft flesh of her belly.

  “Such passion, little warrior.” He kissed her cheek. “Beautiful.”

  Her light laugh tickled against his shoulder. “You can’t even see me.”

  “I don’t need light to know you. There is beauty to all your parts. Your stubbornness. Your strength. Your compassion. I would recognize all of those things if you hid under a burlap sack.” He nuzzled into her neck. “I could follow the sweet scent of you just from the taste of you on my tongue.”

  “Xavier could make a fortune bottling those drugs.”

  He pulled one of her hands to his mouth and kissed her palm. “The drugs intensified my need for you, as if a curtain lifted away. Nothing exists here that wasn’t there already.”

  She dipped her head. He reached to see her face, but she burrowed into his shoulder and he let her hide.

  Forcing her to open up to him would do nothing for either of them. They could revel in this intense pleasure, but more wasn’t possible. Even if he escaped, even if they stepped outside of the boundaries constricting his people and continued this relationship, others would bring the consequences upon her head. No, most likely just Salvatore, with his rules and policies.

  Turen couldn’t allow that to happen. They had each other, for now.

  Just for now.

  Her hands slid down his belly and then clasped him. He ground himself against her and buried his groan against the silkiness of her hair.

  Her fingers squeezed, moving over him in enticing, sensual strokes. She kissed his jaw as he jerked in response to her attention.

  “You’re not going to leave us hanging like this, are you?” she purred into his ear.

  “You’ll be too tender…” He gritted his teeth as she reached lower to caress his balls.

  “And if I want you again?”

  His fingers drifted along her cheek. “You deserve—”

  She rolled to her back and snaked a hand around his neck to coax him over her, hooking her leg behind his to assist. “I’m a liberated woman. I deserve a man who desires me. The rest is all my call.”

  He grunted in agreement, pushed her down to the slab, and leaned over her, his hair teasing her skin as he gave her a smile. “You most definitely have one of those.”

  ***

  Mia drifted boneless in a fog of half sleep, enveloped in Turen’s hold in the quiet of the dark. She had no idea how long they’d lain like this. The vague question of how she’d remained here during even a brief nap entered and then left her consciousness.

  His finger traced along her cheek. “You’re awake.”

  She pressed a kiss into his palm, not bothering to answer. He rolled off her, but clasped her to him, keeping their bodies connected. She moved closer to fill the space and before she had time to worry about her neediness, his arm slid possessively around her back to curl her closer.

  The earlier tension of his muscles was gone. However, she only had
to move and he would be hard again, even sated as they were. At least he no longer fought himself and tried to tamp down his instincts. She soothed a hand down his back and felt rather than heard his sigh.

  “Did it help?”

  “Mmm.” His answer rumbled across her body as he nuzzled her hair.

  She shook her head in mock frustration against his chest. “I mean with control over the drugs.”

  “The compulsion has receded a bit.” He stroked his fingers from her shoulder blade to her waist, spreading his fingers to let his thumb tease the underside of her breast. “But the want isn’t close to satisfied. Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” she murmured.

  He threaded his hands through her hair and brought her mouth to his. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  “It’s the drug.”

  “No.” He growled and clamped his teeth over a sensitive spot on her lower lip, only to lick over the mark and finish with a kiss. “The drug makes the want a compulsion. You are the catalyst, my craving. The compulsion may diminish but I will still want you.” He pressed his erection against her hip, punctuating his words.

  How she wished that were true. She kissed his cheek and stroked down the indent of his spine to the muscled swell of his buttocks. It would take nothing to inspire him again. The distraction would be more than enough for her not to think beyond the moment.

  What a lie. She could already hear reality chiseling a crack in their peace. In spite of the passion and pleasure they’d shared, she needed more. She wanted him, wanted to see a look of love in his eyes as he took her. The sign might not be there and certainly didn’t belong to her, but she didn’t care.

  She blinked and turned her head, trying to hide.

  His lips kissed over her temple, then followed to her cheek and the path of her traitorous tears. “I have hurt you.”

  She shook her head and turned to his lips. “I just want to see your face, your…”

  He pressed in, feathered a kiss and pulled back to grasp her hand. Moving it to the pulse of his neck, he spread her fingers and held them there. He rolled their bodies until his elbows framed her shoulders. His hips shifted, her legs parted, and he entered her in one deep stroke. Her body, tender and weary, leapt to life for him.