Bloodhunter

by Vonna Harper

  “Is that what you’re doing?” He again indicated his hands. “Testing your brakes.”

  “Yes.” Her forefingers twitched. “I guess I am.”

  “What about mine?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said although maybe she wasn’t. “I shouldn’t be putting you through this.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.”

  The reason for his reply was evident in his erection. His cock was reaching for her, still growing, challenging both of them to ignore it and her pebbled breasts. Studying his cock because she had no choice, she slipped back in time to when it had rested inside her. Her pussy was starting to weep. It felt swollen and hot, but mostly empty. That was the basic difference between the sexes, wasn’t it; male appendage made to fit inside a female space, two incomplete body parts until they came together.

  No, it wasn’t that simple, she admitted, her fingers twitching. Animals might consist of little more than organs and parts, but human beings brought their minds and souls into the mix.

  A thought—maybe the most revealing thought of her life—slammed into her. Nacon didn’t turn her on simply because he had a hot bod and she was hot for it. Her heart had touched his and found something she craved, maybe something she’d been looking for since putting childhood behind her.

  “Dana, don’t.” He jerked his head at her hands.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re asking too much of me in the way of self-control.”

  How do you think it feels on my end of things? Just the same, his admission put them on equal footing, or at least closer to the same footing than she’d allowed herself to believe before. In the beginning, she’d thought he was the one who knew what he was doing, or maybe her reaction to him had forced that conclusion.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him as she leaned forward to kiss the flesh just above where her right hand still rested. Shivering, he laced his fingers through her hair, but didn’t try to pull her off him. Sensing that licking or nibbling him there would be more than he could handle, she reluctantly straightened.

  “We need to talk.” His voice was raspy. “I need to know—”

  “What I’ve decided. That’s what this is about, trying to get to the roots of my feelings?”

  “You came back to me. That means something.”

  He sounded so hopeful, but she didn’t dare get ahead of herself, especially not with her ability to concentrate slipping away simply because his warmth was making an impact on her. Should they try to talk? And if they did, could she find her way out of the quicksand of her mind enough to hold up her end of the conversation?

  No. Not while sex surrounds you.

  Looking around, maybe for distraction, she again noted the Jaguar Society’s sleeping places. “Which is your bed?”

  “There.” He indicated the one closest to the opening.

  “That’s the most vulnerable place, isn’t it?”

  “It can be.”

  They were speaking in the present tense again as if what was her distant past still existed. Well, why shouldn’t they? After all, they were living in his present. Shaking off the hot stab in her temple that came with the thought, she increased her grip on his hips and turned him around so he faced his bed. Then she marched him toward it, following close behind with her attention fixed on his smoothly working ass. He didn’t have to let her do this, but then what red blooded man would turn down the chance for a little roll in the hay—although the mattress was probably stuffed with something other than hay.

  She didn’t have to do this. They didn’t have to be doing this. Instead of guiding him onto his knees and then joining him, she could put back on the clothes she wanted nothing to do with and tell him she was a civilized young woman and not some animal in heat.

  But she didn’t.

  There, facing each other, knees touching and her hands resting on his thighs. His eyes said he wanted to touch her. “Not yet. I need more time,” she told him. But the truth was, it wasn’t time she needed, it was him.

  Leaning low and close, she placed her lips on his belly, which caused him to jump and reach for her. Then he dropped his arms back by his side. Free to explore now, she ran her tongue into his navel as her mind spun around images of his cock buried deep and strong in her core. Determination to keep the image going caused her to concentrate on the small indentation, and she alternated between using her tongue, teeth and lips to stimulate him. She managed to avoid his cock by keeping her body arched, but the battle to deprive herself of what she needed took its toll.

  How long could she string out this foreplay? How long did she want to? And perhaps most important, how long could he hold back?

  To her surprise, he leaned away from her and supported his upper body by bracing his hands behind him. Do your best, he seemed to be saying.

  Accepting the challenge, she stretched as far as she could over him. The effort caused her breasts to glide over his tip. The contact lasted no more than a second, but that was all it took to risk what remained of her self-control. She wanted him, all of him, now. And maybe forever.

  Forever.

  Yes, that’s what today was about, facing the future.

  Whose?

  Chapter Seventeen

  A new determination took over, this one aimed at taking her body and heart as close to the flames as she could. If she caught fire, she might never recover, but at least, maybe she’d have the answers she needed. After praying for courage and sanity, she rubbed her cheek against the side of his cock. He threw back his head and stared upward, perhaps because he was locked in sensation, perhaps because, like her, he too, was looking into their future or rather wondering if they had one.

  This moment, only this one. No moving back or forward.

  Folding her body back and down upon itself brought her cheek and mouth close to his scrotum. For a moment she simply hung there as she waited for her nerve endings to stop firing. The sharp, hot sparks didn’t die away, but at least they’d either quieted or she’d learned to accept them.

  She nuzzled the base of his cock, lapped at his balls, used her nose to lift his scrotum so she could taste and touch him there. Finally she sucked on his tip. And, despite her rapidly clenching pussy, she laughed. His response was more a groan than a laugh, which only encouraged her to tease him more. Slowly sucking his length into her, she straightened and pulled his cock away from his body. He rocked to one side and then the other, but she didn’t think he was trying to free himself. Instead, he was working to stay on top of his responses, the same as she was.

  They had now. And now became everything.

  When her jaw muscles grew tired, she reluctantly released his cock and turned her attention back to his sack. How soft his skin was there, how loose and malleable the bag holding his balls. She began by thoroughly wetting it with her tongue. Then, seized by inspiration, she opened her mouth and brought him in.

  Magic. Mystery.

  Although he was trembling, he’d managed to still his earlier movements, but now they started again. In addition to rolling from side to side, he alternated between arching toward her and drawing away. She provided him with a home for his most precious possession, running her teeth over the loose, warm skin, taking him deep as if she intended to swallow him.

  All too soon her back started to ache, but she held on for a little longer while moving his balls from one cheek to the other. The contrast between his rigid cock and vulnerable scrotum fascinated her.

  “Enough,” he groaned. “No more.”

  Feeling wicked, she pursed her lips and sucked him. At the same time, she ran her tongue over the silken flesh, tasting him once more.

  “No—more!”

  Brought back to sanity by his harsh tone, she released him, but before straightening and taking the strain off of her back, she blew her breath over him, which wrung another groan out of him.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Getting to know you.”

  Her fear that he�
��d make fun of her faded when he gave her a long and slow nod. When, finally, she took her hands off his thighs, she saw that her nails had left indentations.

  “Do you?” he asked. “Know me?”

  The question was loaded with emotional landmines when need was rendering her stupid, so instead of answering, she scooted back until she no longer felt his heat. He watched her intently, his deep eyes making her wonder if he was afraid she’d leave.

  Leave? No. Not yet.

  “What is this about, Dana? What happens next?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you want to have happen?”

  “Maybe—maybe talk to my father again. Maybe see where you live. Maybe fall asleep and wake up knowing this has all been a dream.”

  “That’s not what you want.”

  “No,” she whispered. “It isn’t. Do you remember the first time when we didn’t care about anything except having sex? At least that’s all I cared about.” Her stare challenged him to call her a liar. “I want that back, all right. To fuck and nothing more.”

  “And when we’re done?”

  Don’t do this to me! I can’t answer you.

  Reaching between her legs, she swiped her fingers over her drenched labia and held up her hand for him to see. Then, acutely aware of his scrutiny, she sucked on her fingers. The taste of her arousal slid down her throat and turned her primal. “Fucking is good enough for me,” she lied. “It should be the same for you.”

  “Should it?”

  “Stop it! Shut up.”

  Eyes hot and maybe angry, he nodded. The next move was up to her. Either they continue what they’d started or it was all over between them.

  Not over, not yet.

  Casting aside the fear marching through her, she stretched out on her back and placed her arms over her head. Then she bent and spread her knees, exposing herself. Her feet nearly touched.

  She was presenting herself to him as sex, pure sex, body gaping and the mattress beneath her cunt growing even damper. “This is what you want. I’m handing it to you.”

  “Last chance. Either run or I’m taking.”

  Take. Now. Hard. “I’m waiting, Nacon.”

  When he didn’t reply, she rolled her head to the side so she could see around her offered body. She watched him straighten then crawl toward her. Thank you.

  After pushing her feet apart with his knee, he inched closer still, and she locked herself in the moment. Sliding his hands under her buttocks, he lifted her off the bed, holding her open and ready. Another inch. And then another which brought his cock in contact with her wet hole. Arching, she helped him lift her lower body even higher.

  He slipped into her, the journey slow and hot.

  He’d started trembling again, which distracted her from pure sensation. Of course, she reasoned with what was left of her intellect, he was still holding her off the bed, so how could he possibly thrust like that?

  Inspiration or maybe instinct lifted her legs and wrapped them around his buttocks. She felt herself being lowered and then he was gripping her right breast with strong yet tender fingers. He squeezed, drove himself even deeper, imprisoned her nipple, pummeled into her core.

  Lost in sensation, she drifted into a place without form or direction. He had access to all of her. More than that, he knew how to marry her erogenous zones into a hot union.

  There was nothing smooth or civilized about his thrusts, which forced her to increase her legs’ grip on his lower body. With her calves pressed against his buttocks, she felt the sensation each time his muscles tightened. Bringing down one arm, she gripped his biceps until the tension in those muscles slid into her.

  She, who’d recently held court over his body, was now caught in his storm and this single moment. Mouth open, eyes closed, breathing in harsh gasps that matched his, she fucked. She shouldn’t have been this hungry. They’d had sex not long ago, hadn’t they? But already her climax was an incautious moment away. If she let go, if the explosion washed over her, she’d be gone while he was still climbing his mountain.

  Hold back! Ride with him, don’t let yourself be thrown off.

  By combining measured breaths with a deliberate loosening of the muscles that wanted only to tighten around his cock, she pulled herself back from the edge. She wasn’t safe, but she didn’t want safe.

  What was that? A change? Rapid-fire assaults were gone, replaced by a long and slow gliding of his cock throughout her length. With each retreat, he came within inches of pulling out of her, but before she could be robbed, he ran deep and strong and full inside her. The change switched focus from her inner walls to her clit.

  Sweat bloomed on her throat. Unable to fill her lungs with enough air, she lifted her head and sucked in air. A moment later, she fell back, only half-conscious, as this man, this incredible timeless man lowered his weight onto her. Trapped between the bed and him, his sweaty flesh sticking to hers, digging her nails into his upper arm and his mouth over her breast.

  Ah, yes, his mouth was open, taking in her breast and sucking as he continued to thrust. Closing his teeth around her nipple and tonguing the tip, lifting his head and bringing her breast with him much as she’d done earlier to his cock

  Fucking her, fucking him, achieving something that wasn’t rhythm, but worked anyway. Him, all but sobbing with every breath, her, whimpering and cursing and encouraging.

  Ah, release rearing its head again, more teasing than insisting this time, promising, promising. And bringing them closer to the end.

  Do, it, do it!

  Something broke in her, a wasting away of self-control and fear of the future. Laughing and crying at the same time, she plunged into the hot pool. Laughter turned raw and savage, and she embraced it, screaming so he’d know she was coming—coming, still coming.

  Had he found his own release?

  Can’t think. Gone. Lost.

  Found?

  Found what?

  “Nacon?”

  “I can’t—can’t speak. By the gods, the gods.”

  His gods. His land. His bed.

  His woman?

  Even as another climax crested, she knew it wasn’t that simple.

  Nacon was asleep when Dana slipped out of the cave without looking back at him. She put on the clothes she’d discarded then headed toward the city Nacon had brought her to earlier today.

  So much had happened since she’d first seen Tlatelolco that her mind swirled from trying to take it all in. At least she wasn’t being distracted by sexual need; Nacon had left her satiated. For now.

  No, she wasn’t going to think about her powerful need for him, not when she had the rest of her life to face.

  In a way the decision she needed to make reminded her of having friends and neighbors and even her mother ask what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her earliest choices had been rich in imagination: a wildlife vet, a mountain climber, a parachuter—she’d been hazy on why she’d need to parachute every day. Even as youthful ignorance gave away to reality, her choices had continued to revolve around outdoor activities. Photography, while not particularly lucrative, had fed another of her needs, that of a constantly changing environment.

  “Why didn’t you say anything to me, Mom? If I’d known how much of Dad was in me and what he really was, I would have understood so much more than I did.”

  I was trying to protect you, to help you find the peace he never did.

  Slowing, she switched from questioning her mother to wondering when, if ever, she’d see her again. Then, because that brought pain, she wondered how long her mother had been here before demanding her husband take her back to where she belonged.

  Her father could have refused, couldn’t he? He could have forced his wife to spend the rest of her life in the land of his birth. After all, Nacon had been responsible for her journey here.

  No, Nacon hadn’t been the sole instrument for this trip back in time, had he? What had he said, that her need for answers, her tattoo and the jaguar had
also been responsible. Somehow her connection with Aztec had made it possible for two humans and one animal to leave the present and journey to, not just the past, but this past. His past.

  Once again mental and emotional overload stopped her thoughts, and she concentrated on where she was walking. For the first time since landing in the past, she noticed that she wasn’t wearing shoes—not that it was causing a problem since the soles of her feet were tough.

  Of course they were. Footwear in Aztec times had been a luxury. People were accustomed to going around barefoot.

  Her tattoo heated, distracting her. Pulling up her garment, she looked at the details. Although she was impressed by how much more vivid the shading appeared and how finely drawn the jaguar figure had become, she wasn’t shocked. Change, everywhere she looked, change.

  “Mom, I think I’m going through a metamorphosis. I don’t know if it’s reversible; maybe this kind of thing happens whenever someone pops from one century to another, and I’ve done a lot of popping today. Too bad there isn’t a manual about such things. If there was, I’d be able to…”

  Of course she couldn’t finish, she acknowledged as silence settled over her. This was hardly a laughing matter. Not when she had the rest of her life to map out.

  She, not her parents or Nacon.

  Once again she directed her mind to slide loose and unstructured. Years ago she’d learned that some of her best shots came not when she planned them, but when she left herself and her subject open to possibilities. She’d developed an alternating strategy—for lack of a better word—of remaining absolutely still and then walking around while her environment spoke to her and who or whatever she was photographing. Most times the results were better than anything she could have choreographed.

  At the moment her feet were still taking her in the general direction of Tlatelolco, but she wasn’t eager to re-enter its confines. In particular, she had no interest in getting close to the temple. Seizing upon the alternative that presented itself, she decided to learn all she could about the terrain around the city. True, she’d seen it earlier, but now she did so from a resident’s perspective.