“I’m sorry I was a little late, sir,” Savino said with a lilt to his voice. Adam guessed him to be of Italian descent, and from his very nonhuman scent that he too was a shifter, but definitely not a fox.
“Look, Adam,” Deveron said, “we wish you no harm. All we want is to take back control from the Keiths, to ensure none of our people are hunted down and slaughtered ever again. The stronger shifters did nothing but hide. We, the foxes, considered weaker, came up with a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
He shrugged. “To take down all the Keith women for one, and that’s pretty much been done. It’s obvious you can’t return to the family, but understand if you even try, we’ll be sure to expose you for what you are.”
Adam sneered. He fidgeted beneath Savino’s hold but realized if he wanted to get away, he’d need a full on fight with the big man. “You instill such a feeling of trust with that threat.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s necessary. Now that you understand our position, you may leave anytime you wish. Savino, let him go.” The pressure disappeared from Adam’s shoulders, and he flexed. When he stood up, so did every other man in the room. Savino watched him as if poised for attack should Adam threaten Deveron again. “You will see Sakura very soon. The fact is there is an adjustment period for her to gain control of her emotions. We want her to be in a safe and comfortable environment while she learns.”
Adam thought of his feral sex drive. “If anyone touches her—”
“No, she’s your mate. We recognize that.”
Mate. Adam swallowed his questions and nodded. After a few more comments from Deveron and one or two of the others, Savino showed him the exit. Adam walked back to his car, anger pulsing through his system. He felt no satisfaction at how he behaved back there, nor had he any guarantee the foxes would release Sakura when she was ready. He hated being away from her, but instinct said if he couldn’t trust Deveron, he at least knew the foxes meant her no harm. They considered her one of them, a fox. He slid behind the wheel of his vehicle and shoved hands through his hair. Two different species of shifter? He had been worried about whether she would allow him to turn her, but this. With no idea what lay in store for his relationship with Sakura, he started the car and drove back to his hotel. They had better not keep him waiting long.
Chapter Nine
Sakura hated them all, every last one of those damn foxes. The cliché was that foxes were sneaky, and Deveron Montgomery was as sly as the animal any day of the week. He smiled at her, pretending to be agreeable, but all the while, but he was self-serving. They wanted to use her, keep her with them, but even if she were no longer human, she’d be damned if she helped the animals come against her family. With her constant threats to kill anyone who stood in her way, Deveron had at last given the order to let her go. Some weird giant of a man drove her back to her hotel, and all she thought about on the way was finding Roger to kick his ass and finding Adam to demand an explanation.
“Thanks for the ride,” she muttered to the scarred man whose name she had dismissed as fast as whomever had mentioned it to her. He nodded a thick head, pale eyes solemn, and drove away. Sakura walked into her hotel. She hadn’t been there for a few days, but she wasn’t worried because she had paid up through the end of the month.
Deveron had told her before she left he would be in touch. He had given her his cell number, but the man could hold his breath for her call. In the elevator headed up to her room, she began to pace. The shaft stopped on a random floor, and a man stepped in with her. Sakura spared him a glance. The higher the car rose, the more she fidgeted, and she didn’t know why. A longing ache came over her, and she found herself close to a whine. Frowning, she did a mental walkthrough of her state of being. The woman she had stayed with while held by the shifters had taught Sakura to shift completely into a fox. Her assurance had been that doing so would relieve Sakura of a lot of the pent-up energy, which seemed to come with her new makeup. She’d informed the foxes she had no wish to embrace this—beast—but found they were right. The full change helped, and she had regained a bit of sanity. Now she wondered if she needed to do it again and that was why she was almost out of her head in this elevator.
“Are you okay, miss?” the other passenger asked.
To Sakura’s—and the man’s—surprise, she snarled at him. He jumped back, flattening himself against the elevator wall. She spun away, embarrassed and cursed whichever of those cowards had bitten her. Deveron had refused to tell her which one, probably knowing she intended to relieve him of his life.
The moment the doors opened, she dove out of the elevator and then became crystal clear why she’d lost control. Adam’s scent assaulted her nose in a powerful wave. Aching, desperate need tore through her system. Rational thought disappeared. All she knew was an undeniable drive to climb into his arms and demand satisfaction.
Her hands shook as she shoved the key card into the slot. She knew he stood just beyond the door. His scent overwhelmed her senses, and when she banged the door against the wall, having used too much strength, she leaned out to grab it but missed. Instead, she tumbled into his embrace as if he’d been waiting for her. Adam snatched her purse from her hands and threw it on the floor. He gathered her off her feet in a bear hug that threatened to crack a rib. When her feet left the floor, she let her shoes fall off and wrapped her legs around his waist. His mouth descended on hers, and she parted her lips to receive his tongue.
A moan escaped them both at the same time, and the hungry, greedy kisses filled the room. Adam’s hands slid over her ass, and the material of her dress seemed to disintegrate beneath his touch. Material ripped, panties shredded. He was inside her before she knew what happened, pumping deep and hard while they stood by the entrance. Sakura banged a hand on the wall to support herself. Adam gripped her hips, squeezing into her flesh with strong fingers, and drove his massive cock deeper. She cried out his name against his lips. Then a memory hit her. Drunken from his loving, she shoved at his chest and climbed down from his hold.
“Wait, wait.”
“Sakura,” he groaned, and the sound contained agony, but he let her go.
She took a step back, panting, struggling not to mount him again. “You were…” She drew in a deep breath. Her hand rested in the center of his chest, and she took in the sight of him, all solid muscle and perfection with an aroma of raw male sexuality that made her head spin. She licked her lips, staring at him through a slitted gaze and tried to recall what she intended to say.
“…with another woman.”
“Never!”
His sharp denial was followed by his big body pressing her into the wall, a knee between her thighs she found hard not to hump. He thumbed her chin up and crushed her lips in a hungry kiss. When he raised his head, his eyes were darker, much darker than they had ever been. A niggling of something passed over her consciousness, but she couldn’t pin it down.
“You are the only woman I want.” He brushed her hair away from her forehead with a rough hand and kissed her again. When he let her breathe this time, he traced the curve of her jaw, down to her throat, and he let his teeth graze her neck. She stiffened, having no idea if he broke the skin if it would make him like her. She needed to tell him the truth about what she was, but seeing rejection in his eyes was worse than death.
When did he become so important to me?
“Adam.”
His muffled voice vibrated against her neck, and the warm breath tickled. “Let me in, Sakura.”
She spread her legs, and he dipped his knees. His cock slid home inside her pussy as if it belonged there. This time around, her body accepted him, stretched to take every delicious inch, and while it ached a little, she felt sure she could take him all night and be no worse off in the morning.
Sakura fell silent, and Adam drew back. She almost protested, but he did so only to stare at her bare breasts, cupping them with a feverish light in his gaze.
“You ruined my clothes. I’ll have noth
ing to wear.”
“Fine by me. I love you naked.”
She glared at him, but Adam missed it because his attention lay on her breasts, swollen and pushing against his palm. She thought she heard him chuff, but desire must be making her hear things. Adam dropped to his knees and pressed his face to her belly. He stuck his tongue out to taste her flesh, and she moaned. When she looked again, he had slipped lower, his mouth poised before her wet pussy.
“What are you doing, Adam?”
“Smelling you.”
The ragged words made her think he spoke Spanish at first. He buried his face in her trimmed muff and breathed deep.
“I’m the only one that touches you, Sakura.” He leaned back and tapped above her mound. “If I smell another man here, there will be trouble.”
Her eyes widened, and then she put a hand on her hip. “Excuse me? Is that a threat? Because I think you forgot who you’re talking to.”
He slid his hands up from her calves to the outside of her thighs to her hips. A lave at her clit sent a shiver coursing through her body and heated her blood at the same time. Adam’s belligerence hadn’t lessened when he met her gaze again. Her anger did not faze him. “My threat isn’t for you, Sakura.”
She got it then. He would hurt any man who dared touch her, but what was it he’d said? If he even smelled a man on her? “Adam what did you mean—”
He covered her pussy with his mouth and began to eat, laving and sucking until her knees buckled. She whimpered, the words slipping away from her lips. She wanted to grasp his head and drive him harder against her throbbing clit, but the strength to do so ebbed. Her arms hung limp at her sides while he ravaged her pussy. He moaned, sending vibrations to her core. He stuck his tongue inside, scooped the dripping come, and wiggled the tiny muscle around. She called out his name and arched into him, riding his mouth until an orgasm roared through her core. Adam didn’t rise from his spot on the floor until he’d licked up every drop of her cream.
“Turn around,” he commanded, “and catch the wall.”
She did as he said but looked over her shoulder to watch as he removed the rest of his clothing. Her mouth watered at the glimpse of smooth, taut skin, rich with a natural tan but a bit darker after spending such a short time beneath the Florida sun. He moved close to her, staring down at her ass as she poked it out toward him. His cock strained to reach, and the thick head just touched her cheek. Adam guided it along her rear and dipped his knees. One hand on the wall, the other holding his cock, he arched, and his shaft parted her folds to glide deep into her channel. She rolled up to her toes and curved her back to take all of his offering.
“You need to understand something, Sakura,” he whispered, and his lips caressed her shoulder. “This is mine. Mine. I will no longer share you. Ever. Entiendes?”
She said nothing, but concentrated on the feel of him inside her.
“Sakura,” he ground out. “Do you understand?”
“You act like I have no choice.” She moaned at the pleasure he gave her. Already another orgasm built.
“Do you think you do?” His hand came around her waist to flatten on her belly. He drove in, pulled out, and then ground in hard and fast. She shook from head to toe, the sensations so strong she let them resonate all over her body. The sounds they both made, the feel of him, his scent, took her desires to heights she could not deny. So when he asked her if she thought she had a choice, she knew the answer without a doubt.
“No. I don’t.”
His hand slid down over her navel, and he parted his fingers around his cock, feeling it slide between them and into her. The pressure from the heel of his hand on her clit felt too good. She came, but she wasn’t sure when it started and if it would ever end. Adam made a sound in his throat, but with her eyes closed and confusion reigning, she wasn’t sure if he crowed with triumph. Not until his hot seed spilled inside and seeped down around his shaft to coat her upper thighs. Adam held her in a bear hug, and she nuzzled his neck, loving him more than she loved anyone, and she knew in that instant she could no longer turn him down if he asked her to marry him.
After a few moments catching their breath, Adam pulled out and raised her in his arms. She laughed. “You are always carrying me to bed.”
“That’s bad how?”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he set her down. Before he had a chance to join her, the truth of what she realized earlier hit her between the eyes. Panic, confusion, relief, and myriad other emotions juggled across her consciousness.
“Adam,” she murmured, and he froze, a knee on the bed.
“You’re not…” She licked her lips. “You’re not human anymore.”
Worry creased his brow, and he sat down, abandoning what she knew was his intention of lying beside her. She felt the loss as a punch to her stomach.
“No, baby, I’m not.” He pushed fingers through his short-cropped hair, messing it up worse than it already was. He still looked insanely hot. “I’m something else. Different from you.”
“Different from—” She gasped. “You aren’t surprised I’m not either.”
He frowned. “Deveron Montgomery informed me.
“Deveron? That bastard. I should have dealt with him when I had the chance.”
Adam chuckled.
“This is not a laughing matter.”
He stroked her cheek but dropped his hand to his side when she stiffened. “I admit I’ve had slightly longer to get used to the idea, and I know this is a huge loss for you with your family, but it’s not all bad, and it doesn’t have to change our relationship. In fact, you saw just now. You can take me better than you did the first time.”
She blinked. “You were already a shifter the last time we had sex? That’s why your dick was so huge.”
The bum had the nerve to look pleased with himself. Sakura stared him down, and he shrugged then stood up. He walked into the bathroom, but she followed him. He wasn’t getting away. While he stood in front of the mirror wetting a washcloth, she took in his form. The scar on his lower belly was still there, puckered and darker than the rest of his skin. She remembered him telling her when he was seventeen another boy mistook him for someone else, a target he had to take out as initiation into a gang. Adam had fought for his life but still ended up hurt. While he recovered in the hospital, his aunt hadn’t come to see him once. She’d been too busy with her own life. Adam had vowed then to get out of Miami, and he had worked several jobs to do so. He visited infrequently.
Sakura moved next to him and smoothed fingertips over the roughened skin. “Becoming a shifter doesn’t fix this.”
His amused gaze met hers in the mirror. “You have a problem with how my body looks, mami?”
“Yeah, right.”
His muscles were harder, firmer. For that matter, so were hers. Not like a man’s, of course, but she did have greater strength, and it blew her mind. There was also the fear of what the future would hold cut off from her family and disgust that something not human crawled around inside her.
“Adam, what are you?” she asked. He didn’t answer right away.
“Tell me what you think of yourself.”
Her eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”
“Sakura, you don’t like depending on anyone, but there was always the security of your family behind you. When they learn what you are, all that will change.”
“It doesn’t have to. They can’t smell shifters, you know.”
“So you’ll go on killing your own kind?”
“They’re not my kind!”
He said nothing, and she sighed. His arms came around her, and he guided her back to the bedroom. They lay in the bed together, Sakura snuggled to his side. She breathed in his scent. Definitely wild, not a fox, and if she had to guess not a small animal either. Adam would die before he let someone turn him in something like a rabbit. At the thought she almost laughed, but a lump rose in her throat.
“I don’t know what I think or feel. I’m a little�
�” The word scared stuck and refused to leave her mouth. “I’ll handle it.”
Adam’s lips quirked. “Don’t be scared. Even if they reject you or try to hunt you when they find out, you know I’ll be there to fight for you.”
“You’ll always be my protector, huh?”
“It’s not a job for me.”
“About that ‘no man can touch you’ stuff. It sounded kind of dangerous.”
He raised his hands and tucked them behind his head. Sakura stared at him. She didn’t want to miss anything he might be hiding, because it was for sure Adam hadn’t told her everything yet. He stalled about admitting the type of animal he shifted into, and that worried her.
“I’ll put it simply for you,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, but she caught the dangerous glint in his gaze. “I will rip off the head of any man who touches you, whether you let him or not.”
“That’s violent even for you.”
“It’s not me.”
She sat up and wrinkled her nose at him. “What’s that mean?”
“Did you notice a certain trait to the people who had you?”
“Oh, you mean like sly, sneaky, cunning.” She rolled her eyes. “I can go on.”
He nodded. “Si, like that.”
“So the beast in you is a killer?”
“Never!” He sat forward and drew her into his arms to stroke her back. Sakura submitted to a few kisses but then pulled away. She wanted nothing to interfere with his confession. Adam let her go with reluctance. “We were taught the shifters have mates, another person who is meant for them, who are sealed to them, in a sense, for life.”
“Yeah, I never got that. I thought it was all BS.”
“What do you think now?”
She decided not to pretend. “We’re mated, and nothing can stop or break it. I feel like we’re a part of each other.”
“I’m glad you admit it.”
She punched him in the chest, and he pretended it hurt.
“Sakura, my beast is the kind that would hunt the earth looking for his mate and find her. Period. He will kill without remorse to keep her safe. Nobody had to tell me that. I know it. The emotions from that desire are, I guess you can say…intense. I haven’t controlled them all the way yet, so I’m asking you. I’m begging you, let me be enough.”
Miami Heat Page 8