“My mom was murdered for the twenty bucks she carried in her purse,” she said, voice shaky. “That was all. Her throat was slit for twenty dollars.”
I said nothing.
“The worst part?” she continued softly. “My mom would’ve given the kid the money if he’d asked. He didn’t have to rob her. He didn’t have to kill her.”
“I have discovered that humans kill as senselessly as the Luxen and our kind do.”
Serena pulled away, but my hand snuck out, curving around the back of her neck. Her lips parted and her aura shifted from pale blue to pink. She wetted her lips, and my cock roared to life. That quickly. Hard as a rock.
Yeah, enough of this sharing shit.
“Thank you for telling me this,” she said.
Whoa. What? “Why?”
“It helps me understand you better.”
I froze again. Understand me? Anger rose in me like thick smoke, mingling with something I couldn’t even name. A feeling I didn’t recognize.
“You want to understand me better?” The edge to my voice caused her eyes to flick up. “Serena?”
“I…” She shook her head.
She could sense the change. Instinct was strong in her. She just never listened to it. And that’s how she ended up where she was right now.
With my hand on the back of her head, I guided her forward, until she was on her knees, between my legs. She gripped the arms of the chair, balancing herself.
I bent my head to hers, feeling my lips curve up as they brushed her cheek. “You want to understand me? Really? I know I shouldn’t have you in here with me. I know you’re not safe with me, but I have you here. I don’t think you really want to understand me, Serena.”
She drew in a sharp breath but didn’t pull away. “If you were going to hurt me, you would’ve done it by now.”
I laughed, stirring the hair around her temple. Her warmth drew me in. “You really believe that?”
There was a pause. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I do.”
“You’re insane.” I moved my lips over the curve of her jaw, enticed by the delicate shiver coursing through her. “And it’s too late.”
Her breath was soft against my cheek. “Hunter…what are you doing?”
“What I want.” Taking her hand, I led it to the bulge beneath my jeans. Serena let out a gasp. “And I want you.”
I waited for her to pull away. I gave her that. If she shied away, I’d let her leave. I’d have to nail my hands to the chair to stop myself from chasing after her, but I’d do my best to let her leave.
But she didn’t.
Maybe she had a death wish. After last night, I wasn’t sure I could rein in the darker part of me. Didn’t matter at this point. I pressed her hand against me, and I bit back a groan. With my other hand I tucked her hair back and then placed my hand on her cheek, tilting her head so our eyes met. “Understand me better, Serena.”
Her chest rose rapidly and the pink around her swirled into red. I rocked my hips, pressing into her palm. Pleasure-tipped darts shot down my spine.
“Should we be doing this?” Serena asked, her voice thicker than normal.
There were a lot of things we should be doing right now. This wasn’t one of them. But like I had realized before, she was an itch I had to scratch. “This is what I need.”
“Need?”
I felt my cock swell. “Yes.”
Serena was a funny little thing, because as she spoke, her hand rubbed the aching length of me through the jeans. “You’re not going to go Frosty the Snowman on me afterward?” she asked.
“Frosty?”
She bit down on her lower lip as she nodded. “Where frost covers everything and you want to eat me?”
I chuckled. “How many times do I have to explain this, Serena? I wasn’t trying to eat you. Although, that does sound tempting.” My gaze dropped to where her thighs were slightly spread. “Really tempting.”
Blood rushed into her cheeks. “You know what I meant.”
“What?” I slid my hand through her hair, and in an instant, I pictured those blond locks teasing my dick. “I thought you trusted me.”
Her eyes met mine, steady and clear. “I do, but you don’t trust yourself.”
“Does that matter?” I tugged on the wild wave of gold, forcing her head back.
She swallowed. “Yes. It matters.”
Interesting. Letting go of her, I stood and tugged my shirt over my head. When she watched my hands go to the button on my jeans and her pink tongue darted out over her lower lip, I knew there was no way in hell she’d make it out of this room now.
One look at her on her knees, and Goddamn, I was so hard it was painful. I needed this. Sate my lust. Get it out of my system. But something darkly possessive flickered through me.
Unzipping my pants, I felt my sex spring free. I reached down, wrapping my hand around the base. Her eyes were wide, but the gleam in them was pure heat. I realized that I’d stopped breathing as I waited for her.
She leaned forward, and I swooped down without thinking, claiming her lips in a soft, almost tender kiss. I didn’t do tender, but the kiss wasn’t hard or demanding. It was a leisurely, lazy exploration that rocked me. As I pulled away, I got a good hold on her shirt and tugged it up over her head.
Hot damn.
The creamy swells of her breasts strained against the black cups of her bra. Had Eliza gotten this for Serena when I sent her and Dex on the clothing run? I was going to have to tell Dex to thank his woman for me. I trailed a finger along the flimsy strap as I stood.
“Touch me,” I said.
She didn’t move at first and then she did. Holy fuck, she did. Her hand wrapped around my cock, right above mine. Enthralled, I watched her take the tip of me into her hot, wet mouth. Sensation shot through me like an out of control bottle rocket. My back bowed and my head fell back, eyes closing. A groan rumbled from deep within my chest as she took what she could. She suckled hard and deep, pulling back, carefully scraping her teeth in the right spot. My hands found their way to the soft, silky depth of her hair, and then my fingers pressed into her skull. I wanted to hold her there forever. As she took me deeper, my hips rocked forward and I realized that this act of dominance on my end had totally flipped.
Serena was in complete control of me.
I tipped my head down and opened my eyes. Our gazes locked, and I felt the change coming over me. My hand tightened on the back of her head as the temps dropped in the room. I struggled to hold my human form as the tension coiled so deeply within me, there was no stopping what was coming. I tried to pull back, but she refused me.
A powerful release rolled down my spine. Every nerve was firing, my muscles locked up. The climax was shattering. No. It wrecked me, fucking wrecked me in a way one had never before.
Knees strangely weak, I pulled Serena back as I stared down at her. “God…” That was all I was capable of saying. Just God. That was it.
Her eyes were gleaming. “You’re a praying man?”
My lips twitched. So did my sex, already on board for round two. “I was just then.” Grasping her shoulders, I pulled her up and into my arms. I turned to my bed, easing her onto her back. Then, because I wanted to, I spread the long strands of sunshine hair across my pillows. “Stay here.”
Pushing away from the bed, I padded over to the other side of the room. I opened the door on a mini fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Taking a quick drink, I felt off. Not in a bad way, just an unfamiliar and new way.
Returning to Serena, I held the bottle out to her. “Sit up.”
A single, delicate brow arched. “I can drink all by myself.”
My eyes narrowed.
Hers rolled. “Fine.”
It was rather amazing that she allowed me to place the bottle to those beautiful lips. When she drank her fill, I placed the bottle aside. Scanning her over, I checked out her energy levels. There were faint browns mixed into the swirling red, a signal of exhaustion.
I wanted more though—I wanted to get her out of that bra and those jeans. I wanted to sink deep inside her.
Heading over to where I’d left my shirt, I picked it up from the floor and placed it on the bed beside her. Without saying a word, I reached around her and unclasped the bra. The straps slid down her arms and those heavy, full breasts were free.
I bent my head, taking one rosy peak into my mouth. She gasped and her back arched as I drew it deep. I did the same to the other, nipping at the pebbled bead as I lifted my head. Then I turned my attention to her jeans. Unbuttoning them, I slid the jeans down her legs, revealing the scrap of black lace between her thighs.
Once the jeans were gone, I picked up the shirt. “Lift your arms.”
She blinked, as if coming out of a daze. “Huh?”
“You’re tired,” I said, surprised by my own need to take care of her. “Lift your arms, Serena.”
A heartbeat passed before she did as I requested. I slipped my shirt over her head. Slipping my hands around her neck, I pulled her hair free, tossing the strands over her shoulders.
I sat back, admiring my work, and decided I liked her in my shirt.
Serena glanced at the door. “I guess I should head to my room.”
Man, she was like a wet dream. Knew when to skedaddle, but I found myself saying something totally unexpected. “Stay.”
Her eyes popped wide. “Stay here, in the bed with you?”
What in the hell was I thinking? Normally the idea of sharing my bed with anyone made me want to chew my arm off, but I wanted her lying side by side with me. I wasn’t sure why. I’d never had the urge before. Tugging the covers down, I held them up for her to slide those curvy legs under them.
She glanced at me. “Are you sure about this?”
No. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Serena shot me a look, but then settled against the pillow. Several moments passed and then I stretched out on my side, resting my head on my hand.
Her lashes fluttered shut and then she said, “You’re staring at me again.”
I picked up a few strands of her hair. “I like staring at beautiful things.” Spinning the hair around my finger, I let go and the hair slipped through my fingers. “And you’re beautiful.”
She rolled onto her side, facing me. Her eyes opened into thin slits. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saying that I was beautiful,” she said. Another sleepy smile appeared. “You’re sort of beautiful yourself, you know?”
I laughed; the sound surprising me. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been called beautiful before.”
“Hmm, does sexy sound more up your alley?”
“Something like that,” I said, watching her. I had a sudden urge to keep her in a pretty, gilded cage.
Reaching out, she ran her fingers over the hand between us, tracing the bones of my fingers. “Your hands are beautiful,” she said. “You’re remarkably talented with them.”
I should’ve never told her about the gazebo. “That’s what all the women say.”
She laughed softly. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Her lashes lifted and she met my stare. “You have a nice smile. You should do it more often.”
The immediate response was that I wanted to smile more and that was wrong. Sliding my hand free, I said, “You should go to sleep, Serena.”
Serena laughed again. “Your brother was right.”
“How?”
Her eyes drifted shut. “You are a prickly bastard.”
I smiled then—a big, toothy idiotic smile—and Serena didn’t see it. Her eyes were closed, which was good, because I was turning into one big vagina.
“I remembered something before your brother showed up,” she said, and the smile slipped off my face. “Mel wrote everything down—everything she heard. She told me that.”
Oh fuck, this could be big.
Another small smile graced her lips. “Mel was really absentminded, like really bad. The kind of person who puts remote controls in the fridge and underwear on backward. She told me where she left it.”
“Where?”
“In her PO box,” she said sleepily. “I don’t know if it’s still there, but I have an extra key on my key ring. Whenever she went out of town, I’d get her mail for her.”
Which was in her purse, I knew, because I had rifled through her stuff when I first brought her here. Holy shit, there was a chance that whatever her friend wrote down was what the Luxen wanted to keep quiet and what the officers wanted to know.
“Do you think it could help?” she asked.
Help Mel? No, probably not. Would it even help Serena? I wasn’t sure. “It might.”
“We need to get to that PO box.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Getting to the PO box wouldn’t be hard for me or the officers to do, but Serena? Practically impossible, but she had said we. As in she and I. Why I had to clarify that to myself was beyond me.
It didn’t take any real amount of time for sleep to claim Serena after that. Lips parted slightly, the soft puff of air warmed my chest.
I scooted down so that my head lined with hers. Atop the sheet, I moved my legs up until my knees pressed into her sheet-covered ones.
It would only be a matter of time before the senator realized the assassin he had sent was now dead. And I thought about what it meant for Serena. If someone within the DOD had told the senator where she was, that meant the senator would send another to silence her. The only way to stop this was to take out the senator, and I doubted the DOD would support that idea. And this letter? Even if it contained a shit ton of information, would it set Serena free of all of this? I didn’t think so. So what did that mean?
Things weren’t looking good for her.
A strange unacquainted pressure settled in my chest like a large stone. I wasn’t sure what to think about all of this, but as I lay there, I didn’t close my eyes. I did what I always did.
I watched her.
Chapter 17
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until something stirred me awake. I opened my eyes, my senses quickly spiraling to full alert. When I inhaled, it was Serena’s scent that invaded me. Peaches. It made me crave sweets…and her.
At some point in the night, Serena had flipped onto her other side and her body was curved against mine. Namely that lovely, curvy ass of hers was pressed against my groin.
I was hard.
No surprise there, but what was shocking was the arm that was draped over Serena’s waist, holding her securely against me. That was my arm and unless she grabbed it in the middle of the night and forced it around her that was all my doing.
Well, shit.
Even more outrageous was the fact that I actually liked this—whatever this was. Cuddling? Oh hell, this was cuddling. Spooning to be exact.
I was fucking cuddling.
Slowly removing my arm, I sat up, running a hand through my hair. My gaze crawled over the dark bedroom as I leaned forward, rubbing at the skin under my anklet. Then I heard it—the ring of my cell phone, all the way downstairs.
Cursing under my breath, I eased off the bed. Careful not to wake Serena, I bent and slipped on my jeans. Doubting it was Dex, unless something crazy had gone down, it only left two options.
DOD officers or my brother—the one I claimed.
There was no way that Sin could’ve figured out where Lore was, but concern rapidly grew within me. Picking the cell off the desk, I cursed when I saw the number.
“Do I even want to know why you’re calling me at…” I turned, finding the wall clock, “After two in the morning?”
There was a pause and then Zombro’s gravelly voice rolled through the cell. “We’re pulling up outside.”
I became very, very still. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Zombro said nothing and then the call was disconnected. A second or two passed as I stared at the phone. A cold, hard understanding ev
olved.
There could only be one reason why the officers would show at this hour.
Calmly placing the phone on the desk, I looked around my study. It was sparse—like most of my house. A couch. A smaller TV. Bookshelves filled with historical text that bored the shit out of most. A pile of carved wooden animals. How long had I lived here? Since I was twenty-five—for the last six years this had been home.
Leaving the study, I closed the door behind me and went to the entrance. I didn’t give the officers time to knock and wake Serena. This would be better for her if she just slept through it.
The coldness I’d felt in the study unfurled, spreading like sheets of ice. Part of me had expected this from the moment the officers had dropped Serena off, had known this was coming.
I held the door open for the officers. “This couldn’t have waited until the morning?”
Richards, the younger of the two, passed Zombro a look that I immediately did not like. I never had a problem with Richards. Between the two officers, I preferred him, but the man was nervous, especially nervous tonight. The air around him practically bled anxiety.
“Have there been any issues?” Richards asked.
“There’ve been a few, but nothing major.” I watched Zombro out of the corner of my eye as they walked into the kitchen. The pockmarked bastard was a problem. “Why right now when neither of you have been in contact with me since I got here?”
Zombro glanced at the stairwell. “We’d figured if you gained any useful information, you would’ve contacted us.” He looked at me, eyes sharp. “Have you?”
I folded my arms. “About what that girl overheard?”
The officer nodded.
Thinking back to the mailbox and what Serena had remembered, I shook my head. “Nothing that would be considered useful at this moment.”
“That’s what we figured,” Zombro replied. “We’ve come to the conclusion that whatever Miss Cross learned from her friend, it isn’t enough to be useful.”
Oh, it was useful. I just didn’t trust these two douches. Time to cut through the crap. “I’m assuming the DOD has decided what they’re going to do with Serena?”
“Yes.” Zombro frowned as his gaze settled on the two wineglasses in the sink from the previous night. “She is to be taken care of.”
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