by Zoe Forward
“I need to leave.” She twisted against him. Thrashing did little to remove his bulk, but it did alert her that he was more than ready to take this to the next level sexually. His ramrod arousal pushed into her thighs.
“Please stop squirming. It’s driving me crazy.” His tone suggested that irritation had nothing to do with her refusal to answer his questions and everything to do with how much he wanted her.
Her pelvis grazed his cock. He groaned. “Fuck.”
She stopped. Her struggle wasn’t going to result in freedom, although it did activate every area of skin that contacted his hard body. Focus, focus, focus. Don’t let him get to you. Somehow she choked out, “Why don’t you tell me what you are?”
He froze.
They glared at each other in the low light. She wasn’t about to divulge more truth. His expression clearly indicated likewise. Stalemate.
“Release me,” she requested.
Abruptly, Matt let go of her arms and slid off her. He rested on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair.
Her body screamed denial at the absence of his body’s weight. She didn’t move even though she’d been freed.
Softly he said, “Ten years ago you started whatever this thing is between us. You cursed me and then disappeared. How do you pop in and out of my life? Are you playing a game?” He massaged his forehead and whispered, “You really are one of the witches, aren’t you?”
Witches?
His low, teasing laugh sent a wave of goose bumps down the back of her thighs. Her gaze shot to his. His blue eyes simmered. He had shifted gears. This wasn’t the cool, iron will, interrogator Matt. Memory sucked her back to that night so long ago. This was the wild man. The man who exuded passion with each subtle movement. Answering need echoed throughout her body, burning her with the memory of their past.
He leaned over her. His eyes dilated like a cat about to pounce.
“I’m not a witch.” She tried to breathe evenly and mask her body’s reaction to the idea of being pinned again beneath all those hard contours. So big, broad…and, oh God, she was in trouble. Lust sizzled through her every nerve ending.
He laughed with a deep, rich sound. “Deny it all you want.” He lifted her right wrist. His thumb grazed the swirly mark.
A sensual caress shot through her body. She moaned and arched toward him, gasping. “What is that thing?”
He raised his eyebrows and shook his head ever so slightly in what was a look of complete innocence. Or perhaps it was an I’m-not-telling. Then, he shot her a wicked smile before he kissed the mark. His tongue made slow, lazy circles on the inside of her wrist.
It felt as if his tongue trailed a path down her abdomen, although he wasn’t touching her anywhere near the path of the intense sensation. The moist roughness paused in the area of her navel. This man was dangerous and not what he seemed. “Stop it,” she insisted. She ripped her wrist away from his mouth. “What are you?”
“I may not be so different from you.” His gaze dropped to her lips. Subtly, his head dipped.
Oh please, she begged silently. Do it. Kiss me!
He wasn’t moving fast enough for her. She reached upward, touching her lips to his. Within seconds, he dominated. Covered her again. The thick ridge of his cock pushed tightly against the zipper of his jeans, pressing into her pelvis. His tongue swirled in her mouth. The teasing taste of Scotch saturated her taste buds.
She wanted to control the kiss, and that was what she fought for. But he fought dirty. His might forced her head backward against his powerful biceps as he licked and sucked and drove his tongue against hers until she was trembling.
Then he stopped. And pulled away.
What? Don’t stop. Not again.
“Tell me you want this.” His eyes were so dilated that the blue was almost lost. He made a slow pelvic circle where their hips were pressed together, then thrust. Her legs drew up around his hips involuntarily as she fought the urge to lock him tight to her.
Pride and the past flickered through her mind. This man made her crazy. She pushed her hands beneath his shirt and knotted her fingers into his chest hair, intending to push him away, but unable. He groaned in a mixture of pain and pleasure. She ran her hands down the corrugated muscles of his abdomen, recognizing the power and reality of the man. Regular men weren’t formed like this. Hollywood actors were either made up to look like this or had implants. And for right now, in this moment, he was all hers.
“I need to know you want this, wildcat. And that you’re okay. That your arm doesn’t hurt too much. That your head is okay from yesterday.” He rained kisses from her ear to her collarbone.
“Yes. I’m fine.” She moaned as her eyelids drifted closed. “Please…don’t stop.”
Their mouths came together hungrily. Her fingers curled deep furrows into the tense muscles of his upper arms. A low groan escaped her.
He broke free of her mouth to yank the T-shirt over her head. A hand covered each breast. He kneaded the tender flesh less than gently and mumbled, “Christ.” After a kiss, he swirled his tongue around a nipple.
Her body arched into him.
He halted.
Uncertain why he’d stopped again, she opened her eyes.
He’d pushed up to rest tensely on his forearms. The muscles of his face were pulled tautly over his cheeks as if he was in deep deliberation.
Hadn’t they just done this? She couldn’t handle his rejection now. She moaned and arched into him.
Hoarsely, he gritted out, “Just tell me this. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Is there another man?”
She shook her head, realizing they needed this honesty between them.
His eyes were twin spheres of piercing intensity a moment before he ripped off his own T-shirt. His mouth enveloped one of her spiked nipples. His dark hair fell forward, tickling her skin.
He tore off her panties with vicious impatience. “You’re tight. And so wet.” His fingers gently massaged her folds, invading and spreading.
Kat undulated her hips, sucking his fingers deep within her. She dug her fingernails into his back. His moan of satisfaction made her grin. Her fingers traced a path to his groin.
“Unzip me,” he said against her breast. She carefully pulled at the zipper of his jeans until the ridge of flesh that had been begging for freedom was in her hands. At that moment nothing could’ve stopped her from palming the fullness. He bowed against her and a low sound rumbled from his chest.
He shimmied out of his pants. In a gravelly voice he warned, “You better hold on. This is going to be a rough ride.”
He linked his arm beneath one of her knees and with one powerful drive, he finally plunged into her body driving through the tight, slick folds, lodging so deep.
The pressure was so great that she bit her lip against a scream. She looked up at the undiluted pleasure on his face, but it quickly transformed into a need for more. Her body had little time to adjust before he began to move. Pleasure washed over her at the friction—at that point between pain and pleasure. She threw her head back and scratched long furrows down his arms.
“That’s it, wildcat. Give all of yourself to me.” He shifted his hand to elevate her pelvis and began a fast tempo. The headboard clanked against the wall with each powerful thrust. She grabbed onto his wrists to lock herself in place.
The powerful strokes coiled her tighter and tighter. The storm spiraling within her was frightening in its strength. Overwhelming. Fear prompted her mind to ask if she trusted him enough for this.
He roughly grated out, “Don’t run from me. Not now. This is for both of us.” He held her thighs apart to force her to continue to accept the powerful thrusts.
Changing his angle ever so slightly, he hit that one location that turned her world into a starry night. Her body shattered. Muscles rippled, gripped, and clamped down.
At the first rush of her climax, he was right there with her. He came fiercely, filling her and g
roaning her name as he rolled with her onto his back. He held her tight as the waves continued to burst over them both. His fingers tangled with hers while she buried her face in his neck.
She murmured against his skin, “Please, don’t hurt me again.”
…
Sex had never been this good.
She sprawled against him, naked and weak, with the scent of their combined perspiration. He felt like he’d won the lottery and been two-by-foured at the same time. Everything about this scared the hell out of him. This woman unlike any other had the power to crush him. Irrevocably. And she worried he’d hurt her?
He wouldn’t survive her rejection. He’d spent his youth learning to protect himself against rejection at the hands of the abusive Grant Ryan, who’d hated him for being a bastard son. And a mother who resented that he’d survived birth and was the impetus to turn her husband against her. Then, even though he’d idolized Quinn, his biological father rejected his pleas to remove him from the Ryan household.
The thought of Kat turning to another man like his wife had… He couldn’t go there. That was a homicide destined to happen. A fathomless pit of black jealousy gave way to a crushing possessiveness. He needed all men to fear the repercussions of wanting what was his. He’d already marked her, which meant any druid would know to whom she belonged and would keep away.
Yet, it wasn’t enough. He needed her. Beyond his terror of her rejection, he wanted to belong to her.
A blast of cold shot down his spine. This went far beyond a paltry curse. This was hard-core bonding shit. The instinct to freak clutched the inside of his skull. He swallowed the urge to jump from the bed and scream denial. He refused to get sucked back into the druid world. He didn’t want to do this with a Pleiades. Aw Christ, why did she have to be one of those fucking witches? Why couldn’t she just be a run-of-the-mill druidess or even a low-level witch? That he could handle.
And shit, he’d forgotten protection. This was the only woman with whom he lost his mind and had gone without twice. With other women, he religiously protected during sex.
He rolled to his side and released her onto the bed beside him. She was so beautiful. Her auburn lashes fell across her freckled cheek, which now sported a beard burn that he wasn’t the least bit guilty about. Hell, beautiful didn’t do her justice.
He forced the lust and hunger into a black box in his brain and closed the lid. They needed to do some serious talking. To get her straight on what was going on. Once she accepted the truth that she was a Pleiades, then he’d heal that wound on her arm as proof of his abilities.
He plucked his dog tags off the bedside table. “We need to talk about these.”
She rolled toward him, her eyes wide with apprehension. “Who captured you back then?”
“It really was you, wasn’t it? I was blinded from some drug the OLM used and weak. They’d done…a lot for many days. I’d just about given up.”
She brushed aside the hair on his forehead. “Why did those people do that to you?”
“They hunt people with supernatural abilities to torture and learn about our gifts.”
Her eyes widened. She pushed away from him to sit up. “What? You’re admitting you have gifts? You have supernatural abilities that those wackos would target you for?”
He nodded and bit back a You do, too.
“What are your gifts?”
He blew out a rough breath. “Healing myself, and others. I’m not like Wolverine, but I can heal fast.”
She ran her hand over the sutured area on her arm. “I did wonder how it healed so fast. I could almost take out the sutures. I might do that at work. Thanks.” She cupped his cheek. “It’s pretty cool you have that ability. I’m glad I could help you escape. I held onto those tags for you.”
He ran his finger over the letters on the tags and gruffly said, “Thanks.” Then he draped them back around her neck. “They belong here.” His finger trailed down the chain to the cleft between her breasts. “I like the thought of them resting here. How’d you get out of there that day?”
Her gaze darted away from his. “I slipped out.”
Damn it. He just revealed one of his biggest secrets. And she wasn’t ready to talk about being Pleiades? He blurted out, “You had a C-section?” The minute the question popped out of his mouth he wanted to take it back. How idiotic to release that question unfiltered from his brain to mouth, even if it was his most pressing question. He ran a finger over her scar.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes drifted closed.
“When?”
Her eyelids opened, revealing a crushing pain. Tears clung to her eyelashes. “Nine years ago.”
“Nine? Were you pregnant when you found me in that OLM facility?”
“I had lost him a few months before.”
He couldn’t move air through his lungs while his mind did a quick calculation. Oh God, no. He dreaded the truth. But had to know. His throat was so dry he could barely speak. “Was it?”
Tears overflowed her lids. “Yes. He was…yours. I can’t take the pill due to some really bad reactions to the medication. Then I met you and protection definitely wasn’t on either of our minds that night. A month later I discovered…” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I didn’t quit school, but had to drop out for a semester due to issues with the pregnancy. I went to a shelter for girls for a while since I couldn’t live at school. My only family was my aunt, who had pretty much kicked me out of her life at that point. She and I didn’t really have a relationship since I was adopted. The woman was a die-hard Christian fundamentalist…the shame of promiscuity and all that jazz.”
He pulled her tight to his body. Her tears wet his chest. Holy hell. She went through it alone. In a shelter for homeless pregnant women. Impotent fury pressed at him with the need to destroy something. He would’ve had every resource for her. There wasn’t even a question in his mind that he would’ve done anything. But she wouldn’t have needed medicine. He could’ve fixed whatever was wrong with her and the baby. Quinn could’ve taught him how. Before he’d died. He wondered why she hadn’t considered abortion, even though the thought was abhorrent to him.
As if she’d heard him, she said, “I wanted him so badly. I was mad at you for what happened afterward. And for what you said after we were together. That night seemed magical, and then you pushed me out. But I wanted the baby. He was a gift, but just so weak from the start. Heart defect. He was too little to be born, but my OB didn’t think he’d make it to full term. They thought if they brought him out, did heart surgery, and stuck him in one of those incubators for a few months they could save him. Three months early. He was so tiny.” She bent her head as her body jerked with sobs. “Twenty-four hours. That was all the life he got.”
“Christ, I’m sorry.” A son. They lost a son. The agony of it burned. He swiped his hand across his moist eyes.
She hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for crying all over you. For falling apart after us doing that, which was great. Don’t get me wrong. But mostly I’m sorry I lost him. I tried so hard—”
“Don’t apologize.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “It wasn’t your fault. Why didn’t you shift dimensions and find me?”
“You know about it? About this world-changing thing?”
“A little bit. Why didn’t you try to come to me?”
She chewed on her lip. “I didn’t know how. I don’t have much control over the world changes, even now. They’re dimensions? I never thought of that.”
He pulled her tight to his body and whispered, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there to save him.”
“I can’t have more children. At least my OB recommended not to try again. I had some complications post-op. Almost died.”
She almost died. Terror squeezed his gut.
“I named him Matthew,” she whispered.
“Oh my God.” He groaned and pulled her tighter to him as grief racked her body. His mind splintered into a million shade
s of shock and pain.
As her tears eased, he asked, “What kind of complications did you have?” She had to be able to have children. She was the flagship of her Pleiad line.
“Uterine infection. Bleeding. My doctor said it wouldn’t be advisable to try it again. I probably could, but shouldn’t. I might not live through it. As I said before, I don’t do well with birth control…so I just avoided until…and we just…oh God.” She wiped her tears and suppressed several hiccup sobs.
He didn’t miss the implication. She hadn’t been with anyone since the last time they were together. Joy exploded in his chest. She belonged to him. Only him. Dark possession clouded his mind. She would only belong to him. Forever.
Oh hell no. The suffocating terror of entrapment consumed his mind. And gave him focus. They might have good chemistry and he might feel connected to her, but forever? If she was Pleiad, and he was her destined…oh shit. This might be the real deal. He wanted to blame their wild chemistry on a curse, but this might be an authentic destined bond. He despised the thought some larger force pushed them together, even if he couldn’t imagine being with any other woman. He sure as hell didn’t want her seeking out another man.
He said, “We need to talk about what you are. What I am—”
Commotion rose outside the bedroom door. Matt heard a familiar muffled woman’s voice. He rolled onto his back and groaned as he threw an arm over his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Déjà vu. Another girlfriend encounter after mind-blowing sex with Kat.
She raised her head from his chest to stare wide-eyed at the door. “It’s her, isn’t it? Your fiancée. The clothing designer.”
Matt gently rolled away from her. “She’s not my fiancée. Don’t leave. We still need to talk. We have many things to discuss.” He fastened his pants and pulled on the discarded T-shirt. He ran a hand through his black hair, ineffectively smoothing its ruffled appearance.
“Is this a habit of yours? Being unfaithful to girlfriends?”
Matt halted with his hand on the door handle. He turned his head to Kat and shot her a crooked half smile. “Only when you decide to jump into my world.” He pointed at her. “Don’t leave.”