Dair gave a rueful chuckle. “I haven’t tried that one yet, but I believe there is a way to moderate the speed of the fall in relation to the—”
“Never mind!” Kat gave a disgusted shake of her head as she crossed the cabin to enter the bedroom and close the door behind her, Dair’s chuckle still ringing in her ears.
She leaned back against the door as her legs began to shake.
Dair Grayson was as much a temptation to her now—more so—than he had ever been fifteen years ago.
Kat undressed down to her panties and bra before climbing between the sheets, so exhausted that she fell asleep almost instantly. Only to fall into an all-too-familiar dream. One that she knew didn’t have a happy ending.
It started out as it always did, with that wonderful sense of wellbeing, of inner contentment, a completeness she had never known before.
She couldn’t quite grasp what that something was, what had suddenly made her life bearable but— Ah yes, she remembered now. The baby. She was going to have a baby.
It was growing inside her even now, filling her emptiness. A son or daughter she would love with every part of her. Someone of her own to—
The happy drifting faded to be replaced by voices. Dark, ugly voices. One voice in particular, spouting horrible, disgusting words before she began to fall and fall and—
The knife.
Where had the knife come from? The same knife she could feel piercing her stomach, twisting, turning, tearing, and ripping her agonizingly apart.
Blood.
There was so much blood. It was everywhere. On her hands. On the floor. Glistening between her thighs—
No…!
“Kat? Kat, for God’s sake, you have to wake up, damn it.”
There was so much blood, glistening red, on her, around her, it was everywhere.
“Kat!”
“Murderer!” She pushed against the hands she could feel restraining her. “Let go of me! Let go of me, you murdering bastard!”
Dair released Kat but not before she’d raised her fist and given him a powerful punch to the jaw. What the fuck—
He had been in the main cabin, relaxing in his seat if not sleeping, when he heard Kat cry out. He had thought she was awake, perhaps in pain, but when he entered the bedroom she was obviously sleeping, her eyes closed as she thrashed about on the bed, muttering incoherently. The only words Dair had been able to make out as he had sat down on the bed beside her had been “No, no, no!”
He had tried to wake her then by gently stroking her cheek and saying her name, utterly shaken by the wetness of her tears against his fingers.
She had begun to lash out with her fists before he’d had time to move away, her arms flailing about too wildly for him to be able to catch hold of before she delivered the punch to his jaw.
Not that he was bothered about that; he’d received much worse. Kat was what mattered. Kat and the nightmare she was so obviously caught up in.
The memories of her weeks of incarceration? Or something that had happened before Sergei had her locked away so that she couldn’t talk to anyone?
Dair was guessing it was the latter. Not that Kat seemed about to confide the truth to him anytime soon. But she would. Oh yes, she most assuredly would before all of this was over, and once she had, Dair had a feeling Sergei Orlov was going to need to keep looking over his shoulder, because both Gregori and Dair would be out for vengeance.
Never get emotionally invested in a mission, Dair, he reminded himself.
He wasn’t emotionally invested, damn it, he had just never liked bullies. Particularly bullies like Sergei Orlov, who hid behind his Daddy’s power and pretty much did whatever the hell he pleased. Including abusing his wife? Maybe not physically, but emotionally? Yes, after what he had seen today, Dair believed that was the least of Sergei’s crimes against Kat.
And right now Kat was still fighting him, becoming more and more frantic as he attempted to hold her, something he wasn’t finding at all easy to do when he was so distracted by the fact that she was only wearing a cream bra and matching panties.
Damn it, he didn’t want to restrain Kat at all, would much rather hold her, comfort her, kiss her; she’d already had enough of being restrained, both emotionally and physically. What the hell, maybe kissing Kat would succeed in jolting her out of this nightmare, when nothing else would?
Kat felt the veils of red parting as she became aware of strong arms holding her against a muscled chest. A chest that felt nothing like Sergei’s softness, or smelled of the strong cologne he always wore and which she had never liked, a cologne that she would forever associate with him. The man holding her smelled of heat and man, strong, healthy man—
She froze as lips captured her own.
Firm, and yet achingly gentle lips. Lips that tasted of mint and good coffee, and not the Cuban cigars Sergei liked to smoke and which had always made her feel slightly sick. Her clothes always smelled of the strong tobacco, and she paid out a fortune in dry cleaning bills.
But the man now kissing her didn’t smell of cigars, and his chest felt as hard as a rock and was so hot beneath her fingertips.
This wasn’t Sergei!
But if it wasn’t Sergei, then who—
Kat’s lids flew wide open as she heard a man groan low in his throat—a groan of arousal that definitely, definitely hadn’t been made by Sergei.
She pulled back a moment and looked into grey-green eyes.
Dair Grayson’s eyes.
She must be hallucinating, once again lost in that fog where nothing was quite real. Dair wasn’t real. He couldn’t be, Dair had gone from her life long ago.
His being here confirmed she was still caught up in her own private nightmare, that horrible bloody nightmare, where no hope for her existed.
A sob caught in her throat as those firm lips claimed hers once again, her eyes closing as she gave herself up to the promise of oblivion those demanding lips offered. Wanting this, wanting Dair, if only in her dreams.
Dair had kissed Kat initially as a possible way of reaching her, pulling her out of her nightmare. At least, he had convinced himself that was the reason he had kissed her, but at the first taste of her lips he had realized that he’d wanted this, wanted Kat, since she’d kissed him earlier.
He hadn’t just wanted it, he had craved the taste of her again, the feel of her in his arms, and now that he had her here he knew it was too late, that there was no way he was going to be able to back off from this. That he didn’t want to back off from keeping Kat exactly where she was.
Her lips were deliciously soft against his, and she tasted so fucking good too. Oranges, he decided. Ripe, juicy oranges. As ripe as—
“Dair..!” Kat gasped achingly as her lips parted beneath his, allowing his tongue to lick across their softness before entering the moist cavern beneath. He began to thrust in earnest in a parody of where he really wanted to be thrusting. And not just with his tongue.
Quite how he came to find himself lying flat on his back on the bed minutes later, with Kat above him looking like a wild Amazonian or a dominant Valkyrie, he wasn’t quite sure. Nor did he particularly care at that moment. If Kat wanted to take charge that was okay with him, as long as she took.
Her body pressed against the length of his, the softness of her breasts covered in that cream lace bra pushed against his chest as he wrapped his arms about her. His cock surged up long and hard between them as her tongue began to thrust slowly, deeply into his mouth. She placed her hands on his shoulders to aid her in moving up to straddle him, the heat of her pussy now directly over the hard length of his cock.
Which was when she began to move, to undulate, rubbing her pussy along the length of him. Up and down, pressing harder, deeper with each up and down stroke, keening low in her throat at the pleasure it obviously gave her, her breasts now spilling over the top of her bra, the nipples pressing dark and hard through the lace.
Dair’s pleasure was so intense he was going to come in
his pants if she continued doing that…
Kat seemed to sense the slim hold he had on his control as she broke the kiss and sat up, hands on his chest, her throat arching back, eyes still closed as she pressed down harder and deeper against the straining throb of his cock, groaning her approval as Dair’s hand moved between them to push aside the lace of her panties and stroke her clit, the nubbin as hard and pulsing as his cock.
Dair’s gaze was heated as he looked up at this wild warrior woman as she took her pleasure, face flushed, lips parted and moist, her breasts thrusted forward and inviting.
Dair accepted the invitation, reaching up with his free hand to pull down the lace of her bra, freeing her breasts completely, taking a second—two, to enjoy the sight of those engorged dark nipples before he moved up slightly to suckle one deep into the heat of his mouth.
He had always considered sucking a woman’s breasts to be over-rated, but women had always seemed to like it, so he did it. Sucking Kat’s nipples was unlike anything he had ever experienced before; she tasted of some elusive and addictive elixir that he couldn’t get enough of as he suckled deeper, harder, feeling her pleasure as her clit throbbed in time with those sucks.
And all the time she stroked the lips of her pussy against him.
Harder.
Deeper.
Faster.
Their mutual groans of pleasure were becoming more frenzied by the second.
Dair’s hips arched up to meet those tormenting thrusts as he suckled greedily on the nipple in his mouth while squeezing it’s twin, feeling the tightening of his balls—a sure sign that he was on the edge of coming—at the same time as he felt the rapid pulse of Kat’s clit against the soft pad of his thumb.
“Yes!” Dair groaned the moment he felt the rapid heat of his cum starting to shoot the length of his cock. “Come for me, Kat. Come now!”
Kat opened unfocused eyes and looked down at him, “You’re real!” she gasped just as the two of them came together in a long and seemingly endless flow of pulsing and almost painful release.
Chapter 6
“I should apologize.” Kat couldn’t even look at Dair when he returned from the bathroom a short time later.
She had hastily straightened her bra and pulled her clothes back on the moment Dair disappeared into the bathroom to clean himself up, her cheeks hot with embarrassment the whole time, before she had fled out into the main cabin of the plane, needing to escape the sight of the disheveled bed covers, and the reason for them.
She had just—Kat wasn’t quite sure what she would call what she had just done to Dair, when he had obviously been a more than willing participant in what had happened. Seduction didn’t describe it; it had been far too wild, raw, and out of control for that.
Whatever it had been, Kat had never experienced anything like it in her life before. She had felt her orgasm so strongly, and so deeply, she had thought it was going to rip her apart—
“Should you?” Dair answered her, his expression enigmatic as he moved to the galley to pour them both a fresh cup of coffee.
As if stiltedly polite conversation and a civilized cup of coffee was going to allow either of them to forget that a short time ago Kat had taken this man.
She may have thought she was still caught up in a dream—a dream such as she had never known and enjoyed before now—but that didn’t mean she hadn’t known exactly whom she was with and what she was doing. Whom she had wanted. And who had wanted her in return.
She could still feel the pleasure if she gently squeezed her thighs together.
Mm, just like that—
“Maybe we should both apologize?” Dair shrugged as he put the mugs of coffee down on the table before sitting down opposite her. “Seems to me I was the one fully awake, and that you thought you were still…dreaming.”
Kat gave a wince. “We both know I was having the nightmare,” she stated dully. “The one where I start kicking and hitting out at anyone who tries to touch me?”
He raised a hand to his jaw. “You do have a pretty solid left hook, yes.”
Her eyes widened. “I punched you?”
He smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry about it; I’m sure I’ve done something in my past to deserve it.”
“Not to me you haven’t,” Kat groaned. “That is so—I am so sorry. For everything.”
Dair knew, by the way Kat could no longer look at him, that she was apologizing for stroking and thrusting her pussy against him until they both came. Something he really couldn’t bring himself to feel a moment’s regret about. Kat may have thought he was part of her dream, but the fact that she had said his name told him that her subconscious, at least, had known exactly whose cock she was rubbing against.
Hell, he had already decided he was never washing this pair of jeans again, not when they had the smell of Kat all over them. It would fade with time, but for now he would only have to take one sniff of that delicious smell to become hard again. Kat Markovic had just become his favorite wet dream.
“Tell me what happened to you, little Kat?” he prompted gruffly. “The reason for the nightmares. The clinic. I realize that losing your baby must have been traumatic for you…”
“But most women don’t go off their head and have to be admitted to a clinic,” she finished derisively.
“Hey, what happened to you was a tragedy.”
“But one that women around the world suffer through every day without ending up as a mental patient!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to, Dair,” Kat sighed. “And that isn’t what happened to me, either.” She looked across at him quizzically. “Do you have a wife and children?”
Dair gave a self-derisive smile. “If I did then I would have some serious explaining to do when I get home!” Stripping off and washing his own cum off him hadn’t been the most pleasant experience of his life, but worth every uncomfortable moment for what had come before it!
Jesus, having Kat take him in that way, rubbing herself all over him, those soft little purrs in her throat as she came, and the pleasure of his own release, that had been something he would never forget. Didn’t want to forget.
It certainly wasn’t something he would have been able to keep from a wife. If he had one. Which he didn’t. He would have to trust a woman before he could marry her, and that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Kat drawled dryly, at the same time as she felt an inner relief at knowing Dair wasn’t married.
Although why she should feel that way she had no idea. She was damaged goods—very damaged goods—and the man Dair now was gave the impression he disliked emotional entanglements. Of any kind.
But there was no changing the fact that he had come in response to her.
That he would come again if she—
If she what?
Wasn’t her life already complicated enough, without dragging Dair into it? That was no way to thank the man who had gotten her out of the clinic and away from New York.
“What did Gregori use in order to…persuade you into rescuing me?” Her brother’s powers of persuasion weren’t usually of the verbal kind.
Dair shrugged. “He was worried about you, explained that he thought you were in trouble.”
Kat frowned. “And that was enough for you to do what you did today?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not going to lie to you, Kat; going up against the Orlovs wasn’t at the top of my to-do list. But Gregori’s hands were tied, and he was obviously going out of his mind with worry about you. He wanted an outsider to check the situation out, and if there was a problem, to resolve it.”
Dair had certainly done that. Decisively. Coldly. At great risk to himself.
“That still doesn’t explain why you agreed to do it?” Kat pressed.
A part of her, that teenager crushing part that she had buried long ago but was apparently still inside her, wanted Dair to have done this for her. Not for anyone else,
but for Kat, because he remembered her with affection, if nothing else.
Dair was no longer a hundred percent sure himself why he had agreed to Gregori Markovic’s request. A memory, perhaps. Of a leggy teenager, whom he now realized had once looked at him as if he were the sun, the moon and the stars to her.
He really hadn’t been aware of Kat’s crush on him at the time, but he could see it in hindsight. At the time he had just been drawn to her because she had seemed like light and innocence in a world that was so often full of violence and distrust. In order to escape that world of violence and distrust he’d had to give up that light and innocence too.
The light was still inside Kat somewhere, even if the innocence had been eroded away by too many years spent living in the Orlovs’ world, leaving shadows on her soul that now haunted the darkness of her eyes.
This darker, less innocent Kat was more of a danger to Dair, to his emotions, than the innocently trusting Katya ever could have been.
Because Dair knew he had those same shadows on his own soul.
“It’s my job,” he answered Kat harshly. “I don’t just run a security company, my men and I specialize in retrieval during kidnappings and abductions.”
Well that told Kat exactly where she stood.
She was just another job to Dair, nothing more. He probably considered what had happened between them earlier to just be one of the ‘fringe benefits’ of that job.
“In that case I hope Gregori is paying you danger money on top of your usual retrieval fee,” she came back hardly, unable to completely hide her disappointment.
A job.
She was just another fucking job to Dair.
Another fucking job…?
How aptly put, in the circumstances.
“I’ll be sure to put a little extra on the bill,” Dair replied harshly.
“Do that.” Kat nodded abruptly, no longer able to look at him as she turned to look out the window, the tears once again stinging her eyes.
Shadow Alpha Page 7