Betrayed by Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  She was panting lightly. “I’m hot all over.”

  “Now you’re getting the idea.” He eased her down onto her back. As his mouth teased along her taut belly, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of her leggings, slipping them off so cool air tantalized heated skin. His fingertips trailed up sleek, toned limbs. She was stirred up plenty by then.

  “Looks like we’ve got a hot spot,” he crooned as his palm cupped her damp and ready sex.

  “I’m burning, Giles.”

  “Can’t have that. We’d have to start all over.”

  “No,” she groaned, pushing against him. “Keep going.”

  He stilled the grind of her hips by locking his leg over hers, then he began slow revolutions of the heel of his hand. “There now, nice and calm so nothing bubbles over.”

  She closed her eyes and kept her breathing shallow, letting him think things had gone back to a simmer when in fact they were sizzling almost out of control. Just when he thought it safe to dip one and then two fingers inside her, she seized up around him, shuddering to a delightful climax. She gave a satisfied laugh as he scolded her.

  “Naughty girl. You’re too impatient to be a kitchen helper.”

  “Oops.”

  “Guess you’re just a three-minute egg after all. And here I had my appetite primed for some slow cooking.”

  She caught his chin, pulling him up so she could kiss him, pouring on the heat. Rubbing his lower lip with her forefinger, she whispered, “Don’t good cooks taste the sauce before they toss it out?”

  He sucked in that tempting digit, giving it a sharp nip before declaring, “Yes, they do. Good idea.” He ducked down between the spread of her legs, sampling with sips and little bites before plunging in with his tongue.

  This time she screamed.

  He grinned up at her through the shaky tent of her knees. “Now let’s talk about adding spices.”

  Brigit purred lazily.

  She was a screamer.

  At first they were inarticulate cries, but sometime before hour two had rolled into three, they’d become his name.

  She should have felt ashamed at her lack of self-control, but she was too damned gratified to do anything but smile.

  “Tired yet?” He nuzzled her ear with an easy affection.

  She sighed. “Exhausted. Pleasantly so. You?”

  “Kitchen’s closed. Unless you feel the urge for a snack later.”

  Thank God, her weary body groaned as she snuggled closer. Maybe later.

  Across the room, the fire had gone out, but neither of them had the strength to add more wood. So they enjoyed the afterglow.

  “Giles?”

  “Hmmm?” When she remained silent, he prompted, “What is it, goddess?”

  “Why didn’t you marry Maggie?”

  He came up on his elbow. She couldn’t see his expression, which had made her more confident in asking the question, but she could feel his perplexity.

  “You want to ask me about another woman? Now?”

  “It’s all right if you don’t want to tell me . . . if it’s too personal.”

  “I think we worked our way past too personal about an hour ago.” He dropped back down beside her to indulge in a brooding silence. Finally, his arms curled about her, drawing her tightly to his chest, where she rode out his unhappy sigh.

  She tipped back her head to whisper, “You can kiss me first if you want to.”

  He did. The soft, leisurely caress of his lips upon hers almost made her forget the question. Almost.

  “Did you love her?” she pressed as she rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you want to marry her?”

  “More than anything.” A pause during which her heart broke a little. “Almost more than anything,” he amended.

  “She didn’t love you?”

  “She did. Too much. More than I would let her.”

  Not sure why she was pushing into such awkward territory, she continued. “Boyd told me you brought her home to meet your family the same weekend he told you about your father.”

  “Did he? Talkative little bastard.”

  “I asked, he didn’t offer.”

  “Why did you want to know? Bored or just making idle conversation?”

  “Something like that,” she said softly, unwilling to explore why it had been neither of those things. Because she could sense him pulling away more than physically, she tightened her arms about him as her own emotions gave a hurtful twist. “To protect her. That’s why you pushed her away.”

  He let her lure him into relaxing slightly. “There was no place for a woman I loved in the life I was going to be leading.”

  “Did she understand that?”

  “No. Not at all. I didn’t want her there to see me . . .”

  “Fall?”

  “Right into hell headfirst.”

  Boyd had expected to shock her that afternoon with his lurid telling of Giles’s descent. She hadn’t been shocked, far from it, as she listened to the recitation. Of how he’d drawn his cousin aside to reveal the details of his father’s death. How he’d seen Giles change right before his eyes, dropping his outer guise of happily focused, career-bound young man to become a dark, driven force of unspeakably terrible vengeance. Brigit understood because she’d seen the same metamorphosis overtake her brother the night her family was destroyed. The light, the joy, the hope had been extinguished, snuffed out in a moment of life-altering violence. Until he’d found those things once again with Nica Frasier.

  So, Brigit decided, she couldn’t hate her new sister-in-law, could she?

  She could have shared the insight with Giles, that the goodness could be reclaimed, but she let it go for the moment. It wasn’t something he was ready to hear, any more than she’d been ready to accept it in that church a week ago. Instead, she rubbed a calming hand along his shoulder until his tension eased, but she found no relief for her own until she posed the next question.

  “You brought her here to break up with her, didn’t you? While she was sitting in that rocker?”

  “And then I took her to the airport and never saw her again.” A slight shrug. “For the best, considering.”

  “For whom? If she didn’t love you enough to stand by you,” she concluded, “then you’re better off without her.”

  “She would have stayed if I’d let her.” His hand settled over hers to still its soothing movement. In a voice toughened to exclude her sympathy, he told her, “You don’t know anything about her, or about loving someone more than yourself, loving them enough to let them go.”

  “Apparently not.”

  He took silent stock of his words, then murmured gently, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? It’s true.” She took a breath, struggling to make her tone indifferent. “So what happened to your Maggie?”

  “She became someone else’s Maggie. She’s living in Seattle. Her husband’s in software development. They have three kids, a dog, and a parakeet. I get a Christmas card every year with their picture on it.”

  To rub his nose in it. The bitch. Didn’t he realize that was her intention? Probably not. Brigit wondered if he kept those mementos, too.

  “What about your Daniel?” Giles asked after a lengthy pause. “Were you going to marry him?”

  “He was going to make me his queen.”

  “I guess that trumps wife. And you were willing to stick with him through all the good and bad times?”

  “Right up until he died. I wasn’t willing to follow him there.”

  He squeezed her close and kissed her brow, whispering, “Smart girl.”

  “Giles?”

  “Hmmm?”

  Brigit put her hand to his face. “She was a fool not to stick with you.”

  He was silent for a long moment, then his hand covered hers, curling her fingers tightly within his. “Maybe. Water under the bridge now.”

  Meaningful word
choice.

  Just like his hopes of family.

  And that was something Brigit understood all too well.

  “Giles?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I think I’d like that snack now.”

  She felt his smile beneath her palm as he pressed a kiss to it. “Go to sleep, greedy female.”

  “I’m cold.”

  With a groan, Giles slipped out from under the covers, leaving them for her as he pulled the sleeping bag around him to go tend the fire. The floorboards were freezing beneath his shuffling bare feet. After coaxing some bits of kindling into a healthy flame, he added enough wood to get them through the night.

  As he stood, his hip bumped against the rocking chair, putting it into motion. Giles caught the back of it to still the movement and found himself caught in a moment of reflection.

  She was a fool not to stick with you.

  Had he sent Maggie away, or had she been eager to run?

  He tried, but he couldn’t picture the way she’d looked sitting in that chair as he’d crushed their hopes and dreams for a future together. He recalled down to the most minute detail how he’d felt, sick with anguish, dead inside to all but the slow-burning determination of what he planned to do. Had she cried? Had she said anything at all? He couldn’t remember. Not the sound of her voice, not the feel of her in his arms, not the pain of watching her walk away with return ticket in hand.

  If not for the picture in his wallet and those yearly postcards, would he remember what she looked like, this woman he was going to love and honor for the rest of his life?

  But it hadn’t been his life. All those plans, all those ambitions. They belonged to someone he didn’t know. Someone he’d never had the chance to become.

  “Giles?”

  He let go of the chair and turned. And time stopped.

  Now, here was a dream he’d carry with him forever.

  Brigit crouched on her knees atop the covers, gloriously bare to all but the kiss of the firelight. Her hair spun about her shoulders in a wild tangle, bright as flames. Her dark eyes held every promise, every mystery he’d ever imagined, as if she were the answer to them all.

  At this moment, maybe she was.

  She reached out a beckoning hand, and he forgot everything else, as if struck by a mesmerist’s spell.

  He didn’t consciously decide to move, but suddenly, she was reaching up to slip her silky arms about his neck, stretching so that those luscious breasts mashed against his chest, taking his mouth as if she hadn’t been with him in weeks instead of merely minutes. As if starving for the taste of him, for the feel of him surrounding her, above her, inside her.

  He’d just begun a pleasing rhythm when she gripped his wrists and flung him over onto his back, pinning his hands above his head as she settled astride him. His expression must have been comically blank, for she laughed at him with a purely wicked purpose.

  “I told you I liked to be on top. It’s my turn. I’ve been moaning and crying your name all night. Now you’ll say mine.”

  “Bridget.” He grinned, then crooned, “Bri-zheet.”

  “Oh, it’s not so easy as that.”

  He tried to take her in his arms, but he couldn’t break free of the grip pressing his wrist into the mattress. What the hell? When he tried to buck his hips, she settled back to keep him immobile.

  She laughed again when his brows lowered, and his amusement fled. “What’s wrong, human? I thought you knew all about Shifter females. Apparently, no one told you how strong we are when we’re aroused.”

  He stopped struggling and began to smile. “I arouse you?”

  “Yes, you do.” She leaned forward to lick at his lips, sucking the lower one in to give it a playful nip. At the same time, she began to move upon him in little lifts, teasing, toying with him. “Say my name.” She blew upon his mouth.

  “Brigit.”

  The low rumble enticed her to kiss him deeply, her tongue sliding over and around his, then plunging slowly to match the rise and fall of her hips. She’d released his hands to cup his face between her palms, cradling his jaw as she made love to his mouth so thoroughly and deliciously that he almost forgot what she was doing below.

  Until she squeezed tight around him, then released.

  His breathing shuddered at the strength of that hot pull and lusciously wet slide down the length of him.

  Her hands moved to his chest, rubbing over the taut ridge of his abs, nails scraping along his ribs.

  Another hard clutch and slow surrender.

  Powerfully erotic. Painfully compelling. Over and over.

  By the time her mouth trailed up the cords of his throat, his breath was coming in quick, hard gasps. She chewed his earlobe and whispered, “Say my name.”

  “Br-Brigit,” he ground out harshly.

  “Better,” she purred, taking his mouth in another hungry, devouring kiss before leaning back, undulating her hips in a new taunting pace that had pressure building, building, building in a tank he’d long thought emptied, until he swelled and burned exquisitely for release. He caught the backs of her thighs, gripping hard, trying to control her movements so they’d take him over the edge with her. He felt her body clench like a fist as she rode out her pleasure above him.

  But then she went still, leaving his cock pounding ferociously, his balls aching like those of a fifteen-year-old with his first girlie magazine.

  As he panted in frustration, forearm braced across his closed eyes, Brigit bent down to gently kiss him. And began to move once more, not to tempt, but purposefully, with a destination in mind. A finish she rushed by reaching behind to lightly rake her nails over his swollen sac.

  Giles cried out as his body tensed, trembled, and finally shuddered in relief when his heat poured into her. “Bree,” he gasped. “Bree!” then collapsed with a whisper of “Holy hell.”

  He couldn’t catch his breath. His face and chest were damp from exertion even though she’d done all the work. He could barely respond to her soft kiss.

  The kitchen was closed. Indefinitely.

  She drew the covers up over them, her head settling on his shoulder. With a tremendous effort, he managed to stroke her hair, again saying tenderly, “Bree.”

  “That’s my name,” she murmured, pressing close. “That’s the only name I want to hear when we’re together. Not your mama’s. Not your stupid cow girlfriend’s. Just mine. Got it?”

  “Gotcha.”

  He was smiling as he fell asleep.

  Music?

  Brigit slit her eyes open to the brightness of midmorning. She was alone in the bunk. Harsh-smelling coffee warmed on the hot plate, and Giles was nowhere in sight. Then she heard the unmistakable crack of ax into wood.

  Feeling tired and sticky and . . . fabulous, she stretched and reached for the crimson-colored sweatshirt Giles had left folded on the edge of the mattress. Harvard? She slipped it over her head to swim in generous folds that came almost to her knees. Rolling back the cuffs, she found the shoe she’d tucked Boyd’s cell phone into, discouraged to see no message from Silas. She tucked it under the sleeping bag on the top bunk, pushed bare feet into her shoes, and went to pour coffee. Her whole body ached gloriously, making her smile as she stepped out onto the tiny back porch.

  Because she could still hear his voice, rough with passion.

  Bree.

  Giles had his back to her, splitting wood in the glare of morning light, a beautiful sight in his revealing muscle shirt. Strong, sexy. A light sweat had broken out on his shoulders, gleaming amid scores of scratches, some nearly healed from their passionate tussle in New Orleans and some raw stripes from hours ago. Chagrined, she put a nail trim and manicure on her agenda for the day.

  He’d taken the batteries out of the flashlight to power an old cassette player and was timing his swings to the raucous beat of a late-eighties hip-hop tune that probably dated back to days spent here in male bonding. Something ridiculous about Humpty Dumpty dancing? Her gaze followed the su
ggestive rock and bump of his very fine ass as the sassy backup singers crooned, “Do me, baby.”

  Oh, yay. Good idea.

  Time to whip up something for breakfast.

  She’d taken a step forward, intending to initiate some moves of her own, when the music dialed down and muted as another sound reached her.

  The cup fell from her hands, shattering on the wood planking, as all her senses trembled and went taut.

  And a single cry ripped from her.

  “Giles, behind you!”

  thirteen

  Giles spun, continuing his momentum with the ax so it caught his assailant midleap in the upper chest, flinging him to the ground. Even as he wrestled the blade free, his attacker was gaining his feet, falling into a menacing crouch as his lips pulled back from a mouth full of daggerlike teeth.

  Holy shit!

  Alarm became coldly dangerous intentions when he recognized the disfigured Shifter from Brigit’s description as the one who’d tried to rape and kill her in Nevada.

  “Brigit, get inside!”

  He didn’t look around to see if she obeyed. There was no time as the creature sprang.

  Driven to the ground on his back, Giles couldn’t angle for another swing as he was forced to grip the ever-thickening throat to keep those deadly teeth away from his own. A battle he knew he wasn’t going to win as the beast completed its change of form into something monstrous and impossibly strong.

  Run, Brigit! That was all he had time to think. Run!

  All he had to do was stay alive long enough for her to get a head start.

  There was a deafening report from the porch, and suddenly, the figure hunching over him was plucked off and sent rolling away.

  Giles risked a glance toward the cabin to see Brigit with her feet planted wide, his pistol braced in both hands. The pistol he’d wisely loaded with silver rounds.

  As he scrambled to his feet, his attacker was gaining his own, obviously struggling not to revert back into humanlike form from the effects of the silver. Brigit’s shot had taken him in the other side of the chest. Giles’s first blow from the ax had already healed. Making him no less lethal as he sprang a second time. No less quick. And this time Giles didn’t respond fast enough.