Dawn Endeavor 1: Fallon's Flame

by Marie Harte

  She wondered what he was really like, beneath the muscles and the looks. Would he remain as nice once he had what he wanted? When would he show his true colors—when he didn't get what he wanted? And what did he want? Sex, sure. But anything else?

  So intent on her thoughts, she literally ran into the man on her mind.

  “Shit!” She bounced off him and would have fallen on her ass if he hadn't reached for her arm. Her heart raced, as much from the shock and the adrenaline rush as from her run. “Sorry.

  Didn't…see…you…there.”

  “My mistake. I should have called out. You seemed miles away.” He didn't sound out of breath. Despite the weather, he wore shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. At least this time he wore sneakers.

  “Aren't you…cold?” She leaned over, trying to catch her breath, and placed her hands on her knees

  “Nah. Tough skin.” He thumped his chest. “You okay?”

  She drew in a breath, stood, and let it out slowly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “No problem. Actually I was looking for you.”

  Her pulse picked up. Down, girl. “Oh?”

  His gaze narrowed on her mouth before shifting back up to her eyes. “Yeah. We haven't talked much, not since last night.”

  He just had to bring that up.

  “Oh.”

  “You're not, ah, mad at me or anything, are you? Because I swear I didn't plan on going d—I mean, I only meant to kiss you. You have the sweetest-looking lips,” he rasped, rubbing a thumb over her lower lip.

  She stood as still as a statue, unable to move. The smart side of her told her to demand he back away and keep his hands to himself. She wasn't some floozy he could toy with. But the hungry side of her subtly leaned into his touch. When he dropped his hand, she licked her lips, telling herself they were dry and needed the moisture.

  His eyes darkened, and he took a deep breath. “So. Right.” He exhaled. “I just… I didn't want to scare you away.”

  “I'm not scared.” The stubborn woman within refused to acknowledge his power over her without putting up a fight.

  “I am,” he admitted. “You're different.”

  She scowled. “Thanks a lot.”

  “No. I mean, you make it hard to think past wanting you.” He closed his eyes and opened them, a flush on his cheeks that completely devastated her. Handsome and vulnerable?

  “I—oh.”

  “Look, what the guys say about me, it's not true. I'm not some roving stud.” He frowned. “I have needs, sure, but I'm not some idiot out to nail any piece of ass.” He paused and snapped his mouth shut.

  She raised a brow, bemused by his lust that mingled with anger. At himself or at her? Oh wow. I'm sensing his emotions.

  Jesse ran a hand over his short hair, obviously frustrated. “Shit. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'm not some dog in heat.”

  “All the time,” echoed in her mind.

  Sensing his emotions and reading his mind?

  “I know this is bad timing. We have a job to do. We can't afford to muck it up with sex.

  Hell, I've worked with women before.” Now he sounded defensive. “I don't jump every hot woman I come into contact with. Let alone rip their clothes off them.” The quieter she remained, the more flustered he became. His insecurity captivated her.

  She'd never assumed to see this side of the man. Never assumed someone so incredibly sexy and commanding could have a side like this.

  “Hell, Olivia. I barely know you. I know what your file says, but not about you. Your favorite color, your favorite flavor ice cream. Do you like adventure movies, or are you a chick-flick type? A dog person or a cat person? Shit like that. Important stuff.” When she continued to stare at him, wide-eyed, he swore and took a step closer. A shock of anger brightened his gaze.

  “But you know what I do know? How you respond when I do this.” She knew all about high-handed men. But she had never dealt with one who made her wet with a look before.

  Jesse kissed her with a rough determination that made her want to belt him. The brutal kiss smashed her lips against her teeth. His tongue thrust into her mouth with a cruel possession. He plastered her breasts to his chest and ground a huge erection against her belly. She couldn't move, because he'd tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling the band holding it back and tossing it to the ground. Gripping her tightly, he consumed her.

  Olivia had a temper slow to boil, but when it did, it flamed until it burned itself out.

  Unfortunately Jesse didn't arouse the anger she desperately needed to fight off this sensual devastation.

  Instead of pulling back and slapping him, she attacked him right back with a kiss that made his look tame by comparison.

  She couldn't think, could only feel as raw desire poured through her very soul. A wild need to take, to keep, settled into her soul and wouldn't let go. Not until she got what she wanted.

  Olivia bit his lip and then licked at the spot of blood she caused.

  “Yes, oh yeah.” Jesse groaned and rubbed against her, his cock incredibly large.

  “Shut up,” she growled, and then the sexual beast who used to be Olivia took charge.

  Chapter Six

  Fallon couldn't think as the woman he'd come to think of as a delicate flower turned feral on him. She bit and sucked and threw his beast into a frenzy of arousal and affection that surged through him in a wave of confusing need.

  The woman gripped him with fingers he couldn't escape, even if he'd wanted to. The little witch hurt him by pulling him closer, but the small pain only made him that much harder. His shorts tented, obscenely distorted as he poked her belly, wishing he could angle for penetration.

  Crazed to feel that hot pussy he could smell creaming for him, he succumbed to her wildness, giving in to his beast, who was surprisingly content to let this female dominate him.

  Fallon didn't much care at the moment, lost to the desire he'd felt since he'd last tasted her.

  He would have sworn he'd entered another mating heat, except his friends didn't seem bothered by it. To his relief, none of them seemed as drawn to Olivia as he was, or he knew for certain he'd have drawn blood to fight for her.

  “Shit,” he groaned as her hands distracted him.

  She tugged his hair back to look into his eyes. Since she appeared more vivid now than she had before, he knew she had to be seeing his slit pupils and larger irises, eyes of the beast who lived inside him. To his pleasant surprise, Olivia's sly smile proved she was unafraid. If he weren't mistaken, she even appeared to issue a challenge.

  He hissed as her hands snaked down his body with lightning speed. Sure fingers circled his girth through his shorts, pressing along the wet spot where his shorts molded to his arousal.

  “So big. I bet I could eat you up and not be full,” she whispered in a husky voice and licked her lips.

  “Eat me. Yeah, baby. Do that. Right now,” he growled, unable to help his beast's wanting an end to this teasing.

  Instead of obeying, Olivia winked and darted a hand under his shorts to circle his shaft.

  “Christ yes,” he whispered, sure if she stopped, he just might beg. He'd never been so hard before. Despite the rough times dealing with mating heats, he knew he'd never felt such desperation to seek completion. “Please.”

  It slipped out before he could stop himself. A weakness.

  “I like pretty words from pretty men.” Olivia pushed his shorts down and grabbed him with both hands. Then she drove him out of his fucking mind.

  Pulling and pushing, she rubbed his flesh with torturous slowness, grazing his balls with every pass. Using the generous precum at his slit, she lubed his cock and continued to stare up at him as she brought him closer and closer to bliss.

  “Yes, Olivia. That's it, baby. Rub me. Fuck, give it to me. More,” he said thickly, unable to understand how he'd lost control, and ecstatic that he had.

  “I want to feel it. I need it on me, your scent,” she demanded, her voice deeper, raspy.
r />   Familiar.

  He caught a hint of something not quite right, but then she tugged him, her fingers gliding just beneath his glans, that sensitive spot that made him see stars.

  “Fuck.”

  She rubbed and caressed, played with his balls and increased the speed and tightness of her hold.

  “You're so full. Give it to me. Now.” Her voice turned mean, but her scent… Like ripe cherries, bursting with sweetness, with arousal.

  His beast roared his pleasure, especially when one of her nails dragged along his shaft. He swore he felt a prick and smelled blood, but it didn't matter. He stared into her eyes as he came all over her hand.

  Unable to cry out, breathless with the drugging ecstasy of the moment, he covered her palm with milky fluid. And he didn't stop. She pulled it out of him, each ropy jet of semen that continued to pump over her commanding fingers until he was too wrung out to do more than breathe.

  He slumped and had to grab onto her shoulders to steady himself.

  And then she did the one thing guaranteed to make him wake up and take notice. She took her hand, held it up in front of him, and shoved it under her pants, between her legs.

  “This is where it should be.”

  Hell, yes.

  When she brought her hand back out, he took her fingers and shoved them into his mouth.

  The familiar, drugging taste of her pussy addicted him. But she pulled her fingers away.

  The sultry vixen flashed him a smile, her eyes deep lagoons promising every pleasure.

  He let her go and watched as she reached down to hold him again. He remained half-hard, his cock rising quickly as his beast told him to get ready for another round.

  But she only wet her fingers in the cum covering his cockhead.

  When she brought those same fingers to her lips, he jerked in reaction, his cock rock hard and ready to go again. She took each finger deep within her mouth, all the way to the second knuckle. When she'd pulled the last one from her mouth, he pushed her to her knees.

  She surprised him by not resisting.

  “That's right. Enough playing. Now take your mate to the back of your fucking throat,” he growled, unable to keep his beast from coming out to play. Aware he began to change as well, he tried to tamp down his wildness, not wanting to hurt her.

  But she wouldn't let him.

  She clamped her hands to his ass and pulled him forward, deep throating him without a problem. Even when he thickened and lengthened, she accommodated him without gagging once. He closed his eyes, unable to think as he grabbed her hair and pounded into her mouth.

  The unreality of the moment didn't much matter. A normal woman couldn't accommodate a Circ, not in this stage of rut. But Olivia didn't falter. If anything, she stimulated him with her tongue, which never seemed to quit. He gripped her thick hair and held on, nearing his end once again.

  “Yes, sweet, that's it. Lick me. Suck it good. I'm going to come in a rush down that pretty throat. Mmm. God yes,” he murmured as he pistoned faster. Shorter jerks as his ass puckered and his balls drew up, readying to unload.

  So hot, so tight, her mouth suctioned him, taking him to heaven as he yelled out and showered her throat.

  “All of it, swallow me,” he insisted on a heady groan, though he needn't have.

  Olivia's long nails dug into his ass as she devoured his cock, sucking away his cum as fast as he jetted into her.

  Finally spent, he withdrew, pulled up his shorts, and shivered, caught in the aftermath of a powerful orgasm.

  Olivia rose to her feet, her gaze lowered. Her chest rose and fell with a quickness not at all natural.

  “Olivia?” Worried he might have hurt her and not known it, he waited for her to look at him.

  When she did, he did a double take.

  Her eyes weren't human. They were Circ.

  She blinked, and he once more stared into human eyes. What the hell had he just seen?

  “Olivia?”

  She rolled her neck, her shoulders, then stepped back.

  “You didn't know how I'd respond when you kissed me, did you, Jesse? Bet you weren't expecting that.” A gleam of victory lightened the frustration in her gaze. “Well, I'd best finish my run and get back to that folder. I'll see you later.” She turned without another word and took off down the path toward the house.

  Fallon stared at her retreating back until she rounded the bend out of sight. A chill breeze whipped through the trees. An owl hooted in the distance. Overhead, the clouds shifted to cover the emerging moon.

  “Am I fucking nuts, or did I just have sex?” He actually pulled his shorts from his body to examine his cock. Fading lines along his shaft proved he hadn't lost his mind. “She did it. Olivia gave me not only a handjob, she sucked me down like a champ.” Still reeling from the incredible orgasms that had finally drained the all-consuming hunger for the woman from his tired body, Fallon jogged back toward the house. Before he reached the garden, Jules met him.

  “Olivia passed by. Tell me I did not just smell you all over the female, and right before a huge operation is about to go down.” Yet Jules didn't sound angry.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  “Did you or did you not just fuck that woman?”

  “No. Yes.” Did I? Did she really take all of me? I didn't change fully, but a part of me grew a helluva lot larger than normal. And she swallowed me anyway. Her eyes…

  “Fallon?” Now Jules sounded concerned.

  “That woman just gave me the first true peace I've felt since I turned Circ.” He couldn't explain how she'd done it. Incredible sex, but it was still just sex. Wasn't it? “I don't get it. And I think—I mean, I'm not sure, but—”

  “But what?”

  “There at the end, I could have sworn her eyes changed.” Jules didn't say anything.

  “I think I need sleep. She fucking wore me out,” he said with a huge grin. His beast purred inside him.

  Jules's eyes widened.

  “What?”

  “Your aura is changing.”

  “Yeah?” Probably to a glowing red, what Jules had described as the picture of health.

  “Nothing, never mind. Look, it's late. Get some rest. I need to work on a few things myself.” Jules ran past him, not along the trail, but through the woods and into the forest.

  “Probably needs to change,” Fallon muttered, exhausted. Too tired to dwell on anything more than sleep, he promised himself he'd deal with Olivia tomorrow. He wasn't sure, but she'd seemed annoyed with him there at the end. He shrugged. Women.

  He dreamed about her all night long, and in every instance, the blue-green eyes that stared out at him from her pretty face remained Circ.

  * * *

  Unfortunately he didn't see her for the next two days. Mrs. Sharpe, Hayashi, or Jules constantly shadowed her. He might have been jealous if he hadn't sensed Hayashi's disinterest.

  He'd never seen his friend entertain women, and though Hayashi didn't talk about his sexual preferences, Fallon was almost positive his friend favored men. Why Hayashi thought he had to keep it a secret was anyone's guess, but Fallon didn't want to intrude, so he never brought it up.

  Jules, on the other hand, aggravated the shit out of him. He'd heard his team leader and Olivia laughing together on several occasions. If Mrs. Sharpe hadn't sent him and Tersch on errands away from the house, he'd have insisted Jules keep his distance from Olivia, the hard way.

  Fallon couldn't stop remembering her scent. So sweet, ripe, and Circ. He wished he could be sure of what he'd seen, but in the aftermath of so much pleasure, he'd been too dazed to fully recount the sight of her slit/not-slit pupils.

  He and Tersch left the SUV and walked up the drive to the door.

  “Earth to Fallon. What's eating you? Or should I say, who's not eating you?” Tersch teased, his comment surprisingly on target. “Olivia seems to like Jules and Hayashi well enough.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Nice. And here I am trying to make you feel be
tter.” The Viking laughed. “Come on, Fallon. Not like you have a claim on the woman. I'm thinking she should try me on for size—” He gagged behind Fallon's fist around his throat.

  “One more word and I'll crush your larynx.” Fallon couldn't help his beast's raging need to state his claim. “She's mine. Don't forget it.” Tersch clutched at his hand. Not until he nodded, his face purple, did Fallon let him go.

  Coughing, Tersch rubbed his throat and glared. “What the hell is your problem?” Fallon wished he knew. “I'm not in the mood for jokes.” He couldn't help adding, “I smell you anywhere near her, and my beast is going to geld you.” Tersch's eyes widened. “You're not kidding. Man, what's the deal? You barely know this woman. Granted, she's hot. But come on. We've never had problems sharing before.”

  “She's different. I can't explain it.”

  “Well, you'd better get over it. This job is going to be hard enough working with a civilian.

  You add sex to the mess, and we'll end up ass deep in trouble, and not just from some woman mooning over you after you dump her.”

  “She doesn't seem to have any trouble avoiding me lately. I don't think we need to worry about her mooning anytime soon,” Fallon muttered, annoyed all over again that he'd barely seen Olivia since their run-in Saturday night.

  Shaking his head, Tersch threw his arm over Fallon's shoulders and dragged him inside.

  “She's just a woman. Let her go.” He sized up Ava as they passed her in the hallway. “Take me.

  Ava Belle won't give me the time of day, but you know what? I don't care. If she doesn't know what she's missing out on, I don't have the heart to tell her,” he said in a raised voice and snickered at her less-than-friendly rebuttal. “One pussy's as good as another, man.”