Capturing a Unicorn
Page 14
She dragged a nail over the tip of his cock, a tease that caused him to jerk. A bead of fluid leaked from the tip. She lapped at the drop before swirling her tongue around the thick head. That drew another groan, which, in turn, caused a frisson of pleasure between her legs.
Sitting sideways, she lapped the head of his cock thoroughly before licking her way down to the root of him. She worked her way back up then down again, wetting every inch, making it slippery enough for her hand to easily glide.
His hips twitched and then bucked as she took the tip of his cock into her mouth. She gave him a hard suck, and he inhaled a sharp breath. She worked more of him into her mouth, wondering how much of his big cock she could take.
Not all of it, that was for sure. She needed her hand to cover a good portion of it.
She suctioned his shaft, bobbing her head up and down while stroking him with her hand. A shudder went through him, and a long, low groan escaped him.
She could have sucked him to completion, but her tingling pussy protested. Standing between his legs, she pulled off her shirt.
He kissed her belly, his own hands working at her pants, pulling them down over her hips, his face in line with that most intimate part of her.
When he’d pulled off her pants, he tugged her close, rubbing his face against her. But it was the hand he slid between her thighs, stroking against her nether lips, that had her gasping and digging her nails into his shoulders to stay upright.
“You are so wet,” he murmured, sliding a finger into her. She arched, holding tight to him as he worked that finger in and out.
“I need you.” The simple yet urgent truth. She shoved at him until he lay on the bed, and then she straddled him, her heated core hovering atop his straining cock. She lowered herself until he could rub against her.
“Tease,” he grumbled, grabbing hold of her hips.
“Is this better?” she asked, pushing herself onto him, loving how he stretched her.
“God, Emma. Oh God.” She wasn’t even fully seated, and yet he was close to losing control.
The realization almost made her come. She shoved herself fully onto his cock, the pleasure of it making her head tilt back.
For a moment she sat on him, feeling the throbbing of his shaft buried deep. Pleasurable, but she wanted to come.
She began to rock on him, rolling her body atop him, grinding herself hard and pushing him deep. So deep he rubbed against something that made her channel tighten. Her breathing turned ragged. His thumb reached between them and found her clit, rubbed it as she pounded against him.
She cried out his name as she climaxed. She would have fallen on him if he hadn’t rolled her so she lay on her back beneath him, their bodies still connected.
He thrust into her, his long strokes drawing out her bliss, stretching her taut again. When he whispered, “Come for me again, Emma. I want to feel you squeezing me tight,” she obeyed and came hard.
He came with her, his cock driving deep one last time and pulsing inside her.
A reminder they’d not used protection.
And she didn’t care. If he left her pregnant, then at least she’d have someone to love when he left her.
He collapsed by her side but drew her close.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That it’s been a while, and if you can handle it, I’d like to do it again.”
They did it again more slowly. And once more when they woke in the morning. They would have spent the day in bed, but Oliver claimed they needed food.
But that night, as soon as supper ended, they fled to the privacy of her room, where he made her body sing. Made her believe that maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to make this work.
The sound of cars screaming into the parking lot shattered that dream.
Chapter Fifteen
Screaming tires and slamming doors never boded well in any circumstance. Having been in a few war zones, Oliver reacted quickly, rolling out of bed, dragging Emma with him.
“Stay down,” he advised as he snared his pants and yanked them on.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Let me go find out.”
He stepped outside barefoot, his shirt untucked, still smelling of sex. But there was no time for a shower. There might not even be time for goodbyes, given the guns trained on him the moment he popped out of the door of the motel.
So many guns.
“On your knees!” shouted a guy, his face hidden behind a black mask. All of them hid their features and wore the gear of an attack force.
Lacing his hands behind his head, Oliver obeyed, hitting the ground on his knees, hoping Emma remained inside.
“Who are you?” he asked. Obviously, a group who’d planned well seeing as how the most capable fighters weren’t around. Jayda and Marcus had left because of a tip. While Adrian, Jane, and Jett popped off overnight to deal with some other business. How convenient.
“We’ll be asking the questions. Where are the women and children?”
The demand made his blood run cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just me staying here. Thinking of turning this place into a nudist resort.”
The guy shouting the orders drew near, the barrel of his weapon even with Oliver’s face. “Think you’re funny?”
“Not really. But I’ve been called bluntly poetic in a review. Name is Oliver Marshall,” he announced. “You might have heard of me. Famous author. Someone who will be missed if you kill me or try and stuff me in some hidden installation.”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are. We didn’t come for you. Where are the others?”
“I told you—”
The shriek of an angry child pierced the air. More than likely Margaret trying to keep Lorcan quiet, not something that busy boy would like.
The man in front of him probably smirked under his mask. “Search the rooms. Find those children. Take anybody you find.”
“No.” The exclamation came from Emma, which meant—
“Holy shit. That woman has a horn!”
“That woman is my girlfriend,” Oliver muttered, diving at the distracted leader. He hit him in the midsection and managed to put him off balance, but his real objective was getting his hands on the gun.
Which turned out to be full of tranquilizers he realized the moment he fired the first shot. Bullet or not, it did the trick, taking the guy down before he could retaliate. However, there were so many more bad guys to go.
And none of them were intent on him.
Emma came prancing out of the motel room, which sounded odd, but there was something quite wild and beautiful in the way she galloped at the soldiers sent to take them in.
Her hair flowed behind her, and she ducked her head, horn leading the way. Surely she—
He gulped as she speared a man only moments after he fired on her.
The fellow slid off her horn as she pulled back, the length of it glistening with blood. She rubbed her foot on the ground, her eyes a maelstrom of silver and purple rage.
“Emma?”
She didn’t even look at him as she charged the next victim. His attention was distracted by the crashing of glass as a little hellion came soaring through. Followed a moment later by his father.
No more did Luke just look like a rugged, unkempt kind of guy. He’d gone feral, his body big and his teeth huge. He grabbed his son and tucked him under an arm before tearing into a soldier.
Lorcan didn’t cooperate. He wiggled free and hit the ground, helping his dad by latching onto an attacker’s ankle.
Margaret chose that moment to emerge, screaming for her baby. “Get back here, Lorcan. Let daddy handle it.”
She should have stayed inside. Her humanity was no match for the dart that hit her and put her instantly to sleep. It’s a wonder I’m still standing, Oliver thought as he stared down at the tuft sticking out of his arm.
He yanked it free. Must have been a dud.
Emma s
till chased after the attackers, sporting more than a few darts. Adrenaline kept her going, but she wouldn’t be able to prevail against the numbers. He tried to help, shooting at the soldiers, cursing when his darts hit their heavy vests and didn’t penetrate farther.
It was kind of insulting how they ignored his efforts.
Things looked dire, and then Becky stepped out of her room. She looked ethereal in that moment, her hair flowing down over shoulders, her arms spread wide as she broke into song.
A song that stopped the fighting.
Everyone swayed where they stood, even Luke.
So beautiful. Pure. They didn’t want to fight. Weapons fell to the ground in a clatter. People followed next, kneeling before the siren and her song.
Only one thing marred the music, the discordant clack of heels, the muttered, “Must I do everything myself?” The pft sound as a dart was fired and fired again. And again.
He gaped, eyes wide in disbelief.
Becky stared down at her chest then let out a strident cry that burst more than a few ears before crumpling.
Head ducked, he clutched his ears as they pulsed with pain.
The pointed toes of the shoes appeared before he heard anything through the ringing in his head. He stared at them and thought, No, it can’t be.
Yet the sinking sensation in his belly didn’t lie. He looked up and saw her. The bane of his existence wearing earphones to muffle noise—and song.
“You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” The words were said with disdain.
Oliver sighed. “Hello, Mother.”
“Mother?” Emma slurred the word and blinked a few times, trying to hold her head high.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized as Emma turned to him, betrayal in her gaze. She passed out before he could say, “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Of course, you didn’t. God forbid you do something useful for once in your life.” His mother scowled at him.
“Why are you here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
His mother, who removed the protection over her ears, smiled as she turned and faced Luke, who was rising despite the obvious lethargy in his body.
She fired her gun. More darts. Obviously stronger ones than those her men bore.
Luke hit the ground, mumbling, “Bitch.”
He didn’t know the half of it. Oliver wasn’t surprised at all when she turned to him and took aim.
“I’ll see you back at the house, where you belong.”
Pft.
Chapter Sixteen
Oliver woke faster than he would have expected given he was darted. As promised, he was home again, a prisoner who could only pace his bedroom—his childhood bedroom. Not that it was ever a child-friendly place. The walls were covered in patterned navy blue paper, trimmed at the floor and around the windows and doors with mahogany-varnished wood. A room more suitable for an adult or a temporary guest. Which Oliver technically was.
Most of his childhood was spent at boarding schools. He only came home for summer break and Christmas holiday. Mother believed children should be rarely seen, never heard, and didn’t have much use for him until he’d graduated from college.
Only by then, he had no interest in her or the family business. If only she’d lose all interest in him.
Was he the reason she’d attacked that motel? Had she finally located her missing maternal instinct and gone looking for her son?
Doubtful.
He rolled out of bed as he replayed that awful scene in the motel parking lot. She’d sent her mercenaries ahead, armed with weak tranquilizers. Why?
For a moment he saw Lorcan’s drooling grin.
Because of the children. She’d come prepared to knock them out, too. The cold calculation of it had him pacing, twenty strides, pivot. Twenty strides, pivot. His room loomed larger than his first apartment. But he’d have taken that shithole he paid for working two jobs any day over this cold mausoleum of a house.
When he’d left, he’d sworn to never return. And she’d practically shouted good riddance.
But then his older brother died, which left only Oliver as heir to her empire. They were both disappointed.
He cared less about failing to live up to his mother’s expectations than the fact Emma thought he was responsible for the attack. He’d seen the expression on her face. The betrayal in her eyes before the drugs took effect.
Emma, the woman he’d made love to, who rescued spiders from indoors and relocated them outside. Who wouldn’t eat meat.
Gored that man with her horn…
But could he really condemn her for protecting herself? If he’d had a real gun, he would have used it. As it was, he’d only had his fists and the tranquilizer pistol he stole. And they weren’t enough.
Mother had come prepared, which made him wonder how long she’d planned this. She’d timed her attack well. With Jayda and Marcus off saving a patient, and Chimera doing something with Jane and Jett, they were at their weakest. Either someone was watching their every move or their hidden group had a Judas.
Problem was they probably assumed that traitor was Oliver. He couldn’t exactly blame them for the erroneous assumption given his attitude with them initially stunk and he wasn’t in a cage, though he’d wager they were. Probably in the same facility where he’d conducted his interviews with the other patients and Cerberus himself.
“Damn you, Mother,” he muttered as he stomped back and forth. A prisoner until she chose to set him free. He’d already tried the door—locked. The windows didn’t need bars, given the third-floor setting made it impossible to jump and the smooth exterior wall made It impossible to descend, unless he jumped.
How ironic and frustrating that he’d ended up in the clutches of the person he was trying to destroy. His mother, probably the biggest monster of all. More so because she was completely human. She had no excuse for the things she did.
The sons she neglected.
The drugs she overcharged for.
The people she kept prisoner in the hopes of using them to make even more money.
It was only by accident Oliver discovered his mother had gotten her hands on Cerberus and other Chimera patients. She’d tried to keep them hidden from him and almost succeeded until the anonymous tip. It was at that point Oliver made a convincing argument about letting him interview Cerberus and the others as research for his book. Her vanity let her believe him when he lied and claimed the narrative he planned to pen would mark the triumph of her company when it became the number one pharmaceutical company in the world.
She thought he’d finally come around to her way of thinking. Little did she know his plan was to take the company down. And her with it.
There was no love between him and his mother. She often referred to him as “the mistake.” For years she’d ignored the existence of her youngest son, until his older brother died in an accident, making Oliver the only heir. She dragged him back practically kicking and screaming after first getting him fired from the network that engaged him to write a documentary on the drug problem in America. She got all his credit cards cancelled, kicked out of his apartment, and car repossessed.
Oliver was practically starving when he finally gave in and came home. But only because he was determined to break free.
Some might think him callous for the way he hated his mother. They’d obviously never met her.
He whirled at the sound of a key in the lock. His mother entered, looking as composed as ever in a pantsuit made of black linen, the blouse a crimson splash of color. Her hair had gone from the light blonde of his youth to a silver bob that framed her angular face. A pretty woman if you ignored the cold calculation in her eyes and the ever-present disdain on her lips.
“Let me out of this room,” was the first thing he said.
“Is that any way to greet your mother?” she asked.
“You had me darted and carted off like livestock.” Oliver clenched his hands by his side, seething with rage.
The statement and its meaning sank in slowly. “You knew I wasn’t on vacation.”
“Did you really think otherwise?” The curl of her lip told him he’d been an idiot. “I knew from the start when you asked to write that book that you were planning a coup against me.”
“So why didn’t you stop me?”
She arched a perfectly coiffed brow. “Stop one of the greatest investigative journalists of his time? Who better to ferret out any remaining Chimera projects than my own son?”
“You used me.” Used him to get at Emma and the others.
“About time you were useful.”
“What have you done with Emma?”
“I assume you mean the girl with the horn. Interesting creature that one. But not the one I’d hoped to nab. Unfortunately, my true objective skipped out before my men arrived.”
“Let me guess, you wanted Dr. Chimera.”
“Him and his companion, Jane. A woman who can not only walk through fire but call it and use it. Do you have any idea how many governments would pay to have soldiers with that ability? And even better, given how besotted Chimera is with her, he would have fallen into our grasp as well. But it wasn’t a complete loss. We might not have gotten all of them, but we managed to capture the mermaid and her spawn, the unicorn, and the wolfman.”
“How did you know where to find us?”
“A rat within your midst.” His mother smirked. “It only takes one.”
“Who?” Who betrayed them?
At first, he thought his mother wouldn’t answer, but she smirked. “They think you did. After all, why else would the son and heir of Leyghas Labs have come looking for the Chimaeram Clinic in the first place?”
“You told them who I was.” He’d expected it and yet deflated at the claim.
“I had to, seeing as how you neglected to inform them. Really, Oliver, have some pride in your family.”
“I hate my family.” It was why he’d kept his father’s surname rather than take his mother’s when she had hers legally changed.