by Susan Hayes
It couldn’t be this easy. “I’m not leaving Liberty for another week at least. You know how to reach me.”
Nesht flashed him a toothy smile. “Not entirely stupid, then. Good.”
Kade rose from the table and nodded to the Jeskyran. “Thanks for the drink. Sorry we couldn’t do business.”
“So am I.”
He casually rubbed one wrist, freeing part of his backup plan from its hiding place and palming it. Then he started walking, careful to keep both Nesht and the two males at the bar in his line of sight. He noted with unease that everyone else had left. It all felt like a setup, but so far neither Nesht nor his goons had moved from their seats. If this was a trap, it was a subtle one. Or maybe he was just being paranoid.
He was only a few steps from the door when it happened. The deck seemed to shift beneath his feet. He stumbled and then fell to his knees as a wave of vertigo swept over him. His vision flickered, his head spun, and all the strength leached out of his limbs in seconds. He tried to connect to his ship’s AI again, but the link was still gone.
Too bad for you, I came prepared for that trick. It took every bit of energy he had left to press his thumb against the remote switch he’d palmed earlier. He heard a strident chirp and saw a flash of green light, and then he was sprawled on the floor, too dizzy to even raise his head.
Nesht walked over to him, talons clicking on the tiles. “You should have taken the deal.”
“How?” Kade’s question came out as a mushy mumble.
Nesht crouched beside him, resulting in a view Kade fervently hoped wasn’t his last. He didn’t want to die with images of the male’s thorn-encrusted gonads branded into his memory. “My friends spiked your drink with a little something special as it left the bar. If you’d done what you were supposed to, I’d have left it inactive and you would never have known. Since you were stupid, I activated the drugs.” He showed off a remote not much different from the one in Kade’s hand.
Kade tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work. All he managed to do as consciousness faded was open his own hand and show Nesht the remote lying there.
The world went gray and then black. The last thing he heard was Nesht cursing his name. “What the fraxx did you do, D’vrayn? What. Did. You. Do!”
I protected my mate.
14
Denz had never been very domestic. After leaving home, he’d lived where his employers had told him to. Sometimes it was a lunar base or even a planet. Most of the time he’d lived and worked on space stations. None of those options had granted him much living space, which meant he’d arrived on Liberty with little more than a footlocker full of clothes and another full of personal items. That had changed since coming to Haven. Little by little, he’d acquired the trappings of a real home, and today he’d taken Shadow to some of his favorite stores so she could do the same.
Her enthusiasm had been contagious, and by the time they made it back to his place they were carrying not just the ingredients for dinner but new cushions for his couch and a hand-crafted quilt for when the weather turned cold.
Shadow hadn’t bought anything yet, but she had loaded her terminal with pictures and notes on everything she’d seen.
Now they were both drinking wine and chatting while he prepared their meal. He’d had to make a few substitutions, but it all seemed to be coming together. He’d found curried noat meat and freshly made noodles at that market. All that was left to make was the sauce.
“You really told your parents about me?” she asked.
“I did. I had to.” He pointed the wooden spoon in his hand to the pot of sauce simmering on an induction plate. “I couldn’t remember the secret ingredient, and they weren’t going to give it to me until I told them about the female I was making it for.”
“And what did you tell them?” Her tone was light, but he caught a note of uncertainty beneath it.
He set down the spoon and turned to face her. “I told them a beauty with hair like gold and a smile that could set the world ablaze had waited for me to ask her out, and when she realized I wasn’t going to make the first move, she asked me instead.” He took her hand. “I know what you’re actually asking, though. I didn’t tell them about the connection between you, Nyx, and Echo. Not yet. That’s your truth to share, not mine.”
“Thank you.” She relaxed slightly and then her eyes widened. “Did you really tell them I asked you out?”
“Oh, I did. They think you are clearly the answer to all their prayers, and two of my fathers questioned my paternity because they’re both certain anyone as stupid as I am could not be their son.” He snorted. “My mother heard them and made it clear that any foolishness definitely came from the male side of the family.”
Hearing them bicker had made him feel homesick for the first time in years. If things worked out between the three of them, he’d have to ask Shadow and Kade if they’d like to visit his parents. It was a strange thought. He’d always imagined he and Zale would bring home a female. That hadn’t been how things had worked out, though. Zale was gone. He’d like to take Shadow to see Zale’s tree, though. His body had undergone the rites and been buried in the family grove in one of the oldest memorial forests in the city. A sapling had been planted over his grave, a living reminder that all life ends and begins again in a never-ending cycle.
“I think your family sound nice. Did they really say I was the answer to their prayers?”
Again, that tiny note of doubt. “They did. They’ve been worried about me. I…didn’t take Zale’s death well.”
She hopped off her chair and walked over to hug him. “I know.”
He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, breathing her scent and letting it relax him in a way nothing else could. “It’s not so hard now. I miss him, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. You help with that. When I’m with you, it doesn’t hurt as much to talk about him.”
“I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”
“I am too, but it wasn’t meant to be. He died protecting River. He wanted her and all the other cyborgs to have a chance at a real life. If he hadn’t done that, maybe you wouldn’t be here, now.” It wasn’t until he spoke the words that they finally connected in his mind. Anger he hadn’t known he’d been carrying started to fade—anger at Zale, at Echo, even at River, who had survived because of Zale’s sacrifice.
Shadow burrowed deeper into his arms, and he leaned into her as months of grief and pain slowly ebbed away. Not gone, exactly. But they didn’t weigh on his soul the same way.
“I love you.” He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. The thought had barely formed in his head before it was out of his mouth.
Shadow leaned back and lifted her head to look at him. Her expression was schooled to careful neutrality, like all the light and laughter had been drained out of her.
Fraxx. “Shad?”
“You can’t. You don’t know me well enough.”
“Love isn’t logical. If it was, I wouldn’t have blurted that out like a heartsick teenage boy. But lousy delivery aside, I meant every word.” He lifted her hand and put it against his chest, over his heart. “Can’t you sense that I mean it?”
The mask vanished. She bit her lower lip and stared up at him with a heartbreaking blend of doubt and hope. “I can’t. It faded after I met Kade. I… I don’t know what you’re feeling right now.”
No wonder she was uncertain. “You might not be able to sense my feelings, but I sure as fraxx can. This is real, Shadow.”
“How can you love me?” Each word was as dense as a neutron star.
His answer came easily. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I was a killer. Because I did terrible things. Kade says he knows it wasn’t me because I wasn’t in control. But I can still remember it all. Every life I took. Every scream of pain and fear. And Kade has to love me. He doesn’t have any choice. But you—”
He stopped her words with a kiss. He understood. Maybe not all of i
t but enough to see the truth he’d been missing until now. She hadn’t forgiven herself. If he’d gotten to know her better, he might have seen it earlier, but he’d done all he could to keep his distance because… he sighed. Because his fathers were right. He was an idiot. He’d hung onto his grief even after it started to fade because it was easier than facing a life that was nothing like the one he’d expected.
He didn’t stop kissing her until she melted into his arms with a soft hum of pleasure, and even then, it took him a few seconds before he had the strength to break away. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression was softer, but he could still see a trace of uncertainty in her eyes. He’d seen it before, but he hadn’t understood what it meant. “I need you to listen to me. No interruptions. No questions. Okay?”
She nodded but stayed quiet.
He gave himself a moment to organize his thoughts into something he hoped was coherent. “I’m in love with you. That’s a fact. Never doubt it. Never question it. But love grows, sweetheart. It evolves and deepens over time. I’m looking forward to falling deeper in love with you as we get to know each other.” He leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth. “And as you get to know yourself better, too. I forgot you haven’t been free as long as the others here. You’re still trying to figure out who you are. I’d like to help you with that if you’ll let me.”
For the longest time, she stood in silence. Then she exhaled sharply and rose on her toes to kiss him, her hands latching on to the collar of his shirt to pull him down for a kiss. “Yes.”
She took control this time, her teeth nipping at his lower lip and her body rocking against his. Her fingers raked through his hair, her nails drifting along his scalp. Need flowed through his veins like molten steel. He tore his mouth from hers, one hand on her breast and the other tangling in her hair, drawing her head to one side to bare her throat. He knew what he’d find there, the mating mark Kade had given her the night before. Like the band, it marked her as another male’s property.
Something dark and primal snarled in the depths of his mind. Before this night was through, he’d find a way to mark her as his, too. Not to erase Kade’s claim, but to make his own.
He kissed his way down the line of her jaw, following the arch of her neck until he reached the newly scarred skin. He kissed her there, and she shivered with a low, needy moan that made his balls tighten and his cock twitch.
“Sensitive?” he asked, his lips moving over the spot as he spoke.
“Veth. Yes. Very.” Her words came out as a breathless gasp.
Intrigued, he traced the tip of his tongue across the bite mark and then let the tip of one fang graze the sensitive skin of her mating mark.
Shadow tensed and then shivered again. Her nipples were hardened nubs that pressed against his chest, and she shifted her body to straddle his thigh, rocking herself against him.
“I wonder…” he whispered, letting his breath fan over her skin. “Stay right here, sweetheart. I don’t want to burn dinner.” He let go of her to cover the dishes and turn them down to the lowest setting.
“What are you up to?”
“Me? I’ve got a theory I want to test.” He winked at her. “With your permission, of course.”
“Does it involve more kissing?”
“It does. And touching too.”
“Then by all means, test this theory of yours.” She smiled, the change in expression transforming her from lovely to breathtaking.
He spun her away from him before wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her tightly against his body with her ass pressed to his cock.
He swept her hair to one side, baring her throat. He placed an opened-mouthed kiss to the mark, and she responded with a perfect gasp of breathless need.
He shifted his hold slowly, his mouth never breaking contact. One hand slid under her shirt to cup her breast as the other moved down her stomach, pausing for an instant at the waistline of her skirt before he eased his fingers under the fabric.
Shadow’s only reaction was a sultry moan, so he moved his hand lower until he was cupping her sex in his palm, his fingers sliding deep into the slick heat of her folds.
She bucked against his hand, her arousal coating his fingers. “Denz …”
He swirled his tongue over the spot on her neck and then chuckled softly, letting the sound vibrate against her skin. “I know, sweetheart. You need to come. Don’t you?”
“Please.”
That one little word had his cock harder than hull plating and straining at the fabric of his pants. He pressed the pad of his finger against her clit. “Then let’s make that happen.”
She spread her legs and leaned into him, trusting him to support her. He shifted his body, sliding a thigh between her legs as she rode his fingers, her body undulating against his. He sucked and nibbled at the scar on her neck, pushing her toward her breaking point.
He hadn’t planned it, but as she reached her peak, he bit her. It was a love bite, nothing more, but her reaction was all he’d hoped for. She came apart in his arms, her voice lifted in a wordless cry. When the storm passed, she sagged against him, her breath ragged and her heart pounding against his hand.
In that moment, everything in his world reoriented slightly. Whatever his plans had been, whatever dreams he’d held, they were all still there, but now they all orbited around a new center. Her.
Shadow’s legs were shaking and her heart raced, but that wasn’t because of the mind-shattering orgasm Denz had just given her. Well, not entirely. It was the moment of enlightenment that had come when he’d pointed out something she should have already known. She was still learning who she was as a person. She’d been trying so hard to not be her old self—the killer with no will of her own—she hadn’t considered who she wanted to be instead. He knew her better than she knew herself, in some ways…and he loved her.
She stood up and turned in his arms so she could see his face. “I’m falling in love with you, too. The more I get to know you, the deeper I feel it.”
“And you haven’t even tasted my cooking yet.”
“Later.” She reached down to cup the hard length of his erection. “There’s something we need to do first.”
Denz made a semi-coherent noise she took for agreement, and the next thing she knew he was guiding her back toward the little table she’d been sitting at earlier.
“Here?” she asked.
“Bedroom is too far away. Here works.”
Knowing she could make the usually calm, cool, and controlled male in front of her get all growly and pushy was as intoxicating as the sharhal, and it had the same effect on her. She still had doubts about herself and countless questions about the future, but they ceased to exist the moment she gave herself over to the fire that burned between the two of them.
She pulled the skirt over her hips and let it slide to the floor. Denz stared down at her, his black eyes alight with need and his lips parted enough she could see the tips of his fangs.
“Keep going.”
She shook her head and reached for him instead, undoing the fastening on his pants with a snap of her fingers. “You first.”
“Now that is an order I’m happy to follow.” Denz skinned off his shirt and then his shoes.
She’d seen him shirtless before, but that had been in the days when he was avoiding her. So she’d never seen him like this up close.
He was huge. She’d known that, of course, but standing next to him bare chested drove the point home. She pressed her hand to the center of his chest. It was like pushing against a wall—warm, solid, steadfast, and strong.
He lowered his hands to his waistband but didn’t undress further. “Your turn.”
She pulled her top over her head and dropped it onto the floor with her skirt. Then she kicked off her shoes.
She mimicked his actions, placing her hands on the waistband of her panties, and then raised an expectant eyebrow.
Denz grinned and shucked off his pants, kicking them away an
d giving her an eyeful in the process. He was huge everywhere. His legs were like tree trunks, and his cock was so thick she’d need both hands to encircle it fully. Without a word, he fisted his cock and gave it a few slow pumps.
Need consumed her, and she tore off her last bit of clothing so quickly she heard the waistband rip. She stepped into Denz’s arms, expecting him to kiss her. Instead, his hands clasped her waist, and he lifted her into the air before setting her down on the tabletop. Then he kissed her.
There was no restraint in it. No tenderness. He claimed her mouth with a hunger that made her body hum. His tongue tangled with hers as she set her hands on his broad shoulders, bracing herself against his passionate onslaught.
His hands moved down her thighs, coaxing her knees apart until he was standing between them, his cock pressed against the seam of her pussy.
She lifted her legs, wrapping them lightly around the backs of his thighs.
He reached between them, working his cock back and forth across her pussy and stroking over her clit with every pass. She was already wet from her earlier orgasm, but this new stimulation made her even slicker.
When he took her, he did it with deliberate slowness, every muscle in his body tensed as he fought to stay in control. She didn’t want him controlled, though. She wanted him wild. She used just enough of her strength to pull him to her.
He uttered a strangled laugh as he buried himself hilt deep inside her. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Maybe I did.”
His eyes widened and something feral gleamed in their black depths. “Yeah?”
She nodded.
“Your wish is my command.”
He rocked back, withdrawing almost completely, and then drove himself into her with enough force to make her gasp. He powered into her again and again, his mouth mated to hers with his hands gripping her hips hard enough she’d have bruises for a time. It wasn’t exactly how she’d dreamed it would be like with him. It was better.
