by J. R. Ward
Breaking off the kiss, Trez rolled over and brought her onto his hips. Then he stared up at her in shock and wonder—and pure, unadulterated lust. He was breathing hard, and his eyes, as they bored into hers, were both focused and strangely rattled.
He felt it, too, she thought.
“I know you,” she whispered. “And I’ve wanted you for so long.”
Dear God, what was she saying—
“Yes…” he breathed. “Yes.”
Trez seemed to sag in his own skin, and she could have sworn that a sheen of tears made his stare luminous. Then his body started to shake.
“I have to…” He cleared his throat. “I have to… be in you.”
“I need you.”
Bending down to him, she pressed her mouth to his, and then it was on, as she lifted up off him and his hands went to his slacks. With equal haste, she took care of her side of things, wrenching her own waistband open, tearing her own zipper down. Ripping, yanking, it was as if some other force had taken over her body, but it was a force that came from within her.
It was nothing foreign. Nothing that alarmed her.
An energy was moving through her, connecting her to him, amplifying her need for him, and him alone.
As if they had been separated and this was a reunion instead of a first time.
With impatience, she kicked off one of her boots and then dragged her pants down. It was awkward maneuvering her clothes, but she didn’t care. Neither did he. They were going at breakneck speed, her sex ready and open for him, his arousal hard and desperate—
The second she was free from her constraints, he stood himself up and she sat down—
They both shouted. And then she remembered no particulars, and absolutely everything about the stretching, the filling, the sex that roared to life. As she rode him, she was fully present and out of her mind, her body moving on its own, following a rhythm they jointly fell into.
“Oh, God,” he groaned as he tried to recapture her mouth.
It was impossible. Faster, faster, her going up and down, him thrusting up, the releases they were finding unstoppable forces of nature.
As an orgasm lightning’d through her, emanating out from her core, Therese gasped and then moaned. She tried to keep going, but she couldn’t seem to move right. It was okay, though. Trez kept pumping.
Even as he started to fill her up.
* * *
The fit was the same.
As Trez began to orgasm and then kept it up, his cock releasing jets into the body of the female on top of him, he was completely overwhelmed by the fact that not only did Therese look like his shellan, she felt the same, too. Her body was the same. The way their sexes locked and held… it was all the same. She even tasted the same.
It was his queen.
And she knew it, too. Somehow, she had made the connection as well.
Closing his eyes, he soaked up the sensations, refilling his empty spaces with them, his aching loneliness erased, the cold he’d been meat-lockered into falling away in the rush of warmth. With every crest of pleasure, and each pumping thrust, he was made whole… and when the desperation finally began to ebb, his first thought was that he just wanted to keep going. He wanted them both to get fully naked. He wanted her skin on his. He wanted to put his mouth all over her.
Except then he realized where they were. Their pants down. Still joined.
Trez stared up at the face above his. His female was almost too beautiful to look at, her dark hair loose and curling up, its binding lost, her lips red from his kisses, her face flushed and glowing. She was the most resplendent thing he had ever seen.
“You’re back,” he whispered.
“I haven’t left.” She lowered herself down and kissed him softly. “I’m here.”
“Yes, you are.” He took one of her hands and placed it on his heart. “You’ve always been here.”
Therese seemed briefly confused, but the expression didn’t last. “I must be crazy. How do I feel like I know you? Like we’ve done this before—”
“Because we have.”
“In my dreams, right?” She smiled slowly. “In my dreams.”
“Do I come to you?” he said, his heart starting to pound. “Did you see me when you were sleeping?”
As he waited for her to reply, he had the sense that he was on the precipice of a great revelation, something that would explain everything—the way she looked, the way she felt, the fact that he felt no guilt at all for what they had just done.
Because he did not feel as if he had been disloyal at all.
Because it had been his queen.
Her eyes searched his face. “It was absolutely you. In my dreams. You are the one who has come to me as a shadow.”
“Yes, it was me. That was me.” He didn’t know what he was saying, but this made sense… even as it made no sense. “Tell me about the dream.”
“It always starts the same. I am lying in a bed in a room I’ve never been in before. I don’t recognize anything around me, and every time I have the dream, I don’t remember where I am. There is a single candle on the nightstand, and a soft, warm breeze blows it out. The door opens, and a figure is there. I am not afraid, however, even though I can’t see the face.” With fingertips that trembled, she traced his brows, his cheeks, his jaw. “It is you, though. You come to me… and we make love. It is only when we are together that the room becomes familiar. It’s rustic and antique, and I am safe… with you.”
“You will always be safe with me.”
“I believe you—”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Trez wrenched his head to the side. “Xhex! I told you—”
“Oh, that you, boss?”
Shit. “Hey, Big Rob.” He put his forefinger to his lips and shhh’d. “What’s going on?”
“This door won’t open.”
No, shit. “What do you need?”
Blah, blah, blah. Something about liquor boxes.
“Listen, Big Rob,” he said, “I’ll be out in a minute. I’m helping someone. Are the police still there?”
“Yup.”
“Just hang with Alex, okay?” Alex being the name Xhex used in the human world.
“Okay, boss.”
Okay. Okay. Right. Right.
Meanwhile, Therese was dismounting him, his still-erect cock slapping down on his lower belly, the change in temperature along its shaft and on its head a really frickin’ unpleasant shock. To make matters worse, his female was efficient in her re-dressing, which was good considering someone might be able to get in the other way, but also a disappointment because duh.
Still, they couldn’t stay here forever, could they.
Sure, they could, a voice suggested in his head as she stood up and rezipped her slacks. They absolutely could. Forever—
Therese looked around. And cursed.
“Later, Big Rob,” he said as he got to his feet and put his pants in place. Turning to Therese, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“My purse.” She moved in a circle, as if the thing might be on the floor. “I think I—yup, I lost my purse when I was trying to get away from the fight.”
“We’ll find it.” As she looked at the door they entered, he shook his head. “No, let’s go the other way.”
He was not about to come out of the back into a crowd of his security personnel, the human police, and whatever arrestees were cuffed—with her. She was glowing in the way of a female who had just been properly serviced by her male, and not only was he in absolutely no hurry to share that glorious sight with anybody, he didn’t want people to judge her, either.
His reputation preceded him, especially with his staff and the working girls. They all knew the way he had been, and would never believe that he hadn’t restarted his philandering.
Trez took her hand. “Follow me.”
When she tugged at him, he stopped and looked down into her face.
His female smiled in a shy, secret way. “I… ah…”
Trez found himself smiling back at her. Then he gave her a quick kiss on that mouth. “Yes,” he whispered. “I feel the same way.”
CHAPTER TEN
Therese stuck close behind Trez as they made fast time down the corridor. Part of her was still back in the sex they’d had, reliving the moments that had been too quick, yet vivid enough to last a lifetime. The other part of her was in a panic over her bag.
All that tip money. Ten hundreds in cash.
What were the chances that, even if they found her purse, any of that load hadn’t been lifted? Nil. But that wasn’t the only thing that had been in there that she hated to lose.
She tried to recall the sequence of events. Arriving with Emile, losing him in the crowd when the fight broke out, and then…
“I can’t remember where I dropped it.” She shook her head as they hurried along. “I’m trying to think…”
Abruptly, Trez stopped in front of absolutely nothing—except then a panel slid back. As he dropped her hand and turned to the side to squeeze his big body through the relatively narrow exit, she had the feeling that he didn’t want to be seen holding on to her. Why, though?
Except maybe she was just being paranoid, and like that wasn’t understandable? She’d almost been shot, had lost her purse, and capped all that off by doing the deed in that corridor with a male she was convinced she’d seen in her dreams. As if things were going anywhere close to normal tonight?
A bar, she thought as she emerged into the club proper. They were behind the serving counter of a bar, by the liquor bottles and the stacked racks of glasses.
The lights were on in the huge warehouse space, and as her eyes adjusted, she got a clear shot of medics working on a man who was down on the floor—and it was not going well. The patient was pissed off and physically combative, batting away the nitrile-gloved hands that were attempting to diagnose and treat him. Meanwhile, in an opposite corner, human police had someone in custody, the handcuffed guy likewise arguing. There were two other people who appeared to be injured, although not critically so—and there were no dead bodies under sheets.
How that was possible, she hadn’t a clue.
There were also a number of men wearing “STAFF” polos, as well as—
Oh, my God, Therese thought. That was the savior who had taken the shooter down.
With all the chaos, she’d assumed the figure in the muscle shirt had been a male, but that was not the case. The female had a short haircut, as well as a broad set of shoulders and well-muscled arms—and those details, along with the even harder look on her face, had led to some conclusion jumping.
“What does your purse look like?” Trez asked as he held open a break in the counter.
Therese stepped through. “It’s nothing special. It’s a Coach knockoff. It’s brown? With some black patterning.”
“Let me ask Xhex. If it’s still here, it’s been collected. Whenever there are big fights, there are always dropped wallets, purses, watches, other things—only some of which are legal.”
“So this happens a lot? Jeez.”
“Not the shooting part.” He raised his hand as they started walking across the scuffed floor. “Yo, Xhex?”
The female looked over. And did a double take.
“Actually, why don’t you stay here,” Trez muttered.
Before Therese could ask him why, the female strode to them, her heavy boots making a loud sound in the wide-open cavern of the club, like a squadron of marching males. As she came to a halt, her dark gray eyes locked on Therese with such directness, it was like being cross-examined.
Therese glanced around. Took a step back.
“Who are you?” the female asked her.
Or demanded. Depending on how you took it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Trez said tightly. “None of this matters. We’re looking for her purse. It’s a—”
As he glanced over for some descriptive backup, Therese filled in, “A Coach knockoff. Brown and black? And I’m Therese. Nice to meet you.”
She put out her hand and met that stare head-on. Undoubtedly tensions were high because of the shooting and the female must work at the club in some capacity. But dayum. And no, Therese wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“Xhex,” the female announced. “Good to meet you.”
As the female accepted the palm that had been offered, the shake was curt and very strong. And still those eyes did not budge. Yet there was no hostility, exactly. No possessiveness over Trez, either. But still.
“Is there a problem?” Therese said. “And I don’t mean that in an obnoxious way. It’s just this feels…” She motioned between them. “A little intense.”
“I apologize. Let’s go see if we can find your purse.”
At which point… absolutely nothing happened. The female just stood there, those eyes remaining fixated.
“Xhex, can I talk to you a minute,” Trez said tightly. “Privately—”
He took the female’s arm in a grip, but she shook her head. “You don’t need to tell me a thing. I get it.”
As Therese frowned, the hard-ass female smiled a little. “This way to Lost ’n’ Found.”
Trez said something under his breath as they all started walking, but there was no reason to get involved in whatever was going on between the pair of them. Maybe they were exes? Or… maybe they were lovers?
A lance of pain went through Therese’s chest at that idea, but come on. In spite of the fact that she and Trez had just had sex—and she was convinced he was her shadow lover—his actual, in-person, non-lunatic love life was none of her business. And as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her, she decided she just needed to get her purse back and go home. It had been a very, very long night—
No.
The resounding negative came through so loud and clear, it was like getting tapped on the shoulder, and Therese even looked behind herself. At first, she wondered why some inner part of her was disagreeing about the fact that the combination of worrying about losing the only job she had, getting a thousand-dollar tip, setting boundaries with a coworker, getting in the middle of a shooting, having sex with her boss’s incredible brother, and losing a thousand dollars was enough to qualify for a long frickin’ night.
Except then she looked at Trez’s profile. His expression was tense, his brows down, his lips thin. He was staring at the back of the other female’s nearly shaved head, and Therese had the sense he was having some kind of conversation with her in his own mind.
One that maybe had a lot of cursing in it—
No, the voice repeated.
And that was when the meaning became clear. Somehow, he and this powerful female with the short hair and the dark gray eyes were not lovers. Never had been lovers. Never would be lovers.
The conviction was as rock-solid as it was incomprehensible—and, arguably, irrelevant. That Therese and he had just had sex, sharing what to her was an intimate act she did not take lightly, did not change the reality that they were nothing but acquaintances. Sure, their bodies had fused for a short, intense time. Yes, she was convinced for some crazy reason that she had dreamed of him. But in the cold light of—she glanced up at the ceiling… well, in the cold light of these fluorescent fixtures, none of that meant that their lives were any closer than they had been at the start of the night.
With a quick shift, the female—Xhex was the name, if she got it right—glanced over her shoulder as she led the way across the dance floor, staying far from the medics, the cops, and the groups of humans giving statements.
“The recovered stuff is back here,” she announced. “In one of my workrooms. The cops wanted to seal off everything. Treat this as a crime scene. Take evidence and pictures. But we are not going to allow that, of course.”
“Oh,” Therese said. Because she felt like she should say something, and the only thing occurring to her was, Holy shit, you people work here every night?
Trez shook his head as if he’d read her mind. Or maybe her expressio
n wasn’t as composed as she thought it was.
“Like I said,” he muttered, “it doesn’t happen all that often.”
Once is enough for me, Therese thought.
“In here,” Xhex said as she opened a door.
Therese went inside and was surprised to find herself in what looked like an interrogation room: There was a broad metal table with four chairs around it, and nothing else but noise-canceling, egg-carton-like padding on the walls—and wait, were those chairs bolted down? She shook herself back into focus. On the table surface, there was a clutter of all kinds of personal belongings, clothes, glasses, jewelry—
“My purse,” she said as she leaned across the stuff. But she stopped before she touched anything. “Is it okay for me to pick it up?”
That female’s eyes were on her again, even before she asked her question. “Yeah. Help yourself.”
Therese grabbed her bag and yanked it open. There was nothing inside.
Closing her eyes, she cursed. The tip money. Her burner phone. But more than anything… the keys she had tried so hard to find at the beginning of the night.
Her parents’ keys.
Even as she told herself she shouldn’t care, she did.
“Is your wallet gone?” Trez said as he looked inside at all the absolutely-nothing. “Oh… shit.”
“It’s all right. The keys were the only thing that really mattered. But I’m going to miss that tip money, for sure.” She glanced over at him. “It was going to help me move, actually.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have the money?”
“Well, this blond member of the species came into the restaurant with his shellan? He ate like… I mean, almost the whole menu, and after he was comp’d by your brother, he left me this huge tip. It’s okay, though. I mean… what am I going to do?”
Xhex nodded. “The money’s probably long gone. Listen, I’ve got to get back to erasing memories. I’ll see you both later.”
With a nod, the female took her leave, and the door shut behind her. Left with Trez and the Lost ’n’ Found, Therese took a deep breath. And another.
For a brief moment, she considered asking if she could go and scour the dance floor in case she could locate those keys. Then she glanced back at the table. There were a couple of key rings scattered among the crap that had been lost, but none of them were hers.
