Marked

by Elisabeth Naughton

  “Oraios,” he rasped.

  She didn’t have a clue what he’d said, but she loved his husky voice, the lilt of his accent. She eased the denim down his hips and swallowed back a groan as it skimmed his impressive erection, which was very obviously struggling to be set free.

  For a moment she wished she hadn’t thought to buy him underwear at all, then realized it might be a blessing. It was like unwrapping a gift. One that kept getting better with each layer removed.

  She was gentle as she pushed the jeans past his thighs, careful not to rub the denim over his injury. She knelt in front of him as she took the jeans to the floor and helped ease his legs free. The musky scent of his arousal flooded her senses as she worked, sending her libido into overdrive and shooting sparks between her thighs. Her body responded in turn, that sweet ache growing to explosive levels. She fought the urge to strip him naked right here and now and use him to extinguish the fire burning inside her.

  When he was free of his jeans, she nodded toward the couch. “Sit,” she managed in a voice rough with her own arousal. She coughed once to cover it, but knew he had to hear it too. “I’ll, uh, take a look at your wound.”

  She busied herself looking for supplies in the first-aid kit as he eased back. He didn’t speak as he sat on the couch beside her. When she had what she thought she’d need, she turned to face him and her eyes immediately ran to his hips. His legs shifted open, and that massive erection pushed against his boxer briefs, just begging for her attention.

  Oh, God. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her pulse kicked up, and all the blood in her body rushed due south.

  Focus, Casey.

  She swallowed hard and zeroed in on the bandage on his thigh. Her fingers shook slightly as she reached for the corner of the tape and slowly peeled it away. He drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment she thought she’d hurt him. But when she glanced up to make sure he was all right, she saw pure, unadulterated lust tighten the features of his chiseled face. Her gaze quickly swept back to his hips, and the erection she’d thought was big before grew larger before her eyes.

  Oh, man. She was in trouble.

  She refocused on what she was doing. Then gasped when she had the bandage completely free.

  There were no stitches. No evidence of a gaping wound. Just a thin red scar that would, she suspected, eventually pale.

  “Incredible,” she whispered.

  He glanced down at his leg. “It looks good, no?”

  “It looks great. You’re a medical miracle, you know that?” She ran her fingers over the scar and marveled at the tiny ridge the wound had left behind.

  His breathing stopped.

  Casey immediately pulled her hand back. “Oh. Did that hurt? I guess I just assumed that since it looked so good, it had healed complet—”

  His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he drew her hand back to his thigh, back to his wound and the skin she’d been stroking moments before. “No, meli. It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. Soothing. Don’t stop.”

  She glanced from his leg to his face and back again.

  She should stop. She was wading into uncharted waters. In her grandmother’s living room, for crying out loud. In a matter of minutes she’d be in over her head. She ran her fingertip back up his thigh, hovered on the edge of his boxer briefs and licked her lips.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “More like that.”

  Feeling bolder, she traced the hem of his boxers, slid her fingers along the downy hair on his inner thigh. The muscles in his throat constricted and his cock twitched beneath the black cotton so close to her hand.

  Point of no return.

  “Your fingers are like magikos,” he whispered. “You talk about how amazing my healing has been. Yet you seem to forget, without you, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  That was true, wasn’t it? She slid her hand up his thigh to the junction of his leg and hip, felt the corded power beneath as his words sank in. Gently, she pressed her thumb into his pressure point and was rewarded with a small gasp that told her he enjoyed what she was doing to him.

  “Your touch is more pleasing than any healer from my world,” he rasped. “Each pass of your hand gives me strength.”

  A smile pulled at her mouth. She knew exactly what kind of strength he meant, and if anyone else had pulled that line on her she would have scoffed. But with him? Right now? For reasons she wasn’t about to examine, instead of moving back, she shifted closer. And was rewarded as he reached out and brushed his knuckles across her abdomen.

  Sparks shot to her center. Her pulse leaped, and she glanced up into his eyes.

  Anything I want.

  “You must be tired from all this…healing,” she whispered. “You’ll have to tell me what I can do to make it easier on you.”

  One side of his mouth curled at the corner as he caught the playful tone of her voice. Arousal darkened his eyes. His hand grazed her arm, slid up to her cheek and gently caressed her skin. She leaned into his touch and held her own breath while his thumb ran over her bottom lip. “You really are a fantasy gynaíka.”

  It crossed her mind to ask just what he meant, but before she could, he was pulling her face forward. And suddenly she forgot any questions she had and gave herself over to his touch.

  His lips brushed hers, soft at first but with more ardor as the kiss deepened and his fingers tightened in her hair. On the second pass she opened to him without hesitation as his warm, wet tongue snaked into her mouth and stroked hers with long, seductive strokes.

  He tasted like heaven. A hint of mint, of the dinner they’d shared, of sin served up on a golden platter. One of his large hands slid down her back and pulled her closer, until she was forced onto her knees, straddling his hips.

  Her skin was on fire as he changed the angle of the kiss and his hands became more urgent. For a second she wondered if he was too weak for sex, then quickly dismissed the thought when he tugged her down and she settled on that monster erection she’d drooled over before. If he didn’t have the strength for it, she’d do all the work. No way she was stopping now.

  Her hands took on a life of their own as she examined his muscular torso and kissed him back. Her fingers ran down his black shirt to the hem, then up under so she could feel his chiseled abs and the silky smooth skin of his belly. His cock twitched against her, and she pressed against it in answer, wanting nothing more but to feel him deep inside her.

  He growled his approval. His kiss turned frantic. Possessive. His hands rushed to the buttons on her jeans. “I need to touch you,” he managed between breaths. “Need to feel if you’re wet.”

  She was soaked, but she couldn’t take the time away from kissing him to tell him that. As soon as his fingers found the button at her waistband, something inside her snapped. An urgent need she’d never experienced before. Suddenly she was wiggling against her jeans, helping him in any way she could.

  He wrenched the zipper free, pushed her back just enough so he could slide one hand inside. He bypassed her underwear and went straight to her skin, and she gasped at the first touch.

  His finger found her slick knot, already hard and aroused. He rubbed over and around until she broke free of his mouth, threw her head back and moaned in ecstasy.

  His lips slid over her throat. He bit down, and a lick of pain shot through her. Then he suckled the spot until she was moaning all over again. “Oh, meli. You are so wet.” His finger slid lower. Deeper. Inside. He groaned against her pulse. “And so tight.”

  Casey couldn’t speak. Could barely move. Her release was coming and she was powerless to stop it. Gripping his shoulders with both hands, she tightened around his finger and let go.

  But just as the wave was about to hit, his hand slid free and the pressure eased. He growled low in his throat and grasped the loose denim at her hips. “Need these off. Now.” He pushed her quickly to her feet and stripped her free of her jeans in one quick swoop.

  She didn’t have time to protest, and should have been
embarrassed, standing in front of him in only her sweater and low-rise boy shorts, but she wasn’t. As he lowered his head and kissed her again, she gave herself over to him and kissed him back while he pulled her close and that erection stabbed into her belly.

  “I want to touch you,” she whispered.

  He drew her bottom lip into his mouth in approval. While he took his fill, she reveled in his kiss, brushed her hand down his torso and slid it palm up into his boxer briefs. He groaned long and deep against her mouth as her fingers wrapped around his arousal. Velvet and steel filled her hand, raw power and the promise of mindless pleasure. She stroked up the shaft, circled the head, and marveled at the control she held over him as his big body shuddered against her.

  His hands brushed her breasts, slid under her sweater and into her bra. Her nipples tightened as one rough finger grazed the tip. His mouth nipped her jaw, kissed its way across her skin and settled on the soft skin beneath her ear as he played with her breasts and brought her to new heights of sexual arousal.

  Her strokes grew longer, bolder with every touch from his hands. On the downstroke she slid her fingers lower to grasp the twin weights beneath.

  He groaned against her neck. “You’re playing with fire. In a moment I won’t be able to stop.”

  “I don’t want you to stop. I want to know what you feel like when you come.”

  Whatever restraint he’d been exercising broke with her words. Her sweater was quickly wrenched over her head, her bra ripped free of her breasts as if it were paper. He bent, and his mouth captured first the right nipple and then the left, until she thought she would explode from just that attention.

  Just as she was about to beg him to finish her, he turned her quickly and pushed her to her knees on the seat of the couch. One big hand pressed her torso into the cushions so she was leaning over the back of her grandmother’s blue-and-orange-checked afghan.

  “Gods, you’re beautiful,” he growled at her back. His weight depressed the sofa as he braced one knee on the cushions between her legs and nudged her thighs wider. “I can’t wait to find out if you’re as tight as you were in my dream.”

  His dream? Oooooooh, yes.

  It struck her then that she should probably be a little afraid. She was with a massive man she didn’t know, in a submissive position where he could do just about anything he wanted to her and she’d be hard-pressed to fight back. Considering what those two guys had tried to do to her outside XScream a few months ago, she should have been scared out of her mind. But she wasn’t. Somehow, she knew instinctively Theron wouldn’t hurt her. And his erotic words were sending her into a complete mind-melting frenzy.

  One of his rough hands wrapped around her torso to cup her breast, the other clamped onto her hip. His mouth found her ear and nibbled her lobe until she wanted to scream. And when he pushed his hips into her from behind and rubbed back and forth, white light erupted behind her eyes.

  The pleasure was swift and electric and not nearly enough. She didn’t realize until moments later that they were both still clothed—he in his boxers and she in her underwear. He pressed forward again, retreated, teasing them both, mimicking what he would, in a moment, do to her naked flesh.

  “Theron,” she rasped.

  His lips slid to the nape of her neck. Trailed lower. He drew his hand down her spine as he rubbed against her again. Both hands found the sides of her underwear as his lips kissed the base of her spine. He lifted his head slightly and pulled the edge down.

  “Oh, yes.” Casey arched her back and closed her eyes.

  She was so swept up in the moment, she didn’t realize Theron had gone still behind her until she pressed back and met only air.

  She turned slightly to find him staring at her skin with wide eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His finger brushed over the lower left side of her back, just above her buttock. “This marking. Is it a tattoo?”

  She knew what he was looking at. And he wasn’t the first person to comment on it.

  She chuckled. “I’m too afraid of needles to get a tattoo.”

  When he didn’t respond, only continued to stare at her skin, apprehension crept into her chest. “I was born with it. It’s just a birthmark.”

  His eyes lifted to hers. Though he’d removed his hand, heat radiated from his fingers where they hovered over her skin. “This doesn’t look like a birthmark. Tell me about your parents.”

  He wanted to talk? About her folks? Now?

  Apprehension turned to wariness, and the skin near her birthmark began to tingle. She pushed up from the couch and turned slowly, sliding down onto the cushions until she sat and her mark was hidden from his view.

  His jaw was tight, his eyebrows drawn together until a deep crease lined his forehead. One glance confirmed what she’d already suspected. That heavenly erection that had been pressed up against her moments before was gone.

  Her skin prickled, and a blast of self-doubt at her near nakedness washed over her. She reached for her sweater, dangling from the arm of the sofa. “My…my parents?”

  “Your mother and father. Where are they?”

  Unease knotted her stomach. She pulled the sweater over her head and, by the time it was once again shielding her breasts, discovered he was back in his jeans, staring at her with an intense expression she couldn’t define.

  This was what she’d wanted to avoid, right? This awkwardness. Things had gone too far, and now he regretted it. Just what had happened to change his mind? He’d been all over her before—

  “Casey,” he said sharply. “Focus. Your mother and father.”

  She gave her head a sharp shake, unsure why her brain seemed so muddled. “My mother died just after I was born. My father…I never knew him. They had a brief affair years ago when my mother was studying in Europe. She came home after she found out she was pregnant. I…I never met him.” She glanced up. “Why do you want to know this now?”

  He ignored her question. “Who raised you?”

  “My grandmother. This is her house. Was,” she amended as she looked around the living room and a sick feeling settled in her stomach. She could actually hear Gigia’s disapproving voice in her head over what she’d almost done. “She passed a few months ago. Cancer.”

  His jaw clenched as he studied her with narrowed eyes. Then he uttered one word.

  “Skata.”

  She knew enough Greek to recognize a few choice swear words. And at that moment, Casey was reminded that he was a complete stranger. She didn’t know anything about him besides his name. Why had she helped him? What had actually happened to him? And what was he really doing in her house right now?

  She pushed up slowly from the couch as questions pinged around in her brain again. Ones she’d somehow—and foolishly—brushed aside earlier. “What’s going on here? Why the sudden interest in my genealogy? Just who are you anyway?”

  His expression softened. Just a touch. Just enough so those black-as-sin eyes engulfed her attention.

  Or maybe she only imagined they did. But for a moment, for a split second, he was the sensuous almost-lover she’d kissed and fondled wildly just a few minutes before.

  “No one,” he whispered, as he reached for her hand. “No one important.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and pressed into her skin ever so slightly, right over her vein, and though she knew it couldn’t be, she thought she heard a note of regret in his voice. “No one you will remember. Close your eyes now, meli.”

  And like a lamb being lead to slaughter, she did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Isadora smoothed the covers over her legs and plastered on a smile as fake as the cubic zirconium some human women went gaga over as she looked up at her father’s personal physician.

  The crease between Callia’s perfect eyebrows wasn’t a sign of optimism.

  Not that Isadora needed confirmation from the race’s greatest healer. She was growing weaker by the day. She knew it in her head, felt it in her bones. She j
ust didn’t understand why.

  Callia replaced the tools in her bag with quiet care. “No visible injuries. Your vitals are strong. Whatever agents you encountered in the human world shouldn’t be affecting you like this. Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  Now, there’s a question. How in the name of Hades to answer that one?

  Isadora twisted her hands in her lap to give her time to think of an answer, pushed her long hair over her shoulder and wished for scissors so she could cut the heavy mass. Tradition forbade it though. Females of the royal family were to remain untouched until matrimony. In every sense of the word.

  And wasn’t that just a kick in the pants? Not to mention, one of the many things she planned to change about the monarchy as soon as she was queen.

  If, that is, she lived long enough to assume her crown.

  “Of course not,” she said under Callia’s ruthless stare. “I’ve told you everything.”

  Callia’s expression remained stoic. Her pale violet eyes narrowed. It was obvious she knew Isadora was lying, but the healer wasn’t willing to challenge her.

  At least not yet.

  One check in the plus column.

  Only problem was, it didn’t do much to boost Isadora’s mood. It was foolish to feel inferior, considering she was destined to command more power than any other Argolean, but at that moment, in front of this gynaíka, Isadora felt like a speck on the floor beneath a dirty boot. As a healer, Callia had powers most Argoleans only dreamed of, and Isadora’s father loved to rave about the brains beneath Callia’s startling beauty. To the extent that Isadora was often of the opinion he’d rather have Callia for a daughter than the one fate had saddled him with.

  Her father’s greatest disappointment was that in the almost seven hundred years of his life, his only heir had been female. Female and weak.

  Callia finally broke the stare-down and finished gathering her things. Her long auburn hair spilled down her back as she moved. She wore slim, tailored slacks and a fitted blue jacket that looked stylish and bold. As most Argoleans were at least half human, and fascinated with human culture as a whole, their dress and mannerisms often mimicked those from the human world. The exception was the royal family, and Isadora in particular. Sheltered. Cloistered. Forbidden from crossing the portal or even looking through to the other side. All in the name of tradition and of upholding that which had been established over three thousand years ago.