He would go to them now. He would take her—try to take her—with him.
“They needed me last night,” he said, an unreadable gleam in his eyes, pale green and all wolf. “Today, they can do without me. Because what they need—what I need—is to get to the bottom of this. With you.”
The startlement lasted only an instant. She grabbed up his words, and she took that step. “You’re not going.” Not returning to the city, not taking her in.
He shook his head again, and his expression—set in that groomed face with its groomed hair and thin veneer of civilization—had never looked more wild. More ready. “We’re doing this together.”
“Your pack?”
“They’re doing what they have to. I’m doing what I have to. And you—Jet. You’re part of that, too.”
“Am I?” she asked. Challenging him, in her way. “After I tried to take you down?”
He smiled, with those wild eyes. “But you couldn’t do it, could you?”
“I chose not to.” Still challenging, if only in the subtle posture of her shoulders, the intensity of her eye. “I’ll save my pack in my own way, that I trust.”
“Exactly.” Another step closer. “And I do this my own way.” His hands tightened into brief fists; for that instant, she glimpsed a vulnerability—an uncertainty. Only an instant, before conviction returned. “This is the only way to help you…to put brevis back together. The best way to stop Gausto. He won’t expect it. He thinks of me as a suit and tie and leather briefcase. He forgets what I am.”
She bared her teeth at him, briefly. “Who we are.”
His voice bottomed out. “Are we?”
“Uncluttered,” she reminded him, and stepped closer. He stiffened—holding back, because his human mind was so very cluttered, that was easy to see. Wanting her, wanting to do what was right, unable to see clearly that those things could be one and the same. For now. For always, regardless of what happened after. What choices they made.
No, Gausto’s lackeys had not known this man. She had been foolish to listen to them in the desert, stricken and reeling with what they had just done to her.
But they had not known him, while Jet…
Jet knew this man.
Chapter 13
Uncluttered.
The gift of Jet: a new concept. What brevis wanted of him didn’t necessarily define what he should do. And this new uncluttered heart…it could see that fact clearly.
Who the hell knew?
Jet, barely clothed in the first shirt Nick could grab—material too thin to hide the detail of her body, draping to show hints of athletic curve beneath proud shoulders—Jet knew. Jet, fierce and proud, not intimidated by Gausto or by her situation. Outnumbered in a strange land, without resources…without true knowledge of this aspect of herself.
But Jet knew what she wanted, that too was clear.
She looked at him with the morning light spreading over her shoulders and glinting off her crisp black hair, whiskey gold eyes catching the diffuse waking sun so that the glow seemed to come from within. “We do this together.”
His words, but repeated back at him with a difference in intent. Nick held his ground as she came right up to him, bare feet silent on the tile—stopped only inches away and then studied his face.
Just as she’d done the first time they met, only then her gaze had been impulsive…inscrutable. This time, it held heat. She stood so close, so barely not touching him…so there. Her body, her scent, her warmth. The very tickle of her presence. She wasn’t Sentinel; she had no sweeping trace, no reaching power.
But she had presence, and it touched him—his heart kicking up into overdrive, his skin tightening to a startlingly sensitive degree. He should have said something, but found himself stricken dumb. He should have stopped her…
But he didn’t want to.
She leaned closer; her breath washed over his neck. He closed his eyes, so lost in that simple sensation that he could only clench his hands into fists and just barely hold himself back.
The Sentinels were his people. But Jet…
Jet was his pack.
And she knew it.
Mine, now. Ours. Jet nuzzled him; his breath hitched. She licked at the edge of his jaw; he stopped breathing altogether.
Her hands found his body, molding themselves to the long, lean muscle covering his ribs, flattening at the planes of his chest. She rubbed lightly across flat nipples, watching his face—his eyes closed, and his expression might have been pain.
But probably not.
He didn’t reach for her. He still held himself in that control. Maybe he didn’t know how to free himself.
Jet knew. Things human were still new and strange—but instinct lay close to the surface, and Jet knew how to do instinct. She let her hands find their own way, happy at the open snap of the shorts. She let her body press up against his, aching for the touch of his skin.
“Jet,” he said, a strained whisper.
She reached into his shorts, running her hands along the smooth flesh of his buttocks—tense unto trembling, so tight, so perfect for pulling him closer. He made a desperate noise as their bodies pressed close, and Jet wrapped one leg around him, pulling them even closer—and still he didn’t reach for her, so she let herself arch back, pleasuring in the stretch, in the trust of leaving herself so open to him—in the heightened angle of where they met through his shorts. Either she’d fall, or—
He caught her. One hand hooked behind her back, he held her with no effort at all, and the other hand landed under the shirt on the flat of her stomach…possessing her. Jet arched into that, too. “See?” she whispered. “Be free.”
“You don’t want that,” he said harshly. “You don’t know what—”
But Jet knew. She pulled herself upright, an effortless motion, found they’d half dislodged his shorts…took advantage of it, swiftly untwining her leg and just as swiftly tugging that clothing away. And then she touched him, held him…stroked him.
“Jet—” He would have stopped her. Barely breathing, every muscle clenched and trembling with response, and he would have stopped her.
She stopped him, instead. “I do want,” she said. “And I know it. So do you.” She laughed, a little breathless—all that heat sparking around inside her, all the aching emptiness and need. “I have been a wolf with wolves, Nick Carter. Do you think I cannot handle a man?”
He growled, deep in his chest; he jerked her in close and threaded his fingers through her hair and kissed her—and if at first she wasn’t sure about mouth and lips and tongue, she never doubted that she wanted more of it. As fiercely as he came at her, she drove back at him, grabbing at his shoulders, his arms, his back…it only inflamed him, and this time when she arched back from him, he took the invitation, pushing the oversize T-shirt out of the way so his hands could have her skin—and this time, when she cried out her need, he was the one who grabbed her tighter, pushing against her in ways that made her vision recede to nothing but darkness and sparks.
She lost her language, then—she made a pleading sound, pleasure and exquisite need tangled together. They stumbled a few steps and ended up on the floor, and his hands whispered over her skin, stroked her body—drew from her such intensity of feeling that she quite suddenly knew she’d been wrong. She couldn’t handle this at all. She had no idea—
The want drove her. She tugged at him, twisting within his hold. Hands and knees, as close as she could get to the way it should be.
He froze; for an instant of breathless no, no, no, don’t go she thought she’d done the wrong thing, something to make him think again, and take him back to the place where he forgot how to be free—but with a harsh sound, he hooked a hand around her hip, tumbling her to her side—just rough enough so she resisted it, a snarl of protest and a lunge forward. Just as fast, he pulled her to him, tugging her in tight—his breath at the side of her neck, his teeth at her shoulder…his hand splaying low just where all her ferocity curled into oh, pleas
e—
She cried out, all protest forgotten, all thought fled. And then he found her ready and he took her from behind and she keened with it, astonished and startled at the feel of him within her. His breath came hard, his teeth resting against her skin, and she snarled protest as he withdrew—she reached behind, her hands scrabbling against his buttocks, urging oh, please and then crying out pleasure when he filled her again, his grunt in her ear sounding like pain but so very far from it. And again, and again, while all the sensations built and tightened and sent Jet keening into demand and joy with every thrust, reveling as his breath came harsher and less controlled until a sound of pure deep pleasure finally broke free. Only chance, then, as they moved and clawed and thrust, that her hand found opportunity between them, reaching him—stroking.
He made a surprised noise. A beyond endurance noise, a primal noise, and he embraced her close and tight as he drove wildly from behind, hands just where they needed to be, touching her just so, and Jet—
She—
Oh, please—
A wild cry, as her body came apart around her—even as he grabbed her close and hard, jerking into her, his fingers gone splayed and stiff, astonishment in his voice.
They trembled through the aftershocks of it into another pleasure altogether. Still close, still tight, still entwined, his body wrapped around hers and his panting breath at the back of her head, his hands still intimate and possessive—and her hands over his, keeping them that way.
Still touching her. Still claiming her. Still holding a body that would never, ever be the same.
Not, Jet realized suddenly, free. No longer free in the slightest.
Completely, totally, irrevocably bound.
Free.
Nick took the deepest of breaths, his skin brushing Jet’s with the movement.
Free, finally, to do what needed to be done. Not without responsibility…but months of preparation had given him people to depend on. Lyn would handle brevis—Lyn could handle brevis. She, among all of them, would know who could be trusted and who couldn’t.
While Nick himself suddenly understood Dolan Treviño’s willingness to go rogue in the field, his tendency to stray far outside the parameters of his assignments. Because right here, right now, Nick should contact Annorah again; he should try his cell service, check the phone…drive down the road to use the same pay phone Jet had used the night before.
Except…
Annorah. He reached out to her without thinking, following up on sudden realization. For Jet had splashed an overload of messages across brevis the night before. And yet…
Nick? She sounded distracted. Not surprising. You okay?
Fine, he said, keeping his thoughts as private as possible—keeping from her the sense of Jet still encompassing him, her warm bottom tucked up against him, their legs tangled…her lips and teeth nibbling at the sensitive skin at the inside of his wrist, making his fingers twitch with pleasure. Annorah, have you heard of any messages left on my behalf last night?
Her brief silence tasted baffled, and it was all he needed to know. Do you want me to check on it?
No. Triage your time. That’s answer enough.
Because brevis should have been buzzing with it. Listening to each other’s messages, realizing the same woman had left them all, realizing she wasn’t on the Sentinel roster. The moment he reached Annorah, there should have been questions.
And that meant brevis communications were still compromised.
And that meant he had no idea how deep it went; it meant he couldn’t tell Annorah anything else. It meant communications were completely compromised. Trusting Annorah and Lyn meant nothing if someone had the means to eavesdrop on their conversations—and over this distance, it wasn’t unheard of, no matter Annorah’s skill.
They were on their own. No calling for backup, no warning brevis what he knew, what he had in mind. No heading into Tucson; if Gausto found out—and he would find out—he’d take it out on Jet. He still had that amulet.
And if Nick didn’t show up at Gausto’s place, then…he’d take that out on Jet as well.
Jet licked the inside of his elbow—a tender-fierce gesture, possessive as hell. “Who was that?”
His hand had been on its way along her hip, cupping the curve of her, reveling in soft skin and sleek muscle—but now it stilled. “You heard that?”
“You,” she said. “Talking to someone.”
“You shouldn’t—” he started—but stopped. Shouldn’t what? Have been able to hear his exchange with Annorah? Right. Shouldn’t exist, for that matter. Wouldn’t have, if Gausto hadn’t toyed with her very nature.
There was no telling how many ways it had changed her.
When a Sentinel had his or her first sexual encounter with another Sentinel, it changed everything. Initiation, it was called, and in that one moment, an individual’s powers achieved fruition…and new powers sometimes bloomed.
But Jet was no Sentinel. Jet wasn’t even close. And Nick had felt nothing of initiation in their encounter, or in her calm aftermath.
Nick put some attention back to his hand. Jet shifted into the touch, gorgeous ass settling against him; for an instant, he lost his train of thought. His body had no such problem—given what it wanted, it now only wanted more. She murmured surprise as he grew hard, still within her, and tipped her hips into the sensation.
He stopped her. “Heart,” he said, “I’m trying to have a brain.”
Her silence came puzzled.
“I can’t think when you move like that,” he told her. “No more than you can think if I do this.” So soft, so ready…she shifted her leg for him, utterly unselfconscious, and that in turn caressed the entire length of him, and he in turn thrust into the renewed pressure, and Jet moaned, and—
“Hell,” Nick said desperately. He clamped a hand on her hip; he clenched his legs and butt, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “Could you…” he said, and grasped at scattering but important concepts, teeth gritted as Jet gently spasmed around him, squirming ever so slightly. “Could you hear us this morning? Right after we—ah—got back?”
“Nothing,” Jet said, breathless. Breathless and something else—he didn’t have to see her expression to know it held that same wild child mix of determination and playfulness he’d glimpsed upon her invitation to romp only the day before.
He closed his eyes. Think. Surely he could think. All he had to do here was pull away from her—“This,” he said. Can you hear this?
“Can you feel this?” she responded, doing something with inner muscles that wrenched a gargling noise from him, and again he quivered, and suddenly found his hand down at her soft self, holding her as she held him, fingers gentle and insistent and seeking entrance made impossible because he only encountered himself, already filling her and damn, she moved against him and she knew what she was doing, exactly what she was doing, only the tiniest whisper of pressure when any more would have—damn—
“I—” he said, and had no idea why. “We—” Control. Surely he could—
“I can hear you,” she whispered, and clenched around him.
“I—”
“We,” she said fiercely, and did it again.
“Jet—”
“We,” she said, high and breathless and hell, yes, she did it again.
And Nick shouted harsh surrender, and gave in to the we.
Chapter 14
Nick sat at the table over a cup of coffee, damp from a shower and listening to Jet croon to herself in the guest shower down the short hall, a carefree song with a feral edge.
Brevis was under attack, and he had taken a time-out for not one but two quickies on the living room floor.
Brevis was under attack, and Nick not only wasn’t there to help, he had no intention of returning to that compromised situation.
He rummaged around inside himself, looking for the guilt…not finding it.
I’m doing what’s right.
For himself, for Jet…even for br
evis.
Harder to look away from what he’d done with a woman who didn’t even know what it was to be a woman. Not a virgin, no—her previous life hadn’t left her one. But not a person long enough to know what sex meant to her or what she even wanted it to mean to her. Just someone with a healthy appetite who knew what she wanted and how to get it and who should have been able to depend on him for restraint.
From the shower, she called, “Do you want to do it again?”
No!
Silence. No movement under that water. Hurt.
Yes, dammit! He gusted a sigh out onto the coffee, stirring the dark surface. But not now. Now, we have to deal with Gausto.
The water shut off. “Now, we deal with Gausto,” she agreed, shoving the shower curtain aside. In short order, she walked into the kitchen, scrubbing the towel over her hair, gloriously naked.
Nick resigned himself to a permanent hard-on.
She could hear him; she couldn’t make herself heard. What else they had, Nick couldn’t tell. Given time, they’d figure some of it out for themselves. But for the moment what resonated between them was the rich, deep satisfaction of their lovemaking…and the craving for more.
Jet moved around the kitchen without care, though her skin pebbled with goose bumps and her breasts drew up tight. “No wonder this body needs clothes,” she said. “Not enough fur.”
Wouldn’t she just be surprised to learn how hard most women worked to remove every bit of excess hair.
“Will we kill him?” she asked, reaching for her own mug, and for the carton of mixed berry juice in the refrigerator. In spite of their time together, the morning was still only starting, sun-hot sage and cactus and creosote just barely scenting the air.
Her casual attitude startled him. “We shouldn’t,” he said. Gausto answered to his Septs Prince, the continentwide leader who had done little more than slap his hand so far, giving him chance after chance to redeem himself. Nick understood it now, finally—that the Septs Prince wanted these things done, these chances taken…he wanted the big wins that Gausto was always promising him, the advantages gained.
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