Having moved around the car to meet her, Jesse cupped a hand beneath her elbow and guided her inside.
Surprise filled her when they entered. It was like stepping through a passage into another world.
The interior of the house, far from ramshackle, was beyond clean and neat and well kept. It was opulent. Thick rugs carpeted the hardwood floors and thick drapes covered the tall windows. The furnishings were modern, not new, but certainly in good condition.
A man stepped into a doorway at the far end of the narrow hallway where they’d entered. After nodding at Jesse in silent communication, he disappeared again.
Jesse guided her down the hall and into a wider hallway that appeared to bisect the mansion. Reaching a grand, curving stairway, they went up and followed another wide hallway to a room near the rear of the house.
Expecting to be shoved inside and locked in like the prisoner she knew herself to be, Jesse surprised her by entering the room behind her.
Without a word, he began to undress.
Erin gaped at him, trying to wrap her mind around his actions.
He glanced up at her after a moment. “You should try to rest.”
Feeling color wash into her cheeks at the comment, which made it clear that he didn’t have on his mind what she’d thought he had in mind, Erin turned away. She wasn’t wearing much, though, and she certainly had no need or intention of taking the gown off. Instead, she looked around a little hopefully for signs of a bathroom. There were two narrow doors along the wall adjoining the one that separated the bedroom from the corridor. After a slight hesitation, she headed toward the larger of the two and was rewarded with the discovery of a well appointed bathroom.
The door had no lock on it.
Erin studied it in dismay for a moment and finally yielded to her needs. When she’d relieved herself she moved to the shower, adjusted the water and, dropping her gown onto the hamper close by, got in. The heat of the water stimulated her milk glands. With a mixture of emotions she watched as tiny beads formed on the tips of her nipples and began to flow down her belly.
She felt a sudden urge to cry. What was the point, she wondered, in struggling on and on to keep her milk in production for the baby she might never hold in her arms again? The baby that might never suckle at her breasts again? It was nothing more than an irritant and an inconvenience to her, a constant reminder of what she’d lost, and of no use to Joshua. Even if she found him, he would’ve been bottle fed all this time and might refuse to take the nutrients and antibodies her natural milk could give him.
Fighting the depression and sense of hopeless, she massaged her breasts to stimulate the glands.
She jumped and then froze when the bathroom door opened abruptly, gaping at Jesse as he crossed to the shower and pulled the curtain back.
His gaze went immediately to her breasts.
She released them guiltily, and then blushed with a mixture of resentment and embarrassment.
It wasn’t as if she’d been fondling herself for the pleasure of it! Snatching the curtain from his grasp, she jerked it closed again.
He cleared his throat. “I brought you a clean shirt to put on.”
How thoughtful! And he had to jerk the curtain open to tell her?
“Thanks!” she responded shortly.
He didn’t leave. “I’ll just leave it on the hamper.”
“You could’ve done that without looking me over!” she muttered.
She heard the distinct grinding of teeth. He snatched the curtain open again. “I was just checking to see if you were floating face down in the damned tub,” he growled. “You lost a lot of blood.”
Surprise flickered through her. He’d been worried about her?
“Worried ‘bout the beast getting’ a glimpse of you?” he added after a moment. “Well, I’ve seen every inch of you, chère --tasted you too--and been inside of you. It’s a little late to be so damned concerned about me lookin’ at you.”
Anger surging to the forefront again, Erin slapped at the water, spattering his face and chest liberally with it. “Bastard!”
He grabbed her forearms and hauled her against his chest. “Bitch!” he growled, shoving his fingers into her wet hair and planting his mouth roughly over hers.
Heat spiraled through Erin the instant his mouth ground against hers, forcing her lips to part. Weakness and desperate need followed the heat as his tongue breached the weakened barricade of her lips and plundered her mouth thoroughly. Shivering, her arms trapped by his grip, she curled the tips of her fingers into his sides, settling fully against him and kissing him back with all of the pent up desire that had been tormenting her since forever it seemed.
He stiffened at the collapse of her defenses and then gathered her closer still, lifting her against him and pulling her from the shower. She uttered a sound of protest as he withdrew the pressure of his mouth from hers almost as abruptly as he’d claimed her, and then a sound of encouragement as he dragged his lips along her cheek to explore her ear, the side of her throat.
The heat of his flesh and both his and her own desire almost instantly replaced the heated water that had washed over her moments before. Finding her arms freed, she twined them around his neck, pressing as tightly against him as she could. His hands skated down her back, cupped her buttocks, massaging them as his fingers delved the cleft of her ass and then lower. Grasping her along the tops of her thighs, he lifted her.
A gasp escaped her as her butt settled on the cold surface of the vanity and then another as he bent her back and covered the tip of one breast with his mouth.
For a moment, reality intruded and the anxiety filled her that his suckling would stimulate her milk glands again. That concern vanished almost at once, however, as a bolt of heat shot through her, culminating low in her belly.
Releasing her breast after only a moment, he lifted her against him once more and strode from the bathroom with her in his arms, falling across the bed with her. The impact barely fazed her. It flickered through her mind that they would have the sheets thoroughly soaked, but she wasn’t in any state to care at the moment.
Already drunk with the delightful, rough caresses of his hands as they explored her, his essence, the scorching heat of his mouth, all that filtered through her heat fogged mind was that the sensations were so much more pleasurably intense without the drug that had been pumping through her system before when they had come together. Now, she was far more aware of his lightest touch, the pleasurable sensation of his weight along her length.
He did not pull away from her to remove his trousers. Instead, he settled beside her, his mouth and tongue driving her mad with want as he struggled with the fastening of his pants and skimmed them from his hips, working the material down his legs until he could kick free of the encumbrance. The moment he was free, he rolled over her once more, tangling his legs with hers, stroking her smooth skin with the soles of his feet as his hands glided over her body cupping and then massaging her breasts. He covered her mouth in a fiery, possessive kiss, pressing his body against hers and she felt the hard length of his erection undulating along her hip.
The strength and weight of his body, the heat, the solidness and breadth of his engorged flesh, and the silken feel of the skin that sheathed his hardness sent a thrill of anticipation through her, magnifying her need in a heady, dizzying rush. Returning his heated kiss with fervor, she shifted closer, feeling fresh waves of pleasurable sensation wash through her as the faint abrasiveness of his chest and arm hair slipped across her smooth skin. Being with him was everything she remembered, and yet surprisingly more intense without the drugs that had driven her to him in the beginning.
Her reaction sent his own desire spiraling out of control. His kiss became more fevered, more aggressive. When he tore his lips from hers at last and turned his attentions to her body, she felt the nip of his teeth along her skin and goose bumps burst forth, heightening and expanding her senses until a restless need to feel him inside of her began torment
her.
He ignored the increasing desperation of her attempts to urge him to take her, seemingly determined to explore every inch of her body with his lips, tongue, and teeth.
She sucked in a hoarse breath, digging her fingers into the hair on his scalp as he moved along her lower belly. The muscles of her belly jumped and clenched almost painfully as he wove a chain of kisses across it from one hip bone to the other and then nipped at the exquisitely sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. Dizzy with need, it took a moment for her to realize his intent. By the time she did, it was too late. He had pushed her thighs wide and wedged himself between them.
She clamped her thighs tightly against him anyway, her fingers tightening in his hair. Ignoring the tugging command, he stroked his fingers along her cleft and then parted her nether lips, covering her clit, almost painfully swollen with need, with his mouth. A sharp cry tore its way up her throat as she felt the heat and suction of his mouth. The tension that had been slowly but surely coiling inside of her shot skyward.
She gasped again, squeezing her eyes shut, struggling to stave off instant culmination, desperate to hold on to the pleasure only a little longer. The finesse of his mouth and tongue were delightfully torturous, however. Within moments she felt herself quivering on the brink of release, heard herself chanting his name, whether as a curse or benediction even she wasn’t certain.
She came unexpectedly, explosively, wracked by one shockwave after another of rapturous release. The stinging nip of his teeth along her thigh barely penetrated the liquefied bliss of her mind, but it sent a fresh, hard shockwave of ecstasy through her that tore another cry from her hoarse throat.
He shifted, moving over her while the waves were still pounding through her. Supporting the weight of his upper body on his arms, he pressed the rounded tip of his cock into the mouth of her sex. Her channel, still convulsing with release resisted his penetration. She spread her thighs wider, lifting to meet his second thrust, feeling almost faint with her gasping efforts to drag enough air into her lungs as she felt his hard flesh spreading her, delving slowly deeper.
He was gasping hoarsely himself by the time he’d filled her fully. “Now you are mine--irrevocably,” he whispered in a harsh, gravelly voice that sent waves of tingling pleasure spiraling through her.
With a tremendous effort, she opened her eyes to look up at him, but no thought of contradicting his claim entered her mind. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she lifted upward, closing the slight distance between them and pressed her lips to his.
Her mute acceptance seemed to send him over the edge of restraint. He began to move within her in hard, swift driving thrusts. Surprise flickered through her briefly as she felt her body instantly respond to his stroking thrusts along her channel. Within moments she was struggling upward toward release again, her body coiling tightly for the leap into glory. The bubble ruptured as she felt his great, sweat slickened body begin to shudder, felt his cock jerk inside of her. For many moments it almost seemed as if her soul soared free of the restraints of her physical self. Awareness of her body certainly vanished at the white hot explosion of ecstasy that mushroomed upwards and outwards and finally, slowly began to dissipate, leaving her as little more than a limp puddle of exquisite repletion.
She drifted for an endless time, aware of little beyond the harsh pulsing of her blood in her veins and in her ears. Jesse lay bonelessly atop her, however, and after a time she began to grow uncomfortable under his weight. When she began struggling to shift to relieve the pressure against her ribcage, he rolled off of her and onto his back on the bed beside her.
She grew cold the moment his heat left her. Shivering, she rolled onto her side to look at him.
He was staring at the ceiling, she saw, and wondered what thoughts were going through his mind.
His expression told her nothing.
Doubts, unwelcome and certainly not summoned, began to creep into her mind. She wasn’t sorry it had happened. She had never tried to lie to herself that she was physically attracted to Jesse--at least not since the episode in the bayous. Her body had been humming for his possession ever since and it was a relief on many levels to have worked that burr from under her skin.
But was he sorry he’d caved in to his own needs?
After a few moments, she slipped from the bed and went into the bathroom to clean up and dry off, shrugging into the shirt he’d brought her to put on.
It was his shirt and even clean a faint trace of his scent clung to it.
Her traitorous body hummed to life again.
Frowning, trying to ignore the fresh provocation, Erin returned to the bedroom. Jesse, she saw, had climbed beneath the covers. He rested on his stomach now, a pillow gathered beneath his head. His bare back and arms, browned from the sun, and his flesh supple and toned with muscle snagged her gaze, made her belly tighten.
There was no denying he was a beautiful--specimen of a male--whatever he was.
Swallowing her wayward thoughts with an effort, Erin moved to the bed and climbed in, rolling onto her side so that she was facing way from him. The silence between them hung heavily, though. She knew he wasn’t asleep.
She didn’t think he was.
She knew she should just let well enough alone.
They’d come together in explosive, wonderful sex. If she just kept her mouth shut, they had that much going for them.
Finally, mentally kicking herself, she gave up the struggle to let sleeping dogs lie. “Why did you come after me?”
He remained silent so long she’d begun to think he wouldn’t answer her at all. When he finally did answer, she regretted, as she’d known she would, opening her mouth.
“The objective of the exercise was to destroy the research the government had been doing on the Lycans--and to get my son.”
Chapter Nine
Erin was surprised at how much that comment hurt. The pain angered her, or maybe it was just anger at herself for being so stupid as to give him the opening to slice a little deeper?
Struggling to catch her breath at the suffocating weight of the pain, she tried to focus on what he’d said about Joshua, tried to fan the faint glow of hope his interest in the baby spawned. “I haven’t seen him since he was a few days old,” she managed to say finally, voicing the fear that had never been acknowledged but was never far away. “I’m not even sure I’d recognize him if I saw him.”
“If he is my son, I will know him.”
It took several moments for that comment to penetrate her misery. The moment it finally did, Erin rolled over and sat up. “You are such a complete fucking asshole! You know that? If he’s yours? If?”
Jesse lifted his head and turned to look at her, his face a mask of surprise.
Erin’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to pretend that just slipped out!” she growled.
Anger glittered in his eyes. “Exactly how am I supposed to be so certain he is mine, chère? We weren’t exactly dating at the time.”
“We were fucking, though, weren’t we? The last time I checked, that’s the way it was done.” She realized she wasn’t being completely reasonable. On the other hand, it was still insulting to have her character questioned. She wouldn’t have suggested it was Jesse’s baby if there’d been any doubt in her mind.
It dawned on her abruptly that she actually hadn’t suggested Joshua was his, much less told him point blank. He had assumed the baby was his and she had said nothing at all.
At least, he’d talked as if he believed the baby was his and she had assumed he had no doubts that Joshua was his.
Obviously, she’d been wrong.
“You were no virgin,” he growled, his own temper thoroughly aroused by now.
Erin abruptly dismissed the temptation to admit that she’d been wrong to pick a fight with him over the baby’s paternity. “And you were?” she gasped indignantly.
“That’s not the point.”
She knew it wasn’t, but she was beyond feeling reasonable by now. �
�Right. That’s what’s really eating you, isn’t it? It isn’t doubts about the baby. It’s wondering how you stacked up! Men!” Turning away from him abruptly, she pounded the pillow into a ball and flopped down on her side with her back to him.
“Tell me if he is mine, chère.”
Erin ground her teeth. “Oh, I just know you’d believe me … like you believed everything else I tried to explain.”
He grasped her shoulder and pulled her onto her back. “Did I get you pregnant? Or did they do it? Do you even know yourself whose sperm they used?”
Erin stared at him in stunned silence for several moments as that slowly sank in. In spite of all she could do her chin wobbled. “You weren’t accusing me of … of anything?” she asked a little weakly, suddenly feeling like a complete ass.
The darkening of his skin told its own tale. He had doubted. He had thought terrible things about her. Maybe part of his suspicions had been based on the possibility that they’d experimented on her and she didn’t know who’d fathered the child, but she could see his distrust of her ran bone deep.
“I wasn’t artificially inseminated,” she said wearily, trusting his hand away and rolling onto her side away from him again. “Believe what you want to believe. I don’t care.”
It was a lie, of course. She did care and worse, she strongly suspected, unless he was totally dense, he knew it was a lie. She didn’t know why or how or when she’d begun to care what Jesse thought of her, but she did.
* * * *
The sun was already setting when they arrived at the docks. Erin hadn’t been told where they were going. She resented it, but then she assumed they were going after the baby and she didn’t really care where she had to go, or how far.
The vessel she was led to--she wasn’t certain whether it would be called a ship or a boat--was obviously privately owned.
The name Juliette was scrawled across the bow.
Erin gave Jesse a cold glance.
He pretended he hadn’t noticed, grabbing her arm and hurrying her up the gang plank when she stopped to look the boat over. “Juliette?” Erin said questioningly when they’d reached the main deck. “This wouldn’t be the dog lady, would it?”
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