by Lisa Ladew
Gemma stared, overactive mind on emergency shutdown, watching the enormous cat step out of the pile of linens. A memory of sensation flirted with her, of tan fur brushing against her as she fell to swampy, muddy ground. Green eyes locked on hers, and Gemma heard Riot’s voice snarl in her head. I sleep better in trees.
Gemma found that there was a place in her mind beyond speechless. Her mind stuttered as Riot slunk past her through the opening, the rolling sinews of his shoulders and flanks catching Gemma’s eye. Fuck, this man owns all the sexy. She glared at him. “You’re explaining that telepathy shit in the morning.”
Riot’s growled response prowled through her mind. Sleep tight. He leapt out the window and stalked up the tree branch, going back to rest in the spot where Gemma had first seen him.
Gemma stared at the shadows for a long time, trying to convince herself he was staring at her, but she could see nothing. Eventually, she made her way to the bed.
Where she did not fall asleep thinking of his lips on hers, of what had been under that toga and what parts of her body she wanted to put it on or, more specifically, in, first. It wasn’t until she was just starting to drift off that it even occurred to her - if she could hear Riot’s thoughts… could Riot hear hers?
A sly smile curved Gemma’s lips as she shook herself awake and ran through every single fantasy again, in as wickedly accurate detail as she could muster. That cat was going to have a very hard night.
* * *
Riot sat in the beech tree outside Gemma’s window, claws digging into the limb beneath him, as images of him and Gemma rushed through his head. They had started off shadowy and vague when she first turned from the window and climbed into bed, but just when Riot had thought the torture was finished and she was drifting off to sleep, it had started all over again. Sharper, brighter, and so damn hungry Riot’s gut ached with the emptiness.
Like the scene Gemma showed him now, her slender body in her silk camisole set stretched spread-eagle on her bed, wrists and ankles bound with black fabric that matched the blindfold over her eyes. Her plump lips were parted, her head tilted to listen for her lover. For Riot.
He prowled the edge of the room in Gemma’s mind, his mind too, naked and hard, starving for the sweetness spread out before him. Finally, Fantasy Riot could resist no longer. He climbed on the bed, between Gemma’s spread legs, but didn’t touch her. Fantasy Gemma’s head rose from the bed, as if her eyes weren’t covered, as if she could see him kneeling tall, his erect cock straining to reach her softness. She said nothing, just let her head fall back to the mattress.
Riot reached both hands to the side, started at Gemma’s ankles and lightly brushed his fingers to her thighs. Gemma’s body tightened, strained ever-so-slightly at her bonds, and she moaned on a sigh. “More.”
In his tree, in his puma form, Riot was tempted to climb back into Gemma’s room and give her everything. All of him. Only the fact that she wouldn’t know that everything included his heart, that her fantasy only involved Riot’s body, kept him from taking her up on it.
But he still had to fucking watch. Riot bit down on his tongue and tasted his own blood and kept his thoughts to himself. All he would do was watch.
Dream Gemma was moaning. Fantasy Riot had pulled her cami down, plumping up her breasts, and was feasting on them, licking and sucking. One hand had slipped under the hem of her flirty little shorts and Gemma’s hips bucked in a steady rhythm as he touched her.
Riot could almost feel her body under his, the soft flesh against his fingers, her pebbled nipples against his tongue. Dream Gemma froze, her mouth open in the sweetest agony, and cried out her pleasure as Dream Riot growled and continued his erotic torture.
Great fucking Cat. Riot closed his feline eyes and fully extended his claws, pushing them deep into the beech branch, until his pads ached with the pressure. I can’t. I can’t do it. She’s off-limits. His mouth opened and he panted with the effort of staying still.
Then a sigh, this one in the real world. Riot’s ears twitched to the window and he heard the rustle of Gemma’s bed sheets, the subtle squeak of springs as she changed position. The passionate image in Riot’s head dissolved into one he found even more tempting: Dream Gemma sleeping peacefully, free from her bonds, her head tucked against Dream Riot’s chest like it belonged there.
Even more tempting, and even more impossible. But he kept coming back to it, anyway, until he fell asleep.
Chapter 18 - Brothers At Arms
Riot woke the next morning, still as a cat in a tree, as the sun broke over the horizon and filtered through the branches outside Gemma’s window. He stretched and yawned, pushing his front paws far along the branch, sharpening his claws on the bark and whipping his tail against the turning leaves, knocking a few loose to tumble downward.
Marks in the tree branch caught his eye. The deep gouges where he’d dug his claws in with the effort to keep still.
One glance showed that Gemma was still sleeping. Small wonder, considering how long it took her to get that way. Every time Riot had woken, throughout the night, it had been to more of the hazy, dreamy fantasies like the ones Gemma had started with. Now, at last, her thoughts were silent.
Riot turned and made his way down the tree, claws digging into wood as he climbed from branch to lower branch. He ran his mind back over the encounter in Gemma’s room last night, before things had gotten steamy.
Gemma had known all along that he was an ex-con, had known for years. But wait… Why would she have been looking him up? Was she just indulging her natural curiosity, or had Gemma really had a crush on him in high school, like Riot had sometimes dreamed she did? Not that it changed anything if she had. Her fears and his unworthiness had always been obstacles. Now there were mountains in their way.
Great Cat, Riot thought, as he pushed off the lowest beech branch and landed solidly on the ground below. I am so screwed. And not the way she wants us to be. All he’d meant to do by staying was to help Gemma feel better. And okay, he admitted it, it felt good to be wanted.
Not to mention admired. When Gemma had told him that he, Riot, was the reason she had overcome one of her lifelong fears? Fuck. Outside of what he’d done for Baker, Riot couldn’t think of anything that made him prouder than the idea that he’d inspired Gemma, of all people, to overcome a challenge that had held her back. That feeling had kept him warm last night, even after the fantasies faded.
But his feelings weren’t the issue here; his obligations were. And now Riot felt responsible for Gemma. Not in the weighty way that he did for Faith and Baker, that reminded him of mistakes he’d rather forget, but as something that lifted him higher, that he could be proud of. It was a foreign feeling.
Riot wanted more of it.
So he’d promised her he’d stay all night, knowing he was tipping his hand, giving way more power to a switch than any shifter should. And the craziest thing was, he planned to do it again tonight. How fucked-up was that?
The voice in his head snapped him back to reality. Quit whining and get moving. Thanks to your dumbass promise to sleep here, you’ve got twice as much to answer for and half as much time to do it. Gotta be back here by bedtime.
He found his bike parked in the garage, which was not where he had left it. You’re the best, Resperanza.
Riot climbed on his bike and started the engine, ready to make shit happen, and happen fast. He had promises to keep, and finally they were the kind that made him proud.
* * *
Gemma woke to a chorus of birdsong after a night of such erotic dreams she almost felt like she should explain herself to someone. No, doctor, I would never do that to a real man’s penis. Yes, doctor, I understand that ten times in one night is excessive, but I can assure you he was smiling when I woke up. Plus what was I supposed to do? He bit me.
Gemma shivered at the memory of that particular moment in her dreamscape, when Riot had pounced on her from behind and sunk his fangs into the soft skin of her neck and - instead of the s
creaming terror she would have expected from a dream like that - she’d woken up moaning, with her hand between her legs, before drifting right back to sleep. How can something so bizarre - something that would have sent me into hiding a decade back - sound so completely natural? But the lingering pleasure of that bite wouldn’t leave her, made her want to stretch her muscles and wrap herself around Riot until he did it for real.
Gemma jumped out of bed and ran to the window to look outside, but the tree was empty. So she hopped into her Riot-less shower, where she couldn’t help going over and over the night before, how and where Riot had touched her, kissed her. Once she was dressed she stepped out to the office, and her eyes were instantly drawn to her Resonant, still resting in its sheath on the coffee table by the couch.
Gemma hesitated, wondering if she should wear it. She didn’t want to pressure Riot into anything, especially after last night’s mixed signals, but she didn’t want to not wear her Resonant, either. In some small way, it was like carrying Riot’s energy with her, his courage and integrity, and she liked that. Needed it. Plus, she wanted him to know she didn’t take his gift for granted. Damn right I’ll wear it. Gemma ran back to her closet for a belt and strapped the sheath onto it, grinning the whole time.
Ready now, she charged down the stairs and to the other end of the first floor, then down the next set of stairs into the basement barracks. Her feet hit the last step and she turned away from the giant rec room down the hallway of doors, looking for Riot’s door.
A door halfway down the hall was cracked open. She wasn't trying to sneak up on anyone, but she also didn't want to come barreling in and intrude. A figure passed by the door and she smiled. It was Riot.
Gemma moved closer, ready to push the door open, when she froze. Riot was at the closet, his back to her, a cooler open in front of him. As Gemma watched he pulled a zip-top plastic bag of green plant matter out of his bursting pack and tossed it into the cooler. Then another. And another. Two more. Gemma’s heart sank.
Weed. What in the hell? She thought he would do anything not to go back to prison.
Gemma shifted her weight backwards, moving out of the line of sight, intending to make her escape, but the floor squeaked beneath her. She heard a rustling in the room, then the cooler lid closing as Riot called out. “Gemma? That you?”
She threw a smile on her face to cover her confusion - like she’d wear while working a story - and shifted forward again, pushing the door open with one hand. “How did you know?”
Riot smiled at her then, a gently knowing smile, as he closed his closet door behind him. Mmmmhmmm. Too late for that. And then he stepped closer and Gemma forgot exactly who it was too late for. Riot’s green eyes swept over her face and he cast his voice low, like he was telling her a secret. “Each switch has a scent all her own, different and stronger than a normal human’s.”
Gemma wasn’t sure why it excited her to think that Riot could sense her without even looking. What it should do is piss me off. Now that I have a reason to sneak up on him, how am I supposed to do it if he can smell me? But instead Gemma asked, her chest quivering under her words, “What’s my scent?”
Riot breathed deep then, like he hadn’t even meant to but once she brought it up he was bound to fill his lungs with her. His green eyes seemed to flash, to go more green, just as they had in the dark of the shadows on that first night in the forest. His low-slung voice washed over her, gritty and sensual, as he licked his lips and replied. “Green apples, margaritas with salt on the rim, key lime pie.”
Gemma smiled to cover how her stomach quivered. Other body parts, too. I sound yummy. Want another taste?
But she shut her arousal down. He's hiding something, girl. Remember? Gemma dialed back her smile, determined to play the game just as well as Riot, to make her escape and get a minute to think. Damn, this man makes me dangerously stupid. “I’m going up for breakfast. You coming? I saw Jameson with a plate of eggs and bacon, and there were muffins.”
A door opened further down the hall, and a smiling male face poked out. “Did someone say muffins?” Gemma smiled back. She’d met Bryce, Flint’s younger brother, on her very first morning, and they’d become fast friends. Although she sensed it was that way for everyone Bryce met. The guy didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body.
She jerked her thumb at the stairway behind her, deliberately not looking at Riot. “Yeah, you coming?”
The two of them climbed the stairs, and halfway up Gemma heard Riot’s stomping bootsteps following. She glanced back to see him scowling up at her and Bryce, but his face cleared when he saw her looking.
Gemma smiled at Riot as she fixed a plate of breakfast from the options laid out on the butcher block island, hoping they could sit together and she could maybe glean some information from him now that her brain had had a second to recover, but Riot just nodded at her, grabbed a muffin, and headed back down the stairs. A few minutes later Gemma heard his bike leaving. Damn.
She ate, then headed up to her room, but voices down the hall caught her attention. They were coming from behind a door on the other side of the hallway and several feet down. As she walked closer Gemma heard the crack of billiard balls and Bryce’s voice. “Nice break, bro.”
The game room. Gemma had seen it yesterday, filled with a pool table and foosball and pinball and who knew what other entertainments, but had been too busy working on her translation to linger. Maybe she’d check it out… but Flint’s growling reply stopped her in her tracks. “Don’t try to butter me up. You’re not going.”
Bryce’s cheerfully obstinate grunt wasn’t far behind. “Someone’s got to. And it doesn’t make sense for it to be you anymore. Besides, I’m the only other one who’s been out that way before.”
The crack of balls sounded again before Flint replied. “You were a kid.”
Bryce shot back, his voice sounding more forceful. “I remember more than you think I do.”
Crack. Flint again. “I don’t like it.”
This time there was a clatter, like a pool cue being thrown onto a table still full of billiard balls. “You don’t have to like it. I’m going.” Whoa. Bryce sounded angrier than Gemma had thought he could get.
Heavy footsteps came closer and suddenly Gemma realized she’d been eavesdropping. Shit! She jumped back to her room as fast as a wink and stood with her back pressed to the wall beside her door.
She heard Bryce storm past her door, mumbling under his breath, then Flint’s slower footsteps as he closed the door in the hall with a sigh and headed in the opposite direction, towards the staircase that led to the far end of the courtyard, near his and Goldie’s room.
Gemma pushed away from the wall, intending to get back to work on the Keeper’s Book, when she heard Bryce coming back up the stairs. She ignored it until a muffled thump and a curse carried into her room. Then Gemma went to investigate.
She found Bryce standing in the hallway, his cheeks red. He was facing the door of the game room he and Flint had just been in, madly twisting the handle. “Open, dammit!” he yelled at the door.
Gemma stepped forward. “Everything okay?”
Bryce whipped around in surprise, his trademark smile flashing despite his obvious frustration. “Oh hey, Gemma. I left my cap in the game room and I’m late for work and I can’t get the damn door open. Do they lock automatically?”
Gemma shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She stepped forward and reached for the knob. “Here, let me try.”
She could see that Bryce was about to scoff, but as the knob turned easily in Gemma’s hand his jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. “What the hell?” He pushed the door wide and strode inside to snatch his cap off a lampshade, then came back at the same pace, passing Gemma and saying, “Thanks,” as he continued down the hall towards the stairs.
He had almost reached the top step when he called back over his shoulder, a smirk in his voice. “Sometimes I swear this stupid house hates me.”
And before Gemma co
uld be sure what happened - did he trip on the carpet or did it bunch under his feet? - Bryce went tumbling down the stairs, arms over head and legs pulled in tight. A big, bouncing, shouting ball, rolling all the way to the bottom, where he collapsed with a groan.
Gemma started after him, about to call for someone to help, when Bryce stuck his hand in the air and gave a thumbs-up. “It’s cool. I’m good. My fault.” He stumbled to his feet. “Next time I’ll watch my mouth- er, step.” And, with a shake of his shaggy-haired head, he made his way down the hall.
Laughing quietly, Gemma turned and aimed her steps back towards her room, two tasks on her mind: translate more of the Keeper’s Book, and discover the exact nature of Riot’s secret.
If there was one thing she knew, it was never to trust a first impression.
Chapter 19 - Means Of Destruction
After another day of work and a second night of spying flashing green eyes in the tree outside her window, Gemma was spending the late morning in her office, still painstakingly translating. Suddenly she sat up straight on her comfy sofa and looked at the Keeper’s Book again. Does that say what I think it does? She snatched up her notebook and burst out of her room, rushing down to the main floor in hopes of finding someone, anyone.
She skidded into the living room to find Cora, Goldie, and Jameson. Flint was clattering around the kitchen, probably working on lunch. “You guys will never guess what happened!”
Gemma sat down on the couch to catch her breath as Flint came in, wiping his hands on a towel. Goldie had revealed to Gemma yesterday that Flint’s animal was a huge grizzly bear, and somehow Gemma hadn’t even batted an eye. It made perfect sense. Now it was all she could see as the huge male lumbered over and sat down next to his mate, a curious look in his chocolate eyes as he fixed them on Gemma and the books she held. “What is it?”
