“What?”
Her chest began rising and falling, those enticing breasts moving underneath her clothing. He wondered how they’d feel in his palms and how similar they were to R’Etor female breasts. His cock was throbbing. And leaking. “And Fucyu is going to…”
“T’Antor,” she huffed. “He said to call him T’Antor.”
Heriot’s brow furrowed. “T’Antor?” Why did she always insist on referring to his target this way? He’d been following her lead, using Fucyu’s secondary name, which was unnatural.
“Please, could you call him T’Antor, too?”
“Why? His name is—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “Stop. Please. Stop. The way you pronounce his name sounds exactly like a curse word in English. I can’t handle it anymore.”
A laugh burst out of his chest. Which was a nice distraction from the pain flashing through his body.
She lowered her hand. “Wait, were you trying to say earlier that minutes before I met him, T’Antor killed two people?”
“He tried to kill two humans.”
“What two people?”
“A male and a female. He assaulted a male and female human in the parking lot before entering the visitor center.”
She winced. “I…wait.” She shook her head. “This is probably a crazy question. Just a coincidence, but were they both blond?”
“They both had pale, yellow hair.”
“No… No. Oh God.” She covered her mouth. “Ron and Daisy. He hurt my friends!”
Hannah clapped her hand over her mouth and turned away. Tears she couldn’t contain began to flow down her cheeks. Heriot’s dark presence loomed behind her. “You’re sure?” she asked over her shoulder, her voice shaking. “You’re certain about what they looked like?”
Heriot glanced down at his fancy tablet and swiped at the screen. “There is a notice being relayed by your law enforcement of an assault and burglary that happened in the parking lot of the Hearst Castle Visitor Center in San Simeon. They have identified the two humans as Ron McDougal and his wife, Daisy McDougal. They are both being taken to a nearby hospital.”
Shit.
T’Antor hurt Ron and Daisy.
She stepped forward onto a nearby terrace and glanced down, to the rolling hills in the distance, the vast Pacific Ocean sweeping along the horizon and the tiny dot of the visitor center down below. From here she couldn’t make out specifics, but she was certain there was now a flood of activity down there, police everywhere.
Her heart ached within her chest, like an actual physical pain. Ron and Daisy were both hurt. And Daisy was three months pregnant! Her nose stung, and tears began welling in her eyes. Their smiling faces flashed in her mind. They’d meant it when they’d said they were going on a tour with her that morning. But they’d been assaulted in the parking lot! That was why they didn’t make it. Ron and Daisy were both good people who’d been nothing but nice to her in her new position as an assistant at the winery. They’d made her feel welcome there and valued, and… Dear God, the pain and fear they must’ve felt when they were attacked.
A sob tore out of her throat.
Heriot had followed her onto the terrace. Strong arms gently turned her around. He pulled her in tight, wrapping his enormous body against hers, her cheek against his hard chest. His chin rested on the top of her head. And she sighed, continuing to weep in the safety of his embrace.
“They could’ve been killed…”
“Yes, T’Antor originally planned on killing the humans.”
She stepped back slightly and lifted her chin. “Why didn’t he?” she asked, using her sleeve to wipe tears from her face.
Heriot shrugged. “I stopped the attack early. The humans will recover.”
“You were there?”
“No, I was still on my ship, but I was monitoring. I had my drone fly close, letting him know he was being watched.”
His ship? A drone? Humans?
Hannah let out a heavy sigh.
Really, the fact that this man wasn’t coming clean about who he was should be terrifying. Most of what he said was nonsense. She should be giving him a hard pass, but decency and honor seemed to radiate from every inch of him, despite his confusing exterior. Which was why he was holding her right now. And why she was allowing it.
He stepped closer and placed a finger under chin. She met his liquid silver gaze, a shiver of desire running through her body. She could spend forever staring at his white-gold beard, mustache and eyebrows. It was all so glorious. Masculine and majestic.
He stared at her lips again, like he’d done on the bus. Like he’d been doing since the moment she’d met him.
Her emotions were all over the place. She was supposed to be on this tour with T’Antor, but then she’d met Heriot on the shuttle to Hearst Castle. She’d just found out that the stranger who’d told her he was Ron’s friend had actually attacked Ron and his wife. And now…now Heriot was leaning in close, like he wanted to kiss her. And she wasn’t at all interested in saying no.
This was the weirdest day ever.
A man dressed like an assassin was holding her in his arms…and it was magical.
His big hand went to her side, touching her jacket. And she felt all sense of time and place melt away. All the anxiety and sadness from before was pushed aside as she stared into his darkened eyes.
It was just the two of them, there, in that moment. No one else.
His palm slid around to her back, drawing her in, and her breath caught in her throat. His hip pressed against hers and his liquid silver eyes held her gaze, watching her face intently, noting her reaction to the pressure of his huge, hard erection against her stomach. Her core clenched and her breath puffed out. A wave of heat burst through her body, leaving her desperate for more. More of his touch.
If he hadn’t been holding her up, her knees would’ve most likely given out.
“This is what you do to me,” he rasped.
Me? She wanted to squeak but somehow kept it inside. She did this to him? She’d led such an isolated life until she’d turned twenty-one and left her grandparents’ farm. Never in her life had a man stared at her so intently, like he wanted to take her home and devour her.
Heriot’s gaze dropped. His fingers trailed over her cheek, her ear, down her neck and across her collarbone. “Your skin is so soft and full of color,” he rumbled.
Color?
Then his hand moved and cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her hair, holding her still.
He was going to kiss her!
This big, brawny, slightly dangerous man, leaving so many questions about himself unanswered, was leaning in for an all-consuming kiss. And she wasn’t going to do a damn thing to stop him.
Nervousness and excitement intertwined in her mind and her heart began a double beat in her chest. She’d never been kissed before. Heriot had no idea the crazy sheltered life she’d led growing up with her off-the-grid grandparents. She’d missed them desperately since the moment they’d passed away in a car crash two years ago. But she’d been forced to grow up quickly, and she was still amazed that her life had changed so drastically to where she was now, making a grown-ass woman decision like this—to accept a stranger’s kiss.
Heriot’s silver eyes darkened, his lids heavy. Hannah’s lips parted, because she was so ready for this, so long overdue for a first kiss it wasn’t even funny. She wanted Heriot to be her first in all things.
He lowered his mouth to hers, their lips softly touching. Hannah shivered. She reached up and grasped his biceps, holding on for dear life. His lips brushed hers, light at first, and then the kiss began to deepen. She had to tilt her chin up all the way to keep kissing him, he was that tall. He seemed huge, and it made her feel small and delicate in comparison. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips and she opened her mouth for him. The masculine tickle of his beard made it all ten times sexier.
She reached up and slipped her arms around his neck. They kiss
ed and kissed and kissed some more. She never wanted it to end.
There was a loud coughing noise.
“Get a room!” someone yelled.
Hannah yanked out of Heriot’s embrace, her heart thundering in her ears. She looked over to see their tour group pouring out of the door of the guest house. Fifty pairs of eyes staring at them. Some people were giggling and pointing.
She put her hand to her red cheek. It was probably the most embarrassing moment of her life. She stood there, a deer caught in headlights, her lips swollen from a stranger’s kiss. Everyone on that tour knowing she’d just met this guy on the bus. And here she was, kissing him in public.
Oh God.
Heriot growled.
6
She placed a palm on his forearm, turning her back on the accusing stares, hiding her burning cheeks.
“Follow me,” Heriot ordered, his voice deeper than usual.
She nodded, grateful to get away from prying eyes.
He led her away from the sounds of the tour group, and they were soon standing behind a quiet, soothing fountain with a statue on top that was probably three hundred years old and straight out of Italy. Hannah glanced around, relieved to find the two of them alone again. She stood there for a moment, looking out at the unobstructed views of the rolling hills and distant ocean. Behind them stood an exquisite cream-stoned mansion that looked like it belonged on the edge of Lake Como.
It was breathtaking. A strong breeze whipped her hair in front of her face. She turned into the wind, her head buzzing with twenty different feelings and thoughts all at once. Why had she kissed him back, this man she’d just met?
Never had she felt this way about a man before, so sudden, so all-consuming.
Normally she was a very deliberate person, thinking every decision through to the nth degree before taking action. But with Heriot, the feelings she had for him were so overwhelming and intense, she was acting on pure instinct alone, which was a bit scary. She placed a finger on her kiss-swollen lips, her upper lip warm from slight beard burn.
Was that the right thing to do? What if her instinct was wrong?
That kiss…
She glanced over to see Heriot staring at her intently, his enormous arms crossed over his impossibly wide chest, his hip resting against the ledge of the marble fountain. He wasn’t touching her, wasn’t saying anything, just watching her and giving her space.
Which was nice.
Yes, maybe she should start a conversation with Heriot about what they’d just done. How he’d kissed her. What it meant and all that, but really, there were more important things going on than how she felt about some guy she’d known for an hour. Her friends were hurt, and a criminal was running around this estate.
She exhaled and stepped closer to him, forcing herself to reorient to the task at hand, pushing all thoughts of her first kiss from her mind. The hugely important task of finding the asshole who’d hurt her friends was number one right now. Nothing else.
“Wait,” she muttered, an important question blooming in her mind. She lifted her chin. “Wait…I just thought of something.”
Heriot looked down at her, his eyes redder than before. His skin was pink now, in fact, a bit red. The poor guy, his allergies must be bad.
He reached down with a huge white hand and smoothed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Yes?” he rumbled.
“How did T’Antor know about Ron and Daisy?” she asked. “He met me in the lobby at the right time and said my name and told me he’d worked with Ron. How did he know all of that?”
Heriot shrugged. “It is an easy enough trick. He scraped information from their tablets and crafted a story to tell you. He needed an unmated female, easily accessible, to force mate during his trip to the castle grounds.”
Force mate? Unmated female? Why did he keep using weird words for things? English definitely wasn’t his first language. “T’Antor had me with him because he’d planned on raping me, here, on the tour?”
Heriot’s eyes darkened to a magenta with silver threads. A growl rumbled in his throat. “Yes,” he answered. “He planned on this rape, as you call it.”
A wave of nausea ran through her stomach. Wow, she’d barely dodged that bullet.
“Why are you here chasing him? Was I right, are you a cop or something from another country, here to bring him back?”
He crooked an eyebrow. “No, I am not law enforcement. As I said before, I am here to kill Fucyu T’Antor. He is my target.”
She sucked in a breath. “Kill him?”
“I’m an assassin,” he repeated.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “An assassin?” He’d said this before and was still sticking with that explanation. Although, strangely, she found herself starting to find it believable, no matter how outrageous.
His hands went to her arms, and he pulled her in close, staring into her eyes, his expression so serious.
“What?” she asked.
“I need to tell you something important, and you won’t believe me at first, but I need you to accept this as truth.”
Oh shit. Although, he’d just told her his mission in life was to kill Fucyu T’Antor and she hadn’t batted an eye and hadn’t run away. So, she assumed whatever else he had to tell her she could handle equally well. “Okay,” she answered. “I’ll do my best.”
“Follow me,” he said. And then he was leading her off the terrace, back on their prior path and down the slope of the gardens, to the very edge of the estate, where the gardens ended, and the rolling hills of the central coast began.
He stopped and looked around, making sure they had privacy. He took a deep breath and stepped close. “I’m not of your species,” he said. “I am from the planet R’Etor. I have a contract to eliminate Fucyu T’Antor.”
She stood there for a moment, processing this ridiculous statement. Just staring at the man who had said this to her. The man she’d just kissed!
WTF?
Then she placed her hands against his chest and pushed back. “You’re telling me you’re an alien?” she spat out.
“Yes.”
Her jaw clenched. Okay, this was really too much. There’d been so much that was weird about Heriot, but his kindness and obvious desire for her and his luscious face and body had blinded her to the facts. But now…oh hell, no. “I just found out my two friends are in the hospital. And now you’re playing this mean joke on me? I don’t have time for your games right now. I need to stop kissing you, cut this tour short and go find out what hospital they sent my friends to and see how they’re doing. I need to tell the police what happened, that T’Antor followed me on this tour and we need to tell them that T’Antor is here, on the hilltop. And I thought…I thought you were…” Maybe he was a man she could grow close to. Even in the short time she’d known him. And now she was crushed, because he was lying to her.
“You thought I was what?”
“I thought I could trust you, but I can’t. Because, come on, you’re telling me you and T’Antor are aliens?” A nervous laugh escaped from her lips, because, come on. She wanted to shout at the sky in frustration. It was all so ludicrous.
“I am not human,” he repeated.
She looked around, wondering if this whole thing was being secretly recorded and later she’d find herself going viral on social media as millions of people laughed at her: “Girl Thinks Her Boyfriend Is an Alien!”
“What the hell?” she cried. “You’re not an alien. Sorry, but this is bullshit.”
“I do not tell lies.”
“Heriot, you’re telling me a lie right now. Literally right this second!”
“I am R’Etor,” he snarled.
She blinked at the flash of anger in his tone. But… “This is crazy talk. Do you have any proof? If so, prove it to me. Prove to me that you’re not human,” she said, wanting to end this charade right now.
“I am not human,” he repeated. “I am R’Etor. And I will prove it to you.”
“Oh, please
,” she answered, “you don’t have any—”
And then he smoothed his white hair away from his face, exposing for her the pointed tip of his ear she hadn’t noticed before.
Pointed ears?
She shrugged and snorted out a kind of half-laugh, completely unimpressed. “I did a better job last year with the fake ears I used for my Halloween costume.” She shifted on her feet and shook her head. “And I can’t believe a few minutes ago I was kissing a man who is now trying to pretend to be alien and is walking around Hearst Castle showing off his fake Spock-ears.” It made her want to cry all over again. She was starting to feel like the biggest idiot who ever lived. Her eyes darted left and right, trying to plan her escape from this guy she was beginning to feel unsafe around. She could see a Hearst Castle employee out of the corner of her eye, standing at the end of the path, near the edge of a guest cottage. This reassured her.
Heriot let out a puff of irritation. He pulled out his fancy, super-sleek glass tablet, the same one he’d been using earlier. He tilted it towards her, so she could see all kinds of pictures of their location that seemed to be shot from overhead. And an alien-looking language she couldn’t possibly decipher was scrolling across the screen.
Yeah, that was good, but… “That’s a great prop,” she answered, “but you could’ve had that made just for this con.”
He cursed under his breath, grabbed her arm and pulled her deeper into the garden. They went around a bend and farther from the tour group and the employee she’d noticed earlier.
She was so totally going to miss this tour. She just needed to accept it.
He pulled her into the bushes, and luckily there was a small opening inside. A brick wall that was seat height. Dense shrubbery all around. “The only way for you to believe I’m R’Etor is for me to show you,” he said. And he started to unzip his pants.
The Alien Assassin’s Stolen Bride Page 4
