Her cup runneth over when he came on the heels of her climax—literally—but she was too satisfied and too tired to worry about the stickiness at the moment. She allowed herself to keep right on floating downward until she reached total oblivion.
Chapter Ten
Lucien hadn’t actually intended to do anything beyond warning the others off of his woman until a more appropriate time to claim her—when she was no longer in danger and no longer a client they were supposed to be protecting. He forgot all about that as soon as she stumbled out of the bedroom in her t-shirt and panties, still flushed from sleep with her hair in a tangle.
She looked like she’d just been thoroughly fucked when she left the room and that was all it took to connect the dots in his overheated brain and have him operating on instinct rather than with any intelligence. There was certainly no chance of regaining his equilibrium once he touched her. Nothing would do then but to complete the steps his fried brain had determined to be necessary to ward the others off of her.
Unfortunately, his satisfaction at having claimed her, marked her thoroughly as his own, and sewn his seed in what he knew to be a fertile valley was so profound a release of tension that he did something he would never have done otherwise. He fell asleep.
He was aroused a little while later by some sound that seemed out of place. At once, he was alert. The scent of sex distracted him briefly but, at the same time, it aroused his protective instincts and rather than roll over on top of Laurie for another go round as his body was urging him to do, he bounded out of the bed and searched the room with his gaze for the threat he’d sensed.
A frown drew his dark brows together when he saw the room was empty except for him and Laurie. Still unconvinced, he moved stealthily to the door and opened it.
Something hard slammed into his face the moment he cracked the door.
He didn’t identify it as Basil’s fist until he saw Basil’s furious face on the other side of the brick that had struck him and rocked him back on his heels.
“What the …?” Remembering Laurie was asleep before he bellowed the question, Lucien stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
Basil had already begun to shift when he returned his attention to him.
“Not here, you fucking idiot!” Lucien growled, jerking his head toward the bedroom where Laurie lay—fortunately dead to the world at the moment, but that wasn’t going to last long if they fought a battle in the living room!
The communication seemed to penetrate Basil’s beast mind, to Lucien’s relief. Turning, he stalked toward the outer door.
Lucien followed him, punching him in the back hard enough when he reached the edge of the porch to send him flying off of it to sprawl in the yard face first. He came up spitting dirt and instantly shifted to his monster side.
“That’s for the fucking sucker punch at my door!” Lucien snarled. “And we’re still too close to settle this.”
“What the fuck?” Damien and Kane demanded almost in unison as they reached the yard in front of the cabin.
“I’d suggest you ask Basil, but he’s decided on taking the beast form ….”
“Is this why you two didn’t fucking relieve us …?” Damien broke off as the scent of sex wafted to him from the cabin.
Kane caught the scent at the same time and both of them glared confrontationally at the two men they’d met up with.
Only one scent mingled with Laurie’s, though, and it wasn’t Basil’s. Damien saw red. Before he could even consider whether he wanted to shift or not, his beast emerged. Within seconds all four had shifted into the man-beast form they despised.
Some remnant of their human sides remained, however, enough that they knew they couldn’t settle their grievance with Lucien at the cabin where Laurie was bound to be drawn by the noise and be terrified. They turned and headed away from the cabin, following the trail that had been worn down from years of the cabin’s occupants trekking down to a small fishing stream a little over a mile from the cabin.
Basil led the way. Lucien was directly behind him and, after a brief jostling for space, Kane fell in behind Lucien and Damien brought up the rear. They hadn’t been trekking long before it dawned on Damien that they’d abandoned Laurie at the cabin—completely alone. He slowed, struggling with the urge to follow Lucien and beat him to a pulp and the certainty that it wasn’t safe to leave Laurie alone even for a short time—especially if all four of them were focused on trying to beat each other into the dirt.
Finally, he stopped. His blood was still high with the rage he’d felt when he realized Lucien had gone directly back from his watch to the cabin and bedded Laurie. He’d been pissed at his brother many times, but he’d never felt this overwhelming urge to beat him down.
It took an effort to shelve that desire and turn back, but once he had mastered his rage enough to begin forcing his inner beast into abeyance, his anxiety for Laurie’s safety began to take precedence.
That lasted until he got back to the cabin. He was inundated with the scent of sex—the mingling of Laurie’s and Lucien’s scents—before he even reached the cabin. By the time he had, he was once again at the mercy of his animal instincts. The need to exert his dominance over Lucien had shifted from a desire to beat him to dust to a desire to eradicate Lucien’s scent on Laurie and replace it with his own.
He didn’t question that overwhelming desire.
Closing and locking the cabin door behind him, he stalked across the living area to the bedroom door. There were no clothes to dispose of. He’d trashed what he was wearing when he’s shifted into man beast, so he was gloriously naked when he stepped into the room with Laurie.
Roused by his entrance, she sat up and stared at him sleepily. “Lucien?”
For a moment rage threatened to take hold again. Tamping it, Damien strode across the room and climbed into the bed, pushing Laurie flat. “No. Damien,” he growled against her lips a split second before he claimed them, drowning any protest she might have thought to make as he speared his tongue into her mouth and raked it along her tongue, tasting her, absorbing her scent into his mind and body.
The heat that erupted between them deprived him of any reason he might otherwise have had. He’d thought of little beyond burying himself balls deep in Laurie since the first time he laid eyes on her. It would have taken all three of the others and probably an act of the gods to pry him lose once he coiled himself around her.
He scrubbed his body lightly along hers in an all over caress that mingled their scents, exchanged them, that allowed him to feel her silky skin over every inch of his own so that he felt as if he was wrapped up in her, a part of her and she a part of him.
The heat that seared through Laurie gave lie to the fact that she’d just been thoroughly satisfied by Lucien only a little while before. If anything she seemed to climb higher, faster, possibly because she was still warm and tingly from her previous climax? She didn’t know, but she did know the way Damien touched her set her on fire.
Maybe this is some sort of really wild wet dream, Laurie wondered vaguely as she melted under the delightful assault?
It seemed he found every spot his brother had already touched and stimulated to a point of exquisite reception—except he explored with his lips and teeth. The tiny, stinging nips got her complete attention. She forgot everything else as she was swept away on a raging, heated tide of passion.
Long before he seemed satisfied with his exploration, Laurie was digging her nails into him and begging for penetration.
She gasped when he shifted slightly away to drag his dick along her cleft and connect his body to hers, moaned a caress over him as he pushed inside of her, feeling her tight flesh enveloping him slowly—too slowly. Damien felt sweat pop from his pores as he strained to press deeper, sawed in and out of her a few times to coat himself with her moisture. “Gods! Baby, you’re tight,” he muttered breathlessly, dizzy with the way his heart was hammering frantically against his chest wall. “You feel so goo
d!”
Her sex clenched tightly around his cock at his words, quivered, milking pre-cum from him. His heart rate jacked upwards a few notches. Sucking in a harsh breath, he felt his face twist with the effort of concentration it took him just to bury himself another inch. “I don’t think I’m going to make it, baby,” he gasped warningly, pulling out slightly and then driving into her again.
She tensed all over as he finally drove home, panting for breath. He tensed, as well, struggling against the need to hammer into her until he came. “Did I hurt you, baby?”
She groaned, shaking her head. “It feels good,” she whispered shakily.
“Oh hell!” he muttered, feeling her sex tighten around him again, so tightly he felt his cock gliding out of her, breaking his tenuous grip on his control. “Hold on, baby. It’s going to get rough.”
Slipping a hand beneath her to tip her hips upward, he began to thrust into her in deep, short plunges, pounding against her g-spot. She groaned, arched her head back, her entire body tensing. Grinding his teeth, he struggled to maintain the rhythm she needed until she began to shake all over, uttering keen cries. The quakes of her sex around him in ecstasy drove him beyond any awareness of anything but his goal. He increased his pace and the depth of his thrusts until he was jolting her with each plunging descent, curling his hips to grind them against her when he felt his body begin to yield up his seed, shuttering and gasping when he managed to catch a breath between the hard spasms.
Relief, profound and draining went through him when his body finally ceased to convulse. Panting, he allowed his head to drop weakly forward on his shoulders, holding his upper body off of her only by locking his elbows since it felt like every muscle in his body had turned to water.
He didn’t want to move, wasn’t sure he could. Finally, he merely allowed one elbow to bend, tipping himself off of her.
He was coasting toward blissful sleep when she spoke.
Laurie sighed, deeply, with absolute rapture. “Oh my god! That was nice, baby,” she slurred a little drunkenly, patting Damien’s shoulder and then slipping back under the soft blanket of oblivion.
* * * *
Given the chance, Lucien would have noticed Damien’s absence immediately when they arrived at the creek one man short. Basil didn’t actually wait for the arrival to attack, however. He stopped yards shy of the clearing they’d been heading toward and launched himself at Lucien. Since he’d been expecting something of the sort, Lucien merely side-stepped and Basil slammed into Kane, who was right behind him. Instead of picking themselves up, Basil and Kane began to pound at one another. Shaking his head, Lucien watched them with a touch of amusement for several moments before it dawned on him that he didn’t have a dance partner and he should have.
Straightening abruptly, he glanced around, determined that Damien was definitely absent and, uttering a roar of pure rage, charged back down the trail toward the cabin. The roar was enough to distract both Kane and Basil from their earnest attempts to beat each other to a pulp and they broke off in anticipation of meeting an attack from Lucien. When he charged past them, they looked at each other blankly and then slowly got to their feet, trying to figure out what had happened.
“Where’s Damien?” Kane growled after a moment.
“Son of a bitch!” Basil roared. “That fucking bastard! He’s with Laurie!”
At that point, both of them attempted to charge after Lucien. The battle for the smooth, cleared path wasn’t a quick one. They lost more time knocking each other off of the trail and into the brush that bordered it than they would have if they’d simply formed a single file. They were both too pissed off to think straight, however, and by the time they reached the edge of the yard, Lucien had crossed it and was charging up the steps to the porch.
Uttering roars of rage, worried now that they might miss out on pounding on Damien, they gave each other one final shove and bounded across the clearing in an effort to catch up to Lucien.
They managed it because Lucien slammed into the bolted door and rebounded, flying back off the porch and landing on top of them as they raced up the steps. By the time they’d managed to untangle themselves and pick themselves up, Damien had snatched the door of the cabin open.
This time it was Damien’s scent that wafted to them and maddened them further when they were already crazed with rage.
“Not …!”
Damien didn’t get the chance to get anything else out. If they hadn’t been blocked by the narrowness of the door frame, all three would have plowed into Damien at the same time. As it was, Lucien was the spearhead and Basil and Kane slammed into both of them, carrying them almost all the way across the living area in spite of the fact that they hit the couch and rolled over the back like a tide.
The door to the bedroom flew open. Damien stared up at Laurie’s shocked face for a split second and then he felt his beast spring forward. The shock gave way to terror, but that only seemed to spur his raging beast. It certainly didn’t calm it.
Screaming like a banshee, Laurie raced back into the bedroom, slamming and locking the door and then dragging everything she could move across the room to barricade it. Her mind was churning the entire time, trying to make sense of something that simply defied logic.
She’d thought Damien had been attacked by some sort of monsters.
And then Damien had turned into one, too.
Retreating to a corner when she ran out of anything to pile at the door, she crouched down in a tight, shivering ball, trying to think what to do. She discovered she couldn’t think. She was too terrified to think. All that kept running through her mind as she listened to the ferocious fight in the other room was that any minute they’d finish with each other and come after her.
And she didn’t think the door would hold against them.
She glanced fearfully out the window.
It was still dark—not pitch black like the dead of night but dark.
They’d see her if they got after her and she wouldn’t have any protection at all.
But she could see.
And she didn’t believe the door would hold them long.
For that matter, there was nothing to stop them from racing around the cabin and coming in the window!
That clinched the matter. With an effort, she shoved to her feet and wove a wobbly trail to the window, pausing only long enough along the way to grab her t-shirt and panties and jerk them on. It took her several moments to figure out how to unlock the window and get it open. The moment she did, however, she bailed out. She landed in a heap under the window, scraped and bleeding lightly from the encounter with rough wood. Brushing the dirt and pebbles off of her knees, she glanced around, trying to decide which way to go and finally took off down the drive.
They’d parked the armored vehicle down at the bottom of the drive somewhere. She remembered overhearing Kane telling Lucien they’d ‘covered’ it.
If she could just get to it and get inside!
Maybe they’d left a spare key somewhere inside?
Even if they hadn’t, she could lock herself in and she thought she would be safer in an armored vehicle.
To her surprise, she discovered the vehicle was parked in plain sight at the bottom of the drive. It was still really dark and the shadows were deep along the driveway, but the shape was unmistakable.
The realization that safety was close at hand spurred her to more speed. Ignoring the stitch she’d developed in her side, aided by the downward slope of the driveway, she ran faster.
She was running so fast by the time the man stepped from the shadows near the vehicle that she couldn’t stop, couldn’t even slow down appreciatively. She tried to veer off into the woods. It was a mistake. Her bare foot skidded on the pebble strewn ground and she went into a slide that scraped the hide off of her palms and the leg she landed on.
The man was on her before she could scramble to her feet. She screamed. He retaliated by punching her in the face with his fist so hard he stunned her. Sh
e was only semi-conscious when he tossed her over his shoulder and jogged toward the vehicle, but even as he tossed her into the backseat she realized she’d run right into the very men the guys had been trying to protect her from.
She hadn’t dreamed when she’d run from the monsters that she was going to be running directly into the grasp of a different kind of monster.
How had they managed it, she wondered dizzily? She knew the guys had been on high alert almost the entire time since they’d left Atlanta. They’d thought there was a high probability that whoever Smith had hired, or Smith himself since he was out on bond, might have planted a tracking device and followed even though they hadn’t managed to find one.
Lucien hadn’t wanted to take a chance that that was a possibility, at any rate.
So had they spotted the watchers and stayed just out of range? Had they been here, in the shadows, just waiting for the opportunity she’d presented them with?
She thought, maybe, they had.
And she’d run right into the web they’d spun, she thought despairingly.
And the guys had no idea where she was.
She was toast!
They were going to kill her and chop her into little pieces and nobody would ever figure out where she was! She was going to be one of those people that simply vanished and were never seen or heard from again.
And where were the guys, she wondered despairingly?
As hard as she tried to dismiss it, Laurie knew where. They were the monsters she’d fled from at the cabin. Lucien, Basil, and Kane had been fighting Damien and she’d seen Damien change into the same thing right before her eyes.
She didn’t know how she knew that. It was so crazy it didn’t even come close to making any sense at all. But she’d seen Damien change so she knew it was completely possible the others had too—had become those … things that looked like part man and part … beast, like a wolf, maybe. They were the same general height and weight and build, but beyond that they bore almost no resemblance to the sexy bikers she’d grown so attached to!
Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed Page 10
