by Hall, Linsey
Her eyes raked Cam’s form, desperately tracing over the muscles that curved and cut across his bare torso. The lights gleamed off of his wide chest and caressed his chiseled arms and shoulders.
Ana dragged her gaze away from Cam to look for his opponent. After a moment, an enormous man climbed into the ring. He looked to be part giant, at least seven and a half feet tall and half as wide. The crowd roared.
“Cam.” The whisper slipped through her lips before she could stop herself.
He looked toward her as if he’d heard her, his gaze finding hers across the night. His eyes flashed. He turned to face his opponent.
Her heart clutched. She glanced nervously at the giant. But Cam was big too. Probably only a foot shorter than his opponent. All gods were bigger than the average mortal. Except her, the formerly mortal halfling.
He stood in his corner, as relaxed as if he was on the beach, and watched the other fighter. His slate eyes were calm, his pale skin and red hair gleaming in the light. He lived out here in the jungle, all northern warrior in the southern heat.
He would be fine. Just fine. But she clutched her bow all the same, seeking what little comfort she could.
The screech of a whistle cut through the night, and Cam strolled to the center of the ring to face his opponent. The fight started too soon, before she could brace herself for the smack of fists on flesh.
Cam took the first punch, an anvil to his shoulder that sent him back a step. He grinned. They circled each other, and Ana’s heart lodged itself uncomfortably in her throat.
Cam landed a punch to the giant’s right cheek, another to his midsection. He was more than holding his own in the fight, despite their difference in size, and Ana found lust competing with her fear. His face looked mean, ready to hurt, and a different kind of fear crept along her nerve endings. The good kind.
She shivered, drawn unconsciously toward the ring. He was so big. So dangerous. So everything. Her hand tightened in a fist of want.
She was so screwed.
Cam’s muscles sang and sweat dripped into his eyes as he delivered the punch he was sure would end the fight. The big bastard across from him reeled on his feet, suspended almost comically, and then crashed to the ground. Cam stood over him, breath sawing in and out of his lungs.
This hadn’t cleared his mind as he’d hoped it would. It might have worked, if he hadn’t seen Ana standing outside of the ring.
“Round goes to Cam!” a deep voice hollered from the corner of the ring.
It was time to get the hell out of there and away from this crowd. Away from Ana. He climbed between the ropes just as his opponent was dragged beneath them. He grabbed his shirt from where he’d left it draped over one of the lower ropes and pushed his way through the crowd so that Ana couldn’t catch him if she followed.
The aggression of the fight, the bloodlust, still rode him hard. Combined with everything he was still feeling, he needed a few more minutes before he saw her again. He was starting to lose control where she was concerned. Combined with his high from the fight, it was a dangerous combination.
He unwound the wrapping on his hands as his long strides ate up the street. The tiny hotel lobby was empty and he slipped up the stairs. When he finally made it to the shower, he groaned as the water poured down over him. He shouldn’t feel old. But he did. His shoulder and jaw ached where his opponent had popped him, and his brain felt beaten up from the ride he’d taken it on these last couple days with Ana.
“Cam?”
At the sound of Ana’s voice, Cam dropped his head back beneath the spray and squeezed his eyes shut. She was back already. Damn it, he would have to go out there and keep his hands off of her. He dragged a hand through his hair, shook his head violently.
There was nowhere else to go, so he stepped out of the shower and dragged his dirty jeans back on, ignoring the shirt that was too streaked with sweat and boat grease to consider wearing. He’d been in such a damn rush he’d left his change of clothes on the bed.
He walked into the room to see her sitting on the bed. She rose from her seat on one of the beds and looked at him with big eyes that raced over his body, searching for wounds from the fight. The dim bulb that hung in the center of the room cast a soft glow on her shining golden hair.
Her gaze snapped to the side of his face and she approached him, standing so close he could smell the fresh scent of her. She reached up with a tentative hand to stroke his injured cheek. He stood, his muscles tense and his breath stuck in his lungs.
He ducked his head and hissed at the contact.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re hurt.”
It wasn’t pain that forced the noise from him. It was the touch of her skin on his. The heat of her so close.
His eyes met hers, and what he saw within had his blood pressure spiking and his fists clenching.
She wanted him. He’d seen it in the eyes of all the women who approached him after a match, wanting to see what a man like him was really like. This time, though, it felt different. There was a desperation and a heat in her eyes that wasn’t entirely normal. She wanted him, yes. But her body was still reacting to earth. She wanted anybody. Needed anybody.
He wanted to be that anybody. Even if just for tonight. Even if she was too good for him. The thought made a spike of pleasure shoot through him. It took everything he had not to reach out to her. To touch. To taste.
To take.
He spun from her. “Go to sleep, Ana.”
He stalked to small sink, bent over it, and gripped the enameled metal so hard he feared he’d crush it. He prayed to gods he’d never worshiped that she’d go to sleep. That she’d stop looking at him with hungry eyes.
He didn’t hear her footsteps, and after a moment he couldn’t help but let his gaze be dragged around to her. She still stood in the center of the room, one hand rubbing her arm absentmindedly while she stared at him with her bottom lip bit between her teeth.
“Fuck,” he rasped.
What she wanted was plain on her face. What he wanted was plain on her face.
Pulled by the magnet of her, he strode to her, reached out and yanked her to him. Hard. He delighted in the gasp that escaped her lips just before he claimed them with his own.
His kiss was rough, lacking any finesse. It was made of the want and frustration and anger that propelled him toward her, made him desperate to feel her with his hands, his lips, his cock.
Her moan feathered over his lips and her hands fisted in his hair so hard it stung, which only propelled him farther down the rabbit hole of his complex desires. If he made this just about her, it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t deserve her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Wait.” Ana tore her mouth from Cam’s, mourning that last delicious taste of him. She panted, trying to get hold of her mind as his hard, rough hands ran down her body. “This is—is a bad idea.”
She knew it was, deep inside, but all her arguments were starting to sound really frail.
“Shh.” His raspy voice at her ear made her knees tremble and her skin prickle. He held her head still in his big hand and bit her earlobe, sending a shiver down her spine. “You need this. I know that you need this.”
Fates, she did. She wanted him. Cam, the man who had screwed up her life and stuck her in Otherworld. But more than that, she was burning up inside from the unholy lust that had gradually been building since she’d come to earth, stoked by the heat of Cam’s hot looks and touch. Trying to slake it with other men had only left her with a sour taste in her mouth. Now it felt like a live thing within her body, demanding to be fed.
“We can’t get involved. This will only end badly. One of us will end up in Otherworld. If this becomes something…”
“Bullshit,” he rasped. “This isn’t a thing.”
He didn’t sound like he believed his own words. He leaned his forehead against hers. His chest rose and fell in deep bellows, pressing in tantalizing rhythm against her chest. She did this to him? Made him
want her so bad? Shiver.
He felt as big and as intimidating as before. But his immense body was strung taut with desire for her. The idea made her so hot that she swore her pussy vibrated with it.
“This isn’t an us,” he said. “It’s one night, nothing past it. This is just me, doing something for you. Let me make you feel good.” He dragged his teeth down her neck, a spike of pleasure-pain that made her shudder. “No reciprocation required, and we’ll worry about the future when it comes.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Her laugh was a little desperate and a lot wanting. And could she really ignore all that the future held?
If it meant a night with him, then yes.
“The goodness of my heart’s got nothing to do with it. ’Cause I can’t take your needy looks anymore. The heat in your eyes. The way you smell when you get hot. It’s driving me up the fucking wall.”
A low moan rose in her throat; she forced it down. To make this big, hard, scary man feel all that?
“Just let me touch you. Make you feel good. Then we walk away. Tomorrow is normal.”
“Nothing for you?” Did he really mean he didn’t want her to see to his pleasure too? Did she even want that? To just take from him?
“Oh, there’ll be something in it for me.” His hands bit into her hips, almost too hard. But hard enough to tell her he was going over a ledge.
Go over. Don’t make me ask you for this terrible thing.
“I’ll make you feel good,” he said. “Real good. And when you come back down, that fucking lust will be out of your eyes and the want will be out of the rolling of your hips when you walk and I can get some fucking peace.”
Whoa.
He ran his hard hands down to her hips and pulled them flush against the erection that burned through the heat of their clothes. He made her feel what she did to him, and she liked it.
“Say yes, Ana.” His voice was the roughest, most delicious sandpaper against her skin, lightly dragging until goose bumps appeared in its wake.
She moaned, her stupid arguments long fled from her mind, and hoped he’d take it for an assent without her having to verbalize her fall into idiocy.
“I gotta hear the word,” he growled into her ear, punctuating the statement with a thrust of hips.
Evil man. Don’t make me say it. Just do it so I don’t have to feel complicit in my own stupid decisions.
“Last call.” He bit her shoulder, hard enough to threaten, to hurt. It only made her desire flare higher. To know what he offered. What he promised.
“Yes.” The word was high, reedy with want.
He growled his satisfaction—a low, terrifying, hellishly arousing sound—and scooped her off her feet and tossed her on the bed.
The mattress bounced beneath her, too thin and as cheap as the rest of the seedy hotel room. He towered above her, broad chest heaving and muscles tensed. Desire and need shone on his face and a shiver raced through her.
She’d had plenty of partners—she was two thousand years old, after all. But never one as big or powerful or commanding as the one towering over her and sliding the belt from his jeans.
She swallowed nervously and scooted back on the bed, unable to deny that fear spurred the heat racing through her brain. He wouldn’t hurt her.
But he looked like he could. And it made something flare inside of her.
“Lie down.” His voice was harsh, hot. Like he had a job to see to.
She did, unable to resist and not caring that she was a goddess who did whatever the hell she pleased. Apparently, whatever the hell she pleased was following this man’s brusque orders.
“Hands above your head.”
They shot above her head as if of their own volition. The cold metal bars of the spare headboard brushed her wrists, making her realize that she’d thrust her hands through the spaces between the bars.
The bed dipped under his weight when he kneeled by her hip. His scent—shampoo and the heady deliciousness of his arousal—enthralled her as he leaned over her, chest hovering above her face. His heat and size surrounded her, made her feel smaller than she ever had.
Something—his fingertips, probably—brushed gently against the scars on the insides of her wrists. His face was so close to them. Seeing them.
“Don’t,” she whispered. They were the physical evidence of all that had gone wrong between them. Of her mistakes.
He stopped, silent, and then the bite of warm leather wrapping around her wrists made her gasp. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, just continued to wrap the leather until he could buckle it. Relief over the distraction from her scars fought her nerves over being bound. She yanked, grew cold and hot at once when she felt no give. He edged down the mattress until his breath was at her ear. “So you can’t touch. Lay a finger on me and I’d lose my mind. And this isn’t about me.”
Liar. Cam looked down at Ana. His goal might be her pleasure, not his own, so that she’d quit sending fuck me vibes at him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t getting something he wanted. The sight of her, bound to the bed and wide eyed with excitement and nerves, made his heart pound so hard he felt like it would pulverize his ribs.
The belt wasn’t to keep her tied down. She could break free if she wanted. She was a goddess, after all, with inhuman strength.
No, the belt reminded him that he was in control. Responsible. It would keep him in check. He couldn’t lose himself if she was bound. Couldn’t let his mind go foggy with want until he yanked off her clothes and sank his painfully hard cock into the heat of her pussy. Couldn’t take the things he shouldn’t have if he wanted to walk away from this tomorrow.
He licked his lower lip. Bit it. Studied her. Then had to squeeze his eyes closed to get it together. After a long moment, he opened them and looked down at her.
“You want this?” His voice was gravel leaving his throat.
She hesitated, so slight he might not have noticed. Then nodded.
“Say it.” He wanted to hear it on her lips.
“I want it.”
He wanted to peel off all her clothes, trace every inch of her skin with his eyes and hands and mouth. To hear all the noises she made when he did something she liked. He was desperate to make her feel him. Desperate to make her want him. To be the best she’d ever have, even if they could never have this again. Especially if they could never have this again.
He thrust the tender thoughts away and focused on what this was supposed to be about. Not seduction. Not connection. It was about getting her off. Keeping his mind and his wants and his heart out of this.
He reached down to drag her shorts and underwear from her hips, knowing that the sight of her curls and the pink flesh between her thighs would put his mind where it needed to be.
“Beautiful,” he rasped, then leaned down over her so that his face hovered above hers and his hand brushed against what he most desired.
He cupped her pussy, something inside him jerking at the inappropriate possessiveness that bolted through him. Her hips lurched and she cried out, wide eyes meeting his.
Though he wanted to kiss her, he didn’t. He didn’t want to make this more than it was, while something dark within him wanted it to be as raw as possible.
Subtle changes flashed in her eyes as his fingers parted her softness and dipped into the wetness that scented the air. He thrummed her clitoris, grinned when she gasped, and pushed a finger inside her, desperate to know all of her.
With a start, he realized that his hand trembled. He hoped she didn’t notice. “I am going to make you come so hard that you forget your own name.”
She whimpered, but held his gaze.
“But you won’t forget my name,” he said. “You’ll scream it when you come.”
Her eyes widened, lids fluttered, then locked with his again, full of desperation and want and things he didn’t recognize. He realized then that it was a terrible idea to make her say his name when she came. Realized too that he’d still
do it.
He lowered his lips to her ear, barely held himself back from tracing the shell of it with his tongue, and rasped, “I’m going to taste you now.”
She shivered. He moved down the bed and yanked her legs wide, set his mouth upon her without warning, a broad sweep of his tongue that allowed him to taste her and feel her and revel in her.
He grinned, pinning her hips to the bed while he repeated the motion. From the way she moved and cried out, it pushed her hard and high and fast.
“Fuck, you taste good,” he muttered against her flesh, and swirled his tongue around her clitoris, wanting to feel her move beneath him. He was rewarded by her thighs clamping about his head, by her broken moan echoing through the room.
“Say my name,” he rasped, looking up to see her clutching the bars of the headboard and panting, her pink lips parted so seductively that his cock jerked.
She shook her head, and he wasn’t sure why she resisted—maybe because she sensed that this was all a dark game, a way to get a taste of what he wanted while holding her at arm’s length.
He was a selfish bastard.
“Say it,” he growled, pushing a finger into her and curving it upward to make her want to say his name.
“Cam.” High and needy and desperate.
He watched her lips form his name and realized that her voice was the only thing he could hear. As if he were in a vacuum, with nothing except her. Even the forest had quieted, so cacophonous before, now drowned out by the blood pounding through his limbs and ears and cock.
He set his mouth upon her ravenously, wanting to feel her come, shake, clench beneath him. He pushed another finger inside her, moaning at the feeling of her gripping him.
“Cam!” Her legs trembled. She was close.
Though he wanted to taste her orgasm on his tongue, he realized he wanted to see her face, her eyes, as she lost herself in what he could give her.
It was fucked up, saying this was a selfless act when he did it for his own pleasure. He was getting in deeper than was wise, wanting to see her face. But he couldn’t help it. His cock throbbed against his pants, demanding. But it was his mind that he couldn’t disobey.
