Jacqueline looked up just in time to see Ben’s eyes flash from brown to amber and back as he reached for her. It was her turn to gasp and hiss when his hot hands landed on her skin. Her knees buckled and she thought she was going to pass out from the sensations shooting through her body and ending between her thighs.
* * * *
Ben caught his little mate at the waist when her knees gave out and lifted her. He gently laid her back on the bed and stared down at her. Jacqi was beautiful, and it was taking all of his control to not rip her sweats off and plunge himself deep inside her. His rock-hard cock twitched at the thought and began to throb, but there was no way Ben would do it. His little mate had admitted that, not only was she a virgin, but that he was the only man to ever lay a hand on her. He had to admit it made him feel good to know he was the first and was definitely going to be the last.
He looked down at her small breasts tipped with rosy pink nipples and groaned. When he had taken off her shirt, the last thing he expected was for her to be bare underneath. He nearly came in his jeans at what he saw. Reaching out, Ben trailed his finger down the silky skin of her neck and across her collarbone. He ignored her gasps and whimpers as he circled her breast, moving closer and closer to her hard nipple with each loop. He was mesmerized at the trail of goose bumps he left in his wake. Leaning down, Ben followed the same path with his mouth. He placed tiny, open-mouthed kisses and nipped at the cords of her neck when she lifted her head to give him better access. The scent of her arousal growing and Jacqi’s moans spurred him on as he slowly made his way to her breast.
The feel of his little mate’s hands in his hair had Ben moaning as he continued his assault on her skin. When he got to her nipple, just begging for him to take it into his mouth, Ben resisted. Instead, he blew his hot breath on it and listened as his mate keened out loud and nearly shot off the bed. Ben chuckled and moved to the other side to repeat the same moves. By the time he reached her nipple on that side, Jacqi’s mutterings were incoherent, and she nearly ripped his hair out of his scalp. Deciding to put them both of them out of their misery and end their torture, Ben latched onto her nipple and sucked. He groaned and nearly came when her flavor exploded on his tongue. She tasted as sweet as she smelled, and he wanted to lick her from head to toe. Instead, Ben released her nipple with a slight pop and leaned over to take the other into his mouth.
He trailed his hand down her stomach, stopping to massage the tight muscles there before continuing down toward her sweats. Ben ran his fingers along her waistband a couple of times then slipped them inside. The feel of her soft curls against his fingers was enough to make him gasp as he lifted his head to stare at his mate. Not only had she not been wearing a bra, but she wasn’t wearing any panties either. The feel of her warm heat had him itching to go further, but Ben watched the emotions play out on Jacqi’s face first and waited to see if she would tell him to stop. Her eyes were barely open as she stared up at him with a look of confusion. He had a feeling that was due to the fact that he had stopped what he was doing. What Ben didn’t see was fear. That gave him the green light to continue.
Ben lifted up a little, grabbed her sweats in both hands, and slowly slid them down his little mate’s legs. She didn’t protest the move. Instead, she lifted her hips to help him. The scent of warm, spicy cinnamon filled the room, and Ben took a deep breath and growled. He loved the smell of his mate. He tossed the pants over his shoulder and looked down at his mate spread out on the bed before him. His eyes were drawn to her thighs, slick from her juices. Without thinking any further, Ben lay down on his stomach between her legs and began lapping at the liquid. He cleaned one thigh then the other before turning his attention to her pussy that was soaked with moisture. Using his fingers, he spread her lips apart and ran his tongue along the pink glistening flesh that he had exposed.
Jacqi cried out and lifted her hips off the bed, bringing them closer to his face, and Ben happily gave her what she wanted. He ran his tongue along her entrance before trailing it up to the red swollen bud begging for his touch. Holding her hips down, Ben clamped his lips around her clit and sucked. He shifted his hips against the bed, rubbing his throbbing cock through his jeans as he flicked the tip of his tongue against her sensitive bud. His mate’s whimpers spurred him on as he laid one arm across her belly to hold her still and used his other hand to gather her juices. Once he had enough, he circled her hole with one finger before slipping it in to the first knuckle. Her wet heat greeted him as her walls clenched around his finger, holding him tight.
Ben’s cock twitched and released a spurt of fluid at the thought of her tight pussy squeezing his cock the way it was doing to his finger as he slowly slid it inside her. He had a feeling he would come before he ever fully got inside her. As it was now, he couldn’t stop himself from humping the bed as he continued to lick Jacqi’s sweet pussy.
When she finally loosened up enough for him to move, Ben pulled his finger out and slowly slid it back in, only to have her muscles clamp back down on it as his mate grabbed fistfuls of his hair and screamed as she came. The thought of her coming from something as simple as one stroke of his finger was enough to set Ben off as his hips grinded against the bed one last time before he came as well. He gritted his teeth to keep from biting her thigh and marking her as he felt spurt after spurt of cum jet into his jeans, and he shuddered.
Ben felt his canine’s poking from between his lips and laid his head on his mate’s thigh to keep her from seeing as he caught his breath. He didn’t want to scare her as he fought to keep his wolf under control. He heard his wolf’s whimpers in his head at the fact that he hadn’t mated with her. Soon, pup. She’s ours now, but we have to wait just a little longer to mark her. Ben tried to soothe his wolf, knowing he didn’t understand why Ben wanted to wait. Jacqi was innocent, and with the craziness going on with her father, Ben knew she was still a little leery of shifters. Plus, even if she grew up around them, her knowledge about them was miniscule. There was no way he could fully mate her until he knew she understood everything that came with mating a shifter. Until then, Ben planned on seeing just how strong his self-control truly was because, even though he couldn’t fully mate with Jacqi, there was no way he was going to keep his hands off of her.
Ben lifted his head to look at his mate and held back a laugh. She was sprawled out on her back with her mouth wide open as she panted. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at the fact that his mate was beautiful. Even the night he had first seen her and she looked as though she hadn’t bathed in days, there was something about her that had drawn him to her. Ben silently thanked fate for his mate as he rose and went into the bathroom. He realized they had never gotten around to looking for the tracker, and he grinned. It looked as though he was going to have to get his hands all over Jacqi again.
Wetting a washcloth with warm water, Ben brought it back out to clean his little mate who was nearly asleep. She didn’t even stir until he had finished and climbed into bed beside her. With a moan, she rolled over and tucked herself against his side as though it was something she had done all her life. Ben wrapped his arm around her and held her tight, vowing he would never let another night go past that she wouldn’t sleep curled against him.
* * * *
“Sir, they haven’t made any moves to leave.”
Edmund slammed his fist on his desk. His plan hinged on his daughter running from the Enforcers house, and she couldn’t even do that right. He didn’t even want to think about the idiots she’d called rogues roaming his property.
Edmund sighed. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. “Very well, don’t do anything. Just watch the house until I get there and call me if anything changes.”
He hung up before he got a response. Edmund didn’t even know the man’s name that he had just talked to, nor did he care. He had no doubt the man would follow his orders. It was the one thing he could give his sniveling daughter credit for. Although it was obvious she had no idea what
a rogue was or how to create one, she’d done a great job at making mindless puppets that followed orders no matter what they were.
Edmund threw his ink pen against the wall. The problem was he didn’t want puppets. He wanted mindless beasts that wanted nothing more than to bathe in the blood of their kill. He wanted shifters who went out and terrorized anyone unlucky enough to get caught in their path. He wanted people scared to leave their homes for fear they might be torn to pieces before they made it to the end of their driveways. That’s what Edmund wanted, and that’s what he was determined to have.
He stood and headed out of his office. He needed his daughter back so she could fix her serum, and if it meant he had to go get her himself, then so be it. He was way smarter than a few enforcers, and he would figure out a way to get her out of that house. This time he wouldn’t let her out of his sight until she had done her job. Once she gave him the perfect rogue, then he would teach her a lesson about stealing and running from him that she would never forget. Edmund rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he made plans to leave. His daughter had no idea of the punishment he had in store for her.
Chapter 9
Jacqueline groaned and rubbed her temples. She bit back a smile when she heard a tiny moan from the corner of the room and looked over to see Nico, rubbing his own temples. Ever since the first day she had come down to the basement to work on the antidote and looked up to see those ice-blue eyes watching her, she hadn’t had the heart to kick him out. Instead, she had found a small table and chair and sat it in the corner. She set up a few plastic vials and tubes with colored water in them. Once she explained they were his, and he could only use them if she was down there with him, Nico had been ecstatic.
Now, three weeks later, it seemed he had yet to grow bored with pouring the water from one tube to the other, mimicking her as she worked. Jacqueline, on the other hand, felt the urge to scream in frustration. Three weeks of what was left of Ben’s life had gone by, and there was still no progress on finding an antidote. With each day, she felt herself getting more and more desperate. She wasn’t sure when she had fallen in love with Ben, but she knew she loved him with all her heart, and there was no way she could live without him. She needed a breakthrough, and time was quickly running out.
Jacqueline’s thoughts were interrupted, and she frowned as she watched Nico jump out of his seat and run toward her. He grabbed her hand in his tiny one and began to pull her toward the back of the basement.
“What’s wrong, honey? Where are we going?”
“Lots of people are here,” Nico whispered, pulling her along.
Jacqueline followed as she tried to listen. As far as she could hear, the house was silent, but Nico’s urgency and the fear on his face had her going along with him. When they reached the back wall, she noticed he had led her to a metal door that looked as though it belonged on a bank vault somewhere. Jacqueline was amazed that she’d had no clue it had been there the whole time she had been working down there.
Nico was struggling to open the large door. “Daddy says we have to get in here if bad men come.”
“How do you know there are bad men here?”
The sudden sound of breaking glass and the blaring of an alarm answered Jacqueline’s confused question before Nico could. That was all it took for her to move the boy aside and pull the door open. It took all of her strength to get it opened, and she knew there was no way he would have been able to if he had been alone. Once the door was opened, Nico didn’t hesitate to go into the dark room, pulling her in with him. He let go of her hand as she blinked into the dark, praying her eyes would adjust because she couldn’t see a thing.
“Nico, honey, don’t move too far away from me,” she said as she waved her arms in front of her and slowly stepped, trying to feel for him. She heard a click and then blinked as a dim light came on.
Nico was standing by the switch, smiling at her. “Why are you dancing?”
Jacqueline frowned at him wondering what he was talking about until she realized he was talking about her feeling for him in the dark. She was about to ask him how he was able to see her, but the sound of feet thundering on the floor overhead had her turning back toward the door and pulling it shut.
The inside of the door had a large spinning wheel on it, similar to what she’d seen on a ship door, and Jacqueline hesitated before spinning it. What if Ben or any of the guys needed to get in? Where was Tessa? She needed to be down here as well. The woman was pregnant. If anyone needed to be in the safe room along with Nico, it was her.
“Daddy says you have to shut the door and lock it when you get inside.”
Jacqueline wondered how he could be so calm. Nico was only three, and he was taking things better than her. “What about your momma? Maybe I should lock you in and go help her down here.”
“Daddy says not to come looking for him. He will come and get me when it’s safe. Mommy has another room upstairs.”
Jacqueline stared into Nico’s eerie blue eyes before finally nodding and turning the wheel on the door. She spun it until she heard the loud thumps of several giant bolts slamming into place. She had no doubt anyone was getting in unless she allowed it. She turned and followed Nico over to two large chairs in the middle of the room and sat down. She looked around the room, surprised at how comfortable it seemed. There was a bookshelf full of books behind the chairs with an open door next to it. She could tell it was a bathroom. To her right was a large bed covered with huge pillows and a smaller bed next to it. The chairs they were seated in divided the room in half and to her left was what looked to be a full-sized kitchen, complete with fully stocked shelves and refrigerator. If she had to guess, they could probably live in the room for quite a long time. Jacqueline shivered at the thought. Mitch had spared no expense when it came to keeping his family safe.
Nico climbed in her lap and laid his head on her chest. “Don’t worry. The kitty will eat the bad men.”
Jacqueline had no doubt Nico was telling the truth. When she had first got there, she’d thought Mitch was arrogant, but after getting to know him, she realized he just saw the world differently. He didn’t hold back or censor what he said. He told the truth without sugarcoating it, and she had grown to like his dry sense of humor. He was also loyal to the ones he considered family. What Jacqueline had also learned about Mitch was that he treated Nico as his own, and he was fiercely protective of his mate and child. She wanted to feel bad for whoever it was that had come to the man’s home, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Whoever had come and brought danger to Mitch’s home and family deserved everything he did to them.
Stroking Nico’s hair as he lay against her, Jacqueline wondered if it was her father upstairs. Had he come after her and Ben? Was she the one who had brought danger to this family? Her gut screamed yes. Everything happening was all because of her. She wondered if Mitch would have been so quick to let her stay here if he’d known this would happen.
Jacqueline stopped that line of thought before it could spiral out of control and the guilt began to eat her alive. There was nothing she could do to change the past. She needed to focus on the future, and that meant finding the antidote for Ben. Without it, she and Ben had no future. She wished she had thought to bring some of her work in the safe room with her, but Jacqueline hadn’t been thinking at the moment. Instead, she leaned back in the chair and watched the boy in her lap. She had thought Nico was fully human like herself, but after everything that had happened, she wasn’t so sure anymore. Jacqueline made a mental note to ask Ben about it once they were out of the safe room.
* * * *
Ben heard them the minute they had set foot in Mitch’s territory. He wasn’t the only one who had heard. As he leaped off the couch, Ryan and Ken came running down the steps at the same time Mitch came running out of his office and headed up the stairs. Ben knew he was headed to wake Tessa up. She had gone up to take a nap when Jacqi had taken Nico with her to the basement. Ben tilted his head to listen and sighed in
relief when he heard the cub leading his mate toward the safe room down there. He heard his little mate questioning Nico, but she was following him. That’s all that mattered to Ben. It was taking everything in him to not leap down the steps and make sure she was all right, but the sound of pounding feet coming through the trees stopped him.
He moved toward Mitch’s office instead and entered just as Ryan pressed the button under his desk to open the hidden door to the weapons closet. Mitch came in as they were gearing up.
“Tessa in the safe room?”
Mitch grunted. “I had to practically carry her in there and strap her down to get her to stay. I finally got her locked in when she calmed down enough to listen and hear that Nico and Jacqi were headed to the safe room in the basement.”
Ben was glad Mitch was so paranoid. Having two fully stocked safe rooms and a secret weapons closet that could be turned into one in a pinch helped make things easier when there was danger. Now that his mate and Mitch’s family were safe, nothing was holding them back from doing what they had to do to take care of the threat currently running up the drive and surrounding the house.
By now they knew their presence was known so they weren’t trying to keep quiet. The sound of breaking glass at the back of house proved that. Ken, who had shifted rather than use weapons, roared and lumbered off in that direction with his mate following in human form.
Ben focused on the threat at the front of the house because it was closest to the stairs that led to the basement. He was determined to protect them at all cost, and nothing was getting past him to his mate and Nico as long as he had breath in his body. He had a feeling Mitch felt the same because he positioned himself in front of the steps leading up to Tessa. Ben wished he was out in the open with a few hand grenades or homemade bombs, weapons he was known for, but they were too dangerous for tight quarters. Instead, he readied himself with the blade he had chosen when he heard booted feet pounding up the front steps.
Forever Is Not Enough [Council Enforcers 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 8
