“Hey,” she said, without looking around at him. “You know, I was starving earlier, and this stuff looks great, but I seem to have lost my appetite.”
The thought of food made him ill. He only wanted to devour her. His hands clenched at his sides.
She straightened and turned to look at him. “Oh, my God, Gabriel.” She took a step toward him.
He held up a hand. “Don’t.” The sound was less than human.
“What is it?” She stood poised on the balls of her feet, as if she was going to have to fight, as if she was going to have to run. “Are you sick? Did Kinnian do something to you?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t find his tongue. His thoughts were scattered. The words he needed to explain himself just would not come. He stood, shaking, unable to keep himself from wanting her so much it stripped him of all resolve.
But then she moved, taking another step in his direction, and he had to do what he’d vowed he would do. “Lana, no. If you touch me, I swear, it will kill me. Be still and let me get through this.”
Her eyes roved over his naked body, and Gabriel would have sworn his skin burned as if she touched him. He saw her take note of his tremors and his pale skin, of the massive erection tenting the thin towel around his hips. He could see her confusion in the deepening lines between her brows.
“Tell me what’s going on, Gabriel.”
“I’m sorry, querida.” His throat tried to close up on the words. “I’m afraid this night is not going to be what you expected. I’m not going to be very good company. In fact, you’re probably going to have to tie me to the bed for the night and stay as far away from me as you can. Seeing you here like this . . . I don’t . . . I’m not sure I can do what’s necessary otherwise.”
She smiled, just the tiniest crook of her lips. “Hey, Cubano, I’m not averse to a little bondage between friends. Could be kinda exciting.” Her voice was low and soothing, running like cool water over his flayed and bleeding nerves. “But you have to tell me first what’s got you so freaked. I know it can’t be that gorgeous hard-on you’re carrying, because we both know what to do with that.”
His cock jerked at her attention, at the idea that they would do anything about it. He hissed and took a step back toward the bed. He knew she was trying to tease him, to distract him. She couldn’t know it was pure torture. His skin was on fire, the towel like sandpaper where it touched him.
“Lana, stop.” He was desperate to halt her slow advance. “You have to let me explain.” His hands went to his head, ran through his hair until he nearly pulled it from his scalp. He wanted to scream; he held onto his control by a thread.
“This . . .”—he gestured at his body—“this is a kind of . . . fever common to my father’s people. It’s called the T’haridon Set.”
“The Forging Fire.” At once her eyes registered perfect understanding.
His mouth opened, but he could not speak. Of course she would know. The knowledge was there in her mind—from his.
“You need to consummate the bond between us.” She took a step closer.
He scrambled backward. “No! That can’t happen!”
Her jaw set. “If the bond isn’t completed, you could die.”
“If we complete the bond, Kinnian will find you,” he shot back. “You’ll be defenseless against him. He’ll rip you apart, Lana. I can’t stand the thought of that—of my selfishness being responsible for what he’d do to you.”
Comprehension dawned in a bloom of anger over her face. “So, what’s your plan, Gabriel? You fight the Fire until the bond is broken—or until your body gives out, whichever comes first?”
“It’s the only way.”
“And if you die tonight? How do I fight him then?” Anguish showed through the flare of temper.
“I won’t die.” He shook even as he said it, chills and his need for her wracking his body.
“You can’t be sure of that. You can’t be sure I won’t die with you.”
He stared at her, his heart racing, his mind spinning. “You’re human. Nothing should happen to you.”
“We’re connected. You said so yourself.” Her eyes sparked with green flame. “Already I’m starting to feel what you feel—the fever, the shakes, that . . . that hunger for you. How can I tie you to that bed and watch you go through this bone-crushing pain alone? While all the time I’m aching just as much, burning for you just as much? How am I supposed to keep myself away from you?”
Holy Christ, he could see it now. The flush of fever in her cheeks. The tiniest of tremors in her hands. It was starting with her, as it had with him.
But she didn’t understand. “This isn’t about scratching an itch, Lana! The bonding is forever. For the rest of our lives. There’s no divorce, no second-guessing, no waking up in the morning wondering what the hell you’ve done. We hardly know each other.”
She shook her head. “We know everything about each other, Gabriel. Every secret, every hidden desire, every fear, every memory. Whether we want to or not. You’ve already taken care of that.”
“Shit!” Shaking so much he thought his bones would break, he turned away from her. “I never meant to bring us to this point. You are the one person I would have protected from this. You hated me once. It would be better if you kept on hating me.”
“Yes, I hated you. But I loved you even more. I just never realized it until I saw Kinnian poised to take your life today.” He felt her at his back, her touch cool and soothing on his tormented skin. “This is what I need. All my life I’ve been alone. I never knew how alone I was until you . . . broke me open . . . so you could get inside. I couldn’t understand it, and it made me mad as hell—how it could feel so right having you there, like you were meant to be part of me. How you could see all the shit in my life and still want me.”
He heard the rustle of cloth as her robe fell to the floor, felt the tug of her hands on the towel around his waist. She turned him to face her, her naked body so close to his that his arching shaft pressed hard against the skin of her belly.
Her hands lifted to frame his face. “Gabriel. I need you inside me—in my body, in my mind, in my heart. I don’t ever want to be without you again.”
His resistance crumbled into the flames. He tried to make one last plea for sanity, though his blood burned and his lungs gasped for air.
“Kinnian . . .”
“Separately we’re no match for Kinnian.” She slipped her arms around his neck to press close. His body shook with the urge to take her. “Together, who knows what we can do.”
“My fierce, beautiful targa.” He opened himself to her, found her mind without shields, and was swept up in a rising flood of emotion—enfolding love, unshakable faith, blazing courage, piercing, shattering need. This was the woman he knew at a depth no one else could know; the woman whose soul was in his keeping forever; the woman he now realized he loved as he had never loved another being in his life; his bondmate—forever.
Gabriel let her feel everything he was feeling, surrendered all of himself to her, as she had done for him. He felt the Fire rising in his body and in hers, demanding completion. His hands, greedy for the feel of her, slid over her hips to cup her bottom. He lifted her, spread her thighs to encircle his hips, and held her poised over his blunt, seeking crown. He covered her mouth with his, slipped his tongue inside to plunder the warm cavern of her sweet taste, craving it as much as he ached to feel the heat of her body around him. And when he couldn’t wait any longer, he centered himself at her entrance and lowered her down over his shaft.
She was hot and wet for him, her folds slick and pulsing with her need, and she gripped him as he filled her. They groaned together, joined body, mind and soul, every movement, every pleasure multiplied as he felt himself in her and she felt herself engulf him. The fire built quickly, so quickly he had no time to dampen the flames. Her core was already contracting in orgasm as he lifted her and lowered her again onto his swelling shaft. Just as she gasped his name, he let go an
d exploded deep inside her, his release staggering him, almost bringing him to his knees.
It was only the beginning. He knew it, and he could read the comprehension in Lana’s mind as well. She wasn’t afraid, though their mutual need threatened to sweep her away on a riptide of passion so overwhelming she would never be the same.
He carried her to the bed, and she moaned as he laid her beneath him. “Don’t leave me, Gabriel.” She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched into him, forcing him deeper inside her.
“Never,” he swore, stiffening again in the tight grasp of her core. He withdrew, then he pushed inside again, loving the feel of her welcoming warmth, loving the way she shuddered and cried out as he stroked her.
God, he filled her with heat and need and sweet longing until she thought she’d never get enough. She could feel his love for her in the touch of his hands at her breasts, in the brush of his lips at her throat, in the hot slide of his hard length into her slick softness. It was there in his mind as he brought her closer and closer to the brink; there as he held himself back from his own edge.
Then the orgasm detonated deep inside and rolled through her, taking her breath, taking her body, taking her conscious mind. Indescribable pleasure pulsed in waves from her frantic core outward through her chest and hips and along her spine. And she couldn’t stop. The waves went on and on, each one more intense than the next, as Gabriel rode them with her.
Lana screamed his name and clutched at his shoulders, writhing and bucking as her orgasm took her. He was in her mind with her, feeling what she felt, and his shaft jerked and wept inside her in response. There was no need to hold back, he knew he would recover in minutes, but he hated to leave her mid-stride. He wanted to take her as far as she could go, to leave her spent and sated before he found his release. But Jesus! her core was so hot and wet with her juices and every clench of her inner muscles tightened his balls and made him throb with need.
This had to end, but she wanted it to go on forever. She was sobbing now, mindless with pleasure, Gabriel’s name on her lips as he slid endlessly in and out of her. She looked up at him, saw the strain in the muscles of his chest and arms, the sweat glistening over his skin. She opened again to his mind and knew she needed to feel him shatter the way she had.
And the second she thought it, he let go, driving forward in one last desperate thrust, roaring with release as his come pumped deep inside her. He pulled back and pushed inside once more, gasping as his seed spilled again and again, hearing her moan in sweet response.
His body, his heart, were aflame with unendurable passion. Every barrier of his mind was being burned to slag in a furnace of union, a crucible of joining. Everything was hers now, every detail of his life, every nuance of his soul, given into her care. And in her acceptance, in her sweet, brave, open affirmation of him, he found peace.
The blood on his hands, the blood on the floor . . .
The blood on the floor, the sorrow, the fear, the endless running . . .
. . . all swept away in cleansing, purifying fire.
His, she was his. Everything she had, everything she was. Nothing held back. Forever. God, I love you, Gabriel.
I love you, mi amor. Forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Winslow, Arizona, Earth, Sector Three
Trevyn sat in the dark chill of the dirtside bar and stared with hooded eyes at the loose-hipped girl on the catwalk. He was hard, aching with need, but not from the stripper’s pathetic efforts. And not from deprivation, either. He was fresh from the arms of a willing partner, picked up in a place not far from here. He had left her close to comatose with pleasure, thinking he’d finally sated the hunger that drove him.
He’d been wrong. And now he feared he knew why.
Somewhere nearby Gabriel and Lana were burning in the Forging Fire. They were locked in the hours-long sexual marathon of the T’haridon Set that would join them body, mind and soul until the end of their days. Trevyn had been caught up in the flux at the beginning of their attachment. Until the bonding was complete and their emotional parameters were reset, he would be a part of their upheaval. It was taking every bit of his control not to be drawn into what was happening between them. His mind was responding to that control. His body was . . . not.
Events had about them a sense of the inevitable now, of trohar, what the humans called fate. He sat in this bar, watching what he did not want to see, because that which he had warned against had happened. It was almost as if the bond had taken on a life of its own, helping Gabriel defeat Kinnian in their first round, so that the bond could be completed. Now the bond would be fully in place for the final round—so that Gabriel and Lana could defeat Kinnian? Were the gods so interested in the outcome of this contest?
Clearly Kinnian had been defeated in his first encounter with Gabriel. He’d even admitted to the real reason for it, cursing “that human bitch” as he lay up to his neck in fluids in the regeneration tank. Kinnian had sought out Gabriel across their link, launching an attack he was sure would catch their brother by surprise. But Kinnian had been the one surprised—by Lana’s presence, by her ability to influence the mindfield, and he suffered for it now. Trevyn allowed himself a smile. He’d been tempted to put Kinnian out of his misery permanently, but though his brother was injured, he was still no fool. The captain of the Bloodstalker had surrounded himself with his most loyal lieutenants on constant watch for just the kind of thing Trevyn was contemplating.
The defeat only bought them time. A planetary day, perhaps. As soon as the bond was complete, as soon as Kinnian recovered, the hunt would be on again. Trevyn doubted Gabriel’s ability to protect Lana’s mind from Kinnian. There would be a weakness in his protections, and Kinnian would find it. That, too, was inevitable. Surely Gabriel must know it.
At any rate, Lana and Gabriel were not in this town. Trevyn had found their hotel room, still reserved under a false name, their DNA and EM markers still detectable. But they were not there; their vehicle, their weapons, their communications devices were gone. His men were watching the place, in case they returned. Trevyn suspected they had been out in search of the boy when the T’haridon Set had imposed its own imperatives.
So here he sat, a prisoner of their desires as much as they themselves were at this hour. He lifted the glass of amber liquid to his lips and propelled it down his throat with a quick toss of his head. It stung like a swarm of angry zarunds on its way to his unquiet stomach.
“Hey, Zack, set the man up again.” The young man who owned the voice did not presume to sit. He kept his distance, lounging against the bar an arm’s length from Trevyn. “And a Bud for me.”
“You payin’, Rez, or you tryin’ to stiff this poor sucker?” The bartender was glaring at the newcomer with open hostility and made no move to get him a drink.
“What did you call me?”
“You heard.” The bartender turned his gaze on Trevyn. “You know this guy?”
“He don’t know me, but he wants to talk to me.” The newcomer bared his white teeth in what passed for a grin. “Word is you been looking for something. Think I can help you find it.”
Trevyn lifted his chin to dismiss the bartender. Shaking his head, the man behind the bar set a shot of whiskey and a bottle of beer in front of them and left.
Another complication, Trevyn thought. He let his unhappiness show and turned to the man beside him.
“What is it you think I’m looking for?”
“Name’s Will Bates.” The man held out a thin brown hand. Trevyn ignored it until he withdrew it. “I got friends around town say you been checking out the hotels, looking for somebody.”
“And what business would that be of yours?”
“This ain’t such a big town, mister, uh . . .?” Bates raised an eyebrow.
“Call me sir.”
“How about I just call you asshole and this conversation is done, huh?”
Trevyn reached underneath the bar for the front of the man’s shirt and jer
ked down hard. Bates’ face made brutal contact with the bar rail, splitting his lip. Trevyn put an arm around his shoulders to hold him in place and spoke into his ear.
“You approached me, Mr. Bates. I insist upon a certain level of respect. If you have something to say, don’t waste any more of my time. Get it out. Quickly.”
Trevyn scanned the room and found it almost deserted this early in the afternoon. The bartender, unconcerned, continued to wash glasses at the other end of the bar. Bates had no friends in sight to back him up. Trevyn released his hold enough for the man to talk.
“Okay.” Bates looked up, wiping at his bloody mouth with a shaking hand. “I just thought if you were looking for a couple of Anglos—a woman and a little boy—I might know where to find them, that’s all. She said she had a husband. I thought you might be him. Thought there might be a reward or something.”
The images Trevyn had leached from Bates in an unfiltered stream had showed nothing of the kind. They had revealed unbridled greed, unthinking selfishness. This man didn’t care why Trevyn was looking for the two innocents he had come across on the road by accident. He didn’t care what might happen to them after he’d “delivered” them. In fact, he’d been warned they should remain hidden by an older woman seeking to protect them. Bates wanted the payoff, to hell with the consequences for anyone else. But give him credit for one thing—he had what Trevyn was looking for.
Trevyn backed off. By some unlikely law of physics, the shot of whiskey had been spared in his interrogation of Bates and sat waiting for him on the bar. He drank it down. Gods, he hated himself for what he had to do next.
He laid a hand on the young man’s arm. “Tell me where.”
South of the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, Arizona, Earth, Sector Three
Gabriel wanted her again.
His body, relentless in its demands, had long since pushed hers past simple exhaustion into a trance-like semi-consciousness. She responded, sometimes with fire, sometimes with languor. Sometimes she even turned to him and urged him to begin again, spurred by a need as great as his own. But she was only human, and what should be pleasure was now approaching punishment.
Trouble In Mind (Interstellar Rescue Series Book 2) Page 29
