He pulled her into his arms and his mouth came immediately down on hers. His skin was cool to the touch but the feeling of his lips against hers was warm. Very warm. He licked at her lips, encouraging her to open to him. He took a handful of her wet hair in his hand and moved her head slightly to the side, giving him better angles for the plundering his tongue was doing with hers.
His other hand moved to the bottom of her soaked shirt. He started to lift it up and soon realised it was not possible without a second hand. He pulled away from her reluctantly and grasped the shirt with both hands and lifted it over her head in one easy motion.
Both hands then slid around her back and quickly unsnapped her bra. He slowly dragged it down her arms, making her shiver with anticipation.
He then dropped to his knees, bringing his head level with her tight-budded nipples. He licked over the left and tweaked the right with his fingers.
She immediately groaned in response. How did he manage to melt her into a quivering bundle of need each time, every time?
His hands were working on the front button and zip of her Capris when Rory and Quade came thudding into the wetroom. A heavy fist hammered on the bathroom door.
Rihanna immediately stiffened in his arms
“Hey, you two, not now. We’re hungry.”
Bray dragged his mouth away from her breast and growled, “Fuck off, Rory. Go light the BBQ if you’re so bloody hungry.”
She pulled away from him, clearly uncomfortable with the guys right through the door. He stood and gave her a brief but oh so good hug, rubbing his face against her neck like he did. He lifted her chin so she looked him the eye. Then he smiled that naughty boy smile she realised she was beginning to crave.
“Remind me where I got to later. Okay?” he said softly against her ear.
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll chase them out of here so you can escape to the bedroom and get changed.”
She smiled her thanks and he slipped through the door. She heard him talking to Rory and Quade through the door.
“Right, you fuckers; don’t you know what a closed door means?”
“Sure we do, Bray. We just enjoy watching you suffer even more.” Rory laughed at him.
“Like I said this morning, who needs enemies…”
She heard deep laughter and what she thought sounded like a clash of bodies as they headed through the door into the house.
***
Later that night, Rihanna had again gone to bed earlier, leaving the guys to have some “man time.” Physically, they could also function on much less sleep than their pure human counterparts. He figured Rihanna would also enjoy a bit more sleep. No doubt she’d be waking up later or, more to the point, he’d be waking her up later. His cock immediately started to stiffen at the thought of having her in his arms again, clearly supportive of the idea.
The guys were lounging with him in the family room.
“So how close was it today?” Quade asked him.
“Closer than I’d like. I knew something was wrong. My skin and senses were twitching like mad. I was resisting the urge to bolt all day; you both know what that’s like.” Rory and Quade nodded their agreement. “But we had to see what they were up to. That virus is real and is knock you down kill you real. To us, it would likely be one hundred percent effective. To humans, at least sixty percent likely to cause death. If you were lucky and survived, I reckon you wouldn’t be the same afterward.”
Rory and Quade listened intently.
“What sort of sick fuck does that?” Quade spat, shaking his head in disgust.
“It was bizarre watching these guys. It was like the Odd Couple. Sullivan is clearly brilliant but to the point of freaky and he has this naivety or madness at times that you just shake your head at.” Brayden’s head was shaking back and forth, emphasising his point. “Then Matthews—well, he’s a bit of business. Slimeball central. First thing he did was try to crack onto Rih.”
“How’d that work out for him?” Rory asked, scepticism all over his face.
“I reckon he’s still defrosting his nuts. She iced him big time. Totally froze him out. It was funny as shit, watching. He kept trying and then finally gave up.” He paused, clearly recalling before continuing. “Then he seemed to get mean and you could just tell he was up to something.
“We’d just finished watching the demo and the guy gets a page and just about runs from the room. That’s when we hightailed it out of there. We got out of the building and they were rounding the corner in a black sedan. Nearly got us, too. I had to speed things up a bit, so I picked her up and ran. We lost ’em about ten clicks onto the M1 Southbound.”
“Shit, mate, how did she take it all? She looked okay when you guys came in,” Rory asked.
“She was pretty good. Cool when it was all happening. Then admitted it was all a bit terrifying later. She definitely had second thoughts about everything. This…us—it’s all a bit much for her at the moment.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m not sure how she’d cope at all if she found out.”
“Does she suspect?” Quade asked cautiously.
“I don’t think so. But who knows what goes on in that gorgeous head of hers?”
“Mate, you’re totally gone.” Quade shook his head, truly pitying his friend.
Brayden sat there staring into nothing, clearly struggling with something.
“There’s something else I need to tell you guys.”
Quade sat up straighter, uncomfortable with where this conversation looked to be going. “Mate, we didn’t sit down here for some sissy counselling session.”
“Too bad, you’re my brothers, well, as close to it as possible. That gives me dumping rights,” Brayden confirmed for Quade in case he’d been confused.
“Brace for it, Quade, something’s up his butt and I have a horrible feeling we’re about to find out what,” Rory warned Quade.
Brayden continued to sit there, still in two minds about what he wanted to tell them. The guys were like family but even family you don’t disclose everything to. But they had a right to know in case anything happened. More to the point, they had to know if anything happened. He’d need them and Rihanna would probably need them as well. He had to tell them.
“Will you stop being a candy ass and fucking spit it out, mate,” Rory urged.
“I had unprotected sex with Rihanna,” Brayden finally confessed.
Rory laughed. “That’s it? Dumb, but not the end of the world.”
“She’s not on anything else and she’ll be ovulating in a few days.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, bro, but I’m still not following nor do I really think I need to know this in advance. My nose will let me know.”
Brayden slapped his hands on his knees in frustration. “She could be pregnant,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Ohhhhhhhhkkkkkkkkkayyyyyy, now I’m getting you.” Rory sucked in a breath and smacked his lips.
“If she’s not ovulating, then what’s the problem?” Quade asked, still missing something.
“Equine sperm can last for up to a week inside the female body and it’s also magnified because of all the other animal help it gets. It’s about the strongest of all our kooky DNA combos when it comes to the lifespan of sperm,” Rory clarified for him.
“Shit, I didn’t know that. How come you knew that?” Quade demanded of Rory, clearly unhappy Rory knew something he didn’t.
“Because I was paying attention in biology all those years ago, dumb ass,” Rory tossed at Quade. “So is she worried?”
“No, because she thinks the chances are minimal, given ovulation is a few days off and human sperm usually doesn’t last more than a few hours inside a female. It can last a lot longer but it’s unlikely unless it has perfect conditions.” He paused, gathering himself again. “Being the scientist she is, she’s disregarded it as a very low possibility.”
“But you don’t think that possibility is so low?” Rory questioned.
�
��No, I don’t. I’d say the chances are much higher.”
“Well, keeping with tonight’s therapy session theme, how do you feel about that, Pony Boy?”
“I don’t know, Rory. Part of me is excited at the thought of having my own family. Part of me is terrified of what it means and what Rihanna would think. She’d have to be told about us if she was pregnant.” He looked away. “I can’t help but think she’ll look at me as some type of freak if she found out. I’m not sure I could stand that.”
“So what’re you going to do?”
“Nothing I can do yet. I’m going to wait and see what happens. I promised her one day at a time and I meant it. No way am I letting her go.”
The determination in Brayden’s voice was evident. Their animal DNA tended to make them all far more territorial than normal humans. Bray was marking his territory and making it known to the rest of his family. His position was now crystal clear to his team members.
Something had just shifted in all their lives and they all felt it in one way or another. It was significant. For the first time, there was the very real possibility that a human would need to be brought into the inner circle and given the details of the circle they all kept.
One thing they were all very good at was adapting.
They had to all their lives. They would again.
“I’m not happy about this. But you know we’ll support you and do everything to keep her safe. And if there’s a baby, him or her as well.” Quade’s unquestioning support was not lost on Brayden. He knew how much that would have cost Quade.
“Thanks, mate; you don’t know how much that means to me.” He meant it, every word.
“I do, because I know you’d do exactly the same for me, no questions.”
“What about you, Rory? How do you feel?” Brayden had to ask even though he had a very good idea.
“As I said last night, mate, goin’ to be interesting watching.” Rory laughed again at his own humour.
Something was clearly bothering Quade. “Are you going to tell the boss?”
“I don’t think so. If it turns out to be a false alarm, then I don’t fancy being caught in a shit storm for nothing. If it is a something, then a couple of weeks really aren’t going to matter.”
“You can’t talk about your kid as a ‘something’, Bray,” Rory chastised.
“I’m not even sure what a kid from a hybrid and a human would result in. God, it’s terrifying.” Sweat broke out on his brow just at the thought. Reproduction hadn’t been in their collective life plans.
“Stop buying trouble. We function as humans with a set of kick-ass other cool features. Why wouldn’t your kid be the same?” Rory suggested logically.
“Probably because it would be too much to hope for,” Bray said philosophically.
“Man, the universe wouldn’t dare fuck this up. It’s too in debt to us as it is. We spend our lives taking care of all the scum that keeps rising to the surface to keep the human inhabitants from destroying themselves. Yeah, the universe wouldn’t do this,” Rory declared confidently.
“Well, I’m glad you’re so confident. You’ve got no idea how much I hope you’re right.” Rory had an uncanny track record of being correct. He hoped it wasn’t about to change now.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea, mate, because I’d be fighting with everything I had if I had an opportunity with a woman like Rihanna.” For once there was not a hint of humour in Rory’s voice, only sincerity.
“We got your back on this, mate.” Quade’s words were definitive. Subject closed, nothing more to be said.
Brayden nodded his appreciation. He daren’t speak another word just now. His brothers had given him a very precious gift and he was dying inside with the myriad emotions he was feeling. If he said anything further, he’d be crying like a baby any second.
Rory, sensing Bray’s discomfort, leapt on to the business at hand.
“So can you and Rihanna check out a few leads tomorrow?”
“Course we can; I was just messing with you before. Only rider is if the boss has other plans for us.”
“Goes without saying,” Rory agreed.
“What time’s briefing?”
“Oh seven hundred. Think you can drag your ass out of bed by then, lover boy?” Rory was back to jokes.
“You’re just jealous, asshole.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely, and not too proud to admit it.” That was the great thing about Rory: he was so open and honest and a frickin’ hoot to boot. He could be deadly serious and still take the piss out of any situation. “Go make her a happy girl, mate.”
God, he was lucky to have these guys as his friends and brothers.
Chapter Seventeen
They’d spent the last three days checking out a heap of leads. More like the guys had done a heap of “checking out.” Which Rihanna concluded was really a whole lot of driving around, asking questions, getting bits and pieces of something they called intel and then relaying it back to some mystical place they called the Centre. She was beginning to be sceptical that it really existed. Except these three seemed to think so.
They had at least two, sometimes three, “briefings” a day. “Briefings” sounded so important and mysterious. What she’d actually discovered was they were really just conference calls. This was where the guys reported in on their “assignments.” Assignment was just another fancy ass name for tasks in a project plan. The boss, or Tom as she called him, gave them more assignments, patted them on the head and sent them on their merry way like good little soldiers.
Through this little process of “put the jigsaw puzzle” together, the Centre had been able to deduce that they were actually now looking for two groups: The original East Europeans that had abducted her father and tried to abduct her. And it seemed a group of extremist Chinese guys. But to date no one knew much about these creeps, only that they wanted the virus and anyone that had expertise in it.
Well, it seemed that was what everyone wanted these days, for some reason or another. At last count there was five groups involved, although one or more of these parties had joined forces.
The East Europeans appeared to be working for the Chinese now, in some capacity. The Centre had effectively swallowed up her father and herself, forming one new united group, and Sullivan, it seemed, had been fucked over by Matthews. Matthews had disappeared the afternoon that Bray and Rihanna had spent at the Brisbane lab. What a stinking mess.
It was getting old fast. Not the being with Bray part, but this virus thing was really starting to suck. It made her tense. It made her anxious. She hated knowing that a bunch of lunatics had made a weapon with a virus that was already lethal by accident in its original form.
As it was now…fuck, every day could be their last. Oh, correct that…last healthy day before a week if you were lucky—or three months if you weren’t—of knowing you were going to die a slow and agonising death. Nuh, no, no, no, no.
This situation sucked on so many levels.
She needed some normality; she needed to see Jazz. She’d spoken to her briefly yesterday and they had shared a few more texts. But it wasn’t the same. She needed to feel a bit more connected to her old life than what she’d felt for the last couple of days.
Rihanna did a mental double take. What the hell had she just thought? Back up the bus, she’d just mentally thought of pre New Year’s Eve as her old life and post as her new life. Oh, my God! That was just too weird. She needed Jazz and she needed her now. How was she going to make that happen?
She couldn’t just jump in her car and head over to Jazz’s. In fact, she didn’t even have her car here. Brayden was her lifeline for everything. She had to admit, he was one damn fine lifeline, but she hated relying on anybody. Least of all someone she was in totally two minds about.
Every day, he got just a little more under her skin. He was always there and they were becoming more and more attuned. In fact, just this morning he looked at her in a way that she was certain was him reading her m
ind. Because the next second, he finished her sentence for her. But this craziness seemed to be his life. Maybe it wouldn’t be that weird if she wasn’t part of it like she was with the virus. Ahhhhh, she didn’t know. Just didn’t know.
What she did know was that just one look from him and she became instant mush. He affected her like no man ever had and the need to be close to him was getting stronger, if anything. If it was only all about lust, didn’t it wear off quickly? What if she was really falling for him? Oh fuck, now she was really freaking herself out.
Mmmm, she needed Jazz bad. Jazz would know what to do.
She dried off from her shower, threw on a T-shirt and shorts, and went looking for Bray. She needed to see Jazz.
Rihanna found the three of them sitting around the coffee table, peering at a laptop that Rory sat in front of.
“Can you believe these guys? Talk about backward thinkers. What century do they think it is?” Rory was clearly baffled and pissed off by whatever he was talking about.
“Hard to believe that one of the most industrialised and adapted nations can have pockets that are so backward. I guess that’s what makes the world go around,” Brayden added philosophically.
“I think we just need to find these fuckers and send them home with a one-way ticket; a body bag would work for me as well.” That was the blunt force approach she’d come to expect and was beginning to enjoy from Quade. He was Mister Black and White. It worked for him or it didn’t. He liked you or he didn’t. He had your back or he was your enemy.
She sat on the single lounge chair adjacent to the lounge they were all huddled on. “Care to fill me on what’s got you all so pissed?”
They all looked from one to another as if trying to decide if they should.
She decided for them. “Fine, don’t tell me. What do I care?”
“Rih, it’s not that we don’t want to tell you. It’s just that we’re not supposed to,” Bray responded gently.
“Fuck the rules, Bray; she has a point. She’s just as much a part of this as any of us, probably even more.” Mister Strong and Silent made the suggestion—or was it a statement? Yep, definitely a statement. She was beginning to like Quade more and more. She nodded her head at him in thanks.
Finding Trust (Centre Games) Page 21
