by Vivi Andrews
“Rachel.” He couldn’t do this. She was his weakness, his Achilles’ heel. He lost all perspective where she was concerned. He needed to walk away. Far away. Beyond the boundaries of the pride. Distance was the only cure. When he was with her, she found all the cracks in the walls he’d built to keep her at bay and slipped through them until she was here, inches away, looking up at him with eyes that had gone dewy and yearning.
“Please,” she whispered, and the last thread of resistance broke.
He’d thought he would enjoy the sound of Rachel begging him. He’d thought there would be no sweeter sound in the world.
Fool.
That plea grated on his soul.
He caught her to him and she came so readily into his arms it was as if her body was responding to his thoughts. Her arms twined around his neck and he claimed her lips in a caress both urgent and lingering. She pressed against the length of his body, the softness of her curves draining the blood from his brain and channeling it all to his throbbing cock. He slid his hands down to her taut ass, gripping the perfect curves and grinding her lower body against his hardness until she moaned against his lips and tugged on his sweater, trying to yank it off him without allowing even a centimeter between their bodies. Her eagerness fired his hunger to a new level and he lifted her, carrying her two steps to the futon which groaned beneath their combined weight as he knelt on it and lowered her onto her back. She clung to him, dragging him down with her, still sucking and nibbling at his lips, teasing him with little flicks and languid strokes of her tongue. When his weight pressed her down into the mattress, she moaned again into his mouth, and executed a slow, sinuous body roll that made his higher brain functions shut down in defeat as she arched against him from hips to shoulders.
He broke the unending kiss long enough to rock back and jerk his sweater and shirt over his head. Rachel squirmed beneath him, still pinned to the bed from the hips down, shoving at her own top. In a fit of chivalry, he helped her with it, dragging the clinging cotton up, reveling in the smooth, silken softness of her skin beneath as he did. He tugged the shirt over her head and flicked it aside. Her hair lifted with static electricity and he took a moment to smooth it down with both hands. Gazing down at her, it was hard to imagine anything had ever been more beautiful than she was in that moment. The pupils of her wide brown eyes were blown with lust and gleamed with eager anticipation. Her lips were rosy, full and swollen from his kisses, her face flushed, and her perfect, silken curves rose out of the cups of her lacy pink bra. She was heaven and he was sure he’d die if he couldn’t get inside her soon, but there was still so much of her body to explore.
He trailed his fingers down the sides of her neck, over her collarbones and around the outer curves of her breasts, caressing them through the material of her bra. She reached for the front-clasp, but he brushed her hands away, shaking his head. Bending his head, he scraped his teeth over the plump upper curve of her breast, tugging at the lace briefly with his teeth before sucking the point of her nipple into his mouth through the fabric. She gasped, her head falling back and her hips twisting against his, pushing to get closer. He hollowed his cheeks, sucking harder, framing and shaping her breasts with his hands, then switched to give the other breast its deserved attention. When he was finally satisfied and she was writhing helplessly, clutching his head to her breast, he flicked open the front clasp and tasted the silken sweetness of her bare skin. He tongued the firm peak of her nipple, rubbing his cheek against the swollen curve of her breast. She’d been made for this, all lush femininity. He wanted to wallow in her curves all night, but his jeans were downright painful and the need to get inside her was pressing every other thought out of his brain.
He rose up to his knees, struggling with the fucking zipper from hell, and Rachel sat up as well, her legs sprawled wide with him kneeling between them in a way that did nothing to help his ability to fit into his jeans. He cursed and closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing and the fastening of his jeans—and then there was another pair of hands there, helping him in a way that was both insanely erotic and not at all helpful. Adrian swore with feeling and nearly embarrassed himself like a teenager, only stopping himself from coming in his jeans by grabbing her hands and yanking them away, locking their fingers together to buy himself time to remember how to function.
When he opened his eyes, she was looking at him with moist lips and dark, eager eyes and his heart rate went right back into the red zone.
“Take off your clothes,” he demanded, releasing her hands and standing up to get rid of his own jeans. He’d call his talons and shred the fucking things if he had to. But thankfully that wasn’t necessary. The zipper from hell cooperated and he kicked off his boots and dragged off his jeans, underwear and socks in one move.
Rachel froze in the process of shimmying out of her own jeans, her eyes locking on the length of him, thrust out in front of him. He took a step toward her, another surge of blood rushing to his cock at the way she licked her lower lip, never looking away from him.
“I got some more condoms from the infirmary. Coat pocket.”
He practically launched himself at the discarded coat as Rachel finished shucking her shoes, socks and jeans. Rummaging through the pockets, he found three foil-wrapped condoms.
We’re going to need more than three.
But that was a worry for later. Adrian grabbed the condoms and somehow stopped himself from sprinting back to the front of the bed and Rachel.
She splayed on her back on his bed in only a pair of lacy pink underwear. Underwear he’d bought for her at the pride store, telling himself the entire time that he wasn’t fantasizing about seeing her exactly like this. Lying to himself.
She rolled to her side, propping herself on one elbow and watching him as he ripped open the packet and slipped on the latex. She crooked a finger at him, eyes gleaming wickedly, and he was done for. All he could do was fall on her like a beast, stroking every inch of her silken skin he could get his hands on and pressing the fiery heat of his body against her softness.
She welcomed him into her arms, kissing him back just as fiercely as he kissed her, and tangling her legs with his. His cock bumped up against her pussy, separated by layers of lace and latex, and he groaned, his hips thrusting so the length drove up between them, rubbing against her clit. She gasped and squirmed and he reached between them, his palm flat against the soft curve of her abdomen and then teasing beneath her panties, threading through her curls and brushing against the slick, wet heat of her labia. He found her clit, gently pinching it between two fingers and then stroking through her folds to spear a finger inside her. Rachel moaned, tipping her hips up to take him deeper. He withdrew his finger and thrust back with two, curling them inside her until he found the spot that made her scream, arching beneath him as she grew even wetter against his hand.
He needed to be there.
Adrian withdrew his hand enough to yank her panties down. She helped him, urgently shoving them off and spreading her legs wide. He fitted himself against her, closing his eyes against the drowning depth of sensation. She was tight for the first thrust, allowing him in only an inch, but so wet it took only three strokes to seat him fully. He hilted inside her and she moaned, the muscles of her pussy tightening around him in a way that would have made his brain seize if he’d had any brain left. He picked up a rhythm, all instinct and need, grateful she was with him, gasping and straining for her own peak because he didn’t think he could have stopped then for all the armies on earth.
She threw her head back and screamed, quaking beneath him as she found her release and he let slip the last fragmented reins of his control, pounding into her. He heard the pitch of her cries change, going higher as another orgasm built, and he drove into her like a madman, going rigid with his release as sperm shot out of him and he came hard enough to lose a piece of himself in her.
He collapsed onto her, utterly
drained but trying not to crush her with his weight. Sweat coated his skin and stuck her hair to her forehead, but she’d never looked more beautiful. Dazed and breathless, but breathtaking too. His Rachel.
Shit. He’d been lying to himself. All those times he’d told himself he didn’t love her anymore. Lies.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Adrian slipped out of the clasp of her body and rolled away to dispense of the condom. His good sense tried to return with the flow of blood to his more thoughtful regions, but he ignored it. Rachel still lay on his bed, gloriously naked and turned on her side. He climbed in beside her, ignoring the way the old frame groaned beneath his weight, and rolled her into his arms, tugging the blanket over both of them to keep off the winter chill. He would need to stoke up the fire in the potbelly stove soon. Their activities had distracted him from the icy bite in the air, but his human lover would catch a chill if he didn’t warm the room.
But not now. Now he would warm her with his own heat, curling his body around hers and forcibly ignoring the niggling doubts that tried to burrow into the back of his mind.
He wouldn’t let himself trust her. Fine. He would keep that last barrier intact, but this—this had been inevitable from the moment he saw her. She was his on a level he couldn’t question or hope to understand. She belonged here, curled in his arms, warm and weary from his lovemaking. The rest would wait for morning.
Rachel lay in her lover’s arms, sated—and completely confused. She’d been in a state of mindless bliss for about five minutes after he climbed back in bed to cuddle—and then her brain had woken up, loud and dubious. What did this mean? Where did they stand? Had he forgiven her? Had anything changed?
On the plus side, he hadn’t run—which seemed to be his usual defense mechanism when he felt threatened by his feelings for her. That had to be a good sign. And in the bed department she was beyond satisfied—he’d aptly demonstrated once again that her memories of his prowess had not been exaggerated. But now they lay twined in each other’s arms and Rachel was no closer to understanding what the hell had just happened.
She’d hoped for the best, that he would forgive her and she would fall into his arms—that was why she’d picked up the condoms from the infirmary in the first place—but she had never suspected it might actually work.
She didn’t have the first idea if he’d really forgiven her and she was afraid to ask—especially knowing her self-respect wouldn’t let her stay if he hadn’t—but the question still loomed.
She lay half-beneath him, she on her back, he more or less on his stomach, spread over her like a not-entirely-human blanket. His face was buried against her shoulder, one arm tucked beneath her head like a pillow, the other idly exploring her hip and the dip of her waist. Her arms were looped around his back, stroking across the muscular plane of his shoulders.
He was lean and strong—not heavy like the cat shifters, but then hawks weren’t bulky.
She’d never seen him as a hawk, she realized. His eyes would be the same—that keen, yellow intensity. Would his feathers be brown or more gray? Did he fly often? Perhaps that was where he went when he ran from her. How often had he watched her from the sky when she didn’t know to look up?
The questions crowded to the front of her mind, safer than asking about forgiveness and begging to be answered. She could tell he wasn’t asleep. Just silent.
“Did you go fly today? When you left me?”
Her hawk stiffened. It was so subtle she would not have felt it if she had not been wrapped around him. He didn’t answer.
“Adrian?”
He moved then, pulling away from her even as she tried to hold on to him, climbing out of the bed. “Are you cold?” he asked, not looking at her, striding to stoke the fire.
He clearly didn’t want to talk about this, but shifting was the most natural thing in the world for shape-shifters. There was nothing taboo about the subject. Unless he still viewed her as an Organization doctor. But this was deeper than that, even chillier than the cold shoulder he gave her work.
“When was the last time you shifted?”
He looked at her then, something dead behind the gleaming yellow of his eyes. “I don’t, anymore.”
Why? She wanted to ask, but it felt like the wrong question. “For how long?”
“Since your—” He stopped himself. “Since the Organization.”
She wished she could take it as a victory that he wasn’t calling them her people or her friends anymore, but all she felt was a horrified loss on his behalf. Months. He’d been unable to shift for months. For a creature that traded shape daily, that must be torture.
She’d read that in his file, she remembered now—that he hadn’t shifted in captivity, defying the scientists who wanted to study the process. But she’d thought it was only that—defiance. She hadn’t realized that something had happened to him to prevent the change.
“Have you talked to Dr. Brandt about it?” She sat up, tucking the blanket around her. Adrian was naked, crouched by the stove, as unself-conscious about his nudity as any shifter.
“Brandt is a lion doctor,” he said, attention on the logs. “It was a chemical cocktail designed to force feline shifters to change that broke my ability to connect with my hawk in the first place. I doubt the kitty-cat doc can help me.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“No. Just you.”
Rachel had no idea what to make of that. Adrian wasn’t the sort to ask for help, but to only tell her…it was a mark of unexpected trust. She was surprised he’d told her at all.
And even more surprised when he went on, volunteering on his own, “Dr. Brandt knew I couldn’t shift when I first arrived at the pride. He thought it was all the shit they’d been pumping into me. Figured once it got out of my system I’d be good as new. I just haven’t told him I’m not.”
Rachel remembered the way his eyes would change, the pupils vanishing into yellow, and the way his talons had nearly cut her after his dream. Physically, it seemed he could still shift, at least partially. So perhaps the block wasn’t chemical or physical. Perhaps it was mental or emotional instead. Was Adrian somehow stopping himself from calling his hawk?
His head snapped up, gaze whipping to the front door and then he was moving quickly, striding to collect his jeans. “Someone’s coming.”
Her heart rate accelerated and she realized she’d seen him like this before. Battle mode. He’d been arming himself as the Organization men crept down the hallway at the hotel. The night she’d jabbed the needle into his back. “Adrian?”
“Get dressed.” He was already lacing up his boots, further testament that he couldn’t shift. Few shifters worried about clothing going into a fight.
Rachel scrambled out of the bed and pulled on what she could find of her clothing. Her bra was MIA so she went without, pulling on underwear, jeans and just tugging her shirt over her head as a knock sounded at the door.
Adrian was crouched beside the door, gun out and held in an easy grip at his hip.
“Adrian?” a voice called through the door, and the Hawk instantly relaxed his ready stance.
“Kye.” Adrian stood, daring a glance out the window, then checking to make sure Rachel was clothed before reaching for the latch on the door.
The man who entered was one Rachel recognized from her various interrogation sessions, but didn’t remember well. He hadn’t spoken much, just watching her with the same quiet, steady gaze that assessed her now. She felt her face flushing, knowing a feline shifter would instantly be able to scent the sex in the room, though his nostrils didn’t so much as twitch in acknowledgement.
“Roman needs Rachel,” he said, all business. “They’re here.”
“They?” Adrian demanded.
Oh Lord. Her heart rate quadrupled. The Organization had come. They were handing her over to them.
Kye sh
ot Adrian a mildly incredulous look. “What rock have you been living under? The ambassadors from Three Rocks. The ones everyone has been expecting for months?”
Adrian frowned. “I don’t pay much attention to pride gossip.”
Kye looked back toward Rachel. “You can take five minutes. Don’t be longer than that.” He slipped back out into the night, leaving the door open behind him.
Adrian closed the door and turned to her, a frown crinkling his brow.
“What’s Three Rocks?” she asked.
“Another lion pride in Texas. There have been some rumors that they’re stirring up trouble, talking about the Organization and threatening to come out to the rest of the humans so the Organization can be exposed for what they’re doing to us. That kind of thing. I didn’t give much credence to the talk.”
“And now they want to talk to me?”
“If they are here—which it looks like they are—they’re using the Organization as their bogeyman to scare people into agreeing with them. Roman probably wants you there to vet whatever information they have on your people.”
And there it was. They were her people again.
And she had five minutes to get ready to face the Alpha.
Rachel grabbed a change of clothes and ducked into the bathroom. Doing the quickest standing-over-the-sink wash-up ever, so she wouldn’t reek quite so strongly of Adrian and sex, she emerged from the bathroom with thirty seconds to spare.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The delegation from the Three Rocks pride was in a way both exactly what Rachel had expected and nothing like she had expected.
They looked like lion-shifters; that was undeniable. The woman was tall, blonde and looked like she could arm-wrestle a Viking without breaking a sweat. Her mate, sprawled in the chair at her side with his arm draped along the back of hers, actually bore a strong resemblance to Roman. Large, muscled and radiating authority with a feline’s lazy confidence.
