by Maya Banks
Gabe was the sole reason Eli’s secret hadn’t been exposed. It also meant that Gabe was really the only experiment that worked. Had Esteban just overlooked him on his radar?
Tyana’s eyes rounded with shock. “So you aren’t the only one after all?”
Eli shook his head.
“Maybe Esteban wasn’t lying, then,” she murmured. “Maybe there is a cure.” Her chin came up and she looked at him, her eyes just a little bit lighter. “What went on during your captivity, Eli? Were you and Gabe given injections? Did they give you any serum? Tests?”
Eli’s jaw tightened. “They didn’t have time. We got out.” He couldn’t tell her that his natural shifting ability was what got their asses out of a sling in the prison camp. Not when the others didn’t start exhibiting symptoms until much later.
“We didn’t get in to rescue Damiano until three days after you guys split. He doesn’t remember what happened.” Her hands shook slightly on the table as she balled her fingers into fists. “He was in bad shape when we found him.”
The area right behind Eli’s eye began to pound. It felt like someone was shoving an ice pick right through his eyeball. He didn’t leave men behind. He’d watched Damiano go down. Seen his lifeless body dragged out of the cell.
“That bothers you.”
He looked up at her. She hadn’t posed it as a question. “Hell yeah, it bothers me. I don’t leave a man behind. I saw him die. I watched them take him away.”
“He was more dead than alive when we found him,” she said softly. “I won’t lose him to this. Not after saving him once.”
A silvery apparition shimmered and coalesced beside Tyana. Before he could utter a warning, not to Tyana, mind you, but to Gabe’s stupid ass, Tyana bolted from her chair and grabbed Gabe’s now solid form.
They fell to the floor, Tyana on top, knee dug deep into Gabe’s crotch and her knife across his throat.
Eli stood and leaned over the table. “Dumbass. It would serve you right if I let her carve you up like a turkey. Tyana, back off. The moron you’re about to kill is Gabe. I figure you at least want to stop and ask questions first.”
Tyana pressed her knife just a little harder until a fine stream of blood slithered down Gabe’s neck. “Don’t you ever try and sneak up on me again like that, fucker.”
Gabe held up his hands. “Yeah, yeah, I get the message. Get off, for God’s sake. I have a policy about hitting girls.”
Tyana kneed him in the groin even as she stood to her full height. Gabe rolled up in a ball, grunting in pain.
Eli chuckled and Gabe glared up at him. Then Eli grew more serious and fixed Gabe with a scowl. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.”
Tyana speared them both with furious eyes. “So what’s his gift?”
“Invisibility,” Gabe said as he finally got himself to an upright position. “Damn convenient, wouldn’t you say?”
“Or damn inconvenient if it gets you killed,” she said sharply.
Gabe folded his arms over his chest. “Damiano. You said he was alive.”
She nodded. “No thanks to you and your team.”
“That’s low and you know it,” Eli said.
She lifted a brow. “Do I? It seems to me that you and Gabe here have a good deal. Maybe Ian and Braden were just collateral damage along with Damiano.”
Eli bolted around the table and got up into her face quick. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and yanked her up close. “If you’re insinuating that we somehow signed on for this gig, you better think again. We took a job to recover hostages. We hired Falcon to get us there. There were no hostages. It was set up from the start. How the fuck do we know that Falcon didn’t lead us right into Esteban’s hands?”
She gazed unflinchingly at him. “I guess neither of us has reason to trust the other.”
“And yet here you are with the proverbial olive branch,” he murmured.
“Maybe I just think our energies are better spent as a team rather than at odds.”
“And I couldn’t agree more.” He bent and licked gently at the cut at the corner of her lip.
She jerked away, her eyes blazing with fury. She cast a sidelong glance at Gabe and frowned even harder. Eli laughed.
“He heard our entire conversation, sugar. Don’t go getting all shy on me now.”
It was probably the wrong thing to do, remind her that Gabe had been privy to her bloodletting. And he had a feeling that any time Tyana got in touch with her innermost thoughts it was the equivalent of shedding blood.
She turned and stalked out of the kitchen, and Eli turned on Gabe. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
Gabe gave him a bored look. “You seem to forget she was sent here to kill at least some of us. Quit thinking with your dick, Eli. Get rid of her and fast.”
Eli sighed. “To quote a saying that has become increasingly more common around here lately, if she had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want, Gabe? Want me to go slit her throat? How does that help us? She has information we need. We now have the name of the jerk-off who gassed us to begin with. He wants us out of the picture. I think we ought to be a little more concerned with taking this asshole out than pissing off the entire Falcon Mercenary Group by killing their little sister.”
Gabe shrugged. “I’m with you, man. You know that. I just don’t agree with her being here. And I’d hate to think your judgment was clouded because of your desire to get into her pants.”
“I believe you’ve made yourself abundantly clear.”
Gabe turned and went the opposite direction toward the stairs, and Eli went in search of Tyana.
He found her in his study, pacing.
It was interesting, the myriad of reactions she elicited in him. Yeah, he wanted to fuck her. But when he looked at her, all hard edges with just a hint of vulnerability that he got the barest glimpses of, he had the strange desire to shelter her. To protect her, though God knew she could take care of herself.
And it was that urge that had him crossing the room.
He slid his hand over her shoulder, cautiously, not wanting to spook her. When she didn’t react, he added his other hand, cupping her arms and pulling her back against his chest.
She trembled in his arms, and he slowly turned her around.
“So what do we do with this thing between us, Tyana? Do we ignore it? Make it all business, keep trying to kick each other’s asses and forge an uneasy alliance? Or do we stop fighting the inevitable, give in, spend the night in each other’s arms and figure out what the fuck we’re going to do tomorrow?”
Chapter Sixteen
Tyana didn’t try to pull out of Eli’s arms, though the feeling of being this close to someone was alien. It felt…right, and that should scare her to death.
She crooked her mouth up into a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “I’m too tired to fuck.”
He leaned in close, his mouth hovering precariously close to hers. Their noses did a subtle dance as they moved to allow their mouths access.
“I’m more than willing to do all the work,” he murmured. “All you have to do is lie back and enjoy the ride, sugar. Let me love you, touch you, kiss you, stroke that beautiful body of yours.”
She shivered uncontrollably. A low throb, warm and steady, settled into her stomach and spread through her groin until her pussy strained and ached. How could such simple words do such a number on her?
He touched his lips to hers. Soft. It was an offering, not a taking. There was a gentleness to his movements she wasn’t used to. Fear fluttered, distant, in her chest, but she pushed it aside. She wanted this. She wanted him.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
She heard his sudden intake of breath as his hands came up to frame her face. His thumbs brushed across her cheekbones, like a feather, light, sensual.
He kissed her. Harder this time. Their mouths melded together, melting
like ice on fire.
His teeth caught at her bottom lip and pulled outward until he sucked it into his mouth. His tongue licked over the full flesh, tasting before he released it again.
Then he reached down and took her hand, twining their fingers together. He took a step back, still holding her hand. Like a lover. Like someone who cared about her.
Her confidence fled.
Fucking she could handle, but she felt in her bones that this was not the sort of sex she was accustomed to. When she indulged—bad choice of words. When she had sex, it was out of necessity, done mechanically like a job, a necessary task. This…this was different, and she wondered if this was what it was like to be made love to. To be cherished by a man whose interest went beyond a quick lay and an orgasm.
He pulled her toward him as he simply turned and walked toward a doorway at the back of his study. When they entered, she realized this was his bedroom. It was dark and masculine, like him. A bit of wild and exotic mixed in.
He stopped a few feet away from the bed and fingered the strap of her rifle.
“Undressing you should be fun. Brings me back to my boyhood days of playing with GI Joe action figures,” he quipped.
She smiled and allowed him to divest her of her weapons one by one. They landed with a clatter, one after another on the floor, and finally he reached for her jacket, slipping it over her shoulders and letting it also fall to the floor.
“I thought we’d start with a hot shower,” he said. “I kinda like you all dirty and bloody. It’s a serious turn on. But there’s my sheets to consider.”
A low chuckle escaped from her throat. It felt good to laugh, to escape for a moment into lightness.
She trembled as he undid her pants. Instead of pulling them off, he guided her back until the backs of her knees met the bed. He gently pushed her down, and when she was sitting, he knelt and began unlacing her boots.
“You know when I knew I was a goner?” he asked.
She cocked her head in question.
“When you walked into that Singapore nightclub like you fucking owned it, and I looked down and saw those combat boots.”
“You’re a sick puppy,” she muttered.
He took the boots off and let them fall with a clunk. Then he stood and pulled her up again. His hands circled her waist, and his fingers dug into the waistband of her pants, skirting down into her panties.
He tugged downward, letting his hands glide across her bare ass as her clothing worked lower. When the material pooled at her ankles, she stepped out, disentangling herself from the pant legs.
His hands skimmed back up her legs, over her hips and then tunneled under her shirt, pushing upward.
“Raise your arms, sugar,” he whispered, a sexy, husky catch to his voice.
Slowly, she moved her arms up and over her head. A twinge of pain nipped at her arm from the still-fresh cut, but she didn’t lower her arms. He pulled the shirt the rest of the way off, and she was left standing there naked.
It made her feel horribly vulnerable. Unprotected.
She was cognizant of every scrape, every bruise, every bit of dried blood. Of the dirt and sweat and of her lithe, boyish figure.
She didn’t have the curves other women had. Her hips barely made a mark outside her waistline, and her breasts were small, not plump and soft.
With shaking hands, she lowered her arms to cover herself, no longer able to bear what Eli was seeing.
He pried her hands away from her body then reached up to cup her face.
“You’re beautiful, Tyana.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Eli.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “I don’t lie to women to get them into bed.”
He didn’t have to. The inference was there.
“You know what I see when I look at you, Tyana?”
“What?” she whispered, afraid of what he’d say and yet eager. So eager.
“I see a warrior. A kickass, brave warrior of a woman. I see someone who is my equal. I see someone who is so breathtakingly beautiful that it hurts me to look at you without touching. I see someone who is complex, loyal, who isn’t afraid of anything, and yet I see a fragility that makes me want to take you in my arms and shelter you from every bad thing that’s ever happened to you and make sure nothing ever touches you again. That’s what I see, Tyana. Don’t ever fucking hide yourself from me. I won’t let you.”
She swallowed, let out a shaky breath and swallowed again. “I don’t want to need you, Eli.”
“I don’t want to need you either, sugar, but as my granddaddy used to say, want in one hand and shit in the other and see which gets fuller faster.”
Her shoulders shook with silent laughter. “We’re a fucked-up pair.”
“That we are. But I think we’d make one badass team.”
She frowned. “I already have a team.”
He put a finger over her lips. “Let’s not ruin everything. That’s just me getting carried away with wants and wishes.”
He pulled her toward the bathroom and left her standing on the cool tile while he reached in to start the water. A few moments later, steam gathered and began fogging the doors.
He looked over and held out his hand for her. She stared at it for a moment and then slid her palm over his. His fingers curled over hers and he tugged her into the shower.
For a few minutes they just stood there, letting the hot water pour over them. Then, finally, Eli squeezed shampoo into his hands and began washing her hair. He turned her around so that her back fit into his chest as his hands worked over her head, massaging, working the soap into her hair.
She closed her eyes and leaned further into him, enjoying the feel of his body, hard, muscular against her own.
Soon his hands moved down from her hair and over her body, lathering, touching, soaping every inch of her skin. He gently cleaned the cut on her arm and after he rinsed the soap away, he leaned down and pressed his lips to the wound just as he’d done earlier. Each touch sent her closer to madness as the ache grew between her legs and in her heart.
His fingertips found her nipples and worked them into hard points. He played awhile and then sent his hand seeking lower, down her belly to the apex at her legs. Her knees trembled as one finger slid between her folds. Lightning snaked up her spine when he touched her clit.
“There’s definitely sweetness, sugar. I just have to dig for it,” he murmured against her ear.
She twisted in his arms, her skin edgy and alive, crawling with need. She wanted to touch him and explore the planes of his body as he had done hers. Reaching for the soap, she squeezed the liquid into her hands and then pressed her palms to his chest.
Working in broad strokes, she traveled over his body, pausing over the scars, the tight muscles, the fine line of hair that worked down his midline.
His belly was taut, no softness to him. Her gaze drifted down to the dark hair at his groin, wet and flat against his skin from the shower. His cock suffered from no such malady. It was rigid, distended, as though it were reaching for her.
She wrapped her soapy hands around it and began a gentle massage. He groaned.
With one hand, she worked up and down, from base to tip. With the other, she cupped his balls, working his sac in her fingers as she stroked his cock harder.
He finally reached down and tore her hands away, pulling them up high, over her head and forcing her back against the shower wall. He kissed her hungrily as the water pelted his back. His cock bumped against her belly, burning into her skin. Then as if remembering her injured arm, he quickly lowered her hands and kissed the cut once again.
“I hope we’re clean because I’m taking this show into the bedroom before it’s all over with.”
He reached behind him to shut off the water and then carefully pulled her against him as he backed out of the stall.
They dried quickly, their impatience showing as they rubbed themselves briskly with the towels. Eli reached over with his to give her hair an addi
tional wipe as she dried the rest of her body.
“In the bedroom, sugar. Now.”
They hurried out, and he caught up to her just as she reached the bed. He grabbed her arm and turned her around, her body colliding with his as his mouth met hers in a hungry advance.
He continued to walk her backward until she bumped against the mattress. Then he lowered her down. Her legs dangled over the side, and she started to hoist herself higher on the bed, but he stopped her with a hand.
“Don’t move a muscle, sugar. You’re just right.”
She eyed him curiously as he parted her legs and knelt on the floor beside the bed. A shudder rolled over her body when she saw his mouth was level with her pussy.
Gentle fingers explored, tentative at first, light little touches that coaxed a response from her. They grew bolder, dipping into her wetness, spreading the layers of flesh and teasing the sensitive area beyond.
And then his tongue followed his fingers. He licked at her entrance, running a tight circle around it. Her thighs began to shake as every muscle contorted in response.
“You taste so sweet,” he murmured, the words humming and vibrating against her pussy.
She closed her eyes and surrendered to his attentions. She let everything else fall away and gave herself to this one moment.
Never before had she given up so much control, power, to another person. But for now, she let go of her fear, her uncertainties, swallowed them back with fierce determination.
She wanted this. Craved it with a dangerous urgency.
His body slid up hers and his mouth blazed a trail over her belly, up to her breasts. He cupped her butt in his palms as she cradled his form. His tongue swirled around one nipple, teasing it into a tight point before he turned and did the same to the other.
She felt the hot shock of his erection between her legs. He spread her wider, still cupping her ass and suddenly he was inside her, deep, in one hard thrust.
Her eyes flew open, a gasp escaping her mouth. Hot. So hot. Skin against skin. No latex barrier.
His mouth was against her neck and he nibbled his way up to her ear before he whispered, “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll get the condom. I just couldn’t resist one taste of you. I wanted to feel your heat surrounding my dick, just you, nothing else.”
He slid back as he spoke, and her pussy rippled around his cock, tugging him. He stroked forward again, and her moan mixed with his growl of pleasure.
“Don’t go. Not yet,” she whispered.
He retreated and thrust again, and she sighed.
“You feel incredible,” he said against her ear. He kissed the lobe, nibbled at it then slid his mouth down the curve of her neck. “I could stay awhile longer, until I get you off, sugar. Would you like that? Do you like the feel of us skin on skin?”
His words, like velvet, brushed over her, stroking soft.
“You told me I wouldn’t have to do any of the work,” she said with a smile. “Making decisions is work.”
She felt him grin against her shoulder.
“Tell me what you like,” he murmured. “Do you want me to touch your clit while I’m pounding into you? Do you want me to stroke your nipples? Do you want me deep when you come?”
She shivered uncontrollably. “Deep. I want you deep. I want your mouth on my breasts, your fingers on my clit.”
He smiled again. “I love a woman who knows what she wants.”
He ducked his head and sucked one nipple into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth while he moved a hand between them, sliding his fingers over her straining clit. He rocked his hips forward, thrusting deeply.
Only once had she ever experienced sex without a condom, and that time was long buried in painful memories. It wouldn’t intrude here where it had no place. This was beautiful, not ugly, not hurtful.
