by Cathryn Cade
“Welcome to the desert,” Gray said, pulling her along. Just as they reached the shelter of an old awning over a store’s back entrance, thunder rumbled, long and loud. Lightning flickered out on the high desert, and then again, much nearer.
“Oh, my gosh,” Brynne called over the rumble. “Here comes the storm. We should've gone out the front doors.”
Thunder rumbled around them, and rain began to splatter down, big cold drops that splatted in the dust and hit the canvas over their heads with little thwacking sounds.
Brynne yelped, and Gray tucked her against the wall under the awning, and leaned in over her. “Yup. Looks like it’s gonna be a good one. Have some big-ass thunderstorms here in the southwest.”
Brynne moved closer to him, and he slid his arms around her.
“It’s okay, baby. Just some weather,” he told her. “Cold?”
She shook her head, shivering. “It’s … I don’t know—I feel funny.” And not in a good way. There was some weird vibe out here.
“Maybe it’s E’ea. Where is she, anyway?”
Oh, maybe that was the problem, she was used to having E'ea around. “She’s, um, asleep. Turns out she doesn’t tolerate margaritas very well.”
“Well, hell,” Gray said. “I should’ve remembered about that. Good thing I didn’t let her drink tequila for breakfast like she wanted.”
“I didn’t know, or I would never have had anything to drink.”
“Not your fault, if no one told you. You love margaritas.” He cupped her cheek, his breath warm on her face. “How d’you feel now?”
“Still a little … woozy,” she confided. But that might be his nearness, as much as the alcohol. They were cocooned here in the dark, unable to see each other’s faces, communicating by touch.
“Well, we’re safe and dry here, till the rain stops. C’mere. Can’t have you getting wet and chilled.”
Brynne didn’t answer—she was too busy leaning into him, savoring being held close in his strong arms, with his heat and scent surrounding her. She smoothed her hand down over his chest and across the hard swell of his bicep. Gray wasn’t a body-builder with every muscle defined, he was a hot guy who enjoyed being active, worked and played hard, and it showed.
No, she wasn’t chilled in his embrace … but she was sure a certain part of her was wet.
Brynne wasn’t sure if he moved closer, or if she did—or maybe both of them. Their lips brushed. His were soft, warm and curved to fit hers as easily as slipping into silk. The brush of his tongue against hers was even silkier, and it sent a flash of heat through her so strong and sweet she slid her arms up around his neck and opened her mouth to him.
Gray groaned, his face against hers, dragging his mouth and nose down over her face to taste her earlobe, her throat, then her mouth again.
“We shouldn’t,” he told her over the splatting rain. “It’ll just complicate things—and they’re already as complicated as they can get.”
“I don’t care,” she told him, rubbing her breasts on his chest, feeling her flimsy dress slide to bare one breast so her nipple was abraded by his shirt. It felt so good her sex clenched, empty and needy. “I know you don’t want anything more, and I don’t either—not now, when everything’s so crazy. I just need—I need to feel alive, Gray. Then we'll both walk away.” As soon as this trouble was over, anyway.
He groaned again, kissing her again. “I’m incredibly grateful you’re alive, babe. That we—that you get another chance to live. And I need to feel that you’re alive too.”
The rain enclosed them in their own little world, a cocoon of darkness, where anything could happen between them and be right.
He kissed her again, harder and deeper this time, his tongue tangling with hers, exploring her mouth as his big, artist’s hands stroked down her back, molded her ass then pulled her dress up and delved underneath to grasp her bare bottom.
“What are you wearing, a thong?” he asked, nipping her lower lip.
“Kind of … Topper gave it to me.”
“I approve.” He demonstrated by tracing the fragile fabric down into the cleft of her ass, and beyond. Brynne whimpered as his big, knowing fingers traced her wet, swollen sex teasingly. “You still like that.”
Of course she did. She’d have to be dead again not to like that.
“Gray?” she blurted, a chill racing through her. “Do you—do you think I’m really alive? I mean, what if this is just some weird reanimation phase, where E’ea will leave and I’ll be left just … an empty husk?” What if he shouldn't even be touching her like this? She didn't want to contaminate him or something.
He stilled, his arm tightening. “Yes, and no,” he said slowly. “I don’t get how you got to come back to life, sweetheart, but you are alive. You are here.”
His fingers moved again, and his voice deepened to sexy velvet. “And I really, really don’t think a zombie husk would be all warm and wet and ready for me down here. But you are.”
He dipped his head and kissed her again, stroking her even more intimately. Brynne moved to accommodate him, her leg hooked up around his.
Oh, yes, she was ready for him … from her sex to her heart, swelling with joy, and all points in between. She could hardly believe that she was in his arms again.
“Love the way you respond to me,” he murmured as he delved into her. “So sweet and slick, like honey on my fingers, and on my cock.”
Brynne clutched at him, moaning as he found a place so sensitive that his light touch made her body clench with yearning.
“D’you need me here?” he asked her, stroking again. “Need me to fill you up, and stroke you deep inside, until you can’t do anything but come around me?”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Gray, yes.”
“Good, because I need it too. Need you.”
He reached between them, and for a moment they jostled in the dark as he unfastened his jeans and donned a condom. His hard length slapped against her inner thighs and then he positioned himself and pressed into her, sliding slowly and carefully home, giving her time to adjust.
When he was deep as he could go, he kissed her again, his hand cupping her head and then pressing her face into his throat as he began to move, strong yet gentle thrusts that made them both quiver with rising pleasure and relentless need.
“Missed you,” he muttered into her hair. “You drive me crazy, but I missed you all the same.”
Somehow his words sent her over the edge, flying into that delicious freefall that was him, big and hard in her arms and inside her sex, so deep she felt possessed, claimed and marked as his alone.
She came, moaning his name against his throat, clutching him to her as sheer, physical joy centered where they were joined and then burst outward through her entire body.
He stiffened in her arms, thrust twice more and then stilled, a muffled shout of release in her hair.
Then he sagged against her, his heart pounding over hers, his breath gusting hot and damp against her temple, his hands still clasping her bare ass. A silly, sentimental part of Brynne wished they could just stay this way forever.
But she forced herself to loosen her. If he pulled away first, it would hurt even more, she told herself, but her heart didn’t believe it.
Strangely, Gray seemed reluctant to let her go. But then, Gray was always at his most mellow after they’d enjoyed each other, his drive and energy muted, his big body relaxed. And this was the time she always wanted to cling to him, and wish that they could stay in the bubble of sweet aftermath.
But they’d never managed it before.
“Can you please move?” she asked, pushing at his shoulder.
“Oh, sorry,” he muttered, reaching down to make sure their protection stayed in place as he withdrew.
He turned away for a moment, and Brynne busied herself making sure her dress was righted, the shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Couldn’t do anything about her wet panties until they got home.
Gray fastened up hi
s jeans and turned to her just as lightning split the night, illuminating the alley and them in a weird, green-white light, followed by a rumble of thunder so loud Brynne felt it in her marrow, even as every hair on her body stood on end. Terror flooded her.
“Gray!” She grabbed him and yanked him back against the wall with her. “Are you all right? Are you hit?”
He held her protectively even as he peered back over his shoulder at the alley. “No, I’m fine. Not sure where that hit, but I think it was right in the alley. Closest I’ve ever been to a strike—and did you see that weird green flash? I’ve never seen lightning that color.”
Brynne peered out past his shoulder, her heart pounding, the taste of adrenaline in the back of her mouth. “I don’t think that was lightning,” she told him.
He tipped his head, peering into her face by the light from the back door of the Kokopelli. The rain had nearly stopped, and now the only sound was the water dripping from the awning, and down rain gutters on the buildings around them.
“What d’you mean, not lightning?” he asked her.
“I mean, I’ve seen that light before,” she told him, scanning the black shadows along the alley, adrenaline flooding her bloodstream. “The night I crashed my Camry.”
Gray was already on the move, leading her from their shelter, heading back for the bar. “Don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to get you inside, and safe. Then we need to wake E’ea up somehow. And this time, I’m calling the sheriff.”
Turned out they didn’t need to.
As they hurried toward the Kokopelli, a crowd spilled out of the back door. The sheriff’s tall, broad-shouldered, was the first to appear.
“You folks all right?” he asked, scanning them both, and then the alley. “What did you see?”
Gray squeezed Brynne’s waist, so she let him speak first. “Lightning strike, right here in the alley,” he said. “Only we’re not so sure it was lightning. It was a weird sort of green.”
Several of the onlookers gasped.
“Aliens,” one man announced. “What’d I tell you, Marge? They’re here.”
The brunette appeared at Gray’s elbow, reaching to cling to him, her eyes wide. “Oh, I’m so scared,” she cried. “Protect me.”
Right, like none of the other able-bodied males in the crowd would do. Brynne was glaring at the other woman.
“We’ll all be fine,” Gray said. He felt like a bone between two pretty dogs who were showing their hackles. But he couldn’t very well shove the brunette away if she was truly frightened.
Brynne jerked away from him with a huff, focusing on the sheriff, who was speaking.
“All right folks, if you’d all move back inside, I’ll have a look around. Frost and Adan, you're with me.”
The crowd shuffled reluctantly back toward the Kokopelli.
“I could help,” one short, rotund man in a fancy western shirt and jeans complained. “If it’s aliens, I know ‘xactly what them bastards look like. My brother Al was taken up, y’know. Described ‘em to me.”
“Oh, hush, Norm,” his wife scolded, tugging on his arm. “You know Al’s full of beans. Come on back in and let the sheriff do his job.”
Brynne followed the crowd toward the bar, her head high, shoulders stiff.
Gray moved to go after her, but found himself shoved hard, sideways into the inky, malodorous shadows of the dumpsters.
“Hey!” he roared with equal parts anger and shock as the brunette shoved him again, slamming his shoulder against the side of the metal dumpster. “What the hell? Not interested, okay? Now back off!”
She smiled up at him, and strangely, he could see her face clearly. Because she was lit from within.
And this was not E’ea’s eerie but friendly golden glow. Acid green leaked from this woman’s eyes, nostrils and lips.
“Oh, holy hell,” he said, icy fear spreading through his gut. “You’re an alien.”
And the sheriff and his two assistants had just walked the opposite direction along the alley, out of sight and probably earshot of normal conversation.
“Finally he catches on,” she crooned. “Yes, Grayson Stark. I am, to you, an alien. And you are, to me … prey.”
She lunged at him, and Gray ducked back and sideways.
“Back off!” he yelled, and kicked the side of the dumpster with a hollow boom. The kick and the yell were loud enough to attract attention from the sheriff and his posse, he hoped.
His assailant laughed her strange laugh, and Gray gritted his teeth.
“Look, I don’t wanna have to hurt you,” he said. “If you’re in there, don’t let this alien slime use you. Throw him out!”
Why, oh why, hadn’t the assassin used the body of a man? Then Gray could beat the hell out of him and feel not a shred of guilt.
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” the brunette crooned. “You don’t want to hit a woman. Too bad, because I’m going to destroy you.”
Behind him, the dumpster groaned, and Gray tensed to duck and roll. She was going to try and levitate the thing and crush him with it.
Okay, that changed his mind about hitting her.
But the big metal bin slammed back to the ground.
“Not when I am here,” said a familiar flat, raspy voice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Brynne-E’ea appeared around the corner of the dumpster, an avenging angel in fluttering white, her gold essence shining from every pore.
"Keep Brynne safe," he reminded her, his fists clenching.
The two aliens’ powers met in a rush of gold against acid green, lighting up the black shadows behind the hulking dumpster. Gray’s hair stood on end. Fighting the visceral urge to grab Brynne and run like hell, he crouched in fighting stance, ready to help E’ea if he could.
“Stupid guardian.” The brunette sent a ball of acid green flashing at E’ea.
“Yes, I am a guardian, and I will protect these humans from you.” She met the attack with a charge of gold that enveloped the green, until both winked out.
The brunette countered with two charges, one toward E’ea and one toward Gray.
E’ea destroyed them both, and then advanced with a stately tread toward the other woman. “R’na, as a sworn guardian of this galaxy, I place you under arrest for attempted assassination for hire.”
Her gold flashed with a brilliance that nearly blinded Gray. When he could see again, the brunette lay on the mud of the alley, and Brynne stood over her.
Gray was at her side as fast as he could move, his arm around her, examining her frantically. “Are you okay, baby?”
“Fine, I guess,” Brynne said in her own voice. “Although my hands are all tingly. But I’m not so sure about her. Poor woman, she had a killer in her mind—E’ea saved us both. Part of me feels sorry for this woman, and part of me still wants to yank her hair for putting the moves on you.”
Gray pressed a kiss to the top of her silky head, having nothing to say that wouldn’t get him in worse trouble. He squatted down beside the brunette, using his phone as a light to scan her face as he felt for a pulse.
Thudding footsteps announced the arrival of the sheriff and his men.
“What happened here?” the sheriff demanded. He sounded pissed.
“I believe this can be best explained by the Director in Black,” Frost’s deep voice said. “How is the human?”
“She’s breathing,” Gray said with relief.
“Aliens battling,” the sheriff said grumpily. “Should have known. You can bet I’ll want to know just what’s been going on in my town. All right, move aside, let me have a look at her. Frost, call the EMTs.”
Gray and Brynne moved back out of the way. Gray slid his arm around Brynne again. He had no plans to let her go anytime soon, either. She felt so good in his arms, slim and lissome and alive.
“Some hero I am—didn’t even defend myself. Had to wait for my girlfriend to help me out.”
To his relief, Brynne giggled softly. “You didn’t want to
hit a woman. Pretty clever of them to send a busty brunette to take you down.”
He growled under his breath. “Baby, I wasn’t interested in her. I was—hell, I wanted to make you jealous. Real mature, huh?”
“Almost as mature as me flirting with a cowboy who smelled like beer, just to make you jealous,” she agreed.
He chuckled. “What a pair we are. Listen, we have a lot to talk about, now that the threat is over.”
She nodded, then leaned her head against his shoulder. “We surely do.”
An ambulance nosed its way into the alley, lights flashing off the walls of the buildings. The brunette was loaded up, still unconscious, to be taken to the local hospital. Gray heard Frost tell the sheriff that Topper and Lacey would meet them there to help.
Gray found himself strangely unsurprised that they’d call a veterinarian and an older woman with no medical training to care for an unconscious woman—just part of the weirdness of Magic.
* * *
Gray and Brynne drove home through the night. The storm still rumbled and flickered around them, showers pelting down on the car, but Gray felt an overwhelming relief. Brynne was safe, so was he and so were the rest of the quirky inhabitants of Magic.
If he’d brought destruction down on their heads … he shuddered, not wanting to think about it.
“We made it through that,” he said as they pulled into his Gran’s driveway. “Thanks to you and E’ea.”
“We did,” Brynne said, unfastening her seatbelt. “Do you feel … I don’t know, wondering when the next lightning bolt is going to strike? Can it really be over?”
Gray walked around to open her door for her, and hurried her up the steps to the porch, where the light shone against the storm. “I do feel that,” he agreed as he unlocked the front door and pushed it open. “But I’m also thinking … this can be a new beginning.”
She turned to him in the quiet sitting room, the storm muted outside the sturdy walls of the old house. “What do you mean, Gray?” Her eyes were pools of shadow, her jaw and lips a lush, sweet curve in the lamplight.
