“How are we going to die?”
The vision slammed into his head again: his SUV exploding as a hawk swooped through the sky above them. “Car bomb. Now let’s go!”
She slowly shook her head. “Sorry, Montana, but I’m not falling for these theatrics of yours.”
“Screw it.” He jumped out of the car and stalked around to her side. The piercing cry of a hawk reached his ears. He shaded his eyes and looked but didn’t see anything—yet. If the bird was close enough to hear, then they only had seconds. And Cara was being stubborn.
He jerked open her door, unlatched her seat belt, and hauled her out of the SUV. “Let’s go! Run!”
She struggled, yanking at her arm and nearly breaking his hold. He tightened his grip and started to drag her away from the vehicle. She whacked his hand with her water bottle.
“Quit hitting me!” He pointed to a large boulder a short distance away. “Let’s get behind that rock, quick!”
“You’re nuts, you know that?” she screamed. She smacked his hand over and over with the water bottle, digging in her heels as he hauled her toward the boulder.
The hawk screamed again. Rafe jerked his head up and saw it, a dot in the distance, coming closer. He looked down at Cara, at the fury and fear shining from her eyes. At the doubt. At the shadow of death still lingering.
They had no time.
He reached for the Hunter, opening about half throttle. The surge of power that immediately leaped to his command stunned him. Normally it took days to get this strong again after a burnout. Cara had somehow recharged him to twice the power in a fraction of the time.
He glanced at the bird again, and his now-sharpened eyesight allowed him to see that it was nearly upon them. Then he looked at Cara. Her eyes had gone wide.
“Rafe?” she whispered, uncertainty tingeing her voice.
“Run, Cara,” he commanded, swinging her around by her arm and releasing her. “We only have seconds.”
She turned to face him. “What’s wrong with you? Your eyes…”
“Run, Cara!” He grabbed her, spun her around, and shoved her. “Run!”
“Is this some kind of sick game?” Damn her, but she whirled to face him again, planting her feet in the sand. “I run and you catch me and … what? You rape me? Kill me? Both?”
The hawk shrieked a third time. Too close. Out of time.
“I’m sorry, Cara,” he said. And reached for the full power of the Hunter.
* * *
Rafe Montana had turned into a woman’s worst nightmare—handsome and sexy one moment, then psycho the next.
And now … now she didn’t know what.
His words of apology had barely registered before he changed. One minute his eyes had burned blue like cobalt, the next they transformed—dilated, something. Because suddenly they were jet black and … alien.
He charged at her. She screamed, but he scooped her off her feet in a fireman’s carry before she could move. She landed over his shoulder, and her breath whooshed from her lungs. He ran for the rock he had indicated, his hard shoulder digging into her belly. Then they were there, seconds later. He dumped her on the ground behind the rock. Came down on top of her.
And an explosion rocked the silence.
Explosion. Car bomb. He’d been telling the truth.
She would have been killed.
Her lungs heaved against rising sobs. Her eyes stung as the full import slammed over her. She’d nearly died. He’d tried to tell her. She’d argued, so sure she was right. So sure he was crazy. She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled for breath, laboring beneath the onslaught of emotion and the weight of the male body sprawled over her as smoke drifted to them on the breeze.
He shifted. A warm palm cupped her cheek.
She opened her eyes to see Rafe’s face inches above hers. His skin pulled taut across his cheekbones, his austere expression foreign, almost ruthless. And his eyes—those flat, black eyes. She’d expected to see nothing there, yet they burned with hot emotion, stripped down and basic.
She knew how he felt, coming so close to death. When he took her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss, she melted into him, eager. They were alive. By some miracle, they were alive. She shoved aside all the questions and just gave herself up to the heady joy of blood pumping through her veins and the long, lean length of hot-blooded male pressing her into the gritty sand—to the primitive instinct to perpetuate life in the face of death.
Demanding hands shoved her shirt up. Greedy fingers closed around her breast, curling into her bra cup and trying to pull it free. The fully aroused length of him pressed against her thigh through his jeans. His kiss roughened, becoming more insistent, more carnal.
Holy Hannah, he wanted to do it right here in the middle of nowhere. And with the shock of near death vibrating through her body, she realized that she wanted it, too.
She ripped her mouth away, arching her head back and sucking in air. He nipped at her neck, at the same time finally succeeding in scooping her breast out of her bra cup. He pinched her nipple, rolled it between his fingers. Hot pleasure jolted between her legs. He sucked on the flesh of her throat, ripping a moan from her.
She squirmed beneath him, arching her back, wrapping her arms around him. He knew just where to touch her, how to touch her. She shoved her hands under his shirt, sweeping them down to his waist, to his belt. But he grabbed her hands and yanked them away, trapping them on either side of her head with a primitive growl that ignited her juices as he rose over her.
He met her gaze, his eyes still black and burning with a lust that made her quiver. No man had ever looked at her like that. Never. She should make him stop. But he was Rafe, her lover—and he wasn’t. But he was. The riddle scrambled her thoughts. She should protest. She should beg him to take her. It was right. It was wrong. It was—
He released one of her hands and jerked down the zipper of her shorts, slipping his long fingers beneath her panties and stroking her wet flesh.
Need weakened her limbs and ripped a choked cry from her throat as her head spun. The ruthless hunger in his eyes—those alien eyes—shook her. What was she doing? This wasn’t Rafe—at least not the Rafe she knew. She grabbed his hand, tried to pull it free. When she couldn’t, she pressed it hard against her to halt his way-too-delicious stroking.
“Stop,” she said. “Wait.”
He narrowed his eyes. A frisson of fear trickled down her spine. Would he ignore her and do what he wanted anyway?
She pulled her hand away from his and shoved at his chest with both hands. Her palm hit a hard lump beneath his shirt—a lump that burned like fire.
The crystal.
He flinched backward, looked at her with suspicion. Somehow the crystal was tied into all this.
“Rafe,” she murmured. She slipped her hand beneath his T-shirt, stroking upward over his lightly furred flesh until she closed her fingers around the sizzling stone. “Come back to me.”
He jerked once, but she held on to the stone, and he settled, his expression curious. She closed her eyes and waited for the white light she’d seen before, but it never came. Instead a shadowy cloud swept into her mind, lined with streaks of silver. Need shivered through her, urgent, undeniable. She knew she should flinch away, but she couldn’t do it. The dark cloud swept over her, heavy with hunger, laden with lust. With want. With strength. With the seductive knowledge that she could take what she wanted, fulfill her desires, if she just let it in. Let him in.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. His pupils still looked dilated, but pure blue ringed them now. His heart thudded beneath her clenched fingers, and his hand still rested between her legs. His breath came in slow, even pants.
He could have been inside her already, soothing the ache of her aroused flesh. Why had she stopped him? She arched her hips, rubbed her sensitive spot against his fingers. Everything throbbed now. She wanted him to pin her down and just screw her blind. Anything to make the burning need stop.
Slivers
of silver danced through her mind, weaving through her thoughts, binding any notion of resistance. She was female; he was male. Their destiny lay in sating the painful arousal roiling through both of them …
A blast of white light shot through her mind, like a spotlight flooding her vision. She cried out and released the crystal, covering her eyes with her hands. Her body still trembled with sexual hunger. She wanted him so badly her mouth watered.
“Cara?”
She slowly lowered her hands. This was the first time he had spoken since the explosion. His eyes looked normal blue again, his face less taut, more relaxed. This was the Rafe she knew. “Rafe?”
“I’m sorry.” He jerked his hands out of her clothing, and she bit back a sob as he rolled off her and sat up. “I can explain.”
“Later.” She still shook, her skin hypersensitive—to the desert breeze, to the sand beneath her, to the warm sun overhead. Everything amped up her nearly unbearable arousal. “You have to finish this.”
“Cara, tell me what’s going on. Are you hurt? Did I…?”
“I ache.” She arched her hips, closing her eyes. “Oh, God, it’s so bad. I’ve never been this turned on in my life.” She focused on her breathing. In through nose, out through mouth. “Please, Rafe. I need you inside me.” She opened her eyes and stared right into his. “Please.”
* * *
Rafe stared down at her with growing shock. He’d come back to himself with the usual abruptness to find his hand in Cara’s pants, his crystal gripped in her hand. He was a guy and therefore pleasantly surprised to find his hand where it was, but as the seconds ticked by, he became more aware of the wrongness of the moment. He knew well the sexual hunger that followed the manifestation of the Hunter, and he’d always either handled it alone or sought out company to work off the lingering lust.
That hunger trickled like a stream this time instead of hitting like a tidal wave. Cara had been holding the crystal when he’d snapped back into himself. Had she somehow absorbed that dark energy?
She must have.
“What can I do?” He didn’t dare touch her, not when she was so sensitive.
“You need to finish this.” Panting, she opened her eyes a slit. “Now that you’re back, now that it’s you … please don’t leave me like this.”
He hesitated. Her arousal coated his fingers, the scent teasing his nostrils. His rock hard erection strained against his jeans. He hungered to bury himself inside her, but not like this. Not when her desire had been sparked by forces beyond her control. She had not sought the dark energy of the Hunter; it had been inflicted on her.
“Please, Rafe,” she whispered. “I can’t bear it.”
He couldn’t leave her like this. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ll take care of it.”
He cradled her with one arm as he slid the other hand between her thighs. Gently, he stroked her slick folds. He could sense through their bond how close to climax she was, knew it would only take the lightest of touches to push her over. She moaned, arching into his hand, and he buried his face in her hair, savoring each shudder, each gasp, as he gave her what she needed. The orgasm rolled over her, and she cried out and exploded in his arms.
They stayed like that for long moments, the musky scent of her pleasure lingering between them. A hot desert breeze skated by, bringing the sting of sand and the odor of smoke and fire.
His SUV. Ah, hell.
She stirred in his arms, pulling his hand free of her clothing and shifting to fasten her shorts. He let her go, watching as she visibly gathered her composure. Finally she looked at him. “What the heck just happened?”
No dancing around the truth now. “I told you I’m psychic and that the car was going to explode.”
She gave a humorless chuckle. “Yeah. I think you proved that in a big way.”
“Okay…” He drew the word out. “So if you’re not asking about that—”
“I’m asking what happened to you.” She sat up completely, shoving herself away from him to lean back against the rock. The movement appeared practical on the surface, but he could see the truth in her eyes. She was pulling back emotionally as well. And could he blame her? She’d just come face-to-face with his demon—literally.
“What’s the deal with this crystal you wear,” she continued, “the one that makes light shows in my head when I touch it? And what the heck happened to you right before the bomb went off? You changed into … I don’t know what … but you weren’t you.”
“Yeah, that.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m not exactly sure how to explain it.”
“Try.”
“I am trying. Look, no one has ever been able to tap into my power like that, so I’m just as in the dark as you are.”
“Great.” Her breathing seemed to be calming, and that stubborn look had come back into her eyes. “Let’s start with the basics then. What the heck is that crystal?”
“It’s a focus stone.” He shifted to sit next to her in the shadow of the rock, out of the blazing sun—but took care not to touch her in any way. To respect the distance she had set between them. “I use it to focus my power, to recharge or reach for more if I need it.”
“Handy. And that changes you somehow? I mean … wow.” She let her head fall back against the rock, staring up at the sky as if she would find the answers there.
“Yeah, it can change me, but only if I let it.”
She turned her gaze back to him. “That was freaky. You were you, but not you. Your eyes turned all black, and you were like this super strong, primal version of you. Not quite human.” Her voice rose in question at the end.
And so it began. “I’m human, Cara. Just more than human, I guess.”
“How? I mean, where do you come from?”
“I told you—Arizona.” He grinned, but she didn’t respond.
“This isn’t funny, Rafe. I’m sure that once I can breathe again I’ll be pretty freaked out, so you’d better start explaining, like now. What are you? Where do you come from? Was there some kind of experiment? Radiation, pesticides, secret weapons from some past war? Are there more like you?”
Her tone had risen an octave, and he could tell panic was starting to take hold. “Listen, maybe that’s enough for now. The rest of the story sounds kind of crazy.”
She laughed again, and the harsh sound grated. “We’re way past crazy, pal.”
“Okay, okay.” He reached out and snagged her bottle of water, which lay in the sand a few inches away. “Here, take a drink. Breathe. And I’ll explain.”
She took the bottle from him, suspicion still evident in her cautious movements, and unscrewed the cap to take a drink. She wrinkled her nose. “Ack. It’s warm.”
“At least it’s wet.”
She glanced from the bottle to him, then slowly extended it to him. “Here. If you die from thirst, I’ll be stuck out here all alone.”
He gave a half chuckle at her grudging words and took a grateful drink of the water. He handed the bottle back to her, and she took a swig, screwed the cap back on, then cradled it in her arms.
“Start explaining,” she said.
“If you’re feeling up to it, we should talk while we walk.”
“Walk!” She sat straight up. “Are you nuts? We should hang out here and wait for the cops to show up. Someone will see the smoke or will have heard the explosion.”
“Exactly.” He got to his feet. “Someone planted a bomb in my car, Cara. Tried to kill us. Police fill out reports and talk over radios that can be monitored. Do you really want to let the bad guys know where we are? Or worse yet, be sitting here waiting for them when they come looking to make sure the job is done?”
“Geez.” She swiped her hands over her face. “This is too much. I need a minute to absorb.”
“Come on, Cara.” He held out a hand, hoping her senses had settled down, at least for the moment. “I saved your life. Whatever your reservations, please remember that. I won’t let anything happen to you
.”
She looked up at him, hesitated, then took his hand and let him haul her to her feet. “That’s the only thing keeping me from hitting you over the head with a rock and running for my life.”
“Noted.” She dropped his hand as soon as she was steady, and he didn’t object. He knew she needed time to accept all this, and he knew, too, she might decide she wanted no part of him anymore—or their affair. Not that it made it any easier as he watched her stalk ahead of him, her cute ass in those khaki shorts giving him all kinds of ideas. The dark energy of the Hunter took a good long while to dissipate, and it had taken all his control not to plunge himself into her after his double dose today. But he’d had years to learn discipline, and survival came first.
She paused at the sight of the burning wreckage. He came to stand beside her, a good foot of space between them, and looked at what was left of his vehicle. “Damn it. I loved that truck.”
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”
“Come on. If I remember correctly, there’s a bar down the road. We can get out of the sun while I figure out our next move.”
He started down the highway, and she fell into place beside him. “You don’t have any superpowers for this kind of situation?”
He barked a laugh. “This is it, sweetheart. We’re alive. That’s all I’ve got for now.”
“Better than a stick in the eye, I suppose.”
“Way better,” he agreed.
They walked in silence for a few moments. The afternoon sun beat down on them, and Cara slipped out of her short-sleeved blouse, leaving just her tank top, and started to tie it around her waist.
“Keep it on,” Rafe said. “So you don’t get sunburn on your shoulders. Sweaty is better than burned.”
She stopped. “Is that good advice or some psychic prediction?”
He halted as well. “Good advice. I grew up in the desert; you didn’t. You can trust me on this.”
“Trust.” She shrugged back into her blouse but elected not to button it. “How can I trust you if I don’t know who you are?”
Prodigal Son Page 17
