Untamed Hawaiian Heat (Rift Hunters)

by MacLean, Shay

  Mateo closed the space between him and Tiaki and captured his mouth. He bit into the man’s lower lip, intending to punish Tiaki for making him feel this hunger again, but Tiaki grabbed his hips and pulled him closer.

  Mateo felt the hardness of Tiaki’s cock rub against his own, and a moan escaped him. God, it had been forever since he’d done this with a man. Sensing the energy inside him reaching toward the Hunter as though seeking to join with him in some unfathomable way, he broke the kiss and pushed away from Tiaki.

  What the hell was that? Mateo fought to catch his breath, eyeing the stranger leaning against the door. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching for him again. Even though every fiber of his being yearned to pull Tiaki against his body and open the emotion link with Kiana so she could experience every nip, caress, and thrust as he took Tiaki and made him his own. “Open the door, Hunter. You’ll regret it if you disobey me.”

  Tiaki held his gaze. “What are you going to do if I refuse?” He took a step closer. “You’ll have to make physical contact with me to do anything. And if I’m not mistaken, you feel that invisible pull toward me, the same one I was feeling for Kiana when I kissed her.” He paused and took another step, leaving the barest of space between them. “I know what you’re trying to hide, because I feel it too.”

  Mateo thrust Tiaki out of the way and jerked the door open. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Hunter.”

  Tiaki laughed as he walked through the door, the sound echoing off the stark walls of the corridor. He turned to regard Mateo. His laugh ended with a sensual smile curving his lips. He looked Mateo up and down. “If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead and try to hide it. I know the truth, though, and it’s only a matter of time before Kiana catches on too.” He turned and started down the hallway.

  Mateo cursed under his breath. Fuck. Who the hell is this guy? He caught up to Tiaki in a few angry strides. Steeling his turbulent emotions, he seized Tiaki’s arm and jerked him along the rest of the way to the holding cells.

  Once he’d delivered Tiaki to the guards on duty, he sighed in relief. The longer he’d been in physical contact with Tiaki, the stronger the pull toward him had been. He’d had to fight to shove the yearning away.

  An image of Kiana lying halfway across Tiaki’s prone form rose to the forefront of his mind. The thought of watching the two of them do more than kiss, or even the mere thought of joining them, sent the energy inside him stirring wildly, arousing him beyond belief.

  Clenching his jaw, he seized on the flash of anger that had ripped through him when he’d walked in on them earlier. He wanted…no, needed to make sure she knew who she belonged with.

  And it damn sure wasn’t the Hunter.

  * * * *

  Kiana stumbled blindly toward the waterfall, desperate to cool her overheated skin. Mateo’s barely controlled anger burned its way through the haze of desire still thrumming through her senses from Tiaki’s kiss. Something dark permeated her mind, telling her this attraction to Tiaki was wrong. Something deeper seared her blood with a sensual heat. Something unknown stirred her heart, her soul.

  It was the soul she worried for. Oh God! What’s happening to me?

  “I’d like to know the answer to that.” Mateo’s voice sounded in her head.

  Because of her roiling emotions for Tiaki, she’d forgotten Mateo could hear her thoughts through her link with him. Unless she blocked the pathway, he heard everything.

  “Mateo, I—”Arms wrapped around her from behind. She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t realized he’d followed her.

  Mateo pulled her shirt free of her pants and slipped his hand inside, palming her breast a little more roughly than usual. “You’re mine, Kiana. Remember that if he tries to touch you again.” He bit her neck and sucked hard enough to leave his mark on her delicate skin.

  Kiana gasped in surprise but let her head fall back against his shoulder, exposing her neck even more to his passionate assault. His lips skimmed the sensitive skin, alternately nipping and soothing with his teeth and tongue. She inhaled sharply when his fingers pinched her hardened nipple. Lust flooded her, sharper than ever before when she caught the scent of Tiaki mingled with Mateo’s. Through their link she felt the blood pulsing in his cock, making it throb against her ass.

  “Tell me you didn’t feel this with him, Kia.”

  She felt Mateo’s emotions warring inside him, the knowledge she would have to lie and deny that she had felt passion in another man’s arms—amid the possibility that he felt it too. She frowned. No, she couldn’t have understood correctly. He’d only experienced the heat suffusing her body when Tiaki had kissed her and pulled her on top of him. She’d felt something in Mateo reach out to them as though he wanted to experience Tiaki’s touch too. She stiffened.

  Kiana knew some of Mateo’s anger came from the realization of his arousal at the sight of her in another man’s arms. She’d even sensed him enjoying the experience of her kissing Tiaki come back though their shared link. She gasped, struggling to breathe, when a fresh wave of anger and dark desire burned anew inside Mateo at the thought of partaking of such a forbidden fruit again.

  Again? Did Mateo want to kiss Tiaki?

  Mateo turned her to him and captured her lips, plunging his tongue inside her mouth. She could feel the need he had to brand her as his, felt it pulse in his blood and crash through her sensors like a tidal wave. He pulled her hard against his chest, lifting her up.

  Kiana wrapped her legs around his hips and rubbed her pussy against the ridge of his cock. She moaned in his mouth as he carried her to the edge of the plunge pool at the base of the waterfall.

  He pulled her shirt off and eased her down on the bank. He pushed aside her bra straps, trailing his lips over her skin as it was exposed.

  Kiana skimmed her hand along his heated skin and pushed his shirt up over his head. She loved the feel of him under her hands. He was steel encased in velvet. She bit his shoulder, then traced her tongue over the lines of his tattoo up to his ear. She felt a gentle humming energy pulsing beneath her lips. Kiana opened her mouth to say something about it, but all thought fled when he pulled her bra away.

  A slight breeze drifted in, bringing with it the cold spray of the waterfall. Kiana shivered. Her nipples hardened. She cried out when he drew one taut bud into the moist heat of his mouth; he twisted and pinched the other. She arched into his touch. Desire flooded her, turning her insides molten.

  Mateo gently nipped her with his teeth, then soothed with his tongue, enticing mewling pleas from her.

  Thrusting her hands into his hair, she pressed him closer. Wanting more. Needing more. She tried to pull him up so she could kiss him again, but he grabbed her hands and held them above her head.

  He glanced up and met her eyes; his glittered with barely restrained hunger. Lust tightened in her stomach at the possessiveness she saw blazing there. As she watched, she saw something spark to life inside their depths. It looked like what she’d seen in Tiaki’s eyes when he’d used what he’d called his magic, only Mateo’s burned a brilliant sapphire. Her eyes widened in surprise when she felt the restlessness inside her respond to what she saw in his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak.

  “No. I’m in control now, Kiana. I want you to know how much I want you. How much I crave you.” He punctuated each word with a heated kiss down her abdomen, stripping her of the rest of her clothes as he went. “I’m going to make you understand you’re mine. I don’t care what he may have awakened in you. You’re mine.” With that, he pressed a lingering kiss to her clit.

  She moaned deep in her throat.

  His tongue darted out, laved the sweet pearl with a long stroke. She shuddered. He licked and suckled her until she writhed beneath him. His tongue thrust deep inside her folds. The way he savored her juices almost sent her soaring to a place of euphoria only the most skilled lovers ever learned to attain.

  “So sweet. I love the way you taste.”

  The vi
brations of his words against the lips of her pussy startled her. She tried to push closer to his mouth, but he was having none of it. He released her hands and held her still with one hand on her stomach. He used his other hand to part her labia, where he teased the entrance. “So fucking sweet,” he repeated before he plunged a finger inside. He slowly pulled it out, teasing her, tormenting her. When he pushed it back in, he added another finger. “So tight and hot.”

  Kiana thrashed her head from side to side. She was dying from the pleasure he was giving her. He knew just how to touch her. What she liked. Sometimes even before she knew what she needed, he was already giving it to her.

  He worked his fingers inside her as he sucked her clit ruthlessly.

  “More, Mateo. Please, I need more,” she cried out, mindless with the consuming fire in her blood. Both hers and his; she could feel the ache building through the shared link. He was bent on domination. Wanted to make sure she knew who she belonged to.

  When she’d touched Tiaki that first night, an angry jolt had gone through their link at her reaction. When Mateo had walked in on the soul-shattering kiss Tiaki had given her that afternoon, fury and something more had burned her senses.

  Tiaki… She didn’t know what the hell was happening to her. She’d never encountered anything like what had sparked between them.

  A flash of a picture of Tiaki between her thighs, giving her pleasure, savoring her taste on his tongue as Mateo kissed her, flitted through her mind, sending new tendrils of fire and something else surging through her blood. She bucked against Mateo, needing something more. Something she couldn’t name.

  She wasn’t surprised when the image was ripped away and replaced with one of Mateo pulling Tiaki off her.

  He grasped her hands again, binding them like a steel vise to her sides. “MINE!”

  That one word couldn’t have made it more clear how he felt. Yet even as the word seeped into her mind, she also felt a hesitation shimmer through their link. In her mind’s eye, she saw Mateo turn his gaze on the man he’d just pushed away. A brief sense of longing flashed through the link before it was extinguished. It was gone so quickly she was left wondering if she had imagined it.

  Gathering her strength, she pulled Mateo from her and forced him onto his back. She kissed him hard. She licked her lips, tasting herself there, then proceeded to kiss her way down his neck. She bit his chest, then soothed the hurt with her tongue. She loved the salty tang of his skin. She continued lower, raking her teeth against the taut skin of his abs, nipping the sleek muscles as they contracted beneath her touch.

  She heard his sharp intake of breath when she nuzzled the length of his cock. She sat up on her knees and unbuttoned his pants, freeing his hardened shaft. She gazed up at him and held his gaze as she flicked her tongue over the head. A shudder rocked him deep inside and throbbed across their link, sending heat spiraling through her anew.

  Kiana opened her mouth and slowly sucked the length of him inside. The skin was velvety soft and hot against her tongue. He fisted her hair in his hands and thrust his hips, fucking her mouth. She loved making him crazy for her.

  But it wasn’t enough. There was something missing. A piece she needed to feel complete in the moment. An image of Tiaki and Mateo touching each other, stroking each other’s cocks, flashed in her mind. She moaned around Mateo’s cock at the thought of watching them together.

  She could feel Mateo’s urgency to be sheathed inside her skitter through their link, tinged with denial at the vision she’d sent to him, though she hadn’t meant to do so.

  Giving his hard cock one last, lingering lick, she moved up and straddled his hips and lowered herself onto him. She cried out as he filled her, stretching her pussy. He pulsed hot and hard inside her.

  Mateo grasped her hips, helping her find the rhythm they both needed right now. She bucked against him, trying to fill the emptiness she still sensed inside. What the hell is going on? No. There wasn’t anything wrong. Nothing missing. She was just tired. That was all. She concentrated on the pleasure she and Mateo were giving each other. But still, deep inside, she knew something was missing. She wanted and needed Mateo with an intensity that frightened her, just like she always had. But there was definitely a void aching with an urgency to be filled.

  The restless energy began to pulse inside her stronger than ever. Closing her eyes, she reached for it, hesitating when it seemed to sigh in contentment at finally being acknowledged. She let it wind through her thoughts, where it sought a deeper connection. She was surprised when she felt it moving toward the pathway linking her to Mateo. Fearing what it was and what it could do, she tried to slam a barrier around it. A single strand slipped through before she could close the pathway.

  Kiana drew in a sharp breath when she felt it combine with the energy she’d sensed in Mateo only moments ago. She met Mateo’s eyes and saw both shock and awe mirrored in their depths, just as her sensors picked up movement near the trail leading to the waterfall.

  She jerked her head toward the area to assess the perimeter. Tiaki.

  Tiaki stood motionless, staring at her and Mateo.

  How the hell had he escaped the holding cell?

  Their eyes locked and held. Heat flooded her again at the undisguised hunger and arousal she saw there. The energy she’d felt intertwine with Mateo’s fluctuated, became a burning beacon, and broke free, surging through both her and Mateo, heightening all the feelings swirling through them. Then it reached out to Tiaki. She lowered her head, realizing he was aroused by the sight of them.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the image of him observing them, even though she felt the missing piece drop into place as he did. She moaned as her pussy tightened around Mateo’s cock. The ecstasy was so intense, it took her breath away.

  Mateo flipped her onto her back, spread her thighs wider, and thrust inside.

  The pressure built again, and another climax crashed over her as Mateo screamed her name. His cock pulsed, flooding her womb with his seed.

  “Mine,” she heard him rasp against her ear.

  Kiana held him closer to her breast and looked over to where Tiaki had been standing. The spot was empty. She closed her eyes and concentrated on blocking Mateo from feeling her emotions.

  What was she going to do?

  Chapter Five

  Tiaki watched Kiana splinter in Mateo’s embrace. He could feel their combined magic struggling for release, reaching out to him, calling to the magic within him. Demanding he claim them for his own. He frowned.

  They couldn’t be his soul mates, could they? Earth’s magic hadn’t been tapped, even though he could sense the powerful energy pulsing just beneath the surface. It whispered to him, tempting him, enticing him… That was nothing, however, compared to the pull he felt toward the couple he’d been watching.

  He focused on the lovers again. A stab of lust twisted his gut and hardened his cock to a painful degree. Though he’d never dreamed he’d find his soul mate, he was shocked to discover his soul bond was to be a tribus. While he’d been a third in occasional trysts with another couple, he’d never felt anything like what coursed through his blood right now.

  He ripped his gaze away from the lovers—lovers he couldn’t have—and stalked off in the opposite direction. He forced all thoughts of Kiana and Mateo and what they’d aroused in him away. He couldn’t afford to dwell on his emotions.

  He wanted to gain the trust of these people, but first he needed information. There was no time or room for dalliances.

  He had to find out what the fuck had caused the rift to throw him into Earth’s future. How far it had sent him from his original location in 2013 was another thing he needed to know. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they hadn’t answered him when he’d asked what year it was during his interrogation. He sensed his magic urging him to trust these people. Why, he didn’t know. Still, he needed information. It was urgent he got in contact with the Citadel on Asmerya. To do that, he needed to find a comput
er terminal like the one he’d accessed during his interrogation.

  Tiaki closed his eyes, calling on his magic; he fought the instant desire to turn around and go to Kiana and Mateo and focused on searching for a computer terminal within the compound. When he located the most likely building where one would be located, he opened his eyes and headed in the direction he’d come from when he’d exited the holding cells.

  He almost laughed at the pitiful security they had expected to hold him. He had easily gotten out of the room they’d put him in. Using a simple concealing spell, he’d been able to get past the few guards posted in and around the building. Which amazed him, considering at least one person here knew who and what he was. Ash had to know the kind of power he had at his disposal. He damn sure knew the tellurians had access to the same. Unless Ash was of the same mind as the Citadel and frowned upon enlightening people about the magic slumbering in their planet’s core. Tiaki shook his head and decided not to dwell on Ash’s reasons for refusing to talk about the core magic. He was going to access the databases he’d run across briefly when he’d uploaded the disclosure files to their computer.

  Tiaki kept to the path, stepping into the foliage and whispering a concealment spell to keep from being detected when someone came too close. He quickly squashed the thought of asking Kiana for the information he needed. He was certain Mateo would never allow her to give him anything.

  At least not without some persuasion.

  He almost groaned aloud just thinking of how he’d persuade them. Damn. Could this be the soul bond? If so, this was the worst time to have to deal with it. He’d heard how intense the bonding could be, how it consumed those involved.

  The building he’d been seeking came into view. He swept the area to make sure no one was coming. The scent of ripening mangos, bananas, and breadfruit assailed his nose, reminding him of Mākutu. He shoved away the sudden longing to see his home world and approached the door when he sensed it was clear. He wasn’t sure exactly what these soldiers were fighting, but he had caught a reference to the Obsidian Syndicate. The question was whether it was the same Syndicate the Rift Hunters had been fighting in the Phoenix Galaxy. Tiaki studied the lock and keypad on the wall beside the door a moment. Closing his eyes, he let his magic flow through him. It came readily at his command, teasing his nerve endings with tiny electrical currents. He focused it to a pinpoint and allowed it to pour through his fingertips. He guided it to the keypad and felt it snake into the security pad’s memory. After hearing beeping sounds of the code being entered into the system, he had to force his magic to retreat instead of seeking out Kiana and Mateo. He eased the door open, thankful it barely squeaked, and slipped inside.