by Kate Pearce
She turned back to Ollie, and her cautious expression gave way to something softer. Anticipatory, even.
Her hungry gaze flitted down his body to where his thighs joined before quickly darting back up to his eyes.
Ah. He had to stifle the chuckle building in his throat. It seemed his girl was an opportunist, which suited him just fine. She’d been causing him a great deal of physical distress during the past several years, so it made sense she be the one to cure the ailment.
“Yes,” she said.
Harvey stood and straightened his jacket, eyeing neither Contessa nor Ollie. “If you believe I’m just going to back off, you’ve got another think coming. I’ll give you an hour to figure out you’re all wrong for each other, and I’ll be back.” He started toward the door.
“No need to hurry,” she said.
Harvey stopped and turned, shock pulling at his features.
“I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”
“Tess…”
“Harvey, it’s been a long day.” Her voice was nearly a whisper, and she stared down at her feet. How odd that she would worry about offending him instead of the other way around.
His jaw ground side to side a few beats, then he nodded curtly and walked away. He slammed the doors behind him, and Tess blew out a long sigh.
“I hope I’m not making a mistake,” she said. Now she did let go of Ollie’s hands and immediately began fidgeting with the end of her braid. “He’s been the only friend I’ve had for so long. I thought he was my mate, and I still think that, but…”
Ollie stood and followed in Harvey’s footsteps to the doors. He didn’t leave through them, however, but locked them. He didn’t turn back to her until his teeth had ceased their grinding. That guy was her mate? No way. Not even a little bit. “My being here is no mistake.”
He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto a nearby armchair.
“The longer you’re around us, your people, you’ll begin to acquire a knack for trusting the folks who deserve it.”
She pressed a finger inside her plait and began working it free. “Do you deserve it, Mr. Gil—Ollie?”
“I do.” He managed to heel off his harness boots without looking away from her. Watching her uncoil that braid mesmerized him like string to a cat. In his dreams, her dark curls were always untamed and made her seem much younger than she was.
Actually…
“Contessa, excuse me for being blunt, but how old are you?” Fuck, if she were one of the last ones abducted, she couldn’t be much more than twenty. Twenty was an age he had no desire to relive—not even through her.
The fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened as her smile broadened. “Didn’t do your research?”
At least one of them was finding the scenario amusing. “I didn’t care at the time. I just hopped on my bike and came.”
Her eyebrows arched up teasingly, and she pressed her fingers to the crown of her head and mussed her hair. Her curls sprang out, much flatter than he knew they should have been, but at least she looked more like the woman he knew…or thought he knew.
“I’m legal.” She walked up to him, grinning, and turned her back. She moved her hair to the side and pointed to the zipper at the top of her dress. “Can you help me out of this thing? I swear, there must be sandpaper in the lining.”
He grabbed the zipper pull, but didn’t work it down just yet. “You have to give me something a little better than legal. I’m going to see forty in a couple of years.” And he had a son who was nearly eighteen.
She sighed. “If I tell you, will you help me with the zipper? I really am suffering here.”
“Depends on what you tell me.” Fated mate or not, he wasn’t taking home a baby. No way. He’d put his boots and jacket back on, and come back and fetch her in a few years when she was done incubating.
“Everyone else here bends over backward to give me what I want, so of course, I would have to be locked in a room with the one man in a five-mile radius who’d give me a hard time.”
Oh, she hadn’t seen a hard time yet. She’d be seeing what that meant all night assuming whatever number passed her lips was sufficiently high. He’d have that zipper down so fast that the plastic teeth would melt.
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“Thank fuck.” He worked the long zipper down far enough past her hips that he regretted it, because all of a sudden he lost blood pressure in the head that mattered more.
If those counted as panties, she needed to return them and get her money back.
And then the blood came back to his head and pounded in his ears. She’d worn those things knowing someone—Harvey—would see them.
Obviously, Harvey needed killing. Ollie had just the right axe for it. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on point of view, it was in Fallon.
“Ollie.”
He looked down to find Contessa tapping his chest and giving him a bemused look.
Damn, she was tinier than he’d thought. Or maybe he was just that big. Sometimes he lost perspective. She barely cleared his chest.
“You kind of zoned out there for a moment. Did you hear what I said?”
“No. I’m sorry. I got distracted by your underwear.”
She shrugged. “I usually don’t wear any, but I wanted to make the dry cleaner’s job a little easier.”
“That supposed to be comforting?”
Satan could have taken smiling lessons from her, because her smile said without question that she was up to no fucking good.
“I’m going to go wash off this slap of make-up and slip out of this dress. Be right back. Make yourself comfortable. There’s a bottle of whiskey in the nightstand and a couple of glasses. Pour me some?”
“Whiskey?”
“It’s been a rough few weeks. Long learning curve for a woman like me. I’m still not certain I’m the right lady for the job.” She shook her head and slipped into the en suite bathroom, leaving the door open.
“You belong here, honey.” With me. He sat on the edge of the bed near the nightstand and pulled open the drawer. He pulled out the whiskey, chuckling. She had quite a collection amassed during her short tenure. It was a veritable treasure trove of odds and ends. A handful of matchbooks—some from roadside haunts he recognized—a knife, a small photo album, more tubes of lip balm than one woman should own in a lifetime, but what tickled him the most was the pile of kid’s meal toys. Mostly action figures and racecars.
She turned off the bathroom light and came out drying her face on a hand towel. Beautiful woman. She didn’t need all that shit, anyway…but she did need to put some clothes on or he would have her face down and ass-up in about fifteen seconds.
Holy mother.
He cast his gaze to the ceiling and flitted through his mental Rolodex for the name of the appropriate god to call on. Certainly one of the numerous deities in the pantheon had in his or her domain prevention of premature ejaculation.
Her breasts were even more fucking amazing in person than they had been in his dreams. They were round and heavy and would fit perfectly into his Paul Bunyan palms.
“My nightshirt is under that pillow,” she said with a laugh.
Mercifully, he turned to the headboard and lifted the pillow. He pulled the folded garment from beneath it and held it in front of him.
She took it, still laughing. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“I didn’t expect you to be so uninhibited.”
“And why does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t. It just makes it more difficult for me to be a gentleman. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but when you’re in front of me like that… Well, you don’t want to know what’s going through my head.” Ollie pulled the pillow over his lap to hide the clues as to just what was going through his head. Or heads.
Was it Thor? No, Thor wouldn’t give a damn about his dick. Thor would want him to thunder and rumble, which was the exact opposite of what Ollie needed.
Fabri
c rustled behind him, and he turned to see her nightshirt skimmed her knees.
Thank gods.
She propped her hands on her hips and cocked her head to side. “Actually, I do want to know what’s going through your head. The big head, I mean.” Her grin was wolfish.
Little minx…
He grunted and tossed the pillow away. Standing, he pulled her against him so quickly she gasped. He held her tight so his erection ground against her belly.
“The big head cautions patience, yet at the same time, expects that I’ll find the limit to my self control sooner than I’d like.”
“What’ll happen if you lose your self control?”
“Let’s just say that what’ll happen when I do won’t be sweet and gentle.”
He expected her to flinch, but she didn’t. She didn’t recoil. She just took the whiskey bottle from him, uncapped it, and said, “Good.”
Well, damn.
9
Tess let the whiskey burn down her throat and kept her gaze locked on the live wire seated in front of her.
With him so close, and with Harvey gone, she recognized the crackle in the air that had been sending cascading tingles up and down her spine wasn’t merely her anxiety, but Ollie’s energy. He seemed to fill the room, not just with his stature—which she pegged at around six-eight, but with his personality.
She’d been around a lot of Afótama during her crash course, but none had gotten under her skin this way. What was it about him that the others didn’t have?
“Tell me something.” She set her glass on the nightstand and moved closer so her knees touched his shins.
Immediately, he wrapped his hands around her legs and skimmed them up the backs of her thighs. “Anything.”
She gasped, and pushed up onto her tiptoes.
It was just a little, inconsequential touch, and yet her body registered it as a prelude to a main event. Some little voice in her head said she’d been made to respond to his touch, and that it was meant only for her.
But, that couldn’t be true. That was just her ego getting in the way. Of course she didn’t want to think he’d touched some other woman with the same sort of familiarity, but she knew better than that. A man of thirty-eight would have had many women, and Tess shouldn’t even hope to be the best amongst them—queen or not.
She pressed his shoulders and forced her feet flat to the floor. “You said you wanted to take me home. Why wouldn’t you want to stay here?”
“I don’t belong.”
Rough fingertips skimmed the edges of her lace panties and set her toes to curling against the hardwood. Common sense said she should have pushed his hands away because she already had a mate, but nothing else within her wanted that. Her body liked his touch. Her heart had nothing to say about the matter. Her brain, and the crackle of voices that lived in it, asked What’s the harm?
Something had to be seriously screwed up if her flight instinct wasn’t kicking in. Nothing was telling her to stop him. Nothing said she should make him leave. Nothing cared he was a usurper and could only want her for her perceived power and wealth. Those things that kept her out of harm’s way, more or less, for most of the past twenty-eight years had left the building.
Somehow, she’d need to find some self-control in spite of it.
Slowly, he lifted her nightshirt at the front, exposing her thighs inch by inch, and then stopped with the hem just above her navel. He pressed hot lips against her belly, making her abs flutter and pussy clench. He kissed along the waistband and dragged his tongue along the edge.
Her nipples peaked against her soft shirt, and she put her head back with a gasp, clawing at his shoulders.
Her already disjointed thoughts scattered further, ripping her from the here and now to someplace she’d never seen.
The desert stretched endlessly around her and the retreating sun was chased by the red and purple hues of dusk. It was quiet—barren except for a few scrubby bushes and cacti, and should have been altogether inhospitable.
But, it wasn’t. She didn’t feel lost or frightened in this unidentifiable place. It felt like…home.
Ollie’s home.
And the voices went away.
The vision pulled free as if on a cord being yanked from across the room, and her body moved as if to fetch it back, but Ollie held her firm.
Tess opened her eyes and took a bracing breath to reground herself.
What had just happened? Where was the static, the low roar in her head?
Ollie’s head dipped farther, and he’d nudged down the front of her panties. His tongue probed enticingly at her mound, occasionally separating the slit and teasing her clit.
She’d never been all that hung up on morality, but although what he was doing felt so right, it was wrong.
She clamped her hands on his shoulders and brushed her thumbs over his collarbones. Huge, like everything seemed to be on him. “We-we should stop,” she said breathily.
Sighing, he put his forehead against her thighs. “You’re right. We should. Me getting carried away like that is unforgivable.” He straightened up and turned that odd-hued gaze to her face. “I do have better manners, but I feel like I know you already.”
She knew exactly what he meant. And it wasn’t the same kind of familiarity she felt to the others in the clan. Most of them were just anonymous bodies in a crowd, but he stood out. If she were to stand on a pedestal, he should have been on it with her.
But…not just him. The pedestal seemed big enough for three, and that was insane.
He started pulling away and the roar seeped back into her head.
“Ollie, wait.” She grabbed his forearms and held tight. As long as she was touching him, she could compartmentalize the activity. When he pulled away, it came back even worse than it was before because now she not only was linked into the Afótama, but also to all the people in Ollie’s group whom Nan hadn’t been connected to.
If her brain had possessed a dam, it would have broken upon his first touch.
“Don’t pull away from me,” she said, and she rubbed her palms up his muscular forearms, drawing on his strength and control.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I haven’t been at this long enough, but when I touch you, I—”
Could she tell him? She trusted Harvey to know her secrets because he was her mate. He couldn’t hurt her, and he had the best interests of the Afótama at heart. She could tell him where she was struggling, and he’d be helpful, if he could be, and discreet.
But she didn’t know Ollie that way. He wasn’t Afótama, and she didn’t know if in this instance “close enough” counted.
“You don’t trust me,” he said.
“How much of what I’m thinking can you hear?” It’d be a huge embarrassment if word got out that she was flawed in that way—that she couldn’t lock down her thoughts.
“It’s not what I’m hearing, baby, but what I’m feeling. You’re closed down pretty tight, but I see the turmoil in your face and you’re clinging to me for dear life. You’re breaking my heart because I feel you’re scared, and you won’t tell me why so I can fix it.”
“It’s not your job.”
“It is my job, and that’s why I came here. Fifteen hours on my bike, Contessa.”
“You should have flown.” Lame comeback, and she knew it. She only had half her heart in the argument.
“I’ve spent enough time in the air. I like staying close to earth now.”
“You said you feel that I’m scared. How? We do thoughts more than feelings.”
He fidgeted the heirloom ruby ring on her right hand and furrowed his brow. “I don’t know how much of this you’ve been told. Back when the groups split off, there was a definite delineation of skill sets. It was more common for the folks like you—descendants of Ótama and her kin—to hear. You were communicators. Politicians. More typical were people like me. Farmers and raiders. Our skills evolved a bit differently. We neede
d to be strong with excellent defense capabilities. We can’t connect over long distances the way you can, but we’re more sensitive to emotions.” He moved on to the ring on her other hand. The pearl was new, but the setting was ancient. “I can tell when people are lying, for instance, and when I’m being insulted. It helps us in battle because we know when to wait, and when to strike.”
“But you didn’t like being told what to do.”
He shook his head. “Still don’t. We lean more toward anarchy than monarchy, but do obey laws of the jurisdiction.”
“Then why do you want me? I stand for everything you don’t like.”
He chuckled. “You’re getting far off-topic. We were talking about what’s bothering you. I already told you why I’m here. The gods chose to favor me by pairing us up, and I’m not so stupid I’d ignore it. Most folks don’t get a second chance.”
“Second?”
He dragged his tongue across his lips and fixed his gaze on her nightshirt’s buttons.
Maybe he didn’t trust her.
And maybe he shouldn’t.
“Ollie?”
“Yes?” He still didn’t look up at her.
“You’d really fight for me? A stranger?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know the rules for this. Nan says it hasn’t happened in her lifetime.”
“It doesn’t happen much of anywhere nowadays, not in any of the groups. No one’s willing to fight for that one great love. That’s what’s breaking us all down now. We get weaker with each generation. I know you think you’ve taken a mate. I believe you’re being honest about that, and being with him has plugged some of those psychic holes, just the way the joining is supposed to. But, something’s missing. He didn’t get all of them.” He pressed his palm over her thrashing heart. “You’re not full here. He left too much room, and that’s why I’m challenging.”
“That’ll come in time. I’ve known him for a long time, but—”
“No.” He shook his head. “Sure, you like him. Respect him. Are attracted to him, maybe, but you don’t love him yet. All I ask is that you give me a chance. I won’t force anything or pick a fight against him unless he goads me. Let me prove to you that I’m worthy of your trust, and that I can be a helpmate to you. I’m a patient man, but if I think I’m being driven away, I will force a challenge. I know the gods are on my side, and that’s not something to be said lightly.”
