Siren (Awakened Chronicles Book 1)

by Harley Austin

  But with her guy situation, she needed to step up her game. She’d been mulling it over in her mind for a couple of weeks—maybe she should wear it. After some vacillating back and forth, she’d decided to ditch the one-piece and uncover her killer curves.

  The resort’s spa had taken care of the wax, but she still had reservations about wearing the number in public. What would people say? No one here really knew her. But that was the problem she was hoping to fix.

  Yes. She’d been trolling—hoping to get him to notice her. And now here he was! The one and only time she’d ever worn the thing in public, the hottest guy she’d ever seen was now lightly massaging warm lotion down the backs of her legs.

  “I like your swimsuit too.” She smiled feeling his fingers press the stress of the week from her limbs.

  “Thanks. It’s not something I normally wear.”

  “Why? You look nice in it.” She caught a glance of him on his knees spread over his side of the chaise and the generous long package fully outlined by the trunks.

  “Thanks.”

  This wasn’t his typical beachwear. The cropped-short Speedo-like fabric was a little over the top the way it showed every bulge around his waist and up-front between his thick thighs.

  He’d seen her earlier in the morning wearing the new bikini. Wow. He’d usually worn the typical long shorts that everyone did; but in the past she just hadn’t responded to him at all in those. Even standing next to her a few weeks ago at the pool bar, even after he’d smiled at her, she wouldn’t even talk to him. He’d walked by her how many times now? She just ignored him. He’d been around women who’d played hard to get, but this girl just wasn’t getting the message. But—he really wanted to get her attention.

  She’d slipped on something sexy to wear around the pool. Okay, maybe he needed to as well? He’d ducked into the resort’s beach shop and ditched the loose-fitting shorts for something over-the-top. Well, maybe a little too over the top for his size. Now all he needed to do was get her attention on the double-chaise she was sunning on. That was nearly an hour ago. He’d already walked by her several times. Jeeze, woman, pay attention, he thought, walking by her again without so much as a head turn from her. Was she asleep under those glasses?

  He’d finally summoned his courage when he’d seen her adjusting her earbuds. He’d raised his foot and touched it to hers.

  After five years of nothing, five years of meeting no one he could get interested in; was the universe now finally somehow smiling on him? It was about time. He raised her calf for what she discovered to be a longer-than-expected warm-lotioned foot rub.

  Something boomed deeply in the distance as a new cloud covered their sunshine.

  “Uhhh,” Liam groaned leaning up onto his elbows and looking into the sky.

  “That doesn’t sound friendly.” Tori looked up as well.

  A drop of cool water could be felt every few moments. “Looks like everyone is packing up.” He surveyed the pool area as others were making for the beach exits and building entrances of the different condo towers.

  Both got up from their chaise. Liam picked up his towel while she quickly gathered her things into the small beach bag.

  “Looks like this is good-bye for now.” He smiled.

  “When are you coming back?” she asked, both still standing by their chaise as others hurried past them. Another bigger boom sounded in not so far-off distance.

  “Probably in a couple of days.” Each felt droplets of rain falling on their skin now. They both looked out of the pool area at the dark clouds moving in quickly from the gulf.

  “I think you’re going to get wet,” she grinned.

  “Yea. I think you’re right.” He frowned.

  Rain began falling while they followed others around the winding edge of the pool. It wasn’t falling hard, but the droplets were big enough to leave the pebbled patio splotched with water.

  Without really thinking Tori took hold of Liam’s hand, pulling him with her as she made her way more quickly across the pool area toward her building’s portico. By the time both had reached the covered entrance, the rain was falling hard, wetting everything. Both needed to dry off a bit with their towels.

  “Nice.” Liam scowled, looking out across the pools as the rain pelted it like it was a small lake.

  “At least we’re not getting wet.”

  “You won’t be. I will.” He leaned in to whisper in her ear as others took shelter under the portico and then moved into the building with their RF keycards. “You live here. I don’t.”

  “You can come inside.”

  “I don’t want to impose, Tori. Really.” He whispered.

  Liam felt her take hold of his arm and pull him barefoot into the building’s foyer.

  The fortieth floor of her high-rise building was almost to the top of the new residential tower. The condo looked and smelled of new expensive carpet, with fine finishes, stone tiles, granite counters, and above-average appliances and fixtures that gave the smaller but luxury space a sense of real opulence. Sparsely furnished with only a few pieces of furniture in the dining, living and bedroom, the smaller rooms typical of these kinds of units still had exceptional views of the gulf waters—waters that now rolled into the shore below with whitecaps under hard winds and peels of bright lightning and booming thunder.

  Tori emerged from her bedroom to find Liam still standing, his towel draped around his neck, looking out of the living room’s slight curve of panoramic windows.

  “Everything okay?” She asked moving up beside him.

  “Oh,” he seemed to pause. “Yea, fine. Just watching the storm. I heard the shower, but you’re still in your swimsuit?”

  “You’re still in yours.”

  “I only brought a towel to change into.” He smiled, then tossed it onto the only couch in the small room.

  “I just needed to wash off the lotion.”

  Both watched the storm and rough seas for long minutes in near silence. He felt her lean against his arm. She heard his soft draw of breath and then felt as his arm reach behind her, his hand almost instinctively moving over her back, before pulling her gently against his skin.

  “You smell really nice,” she offered, still looking out the window.

  “Yea, you do too,” he smiled. Looking into her eyes for the first time.

  “Liam? Your eyes—” she began.

  “Oh,” he rolled them.

  “They’re really different. Purple.”

  “Yea, they look that way sometimes—” he looked away out the window, not meeting her gaze again.

  “Liam,” he felt her hand on his face, bringing his gaze back to hers once again.

  “They are purple. Shiny purple, like, metallic.”

  “I know. They’re a little weird. I don’t usually let people see them. I wear sunglasses a lot.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  He smiled at the compliment.

  She moved herself close to him, her hand gliding over his wide pectorals while she rested her head on his shoulder taking in the wonderful scent of his skin.

  Liam couldn’t help himself. It was like she called to him with something he couldn’t explain.

  Tori felt his arms wrap gently around her, his hands gliding slowly over the skin of her back, as something boomed softly in the distance.

  3

  W ith the two of them this close, it had not taken long before she felt Liam’s lips lightly teasing along the skin of her neck, nibbling up to her earlobe. Tori took in a soft rippled breath while her palm moved over his wide pectoral and rested over one of his oval nipples that had drawn up tall and tight.

  Both embraced lightly as they teased the skin of each other with light touches and soft kisses for long minutes. She felt his warm bated breaths over her cheek until his lips hovered over hers, not quite touching.

  “Kiss me,” she breathed.

  “God, Tori, you’re so incredible.”

  He felt her pout lightly touch his in
a near electric brush of feeling that gave him a serious bolt of feeling under the front of his swimsuit. With her bikini subtly pressed against his suit, she’d already begun to feel him swelling. She pulled herself closer to him, feeling his warm growing firmness against her skin.

  Their brushing lip play ended when Liam gently opened her pout with his own, and softly folded his lips into hers. With their arms embracing, each sank their lips into an eager, emotionally moving, kiss.

  His warm skin smoothed over hers. Tori pulled herself a little more snugly against him, feeling his muscles move with her while their lips danced with each other’s. Liam didn’t really think about it; somehow it was just instinctive how his hand slipped down her back, then over her bikini bottoms to cup one side of her pear-shaped ass; pulling her against the growing firmness of his shorts. She didn’t seem to mind. He could feel her. All of her. Like she was on fire with a desire she’d never known. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know who he was. He’d never seen anyone like her either. She was brighter than the rest when he looked at her. He’d honestly never felt anyone else like her. Then again, he’d never met anyone like himself until a few years ago.

  A family in the shambles of divorce, Liam was nineteen when he suddenly found himself on his own with no money, no job, and no place to call home. He’d lived with gracious friends and relatives for a few years, taking unskilled jobs wherever he could find them.

  Living for a few months in Costa Mesa, he’d met a wealthy businessman; a real estate developer. The guy was younger, handsome and both had hit it off. After a week of business lunches and dinners that felt more like dates, Liam found himself waking in his new friend’s bedroom—only to discover that he was very different after he’d sank into a sudden deep sleep.

  Even his new friend had been amazed at Liam’s “awakening”, as he called it. Liam hadn’t just awakened, he’d done so in a way that none of his friend’s small business clan had ever seen before. They were suddenly afraid of him. The things he could do. Although he wanted to stay, the clan asked him to leave. He was too bright; he might attract too much attention to their enterprises. Reluctantly, Liam agreed. That was the last he’d ever seen of them. He’d read later that the tiny clan of halfblood investors were all killed in a plane crash, their corporate jet had gone down in the Sierra Nevada’s. The accident was ruled a mechanical failure.

  Sure it was.

  Over the next few years since he’d been awakened, Liam had met only a few other awakened as he moved from town to town, city to city; none of them as bright as himself. They’d been kind. Most of them. Teaching him things about the world, about the shadow governments, the Seven, and their Oligarchy that actually ruled the whole world.

  Some of the clans knew much more than the others. They had taught him to speak and write and move in the language of the Ra.

  Now in is late twenties, there wasn’t much that gave him concern. Still, he avoided the police, and especially the feds. Some in the government knew about who and what he was; he’d been arrested a few times by Homeland, but they weren’t able to hold him—not for long. He’d been labeled a halfblood, a demigod by them. But he was pretty sure he was more, much more, than what they had labeled him as.

  It had been well over a year now. No one had followed him to Tampa; not that he’d sensed anyway. He’d laid low in the big city. Stayed out of sight and kept mostly to himself. He’d not lied to Tori when he’d called himself a vagrant. He wasn’t exactly homeless, but he wasn’t particularly legal either. Sure, he’d been born in the States, but in his present condition, on the run from the feds, none of that mattered now. He may as well be an illegal alien. But she didn’t know that; and right now, as heavily as her breaths pushed past his lips, he was pretty sure she didn’t care.

  Liam’s hand moved warmly over her abundant round breast that seemed to defy gravity on her chest. The thin stretch material of her white bikini top didn’t at all hide the taunt nipple that Liam had kneaded tall between his fingers, causing her to whimper softly into his mouth. She pulled away from his lips as he watched her exhale, tipping her head back, her long brunette hair cascading back in waves that now reached all the way past her ass.

  “Aaaah—ohhhhh!” she jumped in his arms, feeling his nipple teases send ripples of warm desire into her bikini bottoms. “Ohhh, Liam that feels nice—”

  “You feel nice, Tori.” He gently moved new kisses down her neck, onto her chest and finally over the bikini top, wetting the material with his mouth and suckling her nipple through the white satiny material.

  She lifted off the part of her top that covered her breast, giving Liam full access to her bare tip as he warmly wetted her skin with his mouth.

  4

  S torm rains blew in from the gulf, splashing hard against the tall windows of her condo. The dark clouds had so obscured the sun that a kind of dusk night had settled into the high-rise home’s living room. Both had fallen into an overheated embraced with Tori’s bikini top now laying atop Liam’s towel on the sofa. Their hands moving over each other’s skin, pinching nipples, and gripping swimsuit-covered ass, each all-at-once pulled away at the sound of a loud boom that softly shook their building. The surprise lightning strike gave each a much-needed hiatus from their lip play to look at each other in the dimmed light as the stormed raged against their building outside.

  “You’re so beautiful, Tori. I love your breasts.” He smoothed his palms over the tips of them.

  She pulled away slightly to give him a better view of them standing out pert from her. He took both of them again into his hands to knead her gently.

  “You’re really hard, Liam,” she rocked the front of her hips against his, feeling him exhale deeply.

  “I—ahhh—can’t help it.”

  Looking between their embrace, she could see he’d filled out much longer and grown hugely thick, to the point where he was nearly pushing out of the thin waistband of the square-cut swimsuit. He wasn’t just firm, but hard, like a huge rod of thick hardwood beneath them. Her hand moved between them as her fingers toyed gently with the solid cock pressing out from his trunks.

  “Ohh, God, Tori. You’re going to make want to do more than just kiss you in a minute.”

  “Want to?” she breathed a chuckle.

  Okay. He already wanted to do more than just kiss her. Sure, her top was already off. He slipped both of his hands down her back and under the bikini bottoms that were cut so narrow that they really only covered the middle of her finely-rounded ass anyway. He kneaded her warmly as both returned to a heated kiss while her fingers danced lightly over just the tip of his hard male through his swimsuit.

  It was then she recalled the police detective’s words …

  “Do not have sex with him, Miss Evenson.”

  Tori’s brow lifted. “I beg your pardon?” Her Southern sensitivities suddenly ruffled.

  “You heard me.”

  “I would not even think to—”

  “Miss Evenson,” the detective interrupted her while he finished slipping the papers back into the large manila envelope and closing the top of it with the clasp. He handed the dossier to her to finish studying later. “It doesn’t matter what you intend to do or not. Liam Sinclair, or whatever name he’s using here in Tampa, can be a very charismatic individual. Beguiling, in fact.”

  “I’m a very strong woman, Detective Roberts.”

  “Not against this man you’re not.”

  “I am not going to just hop into bed with some, some stranger—I don’t care how good-looking he is.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Tori,” the detective glared.

  She pursed her lips.

  “Sinclair is more than you can handle. Trust me. Do not allow yourself to be alone with him for even five minutes. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “We need you to follow our instructions to a T, Miss Evenson. One misstep; one deviation from what we’ve given you to do and all of this—months and months of wo
rk—all comes unraveled.”

  “I still don’t understand why y’all have picked me to do this? Of all people—”

  “Because, Miss Evenson, you are very special. Isn’t she, Monica—”

  The detective’s assistant was beautiful and very complimentary. “You are special, Tori. We’re putting a lot of trust in you to help us capture this thief. And once he’s in custody, finally, you will be well compensated.”

  “And I can keep this condo y’all want me to buy as well?”

  “That is part of the compensation package, Miss Evenson. Sinclair frequents this complex quite often. We need you to be living there. It needs to all look above board.”

  Tori nodded. “I understand. I’ll do it. But you’re paying a huge reward here, Detective. You must really want this Sinclair guy badly.”

  “Liam Sinclair has stolen millions from banks in six states, Miss Evenson. The authorities are being compensated and the reward funds provided by those banks. It’s really the banks that want him badly—I’m just setting the trap to locate him.”

  “Using me as your bait for some reason.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why would he be interested in me, again?” Tori asked.

  “It’s, just who you are, Tori,” Monica chimed in. “Look at you. You’re tall, well-curved, beautiful. Exactly the kind of woman Sinclair is attracted to.”

  “Honestly, Monica, every guy sort of hits on me. I don’t know how—”