Intimidator Page 7

  The saccharine advice dragged him up from dreamland and he popped open an eye then grunted. It was Jadd’s bondmate, Brittany, a sweet woman. She made him think of gamboling mindless deer like in a film Brask had recently subjected him to. Bambi? That was it.

  “Listen, Bambi. I appreciate your helpfulness but I need to sleep.”

  “Brittany.” She smiled hesitantly.

  “Go away. Please.”

  “Sorry. Of course. Sleep.”

  He awoke in a ruffled mood at five am, stripped his weaponry from the dummy awaiting him and strapped on his Heckler and Koch and the twin Magnums.

  The drone routine was a standard warm-up, so he took the tablet to breakfast. With a triangle of toast in his mouth, he tapped buttons as they turned green. Toast and strawberry jam had taken some getting used to, the first times. Human food was different but tasty. He was careful not to get jam on the weapons.

  Being armed at the breakfast table caused a few rude stares. He concentrated on the tablet.

  “The Feya’s got PMT,” was all he heard Brask say. PMT? Whatever that was. The language app glitched at times. What did they all know about being a Hunter? Not that he was one. Or should be. Why was he doing this when he needed to leave this planet? The whole idea of chasing this alien female was anathema and the very opposite of what he should be doing.

  He hadn’t even said goodbye to Nasskia or seen her grave, or the graves of his children, and he never would. This was complete stupidity.

  The last bite of toast a dry lump in his throat, he walked out to the surveillance room and flicked the switch. Screens flashed to life.

  He sat to watch.

  While cinching in the holster straps, he observed Willow sneak past the reservoir and through the trees for her meeting with the gun merchant. The little mellow green light on the life monitor on his chest strap flashed. His pulse was steady, blipping away. Good.

  He was calm until the weapon, a Glock, was placed in her hand. Seeing her loading it and checking out the slider and the magazine, made something rumble to life inside him. When she tucked the gun into a bag, he hit some unexpected limit.

  For a few moments, he pressed the center of his forehead with two fingers, circling, massaging away the tension. Instead of Nasskia when he woke up, his first thought had been of her, Willow. Was it just that she needed him?

  That weapon in her hand had looked as out of place as a flower would in his. Killing was his occupation.

  He stopped and stared at nothing, forearms leaning on his thighs. She did need him. So what if she was alien and there were a trillion more here also dying of one thing or another? This one, he could help.

  This one had a sweet body that seemed to have been made to tempt him. His tongue remembered her taste, the feel of her nipple springing up as he sucked on her. The wetness between her legs, her groans and sighs…

  “Dreaming, Feya?” Brask lightly punched his arm.

  He grimaced. “Yes.”

  “Her?”

  He dropped his head, clasped his hands. Why not say? “Yes.”

  “Look, if it’s hurting you this much, just give her to me, I can get permission to take her off your hands. She can be my pet.”

  “What?” The idea of Brask touching her, running his hands over her. “Don’t you dare –” He glared at Brask and found him smiling, with his hand out, and a red harness bunched up in his fist.

  “You might need this with a spirited one like her. Collar, leash, gag. I can’t take her from you, Stom. She’s yours.”

  He eyed the thing – straps, dark red leather, bronzed buckles. Was this what Brask thought a pet should wear?

  “I’m going down there now.” He stood and stalked away, aware that between his eyes was ridged by anger, that he was glowering as he whipped his coat off the armor rack and over his shoulders. It settled in place, covering the machine pistol.

  Brask was standing nearby, already in his coat, already armed.

  “You’re doing the second stage properly? Or is it a pretend one as you discussed with me days ago?” When Stom didn’t reply, he added, “We need to know. We have to protect you, be ready to cover up for mistakes if humans become aware.”

  Pretend, or real? They wanted a blatant verbal declaration. He stood and his hand clenched on the width of the holster strap, squeezing it in. His pulse was blipping along a little faster, a little heavier. Determined to stay focused he opened his mouth to say the word, pretend. And baulked.

  “Real. For now.”

  Bemused and appalled at himself, he shook his head. This had to be a betrayal of Nasskia. You couldn’t squeeze out of vows with debates, tricky arguments, and special situations, could you?

  The red harness had been left abandoned over a seat. The possibilities… He frowned. Other owners used such things on their pets.

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with that.” But, on a whim, he picked it up and stuffed it into an inside pocket. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 8

  There were things moving out there in the forest. Hiding a weapon in a bag when you were scared some gangster was about to knock you off seemed stupid. She searched blindly among the books she’d put in there for disguise, and pulled it out. The Glock felt right in her hand. Heavy. Like if you couldn’t shoot them, you could at least hit them over the head with it. Though all guns made her think that.

  Nicolai had moved off, disappeared, and left her to make her way back home. This was the edge of a small park that butted onto the messy wilderness around the reservoir.

  The park itself was sometimes littered with needles and, well, litter. But once under the gum trees you saw less rubbish. The addicts liked to stay around the benches. Nicolai aimed for his meet-ups to be somewhere that CCTV was unlikely to see a handover. Between that and her desire to not go too far from the house…she’d picked here.

  Willow looked around again. Another seventy yards and she’d be home. The noise had come from where Nicolai had gone.

  The sun was up but slanting in at such an angle that the trees blocked most of the light. The crunching of leaves and small sounds she heard were distant, like maybe someone was struggling with someone else. Maybe Nicolai needed help? She hefted the gun, checked the safety was off and cautiously, trying not to make those leaf crackling noises, back tracked.

  She made her muscles think. Care, take care. Move like a damn snake with feet.

  Her sneaker-shod feet pressed on grass.

  Crackle. Crunch.

  Shit. She wasn’t Pocahontas. How the hell did you stop leaves making noises?

  Dark bars of trees. The glint of sun. Something flickered across her vision. She squinted, trying to make out whatever it was that moved there. It was big. If it was there at all. Then it vanished again.

  Frantic, she scanned her surroundings. Left to right. Right to left. Flick. No. Nothing. Flick. What was that?

  Someone screeched. The thing prowled in closer.

  “Stay the fuck back.” But fear had her throat and it had come out a whisper. Did she really want to yell and warn it…him? She raised the gun a tad from where it pointed groundward.

  And closer. Squiggles of black and columns of tree bark gray shimmied across her eyes. She blinked. A man came at her.

  The world shuddered, jellified, as a weird sort of joy rippled through her. Every muscle in her body cramped, her eyes rolled up for a flicker of time, and her hand clenched. The gun fired. Though she’d grabbed her wrist at the last second, the kick of the gun blew her hand back and up.

  What the fuck?

  Before she could figure out what had happened, he had her, hand jarring in around her neck, other on her wrist, flinging her back.

  Her back thumped into tree. She coughed. The gun was ripped from her fingers.

  “What were you doing?” he demanded.

  She blinked into his face and recognized him by his scent before his voice or face registered. Stom. She inhaled again, aghast at her reaction, but wanting to wriggle
like a puppy whose owner has arrived, or like a woman who has just the right man pinning her to a tree.

  Fuck this. “You!” What was wrong with her?

  As if the dawn had been waiting just to trick her, the light strengthened enough for her to see him clearly.

  “Yes, me.” His scowl wasn’t going away.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you. You scared the crap outta me!” Her thumping heart shook her. She was never ever going to say why she’d pulled the trigger, that she’d nearly had an orgasm.

  “You didn’t?” The words came out low and nasty enough to rivet her in place and set her to staring back at him.

  “No. Obviously.” Anger at him scaring her swamped her fear. “Dumbass.”

  Something wet dripped on her breast. In the light mottling her, ran a crimson rivulet of blood that tracked down into her cleavage, warm and terrifying.

  “Is that blood?” Her stomach flip-flopped.

  She looked at him. Dapples of leaf shadow and his dark markings flowed across his face. He was so difficult to see under the trees. Those eyes, those enchanting pale blue eyes, swiveled to look down at her breasts. His cheek dimpled as he twitched into a one second smile.

  “Yes, it is. It’s mine. You got my finger.” His brow knitted as if he couldn’t believe what she’d managed to do. “An armored coat on, never wounded in battle except once, and you manage to get me with this archaic earth weapon. Mark this, in my world an injury means you owe me something in return.”

  Armored coat? What the fuck? And she owed him? Sure she did.

  Couldn’t be too serious, if he was chastising her. “I didn’t know it was you! Damn you, tell me you’re coming next time…Mr. Alien. If that’s what you are.”

  She tested his hold and despite his injured hand, it didn’t give. “Let go, asshole. And give me back the Glock.”

  He ignored her, his eyes averted as if he listened to something.

  When he spoke, it didn’t make sense. “Yes, it is,” he murmured. “No, it’s not serious. If I have to, she’s coming with me.” On her throat, he lifted his fingers then repositioned them, playing with her neck, as if he’d found something fascinating. His gaze shifted again to her blood-smeared breasts.

  Her nipples responded and went all perky, throbbing, and visible through her T-shirt.

  Oops.

  She needed a distraction. Fast. “There’s something happening back there. I heard noises. My friend Nicolai –”

  “Is being fucked by some woman. I don’t think interfering is a good idea.”

  Fucked. The way he’d said it made it sound like a word for groveling around in the dirt while every imaginable perversion was done to you.

  “How do you know that he’s…doing that?”

  His gaze was so intense, she wanted to squirm. She did squirm. Instincts. Shit. Her eyelids quivered down by a fraction as the front of her thighs met him down there. The coat was close. He was that close. Thank god he’d not unbuttoned it. Groin to groin, almost. Dangerous.

  “Umm. You should move back, you know?”

  “Oh?” As if he’d read her mind he switched hands, wrestled her wrists back to the tree when she made to break away, then began undoing buttons. The coat parted, button by button. Dazed at the sight, she watched. Very deliberately, he pushed his thigh between hers. When she noticed his smile it was grim, as if this were a chore he had to do.

  Willow licked her lips, swallowed. “Back off and give me my gun.”

  “You think I’m going to let you, a woman who burns herself in her spare time for amusement, run around with a weapon?”

  More buttons were undone. Another. And another. The bottom ones must have been free already. The coat swung wide.

  “Burning? What?” Her mouth stayed open. How did he know she did that? He’d been spying? “You watched me!”

  How had he seen her? She ran through possibilities. Telescope, but from where? Bugs. Alien weird surveillance thing. Funny how that seemed most likely. “How?”

  “Yes, I watched you burn yourself. You’re bad.”

  Bad was the last way she expected that to be described. Well it was, but, but…her thoughts petered down to nothing. All the cravings of the past day or so resurrected in a small tsunami. Lust. In front of her, was a man who embodied that in every molten move, in every cell of his well-sculpted body.

  “I’m bad?” she whispered.

  “You. Mmm.” He lowered his head and scented her neck, lips pressing on her, here, there – kisses that stirred her more than they should, because they promised so much. Where else might he kiss? Drifts of air cooled her where his nose touched her skin, where he breathed on her.

  “Bad. Definitely.” Then he licked her neck, slowly, in one helluva long caress with his tongue, like a predator tasting his mate, before he kissed her softly again.

  She shivered. I don’t know this guy. Not really. Am I such a slut?

  “You’re beautiful. And you smell so good I want to eat you all up, every time I’m near. Why the fuck is that?”

  The tinge of menace made her go up on her toes.

  Then he bit the side of her neck, hard.

  She keened, threatened by, enraptured by, the savagery of his teeth sinking into her muscle. Helpless, she shut her eyes. She tried not to let her collapsing legs make her slide down the tree trunk and straight to the ground. She had no wish to look like a weak female unable to resist…cause if she did, it seemed like he might take her, here, now.

  His teeth let go.

  Fucked against a tree. God. What an idea.

  Where he held her wrists onto the bark, she tugged again, but even with a hurt hand his grip was fierce.

  What had she done? She’d thought Stom the sort of man who needed an invitation to get going. Seemed as if shooting him had done the trick. Next time she wanted a date, she’d put a bullet in him.

  He put his mouth to her ear, nuzzling her there, while he explored her below – fondling her breast, her belly, and her hip, then tugging up her T-shirt. He took a handful of her breast like he owned it, and squeezed so much it hurt.

  Something about being forced against the tree, about him making her stay there while he played with her body, sizzled through her like lightning through rain.

  If her throat hadn’t closed in, if she didn’t have to stick her tongue on the roof of her mouth to stop from groaning, she’d have said, no.

  He drew back, grunted. “What is it about you? When I smell you, I have this compulsion to get more than close to you, I want to be inside you, to make the beast with two backs with you, to fuck you so hard and rough you’ll find walking impossible.”

  Pinned mercilessly, she could only whimper. Words – gone.

  Worse, what he felt was a mirror image of her.

  “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to fuck you. Feya don’t fuck, we love. But for you, that human word…fuck. So right.”

  He bowed his head and kissed her furiously for a minute of lip-crushing mouth to mouth that was as passionate as sex, that left her panting and weak, and straining to free her hands so she could claw at him. When she craned forward to return the kiss, he nipped her lower lip then sucked on it. “Tell me, no?”

  “I… Umm.” No? Her mind and tongue had problems forming words. “I think… I think I need a dictionary to figure how to say that.”

  “Not surprising. I know why you desire me, Willow, but it shouldn’t affect me. And it is.”

  One-handed, he shoved her shirt all the way up, ripped down her bra so both her breasts were free, then undid her belt, the button on her denim shorts, and the zip.

  She did nothing but ache. He’d pinned her here because he wanted her right where she was.

  Fuck.

  “Not talking?” He raised a brow. “Is this attraction some secret woman thing we Feya don’t have? What have you done to me?”

  “Me?” She croaked out a word, shocking herself. “I can’t do anything.” He loosened her shorts some more
. “Wait. Don’t…” When she wriggled to elude him, that only that made her pussy move against his muscled thigh.

  He pushed it into her more. Solid man. Solid thigh. Right there where it felt so good.

  Her eyes rolled up.

  “Don’t? You should say no, fast.” He had two fingers down the front of her panties, heading southward, cruising over her clit. “Faster than that, girl. Say something. Because. I really. Don’t want. To do this.”

  “Liar,” she croaked out, indignantly.

  “Am I? I don’t think so.”

  What?

  Arm and body caging her, he watched her with those stone clear eyes, while his big hand tugged at her shorts and massaged her swollen clit. The denim shifted off her hips, exposing her panties. If he let her up, her shorts would likely fall to her ankles.

  “Understand me?” Angry, so angry were those words of his.

  “Yes.” She gulped. Except she didn’t. This was too sudden.

  Despite his violence, she was responding. Involuntarily. The need growing. Whatever this exchange was, it wasn’t love. Who cared? Not her. Not now. She closed her eyes, arched, moaned. Unfair. She couldn’t help her reaction when he probed at her like that.

  Breathing harshly through lips that seemed swollen, she opened them wider to speak. Try, try harder. This wasn’t natural, wanting him so much. She could say it. “N –”

  He came in and kissed her hard again, made the words go away, made her mind spin off into space.

  “Take note. That kiss means I’m going to fuck you.” Still pinning her onto the tree with his body weight, with his hand on her wrists and his leg between hers, he took something from his pocket, flipped it open, and swallowed the contents, then tucked it away.

  He let her go.

  The freedom was so unexpected it rocked her. The places he’d kissed and groped stung and hurt but most of all she was buzzing with the expectation of sex with this freaky god of a man.

  Who she didn’t know. Not really.

  Am I a slut? Willow swayed, and went to cover her exposed breasts but he swept aside her arms.