Teased (12 page)

He broke the kiss and lifted her easily, all but tossing her on the bed. She bounced once, and then he was on his knees on the floor, his mouth on her core, her legs over his shoulders.

She tried to sit up, to protest, but one hand flattened over her abdomen.

He glanced up, his eyes a burning gold. “Stay in place.”

The spit on her tongue dried up, and she froze.

“Down,” he ordered, no give on his chiseled face.

She blinked once and then lay back down, her heart beating so fast her ribs ached.

He licked her, humming with pleasure, and nipped her clit.

Sparks flew through her so hot and fast she could only gasp. Then he went at her, licking, nipping, and biting…in perfect rhythm, until she was a mass of aching nerves ready to beg.

She glanced desperately around the small bedroom. Black and white photographs of airplanes through the years covered the walls, and a heavy oriental rug sprawled across the concrete floor. He nipped her again, and she closed her eyes against the heated bliss.

“Chalton,” she moaned.

He released her and turned to rub his nose against her thigh. She gyrated against him, needing much more, so close to the edge a strong breeze would carry her over.

Pain lanced through her thigh.

She partially sat up, and the hand on her abdomen pushed her back down. He’d bitten her. His tongue made quick use of closing the wound, and then landed square on her clit.

She whispered his name, fireworks flashing behind her closed eyelids. The orgasm rolled through her, pounding, stronger than any lightning strike. He prolonged the waves, using his mouth and his fingers, until she flopped back down with a low moan.

Then he stood.

She tried to form words, but nothing would come.

He ripped his shirt over his head, revealing all of that smooth, strong muscle. Then his pants hit the floor.

No way could she join him this time, but he definitely deserved an orgasm. So she widened her thighs.

Slowly, he shook his head, raw need in his dark eyes.

She frowned.

He grasped her hands and tugged her to stand. Her legs wobbled. Then he turned her around and lowered her to her hands and knees on the bed, facing the headboard. Strong hands grabbed her hips, and he thrust inside with one controlled shove.

She sucked in air and dug her nails into the dark bedspread. Holy crap he was huge. A feeling, an uncoiling, started deep inside her. How was that possible?

He flattened his hand between her shoulder blades and pushed down until her head hit the covers. She turned to the side to breathe, a powerful predator behind her.

Open and vulnerable, she could only feel.

So much heat and undeniable power. Yet she had to ask. “Is this because you’re mad?”

He stopped moving, buried balls deep inside her. “Does this feel mad?” he asked.

No, it felt fucking amazing. He was so deep she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began. “No, but I wanted to make sure.” Her voice was muffled in the covers.

He slid out and powered back inside her. “This is for fun and because it feels good. This”—he smacked her ass and hard—“is because I was pissed.”

“Ow,” she howled. Then, because he’d surprised her, she laughed out loud.

He paused again. “You’re laughing?” Amusement darkened his tone.

She shivered from the tenor and laughed again. “I can’t help it. You surprised me, and that’s how I react.” And yet, she was having fun. Without question.

“Interesting.” He peppered several smacks to her rear end, and she stopped laughing altogether. “Better.”

Oh, he did not. Worst of all, since he was firmly implanted inside her, every smack had ricocheted sparks throughout her body. Somehow he ignited her desire again, this time into a hunger that actually hurt.

“I might have to harm you,” she gasped into the bedclothes.

A slap to the center of her ass had her arching and riding the fine edge between pain and pleasure.

“So that’s how to quiet you,” he murmured, rubbing her heated flesh.

Her mind caught his meaning several seconds after her body had spasmed. “Hey—”

SMACK.

She arched again, taking more of him in.

He chuckled a low rumble, grasped her hips, and began pounding with a harsh rhythm that took her completely out of reality. The slap of flesh against flesh filled the room along with their ragged breathing.

He pulled her back to meet his thrusts, controlling her, taking her places she hadn’t known existed.

She broke with a low cry, the orgasm taking her over, filling her with so much pleasure she could barely breathe.

He shuddered and fell over her, his lips brushing her ear.

Slowly, he pulled out, and she felt a sense of loss way out of proportion for the moment. He turned her over, pushed her up on the bed, and sprawled over her, his elbows taking his weight.

“You okay?” he asked, pushing damp hair away from her face.

She nodded, too much emotion swamping her to allow speech. If she talked, she’d say something really stupid about love and destiny. She’d lost her mind. A couple of amazing orgasms and she’d gone crazy.

He placed a gentle kiss against her lips. “You feel it, right?”

She nodded again, wanting nothing more than to stay right there, in his arms, forever. How nuts was that?

“Me too.” He kissed the corners of her mouth, her nose, her cheeks, even her eyelids.

A rumble sounded from outside.

He drew her up and off the bed, patted her still smarting ass, and pushed her toward the bathroom. “That’s one of my brothers. Take a quick shower. We’ll figure everything out later.”

She nodded and hitched toward the bathroom, small aches and pains springing to life. He felt like hers, but what about Ronni? What would she give up to save her best friend’s life? How could she ask Chalton to give up his freedom for eternity?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Chalton dragged on the borrowed jeans, leaving them unbuttoned while padding barefoot into the vast garage space. Theo arrived on an impressive looking Ducati seconds before Jared roared in on a Harley with a pale brunette holding on for dear life behind him.

The second he killed the engine, she pushed off the bike. “You are such a complete dickhead of an asshole,” she muttered.

“I told you to hold on,” Jared said calmly, swinging off the bike and turning on Chalton. “Miss Temper here didn’t want to come, so I had to convince her.”

Ronni rounded on him, both hands on her too slender hips. “This is kidnapping, and you better believe I’m going to press charges on your ass.”

Theo grinned. “What in the world did I miss?”

“You’re an accessory, asshole,” Ronni snarled, her Columbian accent sharpening the words.

For a feisty brunette, she really was cute. Long hair, deep brown eyes, curvy figure. Not Chalton’s type, but if he remembered right, Jared had a thing for women from romantic countries. Spunky women.

Though by the thunderclouds gathering in his deep eyes, he didn’t have a thing for this one.

Chalton cleared his throat. “Ronni? Olivia is through that door taking a quick shower. I’m sure she’d like to see for herself that you’re all right.”

Ronni gave him one of the most scalding looks he’d ever received before lifting her head high and stomping through the room and out of sight. The apartment door slammed behind her hard enough to rattle the outside door.

“She’s ill,” Jared said, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. Heart problems,” Chalton said.

“I could smell it on her, but she sure as shit doesn’t let it slow her down,” Jared muttered, rubbing his jaw. “The girl knows how to hit.” Now he sounded impressed.

“Well, at least she’s a fighter. I’ve offered to mate her to save her life,” Chalton said, his gut aching.

Jared rocked back on size sixteen boots. “You smell of another female, brother. Planning a harem?”

“No.” He frowned. “Things have gotten a little out of hand.”

“Fuck. I leave you alone for one little century, and now you’ve got two women to mate. You know you can only mate one, right?” Jared drawled.

“Asshole,” Chalton said without heat. “Did you find the people who hired you to track down Olivia?”

Jared growled. “No. They seem to have disappeared, but don’t worry, I will find the bastards.” He turned toward Theo, who was watching the exchange with barely contained amusement. “Where the hell is our mother?”

Theo sobered. “No clue. She doesn’t check in with me any more than you, and she gets irritated if any of us get too overbearing.”

“I called her, but she hasn’t responded,” Chalton muttered.

“Me too,” Jared said.

Theo glanced at his phone. “She hasn’t called me back, either.” Then his phone buzzed, and he grinned. “There she is. She called me first.” Triumph lightened his hard face as he answered the phone. “Hi, Mom.” His smile disappeared, and he cut a look at his brothers. “Who the fuck is this?”

Chalton stopped breathing, his body settling into battle mode. “Record it,” he mouthed, charging closer to his brother as Jared did the same.

Theo nodded and hit a button on his phone. “Let me see her.” He glanced down at the phone, holding it out so they could all see their mother tied up, furious, in a chair.

Petey Libscombe came into view. The years hadn’t been good to him. His hair had thinned, very rare for a shifter. “You had to know I’d be coming.”

Chalton shrugged. “We figured you’d be out trying human balding cures.”

Theo snorted.

Petey growled low and stepped behind their mother. “As you can see, I’ve taken good care of your mommy. She’s at her little hidey-hole in the city, perfectly unharmed. Be here in an hour or I cut off her fucking head.” The picture went dark.

Theo turned and ran toward the apartment, stopping in the small living room and connecting the phone to the huge plasma television to bring up the recording for a wider view. Their mom slowly took form on the massive screen. “Where is her hidey-hole in the city?”

Chalton shook his head.

“No clue,” Jared said, his voice sounding like death on a promise.

Chalton growled. “I don’t understand. How can she have a place in the city we don’t know about? What does she do there?” He spoke with her several times a week, and not once had she mentioned a getaway place.

Theo ran through the video frame by frame. “Nothing here shows us where she is.” He froze the screen. Their mom sat, tied and gagged, on a purple office chair. A bookshelf lined the wall behind her, stacked high with tons and tons of books. Her brownish hair curled around her shoulders, and her dark eyes shot furious sparks.

Rage threatened to cut off Chalton’s ability to think, so he took several deep breaths to regain control. It was unthinkable, even in times of war, to go after females, and especially somebody’s
mother
.

“I’m going to cut off his nuts and feed them to his brother,” Jared said, his fingers curled into fists.

“His brother is in Morocco right now and probably not a part of this,” Theo muttered.

“Don’t care,” Jared responded.

Olivia walked out of the bedroom wearing a cute black yoga outfit that showed off her curves to perfection, leading a bewildered looking Ronni. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s all true. There are actually people who turn into animals, although I haven’t seen that happen yet. For now, it’s just vampires and the weird white-faced dudes.” She glanced up at the screen and stopped cold, her face going white. “What did you do?” she whispered.

Chalton frowned. “We didn’t do that.”

“I don’t understand.” She walked closer to the screen. “Why would anybody hurt Helen? Where is she? What’s going on?”

Shock clipped through Chalton. He grasped Olivia’s arm and flipped her around. “How do you know my mother’s name?”

Olivia’s mouth dropped open and then closed with a snap. “Your
mother
?”

“Yes.” Oh, he so did not like where this was going. “Again, how do you know her?”

Olivia pressed a hand to her stomach. “She’s my source for the story. I mean, everything I know about immortal species came from her.”

Olivia caught sight of Ronni’s too pale face and drew her forward to sit on the lone leather sofa in the barren room. Telling her about immortals had been more difficult than she’d thought. Maybe the innocuous living space would help calm her friend. The television took up one wall, the bedroom entry the other, pictures of airplanes the third, and behind them was a utilitarian kitchen.

Ronni sat, her hands trembling. “Those are not vampires. Vampires don’t exist.”

“Chalton?” Olivia called.

He eyed them, let his fangs drop, and then growled.

Ronni gasped.

Chalton rolled his eyes and let his fangs retract. “We have bigger issues right now to deal with. Why the hell did my mother give you proprietary information?”

Olivia shrugged, her mind spinning. “I don’t know. She called me up out of the blue, said she had read my articles about the North Platt labs using animals for testing, and that she had a great story for me. When we met, she gave me the first few documents about missing information.”

Chalton rocked back on his heels, thoughts scattering across his face. Dark-looking thoughts. He glared at Jared. “Any ideas?”

“None I like having,” Jared retorted, crossing arms that looked firmer than steel and twice as strong. “Theo?”

“Dunno.” Theo shrugged.

“Considering our mother basically committed treason against, well, everybody…maybe we should figure this out,” Chalton snapped.

Jared shook his head. “If the Realm finds out about this, they’ll cut off her head.”

“No, they won’t,” Chalton returned.

“Oh yeah? Why the hell not?” Jared hissed.

Chalton rose to his full height. “Because Dage Kayrs is my friend, and you don’t cut off the head of your friend’s mother.” By the time he finished the sentence, he was yelling.

“Bullshit,” Jared yelled back, stepping within punching distance.

“You have always had a hard-on for the Realm, and it’s time you fucking made peace,” Chalton bellowed.