Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (25 page)

“Old man, I will rip
you apart until you fuckin’ talk,” Demon growled, only to have Bidel try to
spit blood in his face.

“Won’t matter . . .,” 
Bidel laughed his crazy hyena bray, which turned into a bloody wet cough.  “I
don’t know where she is.  Buyer anonymous.”  Then he laughed again.  “Now . . .
you know . . . what . . . it’s like to . . . lose.”

“Let him go, Demon,” Lucas
said, his voice cold as death.  Demon looked at him and catching the cast of
his face, decided not to argue.  He dropped a still laughing and coughing
Gregory Bidel to the floor with a curse.

Lucas picked up his leg
and crushed the old bastard’s head into the concrete with his boot.  The
silence was sudden and absolute.

***

Miley was waiting on
the plane with the pilot who was an older man with nice arms and grey sprinkled
through his blonde hair.  He was also well-armed and ready for action.  He
stayed with Miley until there was a call in the cockpit, then with a terse, “They’re
heading back,” he left to prep the plane for take-off.  When asked for more
information, he had none.  So Miley waited, and knew as soon as she saw their
faces that something had gone wrong.  Lucas came through the doors almost last,
and he motioned her back with hands covered in dry blood.  “I need to shower.” 
Then he turned away from where she stood frozen in mid-step and headed for the
stateroom in the back of the plane.

She gave him as long as
it took her to get the watered down version of the story from Logan, then she
followed.

Even a luxury plane
custom built for the uber-rich was still a plane; as such, the shower was
fairly tiny, at least it looked that way when she saw Lucas standing in it. 
The frosted glass door was already fogging from the heat, but she could see the
shape of him, hands braced against the wall, head bent under the spray, as if
the weight of the world was dragging him down.  Miley took a deep breath to get
a grip on her own worries, then she took off all her clothes.

***

“Talk.”  Cleo shoved
the blade in a little farther and felt the blood trail down his golden neck and
soak into his white dress shirt.  She had seen enough of what her father
preferred to know that what he wore was not off the rack.  “Now.”

The lion boy/man
cleared his throat nervously.  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.  I don’t
want to be gutted.”  Cleo blinked at the young voice, then she registered the
gangly arms and shoulders that still needed to fill out on the kid.

“Just how old are you?” 
She had to ask, he felt and sounded
young.

He cleared his throat
again.  “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen?” she asked
incredulous.  “And you’re kidnapping women for breeding?”

“No!”  His voice
actually broke over the too high word.  “I’m not here to hurt you.  This is
where the intermediary left you for anonymous pick-up.  I’m here for my uncle. 
He arranged this, not me!”

“Alright, who is your
uncle and how does he know me?”

The kid was silent, and
she could smell his anxiety rising, even as he started to sweat.  “I can’t
actually tell you that.”  She slashed a quick slice across his neck just under
his chin and then moved back to the jugular to dig the star point in.  “Ow,
shit!  I can’t, he’ll kill me!”

“What do you think
I’m
going to do to you, dickhead?”

“But . . . you can’t.” 
She saw all that gold skin pale, even as he stuttered.  “You’re a girl.”

Cleo snarled long and
loud.

***

When Lucas heard the
shower door open, he knew it was Miley from the sweet smell, but he was not in
a friendly frame of mind.  “I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, his voice hard,
and he didn’t bother raising his head or opening his eyes.  Then he felt her
duck under his arm and slide warm and naked across the front of him.  He lifted
his head to look as she reached around him to palm the soap dispenser and then
started to wipe the soap slick hands down his chest.  He would have moved away
if he could have, but there was not enough room in the shower for both of them
unless they were pressed skin-to-skin.

“Miley . . .,” he
started, but she shushed him and moved to his shoulders and then back down to
his abs.  His dick had been standing at attention from the second she touched
him, but he still had blood on his hands.  “Now isn’t good, Miley.”

“Shut up, Lucas,” she
said, shocking him with her anger.  She worked her way back up his chest and
across his right arm; then she pulled his hand away from the wall and washed
the blood still coating his nails.  “You think I will think less of you because
of this?”  She shoved away one newly cleaned hand and reached for the other
one.  Then she met his eyes, her own fired to a smoky quartz with shots of
green.  “Or do you actually believe anyone else but you is thinking this is
your fault?”

Lucas sucked in a
breath at the fierce understanding looking back at him, and felt the ice
encasing his emotions crumble beneath her will.  “I should have gone after her
immediately.”

“Bullshit.”

Lucas grabbed both
sides of her head and held her there, the water beating down his back not
working nearly as well as her eyes to make him feel clean.  His voice dropped
to a tortured rumble, his hands tightened on her face.  “They took my
daughter. 
Again
.  This is the second fucking time she’s been
compromised.”

“You’ll get her back,
just like last time.”  The surety in those words left no question of the
outcome.  Then she went on with what he already knew.  “Eli and Logan are
already on the money trail.”  Her hands took hold of his wrists and squeezed.  “You
will get her back.”

“I hate this.”  He
closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers.  “I’m so fucking angry I
want to tear this plane apart.”

“Well, you can’t.”  She
ran her hands up into his hair and pushed it through the wet weight of it.  She
pulled her head back and kissed his forehead, then both cheeks one after the
other, and then moved her lips to his ear and whispered, “But you can fuck me
against the wall as hard as you want.”

Lucas stilled, breathed
in a deep breath and all he inhaled was the sweetness of Miley.  He unwrapped
his hands from her face and gripped her lush hips, opening his eyes at the same
time he pushed her up the wall.  Whether from the quickness of his move, the
height she was now looking down on him from, or the heat he could feel
smoldering from his eyes, she gasped out a shocked breath.  What she did not do
was deny him.

Lucas stepped forward
the bare inch they had between them and plastered himself on every inch of soft
skin he could reach.  He felt her legs wrap around his hips, and her arms
encircle his neck, but he was shuddering at the clean sweet feel of his mate,
safe in his arms.  And all he could think was that he needed more.

He shifted her until
the tip of his dick was at her hot entrance.  He looked in her eyes and watched
her gasp and arch when he thrust home.  “So fucking wet.”  He pulled back and
thrust again, his hands going back to her face so he could hold her eyes to his
while he ground himself back in.  “So fucking beautiful.”  He watched her close
her eyes and arch her neck, reaching for more of him with every look and
breath.  “Mine.” 

Then his palms went to
the wall behind her head and lay flat against the slick wall.  He took her at
her word and powered into her, losing track of everything, including time,
until she clawed at his back and screamed her pleasure; then he thrust harder
and longer until he came with a roar, his anger spent.

Lucas and Miley were
lying together across the bed in the stateroom.  Miley had her head on his
chest, her arm wrapped around his flat belly.  Lucas was twirling little figure
eights on her arm and looking at the ceiling, thinking.  Definitely not
sleeping or resting of any kind.  Miley could feel the tension as it ratcheted
back up in the tensing of his muscles and tightening of his skin.  The very air
they breathed was getting heavier with each thought that went through his head.

“You are going to make
yourself crazy.”  She nuzzled his chest and sighed.  “You should be feeling bad
for whoever took Cleo, you know.  She’s going to be pissed.”

Lucas snorted.  “They
should be more worried about what I’m going to do when I catch up to them.  But
you have a point.”

Miley turned and
slithered up on top of Lucas, making sure to keep contact with as much of his
skin as she could.  She trailed her lips up his chin and rubbed them against
his while her hand trailed the entirety of his chest.  “I love this body.  Have
I mentioned that?”

She felt his half smile
against her kiss.  His hands trailed down to her ass and squeezed.  “Are you
going to use sex to distract me until we find Cleo?”

“At least until we get
home,” she murmured, then smiled into his eyes and started moving down his
chest.  Her hands trailed lower and lower, her lips following, until she had
the hard heavy weight of him cradled in her hands.  “It is the least I can do,
you know, as your
official
mate.  I mean you did seduce me on a tropical
isle, then wrestle a grizzly for me . . . I think, I mean I didn’t see it
myself, so it could have been an elaborate ruse to impress me, but it
sounded
all scary and dangerous.”

Lucas pushed her head
down his body with a growl.  “Well, as my mate, your duty is clear.”

Miley smiled against
the heat of him, and watched Lucas fist his hands in the sheets in preparation
for her sacrifice.  She had just made one swipe with her tongue when someone
started pounding on the door.

“Fuck off!”  Lucas
roared, shaking the bed, though that might have just been her laughing.

“Cleo’s on the phone.”

Miley looked at Lucas,
and then jumped off the bed, falling naked over the side when her foot caught. 
She cursed and stumbled to her feet.  She had just enough time to pull the bed sheet
haphazardly around her when Lucas, in too much of a hurry to fumble the lock
open, ripped the door off its hinges and tossed it aside.  He was at the phone,
yanking it out of Logan’s hands buck-naked in under five seconds, and Miley was
right behind him with her woman parts barely covered.

“Cleo?” he demanded on
a snarl.

“Hey, Dad.”  Cleo’s
voice was loud in the room and not coming from the headset.

“Speaker phone,” Logan
said motioning to the device he had just switched on when Lucas showed.  All
the men were gathered around except Eli who was hunched over his computer,
typing frantically.

Lucas dropped the
useless receiver.  “Report.”

Miley rolled her eyes
and moved closer to the speaker, trying to untwist her sheet without flashing
anyone.  “Are you okay?” she asked, giving it up as impossible for the moment.

“I’m fine.  But, uh,
funny story . . .,”  Cleo started and they could all hear her clearing her
throat.  “So I am all good, and you know, free, but I find myself in a bit of a
situation.  I don’t actually know where I am.  I was wondering if Eli could
maybe trace this call and get a location since this ridiculous phone does not
have enough bars for Google maps.”  She took a deep audible breath, and spoke
fast.  “I’m heading to a car right now, but it looks to be a rural location,
and I would hate to drive around aimlessly lost if I can help it.  I mean these
guys are rank amateurs, but it would be just my luck for more to show up and
stumble upon me by accident.”  There was some kind of noise in the background,
and then it sounded like she fumbled the phone a bit.

“Shut it, dipshit,”
Cleo yelled, her voice barely muffled, as if she had her hand over the receiver
but it was not sufficient for the job.  “Keep whining about me taking your shit
and I
will
come back in there and shove this cell phone right up your
ass.”

Ben snorted out a laugh
and dropped into a chair.  Most of the men seemed to have the same reaction;
all the tension flowing out of them as they dropped to whatever surface was
available and smiled in part relief and part exasperation.  All but Shawn, who
was still standing, his jaw tight and his eyes on the speakerphone as if he
could pull Cleo through it by sheer will alone.  But he did not say a word.

Lucas was shaking his
head, his eyes closed.  “Cleo,” he growled, his words very precise.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“You want to tell me
who you are yelling at?”

“According to the
freaking high school ID in his wallet,” then she yelled some more, “
which I’m
taking with me,”
her voice went back to normal, “his name is William
Stalk.  He was the
fifteen-year-old
lion sent to transport me to my
final breeding destination.”  Her disgust at the age and reason was apparent in
every word.