Driving Force (22 page)

“God!” He caught her head, pulled it down and kissed her hard. “Anything you want.”

“Which means you mustn’t touch,” she purred against his mouth.

“Can’t guarantee that.”

She brushed her parted lips over his and sucked on the tongue that slipped into her mouth. When he tried to intensify the kiss, she pulled away, laughing.

“Going to take my time and you’re not going to hurry me. If you touch, I stop.”

“I never knew you had sadistic tendencies,” he muttered and she grinned.

“Oh, I think you’ll like this.”

She slid her lips slowly, sensuously, over his face—eyelids, cheekbones, the flat plane of his cheek, the line of his jaw, all the places she had touched while he was asleep and had wanted to kiss rather than caress. Smiling, he turned his face to her mouth, pushing against her like a cat enjoying being stroked.

“I do like it,” he murmured. “A lot.”

“Just wait. It gets better.”

She sucked at his throat and smiled when he arched it to her mouth. She lingered there pleasurably for a moment, then licked her way along his collarbone to the point of bone on his shoulder, licked back again languorously to the other shoulder, then started working her way downward, back and forth across his torso. She could feel the deep vibration in his chest and stomach as she lay over him, the purr he couldn’t hold back.

“This is what you do to me,” she teased. “I’ve got a good memory.”

“And you don’t forget a thing.” He caught his breath as she licked his nipple.

“I do love your nipples. So pretty.”

“Pretty!” he muttered. “What a word to use about a guy!”

“Well, they are.” She lapped lazily at the copper-tinged disc of his flat nipple, pressed the soft nub inward and felt it harden immediately under her tongue. “And you do have such a lickable six-pack. I’ve always thought so.”

“God, Sierra!” he exclaimed as she started working her way down it. He was up on his elbows now, watching what she was doing, his eyes wide. “Where have all your inhibitions gone?”

She grinned up at him. “You destroyed them.”

She was enjoying exploring him, feeling him surrendered to her and seeing the helpless pleasure in his eyes. He felt so good, the deep muscles of his abdomen solid under her hands, the taste of his skin salty against her tongue. He flexed uncontrollably and shuddered. She liked that, liked seeing that she could move him as intensely as he moved her.

“This is fun,” she murmured into his navel. “Such lovely reactions.”

“You’re torturing me.” He reached for her, grabbing her by the waist, and tried to pull her upward. “Want you. Now.”

“Oh, no, no. You didn’t let me off that easily.” She twisted away from his grasp, caught his wrists and shoved his arms above his head, then closed his hands firmly on the rails of the headboard. “Hold on to that if you have to, but don’t touch.”

“I may have created a monster,” he muttered, gripping the rails as she ran her nails lightly down the sensitive skin of his inner arms. His head came up to catch one of her nipples in his mouth as her breasts swayed over his face.

Laughing, she pushed his head away. “I thought you said you liked to take things slow.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t on the receiving end.”

She chortled, sliding her mouth down from his throat to the taut drum of his stomach. “We haven’t even got started and I’m in no hurry. This time I’m gonna drive you crazy. Now where was I?”

She ran her tongue over the hollows of his pelvis, one after the other. He hissed. His head fell back on the pillow and his throat arched.

“
Very
nice reaction,” she purred. She was enjoying herself immensely playing with him this way, using fingers, tongue and nails to tease and torment him, kneading and shaping his body the way he had kneaded and shaped hers.

He was starting to writhe and twist now, unable to help himself, his whole body surging involuntarily against hers.
His eyes had glazed over, their pupils huge and unseeing, their focus internal. She loved seeing him that way, lost in pleasure, in the sensations she gave him. It was intensely erotic to have that power over him, to see what she could drive him to. She was nearly as aroused as he was.

“I do like that V-cut of yours.” She ran her fingers and then her tongue down the two shallow furrows from his hip bones to the flat plane just above his cock. “You really have the most gorgeous bod.”

“Then let me use it on you!” It was half a snarl.

“Not yet.”

She bit him just under his navel. His whole body bucked.

“Now that was effective,” she remarked with satisfaction.

“You’re killing me here, Sierra!”

“Learn fast, don’t I?” she said smugly, then dropped down to tickle the back of his knee.

“Damn! I thought you were taking things in order. You, uh, missed a spot.”

“I know. I’ll get there. Eventually.”

She bit her way up the inside of his thigh. He groaned, his head falling back. His other knee started to tremor.

He was swearing under his breath. She laughed in triumph, hearing that.

“Keep your hands on those rails or I stop.”

“You’re a cruel woman.”

“Guess who taught me.”

She was using friction as a weapon now, sliding over him, using nails and teeth and her own body, stretching it out, varying the pressure, varying the places of contact—throat, inner thigh, nipple, rib cage, pelvis—touching him everywhere except where he wanted to be touched the most. He wasn’t purring anymore, he was snarling, and still she held back.

“Getting to you, aren’t I?” she murmured.

“It should damn well be obvious!”

He was fully and painfully erect. Being free to play with him this way, tease him, incite him and see him lose control, was immensely liberating. She flipped her hair so that it trailed over his stomach and cock. He made an agonized sound in his throat.

She was shuddering herself, lost in sensation almost as much as he was, drunk on power. They were both so sensitized now that it was painful. The last of her inhibitions fell away.

She had never used her mouth on a man’s cock, never even wanted to. But he had gone down on her and seeing him in the shower had made her want to repay the favor. She wrapped her fingers about his erection. His whole body jerked and she laughed in surprise.

“Wow. Talk about being responsive.”

“Well, what did you expect?” he muttered.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

She still wasn’t used to how big he got when he was fully aroused. The width of her palm took up less than half his length. His cock was hot and thick and throbbing within her grip, the glans at its head already exposed and gleaming with pre-cum. She drew her hand upward to make room for her other hand, then hand-over-handed him for a few strokes to see what would happen.

“Oh, shit!” he gasped, his hips bucking.

“Velvet over steel,” she murmured and licked curiously at the pearly bead of pre-cum.

“
Holy…
!”

“Not exactly salty, not exactly sweet, hard to describe,” she remarked with interest and probed the sensitive slit at the top of his cock with the tip of her tongue,
then had to back off hurriedly as he snarled and his hips came right off the bed.

He pumped the air three times before slumping back down again.

“Wow,” she said. “That really got to you, didn’t it?”

“Enough! Get up here!”

“Having too much fun down here.” She licked the underside of his cock, one long, lazy sweep from base to tip.

“Sierra!” he exclaimed in shock.

“Oh, yeah. Loads of fun.”

She took him fully into her mouth then and sucked, her cheeks hollowing. He yowled, a wordless sound of utter pleasure and disbelief. She really started working on him then, her hands pumping his cock, her mouth sliding up and down it, nibbling and sucking. One hand found the heavy weight of his balls and massaged them, then she sucked them one after the other into her mouth, licked the sensitive bit of flesh between them and his cock, and smiled when he yelled. She licked her way back up, swirled her tongue around the head, then sucked him into her mouth as deep as she could take him, swallowing around him.

“Oh God, Sierra!” His hands dug involuntarily into her hair.
“You say you never did this before?”

She raised her head to grin at him. “Nope. It must be original sin. You inspire me.”

She deep-throated him again.

“Hell!”

She kneaded his balls as she pulled back, sucking hard, then swallowed him again. He was muttering a litany of curses and praise by this time, his head thrown back and his throat arching as his hips thrust mindlessly upward, driving his cock into her mouth. The rails of the headboard were starting to bend, he was pulling on them so hard.

“Oh God, Sierra, stop! I’m going to come! Oh God, Sierra! Stop!”

She smiled around him and kept going. His balls tightened in the palm of her hand and then he was coming, unable to help himself, his cock pulsing in her mouth. She swallowed and kept swallowing until he was milked dry.

“You…” he muttered. “You…” Then he rolled over and yanked her up the bed to press his forehead against hers, looking at her with dazed, marveling eyes. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Loved doing it.”

“You’re a freaking miracle. I nearly blacked out. It’s never been this intense for me. Never. Not ever. Because it’s you. Because it’s you.”

She didn’t want to think about what that implied. “Ian…”

He kissed her fiercely, possessively. “My turn. I need to… I want…”

“Anything you want.”

It was like being hit by a whirlwind. His hands and mouth were everywhere. There wasn’t an inch of her skin that he didn’t fondle and caress and kiss. She was already aroused by having gone down on him. Now he drove her into a frenzy so intense she thought she would die from it.

She laughed and sobbed and clawed at him. “Oh God, Ian…!”

Then he was coming into her hard.

“Yes! Just like that! Yes!”

He was ramming into her, pistoning into her, all control lost, eyes blind, mouth open and gasping desperately for air against her face, just as she was gasping against his. They strained against each other, driving each other higher and higher.

It was too much, unbearable, that wild rapture thrilling through every cell of her body. She convulsed against him, her whole body seizing up in ecstasy, felt him judder and pulse within her again and again while her pussy clenched on his cock, wringing him out.

“Never gonna be free of you,” he muttered into her hair. “
Don’t know how I’m ever going to give this up.”

“Me neither,” she groaned.

Chapter Nine

“Maybe…we won’t have to give it up,” he said breathlessly against her temple.

She shouldn’t have let down her guard and let that slip out. Shouldn’t have given herself away that way. She had to be ready to let him go at any moment. But at
that
moment, lost in sensation, feeling as if they were one being, it was so very hard to remember. And it wasn’t just the sensation. She was starting to lose herself entirely in him. She couldn’t let that happen.

She closed her eyes in pain, then said determinedly what she had always known. “There will be an end. Sooner or later.”

“Sierra, there doesn’t have to be.”

“There always is with you. Isn’t that the pattern?”

She felt him stiffen. He drew back and looked down at her.

“Pattern? Yeah, maybe it seems that way,” he said slowly. “But can’t that change?”

“How likely is it?” She gave a little breath of rueful laughter. “A leopard can’t change its spots.”

“Oh, very funny. But I’m not an animal. I’m a sentient being. And intelligence is capable of change.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

His eyes narrowed angrily. “The truth is that
you
don’t want it. You’re fighting it all the way. I thought it was good between us, Sierra.”

“It’s only good because it’s going to end.”

“One step forward and
two
back. What was tonight all about then?”

“I…wanted to please you. I owed you that. I… I…You saved my life.”

He went frighteningly still. There was a terrible silence.

“Is that what it was? All it was?” His eyes turned suddenly opaque, as if a light behind them had died. “Payment for services rendered?”

“No, I…”

He jerked away from her, rolling onto his back to lie staring up at the ceiling.

“Oh, Mouse,” he said. “I was so happy.”

His voice was desolate. She realized that somehow she had really hurt him.

“Ian,” she said helplessly and reached out toward him.

He rolled away from her hand and swung onto his feet. The next second, he was at the bedroom window.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed as he pulled it open.

“I need to be alone,” he said tonelessly, shifted into leopard and went out of the window in one smooth, flowing leap.

“No! Ian, don’t!” Sierra fell out of bed and ran to the window. But he was already gone, lost in the darkness.

Arrhan and his goons could be out there. Ian had told her to go nowhere alone. The same rule applied to him. Without backup, he was vulnerable.

She dragged on her robe and ran downstairs. The minute she yanked the front door open, Gregor was right there, barring the way.

“Where are you going?”

“I was looking for you! Gregor, Ian went out alone! We have to find him!”

He frowned. “Something urgent come up? He should have told me. That’s a stupid risk to take.”

“Nothing came up. It’s just…” She bit her lip. “He was upset. Can you find him? He shouldn’t be out there by himself. It’s too dangerous.”

“Damn right, it’s dangerous. But there’s not much we can do about it. I’m the only other Shifter here and I can’t leave you by yourself. Ian will have my hide if I do. By the time I call Kurt and have someone sent after him, he’ll be miles away. In any direction he chooses.”

“Can’t he be tracked?”

“Sure, but tracking takes time and he’ll be moving very fast. When we’re upset, we need motion. We need to run. There’ll be no catching up to him.”

“But…”

Gregor shrugged. “He’ll be back or he won’t. What happened? Did you two have a fight?”

She flushed vividly. “No! At least, not really. It’s difficult to explain.”

Gregor gave her a sardonic look. “It always is. Go back to bed. He’ll run off what’s bothering him and be back in the morning.”

“Gregor…”

“He’s a leopard. They’re hard to kill. Go back to bed, Sierra. There’s nothing that can be done.”

She could see he wasn’t going to budge. His eyes were cool and unsympathetic as he waited for her to close and lock the door. It was clear he thought it was her fault and she had the awful feeling he was right. Sierra shut the door and went back upstairs.

She was cold with fear for Ian and anger at herself. She got into bed and pulled the sheet over her, then found herself shivering even though it was a balmy night. After a few minutes she got up and recovered the duvet from where Ian had tossed it over a chair. Huddling under it didn’t help. She missed the warmth of his body wrapped around her, missed the way he made her feel so cherished and safe.

It
wasn’t
her fault! Dammit, she had a right to protect herself, didn’t she? Sooner or later, this connection between them
was
going to end, because Ian’s affairs always did. She was only facing facts.

But she had hurt him. She didn’t understand how or why, but she didn’t want to do that again.

He didn’t come back all night. When she went down for breakfast, he was nowhere to be seen. He was still somewhere out there.

“What’s wrong, Sierra?” asked Annie. “You look strung out.”

She hadn’t been able to sleep a wink. “I…”

“There you are, Sierra,” said Taylor, coming in the door. “Ian wanted me to give you a message.”

She gasped. “Ian did?”

“Said to tell you he had to go into town with Abel, but he’d be back this afternoon.”

Sierra sagged against the wall, her knees almost giving way with relief. “Is…is he all right?”

Taylor gave her a puzzled glance. “Yeah, sure, why shouldn’t he be? Here. Abel left this for you.”

Automatically, she took the package he held out. It was the Glock 26 Abel had promised and a box of ammunition for it.

“Abel said you need practice. I’ll get you some time on the range.”

“Thanks, Taylor.”

Over his shoulder, she saw Gregor come in and look around for her. He saw her and gave her a quick thumbs-up. She let out a little shuddering breath. So Ian really was all right. But she wouldn’t feel completely sure of that until she saw him for herself.

She spent the day in her studio. Nothing went right. She had meant to get an order filled, but all she succeeded in doing was mangling everything she tried to make. The mess from yesterday was gone. The spilled glazes, overturned furniture and splinters of glass had all been cleared away and there was no trace of blood remaining. Only the broken window gave any indication of the struggle and Annie said there would be someone coming to fix that as soon as possible.

By three, Sierra gave up and went outside instead, hoping Ian would be back. He was, stringing wire around the house and barns, helped by Nick, Gregor and a couple of the hands. A violent stab of relief went through her at the sight of him, painful in its intensity.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she came up to him.

It wasn’t barbed wire they were setting out. It looked like some sort of electrical cable and they were burying it in the turf where it would be concealed.

“Laying out a security system,” he said. “It will warn us if anyone crosses it. Kurt’s running the same thing around his place.”

“Something that Arrhan’s people won’t notice?”

“That’s right. It’s state of the art, but Abel knew where to get it. Arrhan shouldn’t be familiar with it, even if he does do some research. It’s hard to avoid triggering the thing, though his tame mage might find a way around it once they know it’s there.”

She nodded, then clasped her hands tightly together. “Ian?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we talk? In private?”

She felt his faint withdrawal. “Sure.”

The hands gave them brief, incurious glances as they walked away, but Gregor’s swift upward look was cool and reserved, and Nick’s stare was hard and unfriendly. She knew Ian would never have discussed her with them, but they were aware that something was wrong. She had lost points with both Shifters and she couldn’t tell what Ian was thinking. His profile was impassive as he walked along beside her, holding his long stride down to hers, his eyes slitted and uncommunicative above the high curves of his cheekbones.

Ian stopped beside a fence that Sierra guessed was far enough away to be out of even acute Shifter hearing.

“I was worried,” she said abruptly.

He set a foot on a rail and leaned on his bent knee, not looking at her. “Sorry about that. I needed to work something out and I do that best when I’m night running.”

“Arrhan’s people might have—”

“Well, they didn’t. So forget it.”

“It was a dangerous, unnecessary risk to take, Ian! Please don’t do that again.”

“Can’t promise you that.” One corner of his mouth twisted wryly. “I am what I am, Sierra. That can’t be changed.”

She knew that. All too well. Why else was she trying so hard to keep her distance?

Trying too hard perhaps. She drew a slow, painful breath.

“I hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

There was a small silence. Then he straightened and looked down at her.

“It wasn’t your fault, Sierra. It was mine. I wanted too much too soon.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t want to. Ah, let it go,” he said in a defeated voice. “There are too many complications right now. Too many crazy things happening. Maybe when this is all over we’ll come to some kind of understanding. Maybe then you’ll let me speak.”

She frowned at him in bewilderment. “Speak what?”

“What you don’t want to hear.” His hand cupped the side of her face delicately. “Can we at least keep what we have at the moment?”

“Oh, Ian!” Her hand flew to press his to her face. “I want to. Very much.”

He bent and kissed her gently. She kissed him back, leaning against the resilient, supple strength of his hard body, feeling his vitality and power, all that promise of passion. She didn’t want to lose that, not so soon. She had only had a few days of him, couldn’t give him up. Not yet.

“I’ve got to finish getting that wire set up,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

“Okay.”

Frowning a little, she watched him go. There was a reserve in him, a guardedness that hadn’t been there before. It worried her.

Dinner was served in the dining room, to Annie’s open satisfaction. She nodded sternly at both of them as they took their seats.

“I’m glad you finally remembered we have a guest,” she said severely to Ian. “I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense about sandwiches in the den.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ian meekly, then flicked an amused glance toward Sierra as Annie sniffed and went off. “Has she started bossing you around yet?”

Sierra laughed. “Not yet.”

“She will. That’s when you’ll know you’re family.”

Sierra glanced away. That word seemed singularly inappropriate. She wasn’t family and she wouldn’t ever be. She saw the flicker in his eyes that told her he had noticed.

“When are your brothers coming back?” she asked quickly.

“Not for a while yet. Mara’s back home and recovering from that car crash, but Simon wants to stay until he’s sure she’s completely all right. And Neal’s still tied up in Seattle.”

“You haven’t told them what Arrhan’s doing,” she guessed shrewdly.

“No. And I won’t. I don’t want them mixed up in this.”

“They might not like being left out of the loop.” Most likely, they would be furious. She would be if he were in danger and she hadn’t been told about it. She was glad she was in this with him, even though defending her was a burden he didn’t need at the moment.

“Don’t care whether they like it or not,” he said flatly, protective as always of the people he valued. “They’re well out of it.”

“You could use the help.”

“Two more Shifters wouldn’t make a difference and this way they’re safe. If I could get you out of this, I would. The biggest mistake I ever made was heading for your place when I was all busted up.”

“That wasn’t a mistake,” she said firmly.

“It’s had too many consequences.”

“I like some of those consequences.”

He gave her a faint, flickering smile. “So do I.” Then his lips tightened. “But you might come to regret them. Maybe you do already.”

She didn’t know. She was getting in too deep, getting too involved. There was no firm ground under her feet anymore.

“Do you regret it?” she asked.

“What guy would regret getting all this sex without strings? Lust’s good, right?”

“Don’t, Ian!”

He said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed. “Sierra, when you shut things out, you shut yourself in. You make your own prison.”

“It’s safer,” she said defiantly.

“That’s starting to dawn on me too. Safety does have advantages. So. Lust it is.”