Guardians Of The Shifters (11 page)

By the time he pulled back my body was on fire and I was breathless. He nipped my bottom lip and used his tongue to sooth the small, but exhilarating ache his teeth caused. I looked up into his eyes in confusion.

“What was that for?”

He smiled. “I missed you.”

He bent his head down and kissed me again but unlike before, it wasn’t a deep hungry kiss. It was a soft but sweet one. When he pulled back the second time he also let go of me and shrugged off his coat. “Now…let me look at your wound.” Seriously? Shaking my head I grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head. What could I say, that kiss pretty much had me wanting to do whatever he said.

His eyes devoured my half naked body and lingered a little too long on my breasts. A light flush tinted his cheeks pink. I rolled my eyes and planted my hands on my hips.

“Are you going to look at my wound or are you just going to stand there staring at my boobs all day?”

His eyes flicked up momentarily. “Haven’t decided yet.” His voice took on a huskier edge.

“Typical male.”

A cocky half grin graced his perfectly sculptured lips. “Oh honey…you have no idea on just how typical a male I can be.”

I shook my head and went to walk past him but he stopped me by flattening his hand on my stomach. Warmth seeped from him and into me adding to the fire already inside of me and I shivered involuntarily. It didn’t go un-noticed. Caden’s hand moved to my side and curled his fingers along my hip bone. I tried to make my face go blank and suppress the feelings that his touch stirred in me. I couldn’t school my features fast enough, he gazed down at me with a knowing look. He brushed his lips over mine a couple more times before stepping away from me and taking the warmth with him.

The pain in my shoulder slowly started to make its self-known. Caden lead me over to a sturdy looking table. “Sit.” Was all he said and of course I complied. What could I say, I was a mushy mess on the inside. He knelt down in front of me with a washcloth. He carefully cleaned around the wound taking longer than I normally would have. I just think the reason he’s taking so long is so that I would stay half naked longer. After a few more minutes of silence he spoke.

“It doesn’t look to bad.”

“There’s a plus.”

“You should still slap some gauze on it.”

Well gee, thanks captain obvious. “I know.”

After dressing the wound I stood to try and find a clean shirt on the messy couch. Noticing a black tank top I snatched it up and pulled it on. I headed to the kitchen type area to get something to drink. I grabbed two bottles of water and went back to the sitting room. I almost dropped both bottles of water. Caden was picking things up and was making different piles.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up at me. “Cleaning.”

“Why?”

He looked around the room. “Well besides the obvious.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure I can manage cleaning.”

“If you were capable of cleaning, it wouldn’t look like this.”

My mouth dropped open. “I told you, I’ve been busy with no time for anything else.”

He snorted. “As you’ve told me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Nobody told you to come look for me.”

That got his attention, he dropped the clothes he had in his arms and stalked over to me. He had a scowl on his face and I couldn’t help but to take a couple steps back. My back pressed against the wall as he came forward and put his hands on either side of my head caging me in. His voice came out as a growl.

“For four months I’ve wondered if you were dead or alive or living it up somewhere. This isn’t the first time I came looking for you. There have been other times but you never stayed in one place for very long. I was going crazy…I came looking for you because I love you.”

My breath hitched. “You can’t…it’s against the rules.”

“Fuck the rules!” He ground out just before his mouth descended on mine and coaxing me into yet another deep and powerful kiss. This was not good, this was dangerous. He pulled back slightly. “Besides…the rules are a moot point when it comes to you and me.” His lips found mine again as he pressed up against me and I could feel every hard outline of his body. I molded myself to him. After all, aren’t rules meant to be broken?

                                             Chapter 3

I lay in bed wide awake thinking about the man sleeping next to me, his soft snores filled the room filling me with a kind of contemptment. We went to bed twenty minutes ago after we stopped sucking face and it seemed as soon as his head hit the pillow that he was out like a light. It was kind of strange lying in bed with him again after everything that I’ve done in the last four months. Of course that didn’t stop him from snuggling up to me and draping his arm over my side like he wanted to keep me close.

I knew that I should get some sleep but instead, I found myself gently moving his arm off me, careful not to wake him and quietly getting out of bed. I made my way to the living room, grabbed the doorway pull-up bar and put it in the kitchen doorway. I tested the sturdiness of it before I used both hands to pull myself up. With each pull up and chin up my shoulder screamed at me but I pushed on through the pain like I always do.

I still had energy to burn and this was the only way to use it up, well besides the obvious but I wasn’t going to take advantage of a comatose Caden. Shaking my head for where my thoughts wandered, I concentrated on my work-out. The longer I went the harder it got to pull myself up and that wasn’t acceptable. I gritted my teeth and worked harder trying not to make a sound, but the more I kept going, the harder it was to stay quiet. I let out a strangled breath. Caden startled me when I heard his voice and was momentarily blinded when he turned on the light.

“What are you doing?”

I let go of the bar and faced him. “Working out.” I said between breaths.

He raised an eyebrow. “In the dark?”

Nodding my head. “It’s comforting.” I grabbed a hand towel that was close by and wiped off the sweat that was running down my face. His eyes watched me closely and it was kind of nerve wracking. The wariness faded from his face and he crossed his arms over his greatly defined bare chest. Literally bare, there was no hair on his chest, you would think there would be for him being a panther shifter and all, but nope, it was as smooth as…not sure what, let’s just keep it at smooth.

I threw down the towel and took the bar down from the kitchen doorway. Caden was still looking at me oddly when I turned around. I propped my hands on my hips and glared.

“What?”

He smirked at my tone as a thoughtful look crossed his face. “Let’s fight.”

“What!” I squeaked.

He chuckled. “Not real fighting…kind of like sparring.”

I thought about it for a minute. “Okay.”

He seemed a little surprised as my answer. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then…let’s go.” He headed for the door.

“Um…where are we going?”

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “The basement.”

The basement? Of course this hotel had a basement, why wouldn’t a place like this have a creepy, dark basement? I hesitated before following him. Throw me into a nest of killer assassins and I’m all for it, but going into a basement makes my skin crawl.

I didn’t say anything as we walked out of my room. I thought that we would take the elevator but nope, he walked right past it and headed towards the stairs. Well, I did say that I had some pent up energy to burn. We walked down the stairs in silence, the only noise there was was our bare feet lightly slapping against the cold hard steps echoing around us. The farther we went, the colder it got.

If I would have thought about it,I would have put on shoes and a t-shirt instead of being in a tank top and bare footed. It’s too late to turn back now. More silence and a few more flights of stairs later we stopped in front of a door that read in red letter
s
BASEMENT-NO ACCESS GRANTE
D
. I gave Caden a look that said seriously. He shrugged his shoulders and pushed through the door with me right behind him. His hand felt along the wall until he found a light switch and flipped it on.

Light filled the room to reveal washed out grey walls and puke green flooring. Small windows were smack dab in the middle of each wall indicating that it was still dark out. A person couldn’t fit through those windows, not unless they were a tiny baby. White pipes zig-zagged above our heads though out the whole basement. I was surprised to see a lonely brown chair pushed in a corner to my right. On each side of the room there were tall, silver circular things that went from floor to ceiling and I think they are called pillars. What they are used for, I had no clue. Nothing in this basement matched. You would think that a hotel like this would have a better looking basement. Nope, it was gaudy as fuck.

I wrinkled my nose and turned slightly to face Caden and my mouth damn near dropped open. He was stretching his arms out behind his back making his chest puff out. Did he forget that he didn’t have a shirt on? Oh well, more viewing pleasure for me.

He walked to the center of the room and faced me. His legs were braced apart and he held up his hands in a defensive motion. I rolled my neck on my shoulders to loosen up the muscles before I stepped forward. He smirked at me when I got in a fighting stance. “Let’s see what you’ve learned love.” He struck out at me with his fist and I deflected the blow.

We went back and forth like that for a while and I was beginning to get bored. One of his kicks got past my block and connected with my stomach making me double over. I straightened up and smiled at him. “Now we’re talking.” Our hits became faster and harder. I did a roundabout kick catching him in the side.

His arm clamped down on my ankle and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he thought he had me. Using his arm as some sort of leverage, I jumped up and twisted my body bringing out my free leg and catching him on the side of the head with my foot. I could tell that he wasn’t expecting it.

We both fell to the hard floor, he landed on his side while I landed on my stomach. I should have known that he would collect himself faster than I would have. I barely flipped over when I felt his hand on my throat pushing me back down. I was too surprised to think. Not only that, but his body was aligned perfectly with mine. With his hand around my throat and with his body weight on top of me, I couldn’t form a coherent thought. He looked down at me with smiling eyes.

“Not bad love.”

“Thanks…can you get off me now?”

His breath froze in his throat with that realization. I saw something else flash in the depths of his eyes, but it was gone just as quickly. I could see that he was aware of me under him, but yet, he made no move to get off me. I opened my mouth to say something else only to be silenced by his mouth clashing with mine.

                                          Chapter 4

My hand slowly made its way up his muscular arms, over his shoulder and came to a stop on the back of his neck. He was no longer holding onto my throat, his hand rested light on the side of my neck and slowly made its way to the back. His fingers lightly curled around the nap of my neck and brought me closer, if that was even possible. I made a sound in the back of my throat that triggered his own animalistic growl.

It seemed to take a lot for him to pull away and when he did, we were both breathless. He rested his forehead against mine for several seconds before getting up and pulling me along with him. He ran his fingers through his hair.

“We should head back to the room and get some sleep.”

Sleeping was the last thing on my mind. “Okay.” I breathed. He laced his fingers through mine and together we left the basement and headed back to my room. We glanced at each other a few times but didn’t say anything thing. My mind was still on that kiss and all I wanted to do now was get some much needed rest and go out and kick some assassin ass.

Fighting seems like the only action that I’ll be getting and I wanted to be well rested for it. When we got to the room I took a semi cold shower (god only knows I needed one) and changed into my sleeping shirt. Caden was already under the covers half asleep when I crawled into the bed. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep.

The next morning my eyes popped open. Light filled the room making lines of light on the bed and the floor from the crappy blinds that covered the windows. Caden was still snoring softly next to me. Apparently he didn’t feel that little tingle that I did whenever I was being watched.