Megan's Mark (21 page)

He wasn’t content to linger there, no matter how desperately she pulled at his hair as he began to move lower.

“Stop teasing me…” She was panting. Panting was so juvenile. But there she was, panting for breath as he licked his way down her stomach, nipping and kissing and generally driving her crazy.

“Hmm, teasing is good,” he reminded her as his hands moved to spread her thighs. Wide.

She shuddered as his teeth raked at the inside of her thigh, her muscles clenching, fighting to close against his head despite the broad hands wrapped around her knees, holding her open.

“You smell so sweet.” He placed a nipping little kiss in the crease between her thigh and her desperately aching cunt. The pressure pounding in her clit had her trying to arch closer, to force his mouth where she needed it. And oh, did she need it.

“Braden, I didn’t tease you like this.” Oh hell, that wasn’t a whimper. It really wasn’t. And she wasn’t begging, she assured herself. She just couldn’t breathe enough to make her voice firmer.

“You mean like this?”

She screeched as his tongue swiped through her aching slit, from the entrance to her hungry pussy to the swollen nub of her clit.

Harsh tremors shook her body as she reached for release, only to hear his heated chuckle as he sent a breath of air to tantalize her aching flesh.

“You’re evil.” She panted, straining to get closer.

“That wasn’t evil,” he growled. “This is evil.”

His tongue flickered over her clit, the touch so whisper-light that the taunting strokes only pushed her arousal higher without allowing her to explode.

Her hands clenched in his hair, pulling at it, her ragged moans demanding relief. A sharp nip to her thigh had her stilling for a second. Only a second. The eroticism of the small bite caused her to shudder as her head whipped back and forth on the mattress.

“Stay still, minx,” he ordered, his voice growing darker, hotter as she strained against him. “Let me do this.”

His head moved lower, his tongue reaching out to rim the flooded entrance of her pussy.

“Mmm, delicious.” He lapped at her, licking with such sensual destruction that she swore she was going to go up in flames and disintegrate into ashes before he ever gave her relief.

She moaned, a low, pitifully desperate sound that she knew she was going to blush over later. But for now, the pleasure was sweeping through her, rocketing through her bloodstream and building in intensity.

“Like that, baby’!” His hands slid from her knees to her inner thighs, his thumbs catching at the plumped flesh of her pussy to open her further.

She nearly wept as his tongue began to tease at the opening, flickering, licking, lapping at the juices easing from her. The vibration of his growling moans was another caress streaking through her.

“I hate you.” She moaned with a spurt of laughter as his teasing threatened to steal her mind. He was killing her.

He laughed, a low wicked sound that sent shivers racing over her flesh.

“That’s okay, baby,” he crooned. “I like the way you hate.”

His tongue sank inside her, parting the clenching muscles, licking at the sensitive flesh and sending her exploding as her hips arched and the breath rushed from her lungs.

One thrust. That was all it had taken. One deep, powerful thrust of his wicked tongue and she was exploding around him, melting, burning beneath the erotic lash of each caress.

She was barely aware of him moving, able to do no more than gasp as he flipped her to her stomach before pushing her knees up, forcing her to hold her hips from the bed. In that position, she was open to him, completely defenseless as she felt him rub the head of his cock against her quaking pussy.

“So pretty, Megan.” The growl in his voice was deeper now, more primal. “So wet and hot.”

He pressed against her, the wide crest opening her, stretching her with unbelievable pleasure. “There, baby.” He came over her, covering her as he began to work his cock into the gripping muscles of her pussy.

God, it was killing her. He was hot and thick, spreading her open, caressing nerve endings she had never known existed until he possessed her.

Megan whimpered as her fists clenched in the blankets beneath her, her eyes closed, aware of nothing but Braden taking her, holding her beneath his powerful body, his tongue caressing her shoulder, his teeth raking it as he thrust slow and easy inside her.

She shuddered, clenching around him as she pushed back, eager to take every inch, to experience once again the amazing pleasure she knew she would only ever find with Braden.

“There, baby,” he crooned at her shoulder, placing stinging little kisses there as he began to move inside her.

“See how sweet and tight you are? Like a snug little glove created just for my cock.”

His explicit words had her moaning in excitement, the gravelly, growling sound of his voice piercing her womb as his erection tunneled through her pussy with increasingly hard strokes.

The air around her began to pulse with hunger. His. Hers. The smell of hot sex, sweat-soaked bodies and lust filled the room. Braden’s growling moans, her desperate cries echoing around her. The sensations weren’t just pleasure—they were desperate, grinding, furious sex.

Braden braced himself over her, his teeth opening over her shoulder as his hips moved faster, pounding his cock inside her with sharp, jack-hammering thrusts that had her screaming. She tilted her hips and rocked back into him as she felt wildfire twisting through her pussy, her spasming womb, climbing higher, hotter.

He snarled at her neck, and as though the trigger had been released, she exploded. Her back arched, white-hot heat whipped through her body as her orgasm ripped through her nerve endings at the exact moment she felt Braden’s teeth sink into her shoulder.

Pain, pleasure-both exploded through her, one driving the other higher until she didn’t know where they began, where they ended or if reality would ever return. The hard, erotic extension locked him inside her, heating her further, driving her climax harder. She felt Braden’s cock jerk, felt the hard, jetting pulses of his seed shooting inside her as he growled again, a low, throaty sound of pleasure as his release rocked him as hard as hers tore through her.

Megan collapsed beneath him, feeling his lips lift from her shoulder, his tongue lapping at the wound she knew he must have made. It should have hurt like a son of a bitch; instead, she felt only a low. distant ache and a slight sting.

And Braden.

“You bit me.” She could barely push the words past her lips. “Told you not to bite me again.”

He growled. The sound sent a pulse of pleasure raking over her nerve endings as she moaned in defeat. Hell, what was a little bite? She was sated and exhausted, more relaxed than she could ever remember being. She could handle a little bite or two.

Maybe.

Chapter Fourteen

“This biting stuff is going to have to stop.” Megan surveyed the damage to her shoulder in the mirror over the sink as she frowned at the slight bruising. Talk about the hickey from hell.

Two small punctures pierced the flesh, reminding her of the gory vampire books she liked to read. She shivered at the thought.

“It’s not that bad.” His voice was quiet as he stood in the doorway watching her, his eyes dark gold, his expression carefully blank as he glanced at her shoulder.

She tried to sense what he was thinking and feeling, but he held it back, keeping it carefully behind the shields that seemed such a natural part of him.

“Wish I could do that,” she muttered in exasperation before pulling on the soft cotton tank top she was going to be forced to wear beneath her blouse. This was definitely a no-bra day.

“You could, if you tried.” Megan stilled. She could hear the determination now, carefully banked.

Lifting the cotton blouse from the hook on the wall beside her, she shrugged into it, buttoning the loose material as she ignored him and his comment.

“I need to go into the office this morning.” She tucked the shirt into her jeans before snapping them and latching her belt. “I’m sure I have plenty of paperwork piled up and waiting. I may as well take care of it while we’re waiting for whatever answers you’re going to come up with for this.”

Braden crossed his arms over his chest. She ignored the action.

“The paperwork can wait.” Damn. His voice hadn’t changed; neither had his expression. That wasn’t a good sign.

“For what?” She turned and faced him squarely now. It was better to get it out in the open and fight over it before they left the house. She was evidently not going to like whatever he had to say or he would have said it already.

“We have a job to do, Megan,” he reminded her. “We have to find out why those Breeds were murdered and what the Council wants with you. We’re not going to do that in this house fucking ourselves to death, or in the office completing your paperwork.”

“I didn’t tell you to infect me with that funky hormone shit you have going on, Braden,” she pointed out with a scowl. “So don’t blame me for your own horniness.”

He grunted at her declaration.

“Stop trying to change the subject.” He straightened from the doorframe, pulling himself to his full sexy, broad height as he stared down that perfect nose of his. Well, maybe not so perfect. She looked closer, barely detecting where the flattened plane appeared to be misaligned by the smallest degree. Aha, an imperfection. She knew he had to have one somewhere.

“So tell me what the subject is.” Unfortunately, she was afraid she already knew. “I haven’t heard you actually state anything, yet.”

“We’re heading back into the desert today,” he informed her. “Area Six-fifteen, Section C. It’s a small canyon we suspect Mark and Aimee may have gone to before heading to the gully where you found them.”

Megan paused. “And you know this how?”

His lips quirked. “Jonas managed to pull another small bit of information out of that Coyote you let live. We’re going to check the canyon because evidently the Coyotes hadn’t made it there yet. That was their next stop. But we suspect Mark and Aimee might have stopped there.”

“And you know this how?” she asked again.

“GPS tracking was turned off in their vehicle, but they kept a directional and mileage recorder on. Analysis of the electronics indicates they were in that canyon for as long as twelve hours. Alive.”

She stared back at him silently. She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to use the Empathic abilities she possessed to find the answers the others couldn’t.

“It won’t work,” she told him softly. “If it would work, I wouldn’t have to run to this desert to hide. I would have gone to my superiors and let them help me find a way to make it work.”

“I’m not your superior, Megan,” he reminded her, his voice dangerously deep now. “And the situation has changed. Because, baby, I can do more than just mute the emotions flowing around you. I can amplify them. Today we will find answers.”

“Hold on just a damned minute.” She rushed through the bedroom, determined to catch up with him as he moved down the stairs, obviously ignoring her.

“Braden Arness, you hold it right there,” she snapped, grabbing the rail and taking the steps two at a time as she rushed after him.

He stopped all right, turning just in time for her to slam against his chest. She grunted at the hard contact, silently cursing the hard muscles before pushing back from him fiercely.

“What the hell are you talking about? You can amplify them?”

He arched his brows.

“Get your boots on and I’ll show you. It’s time to find answers, Megan. It’s obvious the Coyotes are not going to attack again any time soon and give me a chance to force the answers from them. And we can’t stay here, hidden in the desert forever, waiting on them. We find our answers on our own now.”

She stared back at him, fighting the fears rising inside her. She knew what it was like, the struggle to sift through the bleak emotions, the violence of lives forcibly taken. It was hell, slicing into her brain with torturous strength. She had never managed it before, had never found so much as a glimmer of hope that it could be done. Even her grandmother, with her experience in controlling her abilities, had never truly been able to do it.

“And if I can’t?” she asked, hating the thought of failing him, of failing them both. “I’ve tried before, Braden.”

“Not with me you haven’t,” he pointed out coolly. “There comes a time, Megan, when you have to stop hiding and start fighting. I can help you if you’ll let me.”

Or he could force her to do it his way, whatever it took.

She saw it in his eyes, in the grim set of his mouth. She could feel her stomach twisting with nerves, her mind already rebelling against the coming pain. The emotions and horror attached to a violent death took years to recede from the area in which it occurred. It would be just as strong now as it had been when she first met him.

“Do you want to die like them?” he asked her then. “Do you let the Council win, Megan? Or do you fight back?”

She fought. The answer was instantaneous. She had never given anything up without a fight, she just didn’t know how to fight this battle.

She moved around him carefully, stepping into the kitchen where her boots sat by the door, her holster and belt hanging on the coat rack on the wall. She stared at the Glock strapped into its protective holster before picking up her boots and pulling them on quickly. The belt went around her hips, the velcro anchors around her thigh. Moving to the hall closet, she opened the hidden door and lifted several sheathed knives from the velvet-covered shelf as well as a powerful snub-nosed machine gun.

“You’re expecting them to be there,” she said. She could feel it. Not in any sense of emotion or thoughts coming from Braden. but with an inborn gut-deep knowledge she couldn’t explain.

“They’ve been watching the house.” The information didn’t surprise her. “I suspect they haven’t attacked because they’re aware of the team of Felines watching from one of the points above us. They’ll follow though. It’s even possible they have a team in place.”