Quicksilver Dreams (Dreamwalkers) (38 page)

“Taylor,” he groaned, deep and guttural, stilling my hands. “I need to get these off.” He worked to remove his black motorcycle-riding boots and kicked off his jeans and boxers before joining me on the soft bed, his erection thick and prominent. I was lying back, enjoying the show.

“You have such a beautiful body,” he murmured, running his fingers lightly over my stomach, around my breasts, around my belly button, seeming to enjoy feeling my skin.

He leaned over and stared into my eyes, fierce heat and tenderness reflecting back at me. “You’re so beautiful and delicate,” he murmured, “I feel like I need to be careful not to break you.”

“I’m pretty sturdy,” I whispered, loving the feel of his body covering mine, his hot length prodding my hip. He held most of his weight on his elbows, but one of his thighs was resting between my own, stimulating my most sensitive flesh yet again.

“Your eyes are like the wildflowers by the lake on Te’re, so blue I could stare at them forever. Let me in, Taylor,” he demanded gently, his eyes softly holding mine.

He was making love to me with his words, and emotion roiled chaotically through my mind. I felt such longing that I couldn’t help but open my mind and let him see my deepest thoughts, darkest desires. He was so noble and fine, thoughtful and courageous, that I couldn’t help but feel warmth surging through my heart. I could actually feel him in my thoughts. His delicious male energy seemed to surround me with carnal heat and wicked intent, amplifying my own emotions.

Slowly, he bent and brushed his lips back and forth over mine, his black hair falling forward. “So soft and sexy,” he whispered huskily, taking a nibbling bite of my lower lip. His lips brushed along my neck and collarbone, his tongue coming out to taste my skin, sucking gently, and I felt shivers of heat lick my veins once again. When his mouth reached my breast, I heard myself moan, arching to give him access. Freeing it from its material so it was propped up to him, he scraped his teeth over one of my pink nipples. How could I recover so quickly? The hot moisture of my arousal seeped through to the lips of my sex once again.

But I wanted my turn. I wanted to do the attacking. Managing to catch him off balance, I shoved him onto his back and straddled him, loving the feel of powerful man between my legs.

“I want to have my way with you,” I purred, running my hands over the ridges and swell of tanned muscle.

“What do you want to do?” His sensual smile wrapped around my heart as he reached to cup my breasts once again, rubbing his thumbs over the stiffened peaks. Lightning fired down to my sex lips, making them swell and heat with more juices. Gasping with the pleasure of it, I grabbed his wrists and pulled them away, knowing he would end up distracting me.

“You have to leave your hands here,” I breathed heavily, still feeling the tingles from his touch. I placed his hands on the wooden slats of the headboard, curling his fingers around the wooden bars. “Don’t move.”

Lightly raking my nails down the inside of his arms, over his nipples and down his slatted abdomen, I traced the outline of rigid muscle, wanting to know his body as he knew mine. Placing my lips over one of his flat brown nipples, I let my tongue taste his skin. Edging closer to his straining cock, I let my lips roam, planting random wet kisses over his tight stomach, tracing the grooves as I’d been longing to do, loving how his muscles jumped at my touch and how his breathing was now shallow and rapid. I could feel his shaft prodding my breast as I worked down his abdomen. It had grown significantly as I played with his body, and when I got to it, I wondered how he had ever fit inside me. Thicker and more distended than before, his cock stood swollen, a small pearl of fluid cresting the top.

I wanted to taste him. His breathing became more labored. I looked up to see the muscles of his arms bulging as he gripped the headboard, his eyes on mine. I’d never done it before. Was there a wrong way?

“You don’t have to,” he said heavily, seeing into my thoughts.

“I want to.” Tentatively at first, I grasped his cock. I was surprised to feel how hot it was and to feel it pulsate beneath my fingers. Bending over him, I licked the moisture off of the head like it was a lollipop, enjoying the scent and salty taste of his essence, and Ryder groaned at the sensation.

Emboldened by his response, I took him in to my mouth and sucked at him, bobbing over the crest of his head. He pumped his hips involuntarily, a tortured expression on his face. I licked the side of his shaft from base to tip before enveloping him again, this time using my hand and mouth to make him crazy. Up and down, I surrounded him, absorbing his sounds of pleasure and feeling his cock lengthen even more. I felt sexy and wicked, playing with his cock.

“Babe, you’ve got to stop,” he said through a hiss. “I want to get there with you. Condoms are in the drawer.”

With a final lick, I crawled back up his body and reached over him to snag a packet from the small nightstand. Unable to stop himself from touching what was an inch from his face, he let go of the headboard and cupped my breasts, laying one plump orb on his hot, open mouth.

“Ryder,” I moaned, needing to pause and grind my wet folds against his shaft. “Let me put this on you.”

Reluctantly he released me, and in a guttural voice that was nearly a growl, he said, “Make me so fucking hard.”

I moved quickly to cover his cock with the condom. I sat poised, holding the pulsing head of his shaft at my wet opening, rubbing the head along my folds, when I caught his eyes. “Let me in, Ryder,” I whispered, opening my mind to him. After a moment’s hesitation while a hint of feeling shadowed his green eyes, he gave in.

His desire hit me like a blast of heat that made me gasp and almost come immediately. My heart rate kicked up, and I had to pant to bring enough air to my lungs. Aching, shivering, hot and needy, I felt the sensations wash over and through me, making me feel even more desperate for release.

I sank onto his shaft. He filled me up, stretched me. Driven to prolong the delicious sensations, I braced my hands on his strong shoulders and pumped my hips slowly, feeling the slick friction, the hot slide of his cock setting off fires along nerve endings.

Images and feelings came to me as I moved on his shaft. I felt an overwhelming surge of warmth and care, heat and lust. His longing to meet me as he watched me move about in my day-to-day life, his admiration that I worked so hard to pull myself up in the world, his gut-wrenching fear that someone was trying to take me out of the world, and his...love. No one had ever loved me before.

Thick emotion mixed with carnal need made my eyes fill with a sense of how beautiful and perfect this was, and I picked up my rhythm, trying to pump my hips faster along his length. I was in his heart and mind. And he was in mine.

Winding tighter and tighter, spiraling hotter and hotter, needing to reach the pinnacle, I just couldn’t go fast enough, hard enough, and I was almost sobbing with the need for release. In a sudden move, Ryder took charge. He rolled me over and pushed into me, his features harsh, his jaw clenched. My legs wrapped around his hips, and he slammed into me again and again, both of us crying out. My hips rose to meet each thrust, my clit sliding and rubbing against him with each stroke. Harder and faster he pumped. Our lips fused, feeding each other moans and gasps. Higher and higher we climbed, our minds melded, our needs multiplying. We rode the edge of the cliff, nearing the jumping-off point.

“I’m going to come so hard,” he ground out, slamming into me again and again.

“Yes!” I cried, breathlessly, and then I felt myself go off with a heat explosion, breathless arch, scattered mind, as spasms of pleasure rolled over me.

Dimly, I heard his harsh shout. We were engulfed in waves of turbulent release that left us shaking, our bodies quivery. It was a few minutes before I realized he had collapsed on the pillow next to me, though one of his legs was still between my thighs and one of his arms was curled around my midriff.

“
Lin’de
,” he murmured roughly. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Not if you kill me first.” My lips curled into a smile as I basked in the warm glow of our spent arousal.

It was long moments later that I realized what I thought I’d picked up from being part of his inner world. It was the first time he’d ever pulled his wall down for me, and I thought I’d seen... Was Ryder in love with me? My throat burned as my mind was captured by the question.

“Yes.” He turned his head to look at me, his green eyes clear and steadfast as he read my thoughts. “I am.”

A thick ball of emotion choked my throat. I didn’t know what to say. How...?

Using a gentle finger, he traced the moisture down my cheek, wiping the tears that had begun trickling after such a beautiful revelation, and smiled gently.

“But how...when...” Full, coherent sentences seemed impossible, as tenderness and warmth made my thoughts fuzzy.

“How could I not?” He kissed the tip of my nose. “You were so beautiful and thoughtful, and strong and kind...”

The warm timbre of his voice poured over me like a gentle waterfall. Hurt places that I didn’t know about, deep places in my subconscious, were suddenly filled with healing warmth. “You got all that from...watching me? I mean, how did this all start?”

“You want to know how I ended up on Earth? Investigating you?”

“I just want to understand. I need the big picture.” I wanted to believe. This was all too good to be true, and life had already taught me not to trust things that felt good.

He pulled me closer, onto my side, facing him, so one of his muscular thighs rested between mine, and my soft lower stomach cupped his still semihard shaft between us. Taking a deep breath, with his large hand languidly tracing shapes along my back and spine, as though he couldn’t stop touching me, he started. “It began with the investigation. Sy had been able to find Frank, using new technology he’d developed. We have communication devices. We refer to them as satellite links, or sat links for short. Anyway, for the last few years, Sy has tried to design programs that would recognize when one of the sat links was being activated on Earth, but with very little success.”

“Why is that important?”

“We need to monitor who’s coming, who’s going and their movements.”

“Doesn’t that impinge on their rights or something?”

“Coming through the mylunate transfer is not a right. Those who are allowed to come through know and agree to the monitoring, because they recognize the delicate nature of traveling between planets. We need to ensure that anyone who comes is going to acclimate and fit in immediately. And still, as much as we police the transfers, there are those who have managed to find ways and means of coming here through illegal channels.”

“Like Ranik?”

“Like Ranik and a few others who are currently under investigation. About eight months ago, Sy had a breakthrough. He found what he was looking for. Each sat link has a digital signature embedded in its transfer while in use that no Earth technology contains. That’s when Sy was able to locate where Frank was, and I came immediately.”

“How did that connect you to me?”

“We were able to find Frank whenever he used his sat link. Unfortunately, he wasn’t using it that frequently, and he moved around a lot, so we lost him several times. He managed to elude us over and over again over the years, somehow knowing what our moves were going to be before we did. A few months ago we saw that he was spending more and more time with your boss.”

“And so you started watching me?”

“We didn’t know who all was involved, helping him. I also rationalized the idea because I’d be able to get information from the inside. Find out what was going on, where he was holing up. Reggie was easy to find, but not easy to talk to without drawing attention to myself. I didn’t want to scare Ranik off just when I thought we’d get him. You were more accessible, so I could see what you were up to more easily, and as his assistant, you likely knew more about what was happening behind the scenes. Assistants always know more about what’s going on.”

I had to acknowledge that was likely true. “Why not just take Ranik out when he’s with Reggie?”

“We needed to take things slowly and be careful. That’s most important on Earth. I don’t think you can fully appreciate the delicate nature of the relationship we have with Earth. If taking extra time ensured a better result and kept the secret of our existence safe, I was okay with taking extra time. Imagine how Reggie would have reacted if we’d just grabbed Ranik while they were out and about.”

“He would have tried to beat you down.”

“Right. We couldn’t attract attention to ourselves or risk having the police get involved. We just wanted to find where Frank was calling home and grab him there, but he was smart enough to keep moving. He never stayed alone. He made friends everywhere, some innocent, some not.”

“He moved in with Reggie just over a week ago.”

“But now he likely knows we’re on to him again and will have moved on to hide under another rock somewhere.”

“So you were watching for him to find a pattern of movement and were hoping I would be able to provide you with the background details?”

“I was content to sit back at first, let Sy befriend you. I figured you were like every other woman in Hollywood, trying to get discovered. I had no interest in finding out anything else about you. Just wanted to gather my data and move on to capturing and securing Ranik. It was fortuitous that you worked for the company that Sunan owned.”

“My cousin turned me on to it.”

“She did?” He seemed surprised. “We don’t usually advertise.”

“I figured she knew my aunt was about to kick me out just when I was about to graduate from school and wanted to do me a solid by helping me find work. She was already working as a receptionist somewhere in the industry.” Hmm. As distasteful as it was to think of calling her—the idea really made me cringe internally—maybe it was worth a call to my aunt to shake her down a bit for some information.

The idea put a bad taste in my mouth, but I knew it was a good first step. Now that I was looking back, it did seem odd that my aunt, as much of a pain in my ass as she was, would agree to house me until the very last quarter of college, only to kick me out unexpectedly. Hmm.