Sentinel's Hunger (12 page)

Michael slowly dismounted Xevera, pulled his pants and underwear back up to his waist, and sat on the edge of the bed.

Xevera leaned up on one elbow and reached to massage his shoulders with her other hand, fingers alternately compressing and fondling his tense muscles, simultaneously relaxing and exciting him.

“What is wrong, Michael?”

“What does
mishva
mean?” He heard her intake of breath as he turned to look at her over a shoulder and saw her stunned expression.

“Is it that bad?”

“Not bad, just…”

“I’m a big boy. Tell me.”

“It means ‘my love’ in Inanna.”

Michael didn’t say anything, couldn’t.

He should have been prepared for her answer, had expected as much, but all the nuances of that one four-letter word hit him in the heart like a bullet through the chest, just as devastating and knocking his equilibrium off kilter.

Michael caressed her leg from smooth thigh to calf, pausing at the cuff locked around her ankle. “I’m thinking about releasing you, Xevera.”

He felt her go rigid behind him, her hand stopping mid-stroke on his shoulder.

“Why?”

He turned to face her full, heart throbbing with the enormity of what he was about to do, then stuttering at her expression of shock.

“Because you don’t belong here with me.”

She sat up beside him. “How can that be when I belong
to
you?”

Michael silently reached for his neck where the key to her cuff hung on a chain. He pulled the chain over his head, knelt before her and reached for her cuff with the key.

Xevera jerked her leg away and leaped to her feet.

He glanced up at her from his knees, couldn’t help feeling like a boyfriend proposing to his intended. His heart thudded at the thought,
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and the irony of the situation did not escape him even while his intended was trying to. “Come back here, Xevera.”

She put her fists on her hips. “Why should I? If you are going to release me, you should get used to me
not
obeying you. I will be free to come and go as I please.”

“That’s
if
I release you.”

“Are you releasing me or are you not releasing me?”

He slowly got to his feet. “Come here,” he murmured.

“What will you do to me if I do not?”

“You’re about to find out.” He watched her eyes widen as he reached for her.

She was quick though, sidestepped his grasp and turned to run.

Michael followed at a full sprint and caught up to her in the living room. He didn’t think twice before lunging and tackling her to the carpet, the plush padding cushioning their fall.

She wriggled between his legs as he straddled her hips and pinned her wrists to the carpet above her head. “Let me go!”

“Is that what you really want?”

“It does not matter what I want. You appear to have made up your mind for the both of us.” She bucked and the action brought her lush round ass into direct contact with his erection.

Michael held her wrists with one hand and soundly smacked her ass with the other.

The sound reverberated throughout the house and his soul.

Xevera suddenly went still beneath him and whimpered.

“You’ll be still and listen to me.”

She didn’t say anything, just squirmed and moaned.

“Xevera?”

“I do not want you to release me.”

“We’re not doing what you want. We’re doing what needs to be done.”

“I do not
need
to be released.”

Michael gritted his teeth. She was making following his mother’s
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wishes damn hard.

“Do you want to hear me beg, Michael?”

Hell, yes! He wanted to hear her beg, and he wanted to hear her say ‘my love’ again, every day, for the rest of his life.

“I will.”

“Damn you, succubus…” He released her wrists and flipped her onto her back, rubbing his erection against her hot pussy and driving himself mad.

“I am hungry. Perhaps we should eat now.”

Michael glanced at her face, her expression as cool now as her words. He, on the other hand, was on fire with lust for her.

Why was he fighting it? Why was he fighting her?

As if in response, she reached up a hand to cup his face, rasping her palm across the stubble on his cheek and smiling. “I liked when you spanked me,” she whispered.

Michael groaned at the quiet shyness in her voice and leaned forward until his forehead kissed hers. He reached down between her legs, confirming the truth of her words when he caressed her moist folds. “I can tell.”

“I would like you to do it again.”

His cock jerked and he dragged himself away from her to stand.

At this rate, they’d be having the lasagna for breakfast in the morning because for the rest of the night he just wanted to dine on her pussy.

* * * *

Goodness, what were they doing in there?

Florence tossed from her back onto her side, shooting death glares at her husband as he snored beside her.

How could he sleep through that racket? It sounded like the two of them were killing each other in there.

Albert had said it was high time Michael got frisky, and obviously
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the young man was trying to make up for lost time.

Florence had heard more moaning and shouts of ecstasy (or pain because at this rate she couldn’t be sure) in the last several hours than she had heard since that young man had moved into the building!

The man didn’t stop, had been at his mysterious guest from the moment he’d walked in the door earlier that evening until now.

Florence guessed they had taken a break to eat at one point (when the noise had quieted for a brief half-hour) and refuel for another several go-rounds at each other.

And he had seemed like such a quiet young man when he’d moved in six years ago.

He had a decent job, was neat and clean and didn’t smoke or drink that she knew of because, of course, Florence looked out for that sort of thing and had noticed his straight white teeth for one.

He worked such odd, long hours that he barely spent any time at home and when he was home, Florence hardly heard him. He didn’t have wild parties or female, or male (Florence was with the times and knew how these kids ‘got down’ nowadays), visitors coming and going all hours of the day. And before last night, he certainly didn’t have any overnight guests of any persuasion…not that there was anything wrong with that.

Michael Constantine was actually what she would call the proverbial ideal tenant.

Until last night, that was.

Florence started and clutched her chest at the sound of bodies colliding with the floor.

Were they practicing to audition for Wrestlemania?

No, not that. She had heard the sound before earlier in the evening. And directly after the crash, she had heard a loud slap.

Had he hit her, or had she hit him?

Florence didn’t much tolerate violence of any kind, but especially not against women.

Maybe the woman was some wanted alien cat woman but she
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deserved due process of the law like anyone else, and if Michael was roughing her up, well, then Florence would just have to put her foot down on the subject.

What if Albert was wrong?

She knew something wasn’t right about the situation and that woman, and was almost certain she was the cat woman from the news. Sure, she hadn’t gotten a good look, but the similarities were there.

And Florence didn’t believe in coincidence.

Decided, she got out of bed and went to the phone in the living room. She didn’t want Albert to wake up, hear what she was doing and try to change her mind. Not that he
would
wake up, as soundly as he was sleeping. And not that he could change her mind.

Good tenant and husband’s sound logic be darned. Florence’s instincts were almost never wrong.

She was going to call the police…just to be on the safe side.

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Ankle free and body completely sated, Xevera lay with her head on Michael’s chest basking in the afterglow of their recent lovemaking and anxious at the approaching portal opening.

She could not deny it any longer. She felt the electricity in the air.

They were coming for her.

She did not know whether to rejoice at her impending rescue or curse her Emsharra compatriots for being so dependable and concerned.

It was too soon and she had not yet settled anything with her Master.

Michael balked at discussing anything having to do with a future between them, said he did not want to ruin the moment with incalculable and uncontrollable variables.

Xevera saw through the smoke screen of logic and knew that he was afraid. She well understood his fear as she had been living under a thick cloud of the emotion herself, along with a healthy dose of doubt.

She was, however, willing to face her fear and doubt rather than avoid them.

Was this because she was female or because she was Inanna?

“It’s because you’re you.”

“Sneak!” Xevera slapped his hard abdomen and listened as he groaned with the appropriate amount of histrionics. “How long have you been awake?”

“I’m not awake. I’m dreaming about a beautiful stubborn woman who doesn’t know how to drop a particular subject.”

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“That is because it is an important subject that needs to be discussed.”

Michael groaned again, this time out of frustration. “Xevera…”

“I do not wish to displease you.”

He opened one eye to peek at her. “You’ve never displeased me.”

“That is good to know.” She fell silent, running her fingers along the scar on his abdomen. “How did you get this?”

“I was shot when I was overseas.”

“In a war?” Unfortunately, there were so many to choose from. It was one of the reasons the New Regime and Harvesting Program had been initiated.

“The first Gulf War. I was eighteen.”

So young and almost lost to her before she had ever found him.

Xevera kissed the slightly puckered skin feeling supremely lucky to have him with her, to have gotten to know him.

“I’m not going anywhere, Xevera.”

She could take that two ways, and one way was not encouraging.

Would he be willing to leave his home in the Great Above and come with her to Emsharra if she asked him?

A barely audible noise rose up from the backyard below the first floor apartment, but Xevera heard it and leaped from the bed to go to the window.

Michael sat up. “What’s up?”

She opened the window and glanced down where Alex and Genesis stood just beside a large circle of glimmering light.

She and Michael did not have much time!

Xevera rushed back to the bed, grabbed both of Michael’s hands as she knelt before him and peered at his face.

“Xevera, what is it?”

“I know that you do not wish to discuss the future, but it is upon us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Will you come with me to Emsharra?”

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He grinned. “Is this a proposal?”

“I am serious, Michael. We do not have much time.”

He glanced at the window then back at her. “Your people?”

She averted her eyes, ashamed that she had previously lied to him.

Michael cupped her face with one hand. “It’s okay. That’s in our past. We were new. From now on—”

“No more lies. I swear. Now will you come with me?”

“And be your mate?”

“My mate, yes. And…my Master.”

Someone pounded on the apartment door just as Michael opened his mouth to answer.

“Michael Constantine, it’s the police!”

“What the—”

“We have reason to believe you’re harboring a dangerous felon in your apartment. Open up!”

Xevera dragged him to his feet. “We must go now!”

“No joke!” Michael glanced around for the jeans he had left hanging on the bedpost.

Xevera waved her hands and instantly outfitted him in them as well as a matching black T-shirt and his cross-trainers.

“Whoa!”

She waved her hands again and clad herself in a green leather bustier, matching hot pants and boots.

“I wish I had time to enjoy more of your magic act.”

“Time is in short abundance.” She rushed back to the window, ducked her head out.

“Xevera, we’re running out of time!” Alex yelled through cupped hands.

“We are coming down now.”

“We? Who’s we?”

Xevera ducked back inside the bedroom and just as she turned to Michael, the police kicked in the apartment door.

“Michael Constantine, come out with your hands where we can
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see them!”

Xevera grabbed his hand and pulled him to the window. “Do you trust me, Michael?”

“I trust you, but it’s at least a thirty-foot drop.”

She pulled him into her arms and held tight. “I will not let any harm come to you.”

“That’s supposed to be my li—”

Xevera activated her spirit light, encompassing herself and Michael in a tornado of bright yellow energy just as two policemen kicked the bedroom door open, guns drawn.

She caught their looks of shock as she and Michael spun at blinding, dizzying speed, a human twister that began to dematerialize right before the police fired.

Xevera and Michael rematerialized on the ground a couple of seconds later.

Alex rushed over to them. “What the hell is going on?”

Xevera glanced back up at the window then at Genesis as she rounded a corner of the house to join them.

“The ones in your apartment and their back-up have been neutralized.”

At Genesis’ affirmation, Xevera glanced around and noticed the three uniformed officers peacefully lying on the grass to the side of the portal, victims of an Inanna sleep spell.

“We still can’t waste any more time. These guys travel in packs and guaranteed they’ll send reinforcements,” Alex said.