Steele (3 page)

“Bar’s closed, guys.” The men stood up almost as if she’d orchestrated it and made their way to the door. Mr. Lonely was the last to stand up, and she stood there waiting for him while the others stood in the parking lot. As soon as he was close enough for her to see, she felt her breath catch. Christ, he was beautiful.

But he was also haunting. The closer he got to her, the more anguish and sorrow she could see in his eyes, in his entire body. As he came to stand beside her, she looked up at him when he looked down, and her cat moved along her skin. Before she could think not to touch, her fingers were curling into his shirt. Staring at him, she knew something very strange was happening.

“Who are you?” The man only stared at her, and she licked her lips. His soft breath moved over her damp mouth, and she had to lick them again. He continued to stare at her even when he put his hands on her hips. “I want to kiss you.”

“Yes.” He lowered his head to hers, and she felt his breath heat her. His hands tightened on her hips, and she took a step toward him when he pulled her. As soon as their bodies came together, she felt her pussy heat up, her nipples hardened to the point of pain, and she wanted more of him. As his lips touched hers, Kari tried to think of all the reasons this was a bad idea, but then he pulled back. When he let her go, taking his body and his hands from her, she nearly reached for him to pull him back. But it was the look in his eyes that stopped her.

“I’m not available for anything with you.” It took her mind a few seconds to catch up with what he was saying. And when it did, she felt her temper snap. He thought she wanted a quick fuck from him. She did, but there was no reason for him to be an ass about it. Kari slapped him as hard as she could. But as a big man, the only thing that moved was his head, and that was only slightly. As he turned back to her, she wanted to tell him to fuck off, but she didn’t. To be honest, she was too hurt to do anything more than stare at him as he walked out.

Closing the door behind him, she slid the lock home and leaned heavily against it, and tried to reason with her cat and herself that the man didn’t want her. Neither of them. But the cat wanted him and to be honest, so did Kari. She was moving to the stairwell that led to her apartment when it occurred to her what had just happened.

“No fucking way.” She started to go out and find him again to prove to herself that this wasn’t her mate. No fucking way in hell was that man going to be anything to her. As she stomped up the rest of the stairs, she tried to wash the thought out of her mind with a hundred other details, but the man was all she could think about.

Taking a cold shower—and only because the heat had been turned off two days ago—she went to bed shivering and cold to the bone. The window air conditioner rattled and banged, but she didn’t bother turning it off. She’d be burning up hot in a minute, as her body was always about five hundred degrees warmer than anything else. She lay on her bed, trying to shut her mind down, but the man kept coming back to her. Christ, her mate.

“Now what?” Now what indeed. Kari was afraid that if she tried to contact him he’d turn her down. If everything she’d learned about being a cat—or even half of it—was true, she was in trouble of the worse kind. She lay there tossing and turning for over three hours before she got up to dress. The sooner she made tracks to get out of there, the sooner she could move on with her life. This was just too much.

After packing what she owned, which was very little, she packed up her backpack with her reader and headed out of the building. The suitcase was surprisingly heavy, but everything in it was hers. She thought about leaving the building unlocked for whoever wanted the place, but knew that her prints were everywhere and the last thing she needed was to be thought of as a thief. As she walked along the road to who knew where, she tried to put a plan together that would end all this. The best she could come up with was finding a job and a place to live.

“Best place to start, I suppose.” Hearing a car coming down the road, she actually thought about hiding in the dark trees, but put out her thumb to hitch a ride. She wasn’t worried about anyone hurting her. Fuck, she was a cat and she’d tear them apart if they tried. So when the car slowed, then stopped about ten feet in front of her, she ran to the car, smiling. But the face looking back at her had her backing up. There was no way that she’d ride with this man after what he’d said to her.

“Get in.” She shook her head at Steele, and he barked at her again. “Get in the fucking car so that I don’t have to find your ghost to locate your body in a few weeks.”

“I can take care of myself.” He snorted. “I’m not human, in case you didn’t know. I’m just fine on my own. And if my ghost does come to find you, it’ll probably be to haunt you for the rest of your days.” She thought he said something like that was nothing new but wasn’t sure.

When he put the car in park and got out, every part of her body told her to run, hide, don’t let him catch you, but before she could get her feet to do what she wanted, he’d lifted her up to his body and rocked his cock into her as he slammed his mouth over hers. Kari wrapped her ankles around him as he laid her over the trunk of his car.
Finally
, her body screamed at her, and her cat was suddenly very happy as well.

~~~

Steele felt his body taking her, but his mind was still trying to work out how to get away from her. As far as he could. When her ankles tightened around him, Steele moaned and reached up under her shirt to find her warm breast bare to his touch. Pulling the shirt all the way up, he took the hard tip into his mouth and bit down. She did taste as good as she smelled, and he wanted so much more of her.

“Please.” He wanted to please them both. More than anything, but he knew that this was a mistake. And even as that thought entered his head, he pulled from her to take off her pants. His need to be buried as deeply as he could into her was making him stupid.

As he tore them from her, tossing the torn jeans over his shoulder, Steele felt her fingers working at his own pants. As soon as he was free, his cock wrapped up in her hand, he moaned. Christ, he was going to come just from her touch. As he pulled her shirt off her the rest of the way, Steele cupped her full breasts in his hands and pinched her nipples. He was as close to coming as he’d ever been.

“Inside of me, please.” He fisted his cock and moved his crown over her entrance. She was hot; her juices were thick with need. Moving in and out of her, he watched her body react. Her legs tightened around him again. “Please, take me.”

As if he had no choice in the matter, none whatsoever, Steele felt his body harden more, his need to take her nearly overwhelming. She was wet; he was hard and naked. He moved forward, his cock sliding in and out easily when she raised her hips up and seemingly swallowed his cock.

Steele filled her. His cock buried in her to the root, and he pulled back to fuck her when she screamed out her release. It was all he needed, all it took for him to slam forward again and empty himself inside of her. It was over too soon, finished before he felt as if he had given her much more than a quick fuck. But he continued fucking her as hard as he could as he leaned in and took her mouth. Steele moaned when she shifted her head and licked his shoulder. When she bit him, sank her teeth into his muscle right through his shirt, he came again, his cock exploding out his release as if he hadn’t come only seconds before.

Dropping on top of her, he held her tightly to his body. He had no idea why the need to comfort her was nearly too much, but he held onto her. When she moved, shifted her hips, he lifted his head and looked down at her. Even in the moonlight, he could see her tears.

“Did I hurt you?” She shook her head. “Then why are you crying? If you’re going to claim I took you against your will, I’m not—”

The punch to his nose had him seeing stars. Pulling from her and out of her, Steele grabbed his face with both hands as warm fluid poured between his fingers. He tried to focus on her, hearing her cursing, but he was in so much pain he could hardly think. Dropping to his knees, he nearly fell back when she jerked something from beneath his knee. He watched her as she yanked clothing from what appeared to be an overnight bag.

“Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you?” He didn’t get an answer and looked up at her. She was gone. “Fuck.”

He stood up and blew snot and blood from his nose as he looked for her. But she and her things were nowhere to be seen. She was simply gone, as if she’d never been there. Picking up his pants from his ankles, he called for her. By the time he’d found what was left of her pants and her shirt, Steele was pissed. Getting into his car, he started it and sat there for several minutes just trying to get a grip on his temper. What the fuck had just happened? He kept asking himself.

“Other than a good fuck.” He grinned when he thought of how good it had been to be buried inside of her. Then he frowned. “No, she was just a pussy. A hot one, but I’m not going to read more into it than there was. A willing person who wanted it as much as I did.”

When he realized he was talking to himself and answering himself, Steele reached over and turned on the radio. He rarely listened to the thing and was surprised to find it on a country and western station, a genre he never listened to. Driving down the road slowly to see if he could find Kari, he tried not to think about what they’d just done. And they hadn’t used any sort of protection.

By the time he got back to the big house, he was boiling with anger. She was out there alone. And as much as he wanted to think she was helpless, he only had to touch the bridge of his nose to realize she would be just fine. But it bothered him to no end that she’d left him like she had.

Chapter 2

Ray was in the kitchen making a pot of coffee when Steele came in. He looked at the boy and decided that he’d let it go for now. He did wonder about the black eyes and the bruised nose, and thought that if she’d done this to him, she had a damned good reason. Sitting down across from him, he sipped his coffee and waited. It didn’t take as long as he thought it would.

“I’m not going to talk about it.” Ray told him he wasn’t going to ask. “Sure you weren’t. Just like every other time you thought to barge into my life. You’re as nosy as a woman at a fence line hanging wash.”

“You’ve been hanging around Carlton too much. And have I been barging into your life? Not the way I’ve seen it, but you have your little temper tantrum. In the meantime I’m going to ask you, where is the girl?”

“I didn’t hurt her.” Ray only nodded, and Steele got up to make his cup of coffee. “I don’t know where she is. I looked for her for an hour and no sign of her anywhere. She just took off without so much as…well, she just took off.”

“But you had sex with her first, right?” Steele nearly dropped his cup but nodded. “Thought so. Her being what she is and all, I’d suspect it was hard for either of you to keep your hands off each other. So you had sex. Did you bite her, or her you?”

“She bit me in the shoulder. Why?” Ray had to hide his smile behind his cup. The boy sounded panicky. It was a good look on the kid. He’d been locking his emotions up for so long, other than the brooding part, that he’d been worried about him for a while now. “She scarred me.”

“Yeah, she had to.” He took another sip before he continued. “She’s a panther. And I know you’ve no idea what that can be like for a shifter, but you’re her mate, I would imagine. And marking you would have come as natural to her as it was you having to be buried inside of her.” He watched the kid flush and smiled.

“I’m thinking by ‘mate’ you mean that I’m something to her. Like a boyfriend or something. I don’t want a woman in my life. I don’t want anyone in my life. I’m not into losing anyone again.”

“You’ve made that pretty clear over the years. I don’t need you to go on telling me how much you hate me either.” It hurt Ray that Steele had never been close to him. He’d snatched the boy from a life of crime just after his sister had been killed. Ray shivered when he thought of the day he’d had to tell the young Steele that his sister had been killed and his father had killed himself. He wondered if he’d ever gone to visit his mother in prison, but knew that he’d never do that. He’d washed his hands of everything and everyone that day. And Ray was pretty sure that if Steele hadn’t made the promise to young Aster, none of them would be here in his big house working together.

“I work for you, don’t I?” Ray nodded. “And I do what I need to do to make sure that each job is completed. But I’m not going to have a woman in my life. I fuck one when I need to, but they are happy and satisfied when I leave them.”

“You don’t want anyone in your life. And tell me, did you give her money before you left her? Like you do the women you fuck?” He had to take a slow breath before he continued. Ray did not want to get into another shouting match with Steele. Not today. “You’re lonely, Steele, can’t you see that? And this girl, Kari, she’s not just a woman you fucked. She won’t think of you as a boyfriend, and every time you see her, you’re going to want to mark her too. She’ll need it as much as you will.”

“I don’t want to have sex with her ever again.” But he did, and Ray could see it on his face. The need to be with her was burning at him. “And what do you mean, I need to mark her? I’ve never bitten her, I told you. And if you try to tell me differently, I’m going to know you’re full of shit.”

“No. No, you didn’t bite her. But you didn’t use any protection with her either, did you? The need to have her, to be with her, made you forget that rule, didn’t it?” He asked if she was pregnant. “Doubtful, but that’s not what I mean. Your semen; when you ejaculated inside of her, you marked her with your scent. That’s marking her.”

Steele sat down, his empty cup still in his hand. As it tumbled from his fingers, Ray picked it up and carried it to the counter. Filling it, he put it in front of Steele and sat quietly. He wondered what the boy would say next, wondered if he had any idea what this woman would come to mean to him. Ray doubted that she’d be any easier to convince that they were mates than Steele was, but she’d be better equipped to handle it than Steele was. When he looked up at him, Ray smiled. This was going to be good, he just knew it.

“I won’t seek her out to have sex anymore. And when we do, and I’m not saying we will, I’ll use a condom.” Ray nodded.
Good luck with that
, he thought. “And I’ll never bite her and will tell her she can’t bite me. I don’t need her marking me up like some fucking play thing. That shit will stop.”

“Yeah, you do that.” He got up and poured his now cold coffee in the sink before turning back to him. “She’s homeless, penniless if you don’t count the money she took from the till last night, which couldn’t have been more than a few hundred dollars. She’s been marked by a human who doesn’t want her, and I’m betting that the person who changed her didn’t give her a clue on how to manage herself as a panther. And here you sit. All cozy in your mansion with heat, air when we need it, and servants out the ass. A job that you fucking loathe, as well as more people who would do anything for you if you were to ask, but you never do. Several cars in that big garage out there, more money in the bank than most people would see in several lifetimes, and you have the nerve to whine about how she’s not going to mark you. When she hit you, what did you say to her?”

“Nothing.” Ray started to let it go but asked him again. “I told her she wasn’t going to claim that I took her without her permission. Then she punched me in the face and left me bleeding on the side of the road.”

“Side of the road.” Ray wanted to hit him himself. “You fucked her on the side of the road, then accused her of raping you? Man, you are a piece of work, aren’t you? No wonder she’s gone. I’d have left you there too.”

Steele stood up, and Ray could almost feel his anger. But if he backed down now, the boy would be lost to him. Steele moved back to the chair and sat down. When he buried his face in his hands, he knew the boy was hurting, and from much more than the broken nose and black eyes.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with a woman in my life?” He didn’t tell him the obvious but let him talk. “And she’s not anything like…I’ve never met a panther before, but I’m pretty sure she’s not the norm. She’s very beautiful and full of life, but I have no use for her or anyone in my life. I have enough to deal with.”

“I’d say you’re about right with that. You do have plenty to deal with. But a mate is someone that helps you with those things.” Ray sat down as he continued. “Do you want to find her? See that she’s all right?”

“Sort of.” Good enough for now, Ray supposed. “When I got back here last night, I tried to call in a few favors. But so far no one has gotten back with me. I have a couple of my men out looking now.”

Steele was the strongest necromancer he knew; not only that, but the kid could do things that he’d never heard of before. When he was stressed, a small nap could give him insights or clues to the dead that even they were not aware of. Ray was a fair to middling necro, and Drew was pretty strong too. Nick and Landon had some talent and used it well, but all of them together couldn’t hold a candle to what Steele could do when working. And the fact that he had a few ghosts working for him scared the hell out of Ray sometimes. But he needed them because they were dead and couldn’t hurt him by dying.

“Who did you send?” He named two men that Ray had seen round and about when they’d been working. “Donny will more than likely take a peek at her if she’s naked when he’s around. Carlton will…well, he’ll be all right.”

The look in Steele’s eye had him stiffening. He realized what he’d said now. He’d just told Steele that another man was going to try and see his mate naked. And ghost or not, the man was going to be in big trouble if he did it.

The two men were suddenly in the kitchen with them. Neither man seemed to know what the hell had happened to bring them there, but when Steele stood up, both of them backed away. Carlton pushed Donny behind him when Steele advanced.

“Where is she?” His voice sounded like his namesake, hard and unforgiving. “Where is she right now? And she’d better not be naked anywhere you two are.”

“I’m offended.” Carlton was an older ghost and his mannerism and speech gave him away as being from the early part of the last century. “We have done as you’ve asked. It was our duty to protect her from the hoodlums in the place she was staying. Young Donny here was standing guard at the door whilst I sat with her as she cried. Someone has hurt the young miss.”

“Where?” Carlton told him and Ray stood as well. She was in the worst part of town and the hotel was known for all kinds of illegal behavior. “Go there. And stay until I get there. But I swear to you if you look at her body in any other way than clothed, I’m going to send you back. Understand?”

As soon as Carlton and Donny disappeared again, Steele moved to the door. It was all Ray could do to keep up. They were in the car as Logan and Mitch came out of the house. Ray told them to get in and shut up.

~~~

Stepping out of the shower, Kari wrapped the towel tighter around her body. The water was lukewarm at best and frigid at the end of her five minute wash. Picking up her clothes, she put them on the sink and looked at herself in the mirror.

“You’re a fool.” The reflection said nothing back, so she continued. “Did you really think that having sex with him was going to be a good thing? Really? How stupid are you? Actually, pretty fucking stupid if you think about it. Men like him do not want anything to do with a woman like you. His fucking shirt was worth more than everything you own, you fucking idiot.”

Turning her back on the woman in the mirror, she pulled on her clothes. She was running low on everything and would have to find a laundromat soon. Her pants were hanging loosely on her now…not being able to eat three square meals a day would do that to you, she supposed. But she simply took her belt off her other pants and cinched them as tightly as she could get them before moving out of the tiny room. She nearly screamed when she saw who was standing there.

“You are not staying here.” She looked at Steele, thinking that he must have been a drill sergeant or something sometime. As she was walking around him, he grabbed her arm and she drew back to hit him. He grabbed her hand just before she swung it toward him. “Don’t.”

The man behind him, Ray, started to laugh. But it was short lived when the man who had tried to get into her room earlier started shouting about the police coming. His face didn’t look any better than Steele’s did. When she looked back at him, Steele was cocking a brow at her.

“So? I hit him too. And if you don’t let go of me, I’m going to cut you to pieces with this cat I have inside of me.” He didn’t let her go but started dragging her down the hall. She noticed then that Ray had her suitcase and some other man was holding her back pack. “Those are my things. Don’t tell me you came here to rob me. I’m pretty sure you can afford to buy your own shit. And I doubt my clothes will fit any of you.”

“You’re not staying here.” She jerked her arm from Steele and felt the tear in her skin when she did. But going anywhere he was taking her was not going to happen. “Look. I can’t let you stay here. There is shit going on that could get you killed.”

“And this would bother you how?” He didn’t say anything but did look at Ray. She did as well. “You should have better control over your people, Mr. Hancock. They might get themselves hurt.”

“He knows what he’s doing.” She doubted it. The man seemed unstable. “You should come along, honey. Steele here knows what he’s talking about. This place isn’t anywhere you should be. Just come on nicely and we’ll talk when we get back to the house.”

These people were insane. Instead of saying anything to them, she reached for her suitcase and was surprised when Ray let it go. The other man was laughing so hard that she was almost afraid he was going to hurt something. But he, too, gave her the bag he’d been holding. When she started down the hall in front of them, she heard Steele say something like “finally,” but she ignored him. Turning at the end of the hall, she moved into her room and turned and locked the door before anyone else could enter. The pounding on the door didn’t frighten her, but she wondered how she was going to pay for it if he broke it in. Just as she was ready to scream at him to get the hell away from her, Steele kicked the door in.

“When I tell you something, you will obey me.” Her cat stirred along her skin, and she tried to calm her. Not that she cared if she hurt the asshole in front of her, but she didn’t have the clothes to spare for a quick shift. Backing from him, she whimpered when he pressed her against the wall with his body. His voice, low and full of promise, seemed to lick over her skin when he spoke. “I want to fuck you right now. Strip you down and ram my cock so deep inside of you that you can’t breathe. Take you hard and without a thought to where we are or how many people will see us.”

Her body caught fire. Her need for him, already out of control, seemed to overpower her. Reaching for him, wanting to feel his cock inside of her, she whimpered again when he pulled away.

“We are not having sex.” She wanted to argue with him, but he continued before she could beg him. “I’ll take you back to my home and you can sleep in another room until I can buy some protection. I want to fuck you, that’s for sure, but I won’t be doing it without protection. And there will not be any more marking going on, either. You’ll keep your teeth to yourself and not on me. Understand?”