Bound By Desire (The Acadian Curse) (4 page)

She slid her lips back down him, her mouth
burning with the prolonged stretch of muscles. Her eyes watered and
her flesh cried for release.

Her hips moved, reaching for something that
wasn't there. She ground against her own hand, speeding her
release. She began to shatter just as his shaft slid against the
back of her throat. She struggled to keep herself upright as
white-hot pleasure ripped through her.

Her knees slipped underneath her, pushing
through the layer of hay on the floor. They struck hard against the
wood boards beneath. She would have bruises the next morning, but
it didn’t matter. There was no morning. There was only this
moment.

The sound of creaking chains filled Sarah’s
ears. She looked up to see his taut muscles flexing and straining
the limits of the steel. It was obvious that he didn’t relish his
bondage. He wasn’t satisfied with simply commanding her, he wanted
his dominate her with his body, she realized. She wanted it
too.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Not tonight. The
steel that bound him was just too strong. Grant had done a thorough
of jailing his demon.

Sarah picked up the tempo of her strokes. If
he couldn’t have freedom, she could at least give him this. Every
time she buried his shaft in her mouth she felt the tremble in his
legs increase.

She delved down him one last time, and his
core shook. His groan rumbled through her. His cock jerked in her
mouth. His hips jolted forward. Salty cum shot over her tongue.
Sarah swallowed but not fast enough. Rivulets of cum ran down her
cheeks, mixing with her tears.

Sarah looked up into those green eyes. Their
color had deepened. The passion that shone there not only remained,
but it burned hotter.

Sarah lifted her arm to wipe her face
clean.

"Leave it,” he said.

She obeyed. Tension still crackled in the air
between them. His chains were still pulled taut at his side. The
ache inside her had lessened but the sense of emptiness remained.
Their momentary gratification had resolved nothing. This was far
from over.

Sarah didn’t rise to her feet. Instead she
shuffled backwards, until her back rested against the far wall. She
pulled her knees into her chest. Emotions tumbled wildly inside
her, one after another. Using her arms as a pillow, she rested her
head.

She didn’t need to look up to know that the
creature was still looking at her. She could feel its gaze, hard
and merciless, on her. It went against everything that she thought
she knew about herself, but Sarah found that she actually liked
being the focus of this creature’s attention. She was too tired to
reason out why. Excuses and explanations could wait until
morning.

"Go ahead and sleep. But come back to me
tomorrow night,” he said. His voice was softer, much softer than
before, though no less sure.

Sarah nodded. Then she closed her eyes and
fell asleep under the comforting blanket of his stare.

Grant opened his eyes. The familiar ache in
his arms burned a path to down his chest. It was barely dawn. A
pale hazy light bathed the stables. The sun probably hadn’t even
peeked up above the horizon. He could hear the rustle of animals
just beginning to wake in their stalls.

He slipped his hands from the oversized rings
above his head and rubbed at the deep red marks on his wrists where
the unforgiving metal had bit into his skin. Even after all this
time, it still amazed him that his change was so pronounced. If
anything he was growing bigger.

Grant glanced at the wall. The bolts still
held but just barely. Cement dust littered the floor of the stall,
evidence that he had strained the emergency system to its limits.
He would have to reinforce the wall, maybe switch out the chains
for a higher gauge. But they had held, and in the end that was all
that mattered.

It was the first thing that he had changed
when he bought the ranch. He had only been caught out in the open
once before when the change had come upon him, and he would be
damned before he let that happen again. If any of the ranch hands
had found the manacles and chains that he hid in here they had kept
their discovery to themselves. He didn’t care what anyone thought,
just so long as they never found out the truth.

Grant twisted at the waist, pulling his arm
across his chest, trying to stretch some of the soreness from the
muscles. He froze.

She was here. Sarah McIntire.

She was still curled up in the small ball
that she’d tucked herself into last night.

Last night.

The memory came back to him as swiftly as a
punch to the gut. Looking down on that ruffle of her honey hair
bobbing up and down on him. The sound of her taking him in. The
feel of her....

Dear god, the feel of it. It had been like
nothing before.

Because he had never let it happen before. He
never let himself be around women when the moon was nearing full.
He could feel the change coming on him a few days before the
creature inside him reared its ugly head. He looked at things
differently. His senses became keener.

And Grant acted appropriately. He took
precautions.

But, not last night. He should have known
from the moment that Dr. Sarah McIntire had stepped out of that
truck that it wouldn’t end well. Had he been in his right mind he
would have forced her back in to the cab and pushed the damned Ford
back down the hill himself if he had to.

It was damn bad timing, that was all—that his
mare had to gone into labor early and just before the full moon had
come up, that Henry McIntire had to go on some fool vacation when
it did, that the country vet had such a tempting daughter. There
was no way he could have expected any of that. Especially that she
would still be here come morning.

The change wasn't pretty. He knew that from
watching his father go through it. But Sarah had seen it and
stayed. Something in the monster’s words must have kept her here.
He couldn't imagine what. His father hadn’t been capable of
anything more than a few incoherent grunts when he wasn’t
raging.

But she had obviously found something to
like. He remembered the feel of the heat of her mouth wrapped
around him as he came in her mouth.

A groan fell from Grant’s lips before he
could stop it.

Damn.

Her head popped up. It took a few seconds for
the fog of sleep to dissipate from her eyes. Mascara was smeared
across her cheeks, but they were no longer as red and swollen as
they had been when she’d pulled away from him last night.

His body tightened with a surge of desire at
the remembered image.

"Grant?" she asked slowly.

“Yep.” He stepped forward and offered her his
hand. She eyed it with equal parts suspicion and relief, but after
a long moment, she took it. He pulled her to her feet.

She rose slowly. Her body had to be nearly as
sore as his. Nearly half of her sandy blonde hair was pulled from
her ponytail. Her clothes were wrinkled and stained. She was a
mess, and yet he still felt a nearly unbearable pull toward
her.

"Are you all right?” she asked. Her eyes
narrowed as her gaze swept up his exposed body. She was just a
doctor examining a patient, he reminded himself as his blood began
to heat.

“Yeah. How about you?”

Her hands went to her face self-consciously.
The evidence of all they had done had dried against her cheeks.

“I could use a shower,” she said with a shy
smile. “And a cup of coffee.”

Hell, the woman was inviting herself in. Why?
If she had a lick of sense she’d be halfway to the highway by now.
Grant shook his head. “Then we’d best get you on your way, Dr.
McIntire.”

He placed his hand on the small of her back
and started pressing her toward the door.

“Oh, no. You are not shuttling me off as easy
as that,” she said.

Grant sighed. Why did this woman refuse to
see reason? “It would better if you got yourself home.”

“Why? Are you going to change again?”

“Not until tonight.”

“Then we have plenty of time for you to
answer all of my questions.”

Her knees locked in place as her heels dug
down.

“But—”

“Mr. LaCroix, because of you I am filthy, I
am tired, and I am terribly confused. Now by my reasoning you owe
me a shower, a cup of coffee and a shit load of answers, and there
is no way in hell you are getting rid of me until I have all of
those things.”

Sarah stepped out of the bathroom and
followed the smell of coffee down the long hallway. That might have
been the best shower that she’d ever had in her life. Her
fingertips and toes were all pruned, but all that hot water
cascading over her aching shoulders had felt too good to cut
short.

A fresh set of clothes had worked wonders as
well. She’d grabbed them from the truck after checking in on her
patient and her foal. She had been happy to see that both were
doing just fine She had learned from her father to always bring
along a spare set of clothes to a call in case things got messy,
and last night certainly qualified as messy. They were wrinkled
from being balled up in a rucksack, but they were clean, and right
now that was all that mattered. She hadn’t even bothered packing up
the old ones. She’d just balled them up and threw them in the
trash.

Even though the coffee called to her, Sarah
walked slowly down the hallway. Exposed dark wood beams lined the
walls. The doors were heavy with rustic brass handles. Every trace
of the old Anderson house was gone, and in its place was a
masculine fortress. The house only made Sarah wonder more about the
man who had built it.

She found Grant in the kitchen standing over
the stove. The aroma of sautéing mushrooms and sausage filled the
air. He didn’t look up as she stepped into the kitchen, but he did
push a full mug of coffee across the counter toward her, and that
was enough acknowledgment for her.

“I didn’t know how you take it,” he said.

“Black is fine.”

“I was hungry. I thought you might be too, so
I’m making eggs.”

“It smells wonderful.”

Sarah took the mug and found a seat on a high
stool by the kitchen’s center island. She lifted the coffee and
uttered a little moan of pleasure with the first sip. Grant’s head
popped up.

“Thank you for the coffee,” she said.

He muttered a reply under his breath, and
Sarah was pretty sure it wasn’t “
you’re welcome.”

His shoulders sagged, and he went back to
poking at the pan. He’d changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a
T-shirt. Sarah eyes him up and down. In the light of day he seemed
like an ordinary man. Okay, maybe not like an
ordinary
man,
maybe more like any other extraordinarily handsome man.

“So you’ve had your shower, and you have your
coffee. So, I guess it’s time for you to get started on those
questions.”

Sarah looked down into her mug. Now that the
time had come, she wasn’t sure where to begin. She took a deep
breath. Maybe it was best to start with the question that had
plagued her the most.

“Does it hurt?”

He straightened up and turned around. His
brows pulled together. “When I change?”

Sarah nodded.

“Not really. It feels a little strange, but
it’s been happening so long now that I’m used to it,” he said.

"It happens often?"

"Every full moon, all three days.”

"Every month you chain yourself to a wall in
your stables?"

"No. I built a special room below the house.
It’s reinforced with steel, and the locks are all on timers. The
stall in the stables was just in case of an emergency. I never
needed to use it before last night.”

He grabbed a couple of plates out of the
cupboard by his side and divvied up the contents of the pan between
them.

“So you spend three nights out of every
months locked up in an underground cage?”

“Pretty much.”

He turned and gave Sarah her plate. He put
his on the island directly opposite her, and remained standing. He
kept his eyes on his food. It was obvious he was uncomfortable with
her here, but it was hard to tell if it was simple embarrassment
that plagued him or if went deeper, all the way to shame.

Sarah took a bite of her breakfast. An
amazing combination of flavors melted across her tongue. It
appeared that Grant LaCroix was a man of many talents.

“This is delicious,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders but didn’t glance
up. “It was the least I could do, Dr. McIntire. As you said, I owed
you.”

“Considering everything that happened last
night, I think we can probably be on a first name basis.”

He nodded noncommittally and shoveled another
forkful of eggs into his mouth. A thought sprang up in Sarah’s
head.

“Can you remember anything after you change?”
she asked.

He took his time chewing and swallowing.
Sarah had the distinct feeling that he was debating whether or not
to tell the truth. When he looked up his eyes were steady.

“I remember everything.” His slow drawl
lingered on the last word.

Sarah fought the heated blush that started in
her cheeks but soon raced all her core. She forced herself not to
glance away.

“What exactly happened to you last night?
This thing you changed into, he said it was a curse, but what
exactly does that mean?”

His jaw tensed as he looked back down at his
breakfast. He poked at the eggs with his fork for a moment before
giving up and let it clatter onto the plate.

“I’ve never talked about any of this to
anyone outside of my family before,” he said, propping his arms up
on the island.

“Well, at least you don’t have to worry that
I won’t believe you.”