Breanna (21 page)

He wanted their office finished and he wanted his brain occupied, although an exhausting run wouldn’t be a bad idea right now. Someplace where whatever he chose to kill didn’t have the rights to protest his fury.

“What the hell happened?” Nick came from the direction of the kitchen half an hour later, the destructive storm brewing in his gaze evident. “She’s tearing around there like that damn pink bunny. Hannah came to me, not sure if I knew or if it was my fault.”

“Milford hit her,” Jase watched the claws on his usually calm friend pop free. He threw the paper he’d taken from him to the surface of the desk. “He had that on him.

He intended to take her. Steve was there and saw the whole thing.” Nick glared at the paper. “He’s alive?”

“He had a couple run ins with my fist, but he’s alive,” Jase admitted regrettably.

His head shook. “It might not have been me that killed him, Nick. I could feel the energy vibrating from Brea. She had complete control, but it wouldn’t have taken much for her to do something that he wouldn’t have gotten up from. If she’d been raised a different person…”

He let the sentence hang. They’d both met enough humans of all kinds with no regard for life. If for nothing else but a stereo or wrong look.

261

“Hannah needs to know. About the whole thing, Jase. I think we got damn lucky that her parents are still alive,” Nick paced across the shining hardwood floor. “I don’t know how to help her. And if she won’t tell Hannah….”

“Tell me what?” Hannah stood near the kitchen archway, bright eyes meeting both of theirs. She listened to the story Jase related and nodded. “That explains why she went for a run. She needed a way to work out the energy and that’s always been her choice. I….” she hesitated. “I came to ask one of you to go after her. Keep an eye on her. Please.”

“The police are semi aware of the problem, Hannah. They’ll keep an eye out in town,” Jase promised, standing up and nodding. “I could use a run, too.”

“I’ll work on the mail and appointments. I had a call from Matt, the office should be just about finished by next Friday,” Nick told him, sinking to his chair and taking the stack of mail. “We won’t let anything happen to her, Hannah.”

“She’s so stubborn,” she sighed. “I’m sure she takes after her father,” she said with a little shrug.

“I’m not touching that line, Hannah,” Nick said with a laugh, listening to Jase chuckle as he went toward the back of the house and the laundry room exit.

262

Brea knew why she was running.

She felt the power burning inside her.

How had they kept it hidden from her for so very long? She’d had enough emotion based confrontations in her life. This wasn’t something new.

Okay, it was a little new to have someone put out a reward to take her.

Not something a nice, girl-next door had stuck on her. Probably didn’t look good on a resume. She sighed and inhaled deeply. She loved their property, especially as she went further inland, higher where the air was cool and filled with the natural scents of the forest.

Brea came to a stop by a large collection of wide, flat rocks. She climbed to the highest one and stretched out, the sun warmed rock making her sigh and relax.

Then she heard the growl. She rolled to her stomach, crawling carefully to the edge and staring over it. Bright, large eyes stared back. A deep, chocolate brown that watched her. She watched the crème and silver wolf pick his way among the rocks, reaching to top and standing very still.

Brea watched, fascinated. She heard the faintest of scraping and popping noises; she watched the paws vanish. She saw the blended shades of fur quickly shimmer and form flesh, strong flesh spreading and covering the man watching her. Evidently being 263

nude didn’t seem to faze shifters, she thought with a little gulp, working to keep her eyes on his face. On the uneven cut of his blonde hair he raked back from his forehead before taking a step closer and dropping to sit at her side.

“Did mother send you to fetch me?”

“She asked that one of us watch out for you,” he admitted. “She’s worried that you wouldn’t talk to her, Brea.”

“They’ve spent their lives worrying about me, Jase. I think it’s my turn to worry about myself,” she told him, rolling to her back and staring at the blue sky. Sun dappled down on them, the faintest of breezes rippling through the forest trees above.

“I’m not sure it works that way with parents, babe,” Jase stretched out at her side, his palm stroking down her arm and twining his fingers with hers.

“I think I knew that, but…..it’s different, Jase. So many people could be hurt because of this,” Brea closed her eyes, letting the sweet mixture of warmth and cool surround her. “I don’t know how to make it right.”

“Do you think any of us are going to let you do this alone, Brea? Do you think you can get rid of me and Nick that easy? Or your parents. It’s a package deal,” he leaned closer, his fingers brushing the thin strap of her top to the edge of her shoulder.

Brea smiled and didn’t open her eyes.

“I know that, too. But it doesn’t feel right to unload on them. Someone tried to kill them, too,” she sighed, his palm turned her face toward him. His thumb stroked over the full bow of her lower lip.

“Do you want to talk about it, Brea?” The grin he offered reminded her of his 264

wolf.

“Not right now. I think you’re deliberately distracting me,” she whispered, the heat from his touch spreading through her middle to the spot between her thighs. Her hips shifted slightly, the scent of her arousal blending with the forest around them.

“Your mother said you had a great deal of energy to burn off. I could feel your power when we were in town, Brea. It’s amazing.”

“It’s frightening, Jase. I…I felt it like…..like a river raging through me. Screaming for me to fight back but I knew if I did….if I let it go…” her voice fell off to a whisper.

“I know. It’s why I held you so tight. Let it pour into me, babe. I don’t want you having to go through the pain and guilt.”

“Did you? Ever….” She dragged her tongue around her lips. “Fight back and someone died? Because I knew if I fought back, I’m not sure I could have controlled it enough to pull it. To stop it from killing him.” Jase lowered his forehead to the cap of her shoulder.

“Have I killed, yes. It’s not an easy thing even when the other person deserved it. And it never leaves you alone, Brea. I don’t want those kind of memories for you.”

“I bet people don’t see you as the sweet one,” she rolled to her side, lifting her arms and wrapping them around his neck.

“Shh…..you’ll wreck my reputation. And Nick will be devastated,” he told her with a wink.

“Oh, he’s sweet. But you work hard to hide it and pretend it’s not there,” she pressed against him, her mouth moving against his while his palm stroked down her 265

side and onto her ass, pulling her hard against the erection that had been swelling between them. “You want everyone to believe you’re such a hard ass….but you don’t frighten me, Jase.”

“I don’t think you frighten easily, Brea…..and it was never my intent to frighten you,” he rolled to his back, pulling her along with him and running both hands down her flanks.

“Oh, I think it’s your intent if you believed you could reign me in,” she told him with a soft laugh. She didn’t resist when his palm gripped the edge of her tank top and pulled it over her head, dropping to his side. His palms began at her shoulders and pressed hotly down her spine and into the running shorts she wore.

“That would be a serious mistake on my part.”

“I bet you’ve controlled all your relationships.”

“Are you fishing?” He laughed, parting his thighs and letting her legs slide between them. His thumbs hitched in her shorts, his muscles tensing on his abdomen and angling himself up and sliding the fabric down her legs.

“Are you evading?” She countered, raising one knee along his body. Brea put her palms flat on the rock, using her strength to level herself over him, sliding the damp center along his erection, her lashes dropping, her head back and groan low. “You both make me feel so sexy….almost like I’m a different person when I’m with you….like I’m free to be whatever I want.”

“You’ll always be free, Brea, I promise you that. But I think there are times you enjoy being controlled,” he whispered hoarsely, his hands gripping her ass tightly, 266

manipulating her lower body while letting her ride the hard length of him. He felt her jump slightly when the head of his cock rubbed heavily over her clit.

“Maybe,” Brea answered honestly, gasping and supping in a deep breath.

“Jase….”

“More, baby? Tell me what you want.”

Jase watched her eyes darken, those thick tawny lashes narrowed.

Oh, his mate was smart. And stubborn.

He laughed, his hands on her hips, keeping her from seating him inside her.

“Tell me, Brea….what do you want?”

“Touch me,” she ordered with a groan, her gaze locked on his and her hips trying to stroke along his cock.

“I am…..I have my hands on your waist….very soft skin….” He murmured seductively, his eyes burning with intensity. “Tell me, Brea…..show me, baby….” He felt his cock harden when she ran her tongue around her lips, her palms slowly releasing his wrists and moving to her breasts, letting the small, full mounds fill her hands before her fingers brushed around the pink areola.

Jase groaned. He felt the hot syrup sliding down his cock, the swollen petals parting to let him slide through the snug center. The intoxicating sensuality of the silken, smooth flesh rubbing along the straining flesh of his erection was almost too much to continue the game.

But he had more control than that.

She had been right about his nature in that regard.

267

“Bend forward.”

His voice was hard, low and vibrating when she continued to look at him through the passion aroused eyes, her body limbering leaning forward. Her palms continued to stroke and her fingers caught the aroused, puckered nipples over and over. She leaned forward, still holding her breasts, tiny low whimpers breaking from deep in her throat.

Jase groaned, his face pressed between them before his mouth moved and took one of the ripe berries between his lips, his teeth nipping just sharp enough to make her body jump. And jump just enough to seat his cock at the hot entrance flowing with fairy syrup.

Two low, hungry groans echoed off the rustling branches above them.

Brea loved the feel of him. Gliding inside her slowly, hard and demanding entrance. Then his teeth nipped at her again. Her sex clutched at him, gripped and pulled. Something his body was unable to fight much longer.

Jase stroked over her sides, closing around her at the same time his mouth took in as much of that sweet nipple as he could. He felt the quaking inside her; felt the soft flutter of her walls clinging to him, forcing him deeper. He held on to her, arched his hips and sunk his cock inside the hot sheath in one long, hard thrust.

“Jase!”

Perfect, he groaned against her breast, the heat from the soft panting above him sending his body impossibly harder. He lifted his head, letting her body form to his as the hard contractions of the orgasm beginning in a low, pelting strum.

Brea arched against him shoving down and closing her eyes, taking the slow 268

rush building within her. His name echoed around her when he withdrew; when he moved her hips; when he plunged hungrily inside. Long, hard thrusts that had the spiral upward ripped from their control and breaking over them.

“So tight…..hot and wet…..ahhhh….Brea…..”

He was almost frantic when the convulsing walls gripped him, squeezed him past the level he’d imagined possible, the pleasure shot through him with his own eruption.

The pounding of his hips against hers, the thunder of their heartbeats as his body shot load after load, releasing him with each thrust inside her.

His arms wrapped around her, their labored breathing deep as they both worked to gather the air that just evaporated in the heat of sex. Jase groaned when Brea slowly unfolded her legs and stretched out on top of him, her face pressed to the spot between his shoulder and throat. His body gave a jolt of surprise when she nipped at the soft spot there. Hard.

“Was this your prescription for helping me burn off energy?” Brea lifted her head and grinned down at him.

“Always glad to help out, beautiful,” Jase kissed her, soft and lingering. “We should get back. You need to talk to your mother, Brea. I understand the urge to protect her, even to shield her. But you don’t hide your feelings well enough and you worry people who care about you.”

She sighed and laid her head down.

“I didn’t mean to make people worry.”

“Talk to your mother, babe. She can help you with answers about the power 269

thing. I don’t know how,” his palms stroked tenderly down the narrow column of her spine.

“I will,” she nodded and straightened up, sitting astride him and stretching her arms high above her head before using the muscles in her legs to stand up.

Both of them groaned at the loss of heat and more.

She quickly gathered her two pieces of clothing and went toward the wide stream, the tinkling sound of the water falling between the rocks and trees. She didn’t see him shift behind her and come up to drink while she used the very cold water to clean up a little. Brea dressed quickly and headed down the wide path toward the house, her wolf running ahead. She was grinning when she reached the kitchen door and he continued around the house to the laundry room entrance.

Brea went to find her mother and talk. And think. Something was off and she only knew one person who could answer the puzzle that had popped into her head during her run.

270