Craving Her (Keeping Her Series Book 4) (19 page)

***

Lucas watched the man
come at him shifting, his roar as much of a warning of his intentions as the
open maw of Gerent’s lion’s jaw coming at his face.  The man was a pride leader
so his lion was nearly the size of Lucas’ when he shifted, but he lacked the
muscled bulk that he needed for the move.  

Too much sitting at a
desk directing others to do his dirty work
, Lucas thought
grimly, his lip raising on a sneered growl over sharp teeth.  He didn’t move
out of the way.  He reached up and wrapped his clawed hands around the thickly-maned
neck and stopped him cold mid-air.  He could feel his muscles straining as
Gerent fought to get to him.  His teeth snapping and his claws scraping against
anywhere he could find purchase.  Lucas felt the slashing pain but ignored it,
holding the lion as he looked directly into his nearly feral eyes.  He squeezed
and watched Gerent’s expression turn to panic when the fucker realized he
couldn’t breathe.  He pulled the lion closer, ignoring the blood that was
streaming down his leg and sides from all the slashing he was taking.  None of
it penetrated the swelling tide of heated rage behind his eyes.  “You want to
rip my daughter’s heart out?  Put her in chains and cut her?”  He snapped his
teeth down right in the face of the lion’s ruined nose as he heard those words
in his head again.  “Worried about how much she fucked up your face, Gerent?” 
Lucas bared his teeth in a parody of a smile.  “Least of your problems, fucker.”

Then he squeezed harder,
cracking bone and digging through fur to get to tendons and blood.  He kept
digging and crushing until he reached spine, and then he yanked that out in
handfuls.

It was Ian who stepped
up, slapping his gun on the strap to his back while he looked over what was
left of the pride leader his father was mangling.   He looked from his dad to
the rag that used to be a shifter and cleared his throat.

“Uh, Dad?  You do know
that Miley is going to see you got all cut up?”

Lucas blinked from his
gore-covered hands to his son, who was looking with some satisfaction at the
mangled corpse at his feet. Then to Logan who had his back to the room, while
he watched their backs.  He took in the furrowed lines of claw marks already
healing down his sides and legs.  Blood and gore soaked his shredded clothes,
some his, some not.

He grimaced, thinking
about what Ian had said.  Miley was going to be pissed.  “Shit.” 

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Shawn had his eyes on the
frond trees swaying over them.  Colorful birds flocked above them, but quietly,
knowing that there were predators about, even if the predators were sprawled
lazily together with no interest in moving.

The rock under his back
was hard but cool in the shifting shade.  Even out of direct sun, the humidity
and heat left a fine mist of moisture on their skin.  He was holding Cleo
close, unwilling to let her go despite the heat that kept their skin slick
against each other.  She had her head resting on his chest, her gold hair wild
and curling in the heat, and he kept combing his finger through the soft curls,
loving the feel of it almost as much as the feel of her long legs tangled with
his, and the skin of her side under his wandering hands.

He felt Cleo’s lips smile
against his chest and he looked down at the top of her head, his eyes caressing
the long gold length of her against the darker color of his skin.  Even in the
shade she was almost jewel bright to his appreciative eyes.

“What?” he asked, his own
lips turning up on one side as she left her head on his chest but arched her
graceful neck back to look him in the eyes.

“I was just thinking I
was enjoying my honeymoon,” she said with a small smirk that had him shaking
his head mentally.

He sighed, long and
loud.  “Only you would call guns, kidnapping, and the threat of a forced mating
an enjoyable honeymoon.”

Cleo smiled, scrunching
her nose adorably in thought.  “Well, I was actually talking about being fucked
out of my mind in the tropical jungle.”

Feeling his dick spring
to attention at the words, his eyes moved to the mischievous smile on her
lips.  “You have a solid point,” he muttered.  Clearly his attention had
wandered.  From the flash of heat in the look she flashed him, she liked where
it was headed.  A second later, he had no doubt because she wrapped her hand
along the length of his cock and rubbed her nose up his neck to the base of his
jaw.

“How long do you think it
will take them to find us?” she asked, nibbling the rough skin of his chin. 
She licked at the same time she used her hand to learn the length of him.

He had to clear his
throat before he could speak.  “As soon as I shifted they had the coordinates. 
Once they take the compound and finish Gerent, they will be coming directly
here.”

There goes that adorable
scrunched nose again.  Then she slid all that hot skin over him and straddled
his thighs.  She never released her hold on his cock, and he groaned at the hot
look of her spread open over his thighs.  “I guess I better get busy then,” she
said.  Then she leaned down, her small breasts drawing his eyes to soft gold
skin and dusky pink nipples.  He started to lean up but she was already
wrapping her smiling lips around the tip of his dick. 

At the feel of the moist
heat swallowing his cock, he fell back to the rock.  “Fuck!”

She laughed and he felt
it in his balls.  “Shit! Fuck!”

She laughed again and
then she swallowed him to the back of her throat and sucked.  Then the wicked
temptress purred.  “Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!”

***

Cleo purred again at the
feel of hard, hot man in her mouth.  Another lovely first she can get behind,
especially when she got to look up all that hard warrior body while he writhed
under her lips.  Every inch of him was built for battle, and she was going to
enjoy exploring every bit of him.  Right now she wanted him to lose that
vaulted control of his, and she wanted to be the one who pushed him over the
line.  A little of her own back? Maybe, but working him with her mouth and
hands, she didn’t think he was going to complain.

What she didn’t expect
was him to growl and yank her off him just when it was getting interesting.

“Hey!” she called,
laughing, “I wasn’t finished.”

“Later,” he growled. 
Turning her under him and yanking her legs open around his hips and opened to
him, “I need you with me now.”

When he entered her again
in one thrust, she stopped complaining.  Her fun had prepared both of them and
when she felt how out of control he was, she arched her hips with another smile
and bit his shoulder, meeting him thrust for thrust.

He was so right
,
she thought.  It was exactly what she needed.  The feel of his skin rubbing
along her body, while they breathed together.  The friction of his hard cock
extending her walls in all kinds of pleasurable ways.  Then he hit a spot deep
inside that had her gasping.  Aware of everything as usual, he adjusted to hit
the spot and started to pound.  His lips found hers and he sipped her gasps
from her lips.  This time when the pleasure hit them both, they went together,
and Cleo was held in his eyes, sharing the pleasure until she could not hold
them open any longer and she was gone, and he was yelling his pleasure into her
shoulder as he bit down drawing blood, and the pain sent her into a second wave
of pleasure that had her blacking out if only for a moment.  Her first thought
when she awoke once again, curled in against her mate, was when she looked up
and caught the most self-satisfied smile she had ever seen on Shawn’s face.

“Don’t let it go to your
head, Tweedy,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes at that expression.

“I’ve never given a woman
so much pleasure she blacked out,” he said back, his hand running down her hair
from behind, “I’m basking in my awesome skills.”

She snorted and bit him
again, this time right over the hard nipple on his even harder pecks.  He
hissed and jerked, even while he was laughing.  Even if it was at her expense,
that laugh meant a lot.  Especially when she had been sure she would never hear
it again just a few hours ago.  She smiled, tucking her face against his warm
skin to hide it.  “Your awesome skills, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

She slithered back over
him again, rubbing her hips across his while she found his lips with hers.  Her
hair curtained them on either side of his face, and it added an intimate moment
in a sea of what she was always going to think of as jungle love.

“I guess I need to step
up my game then,” she whispered against the warm wet opening of his mouth.  She
nibbled on his lips, smiling a wicked smile into his happy eyes while her hand
found him.  He was already hard and huge.  This time when she purred, he was
right there to see it, and he jackknifed up so that she was in his lap, her
thighs on either side of his, one soft hand holding his straining cock, the
other wrapping around his neck, while they smiled and kissed.  Just enjoying
each other.

“It’s a hard job,” he
murmured playfully into the skin under her ear.  Then he stuck his tongue in
her ear, making her shiver and growl a little.  “But if you feel the need to
compete, I guess I can lay here and take it.”

That made her laugh, and her
neck arched to give him more room. 

But then he pulled back
and his face went serious, his eyes eating her up and flashing with heat.  His
hands went into the hair on both sides of her face to fist almost painfully. 
His eyes flared as he continued to study her.  She stilled in his hard grip,
the laughter leaving her under the sudden implacable resolve in his.  “I’m not
losing you again,” he said almost mildly.  But the look in his eyes made lie to
the ease in the words. 

She grabbed his wrists
and held on.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I love you.”  The words
could have been small, or off the cuff, fun and flirty, but the way he said it
she could feel the simple words in her blood.  “I always have.  I always will.”

She shuddered out the
breath she had not realized she was holding.  She didn’t want to say it small,
off the cuff, or fun and flirty, so she let herself show him everything in her
eyes.  “I love you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.  “I always have.  I
always will.”  He closed his eyes and dropped his head to hers and breathed her
in.  “Don’t leave me again.”

She nodded against him,
dropped his wrists and closing her own eyes, wrapped her arms around him.  “Don’t
die on me.”

He nodded, wrapped his
hands around her, and pulled her tight into his arms so that they were clinging
together.  Her legs and arms wrapped tight around him, his arms holding her.

“Rain check on the hot
sex,” she murmured against the skin of his neck where her face was pressed.

He started to shake with
laughter, making her smile again.  But he didn’t let go, and neither did she. 
Not for a long time.

***

“Awhhh!  My eyes!”

Since they had smelled
them and heard them some time past coming their way, it was not really a
surprise when Ian stepped into the clearing. 
Annoying, but not super
surprising
, Shawn thought, his eyes going to the boy/man as he came through
the trees.  Since Cleo was lounging in lion form on the rock by herself, and
Shawn was in the river rinsing off, he wasn’t sure what Ian was snarking about. 
But since he came into the clearing with one hand over his eyes, he was pretty
sure Ian didn’t know either.

When nobody else made any
comments, he separated his hand so he could look through the space left between
the fingers.  What he saw must have been different than he expected because he
dropped his hand with a slap to his thigh.

“Dude!  Done already? 
How embarrassing.”

Lucas slapped his son on
the back of his head as he passed him.  Cleo, seeing the blood and slashed
clothing, jumped up and chuffed, her lion eyes narrowing on him.  After looking
her over, he nodded and threw her a pack as Logan passed him.  Without another
word, everyone but Shawn turned their backs and waited for her to shift and
change.  While she was rifling the clothes out of her bag, she fired questions
at her dad.

“How badly are you
injured, and what’s our situation?”  Shawn wanted to smile at the clipped way
she talked when she went into combat mode.  “Please tell me you eviscerated
that fucker Gerent.” 
Fucking adorable,
Shawn thought watching her don
her warrior garb.

When she was dressed,
everyone turned and Lucas and Ian both started answering her questions, Ian in
a less professional way than his father.

“Fuckin A.  Eviscerated
is the word, alright.”

“Gerent and all his men
are dead or out of play.”  Lucas gave his son a look that shut him up fast.  “We
have the chopper heading for a cleared area to pick us up and no one in our
team was permanently damaged.  Demon, Mac, and Ben are meeting us at the
chopper.”  When they were finally close enough, and she had all the pertinent
information, Lucas grabbed his daughter and pulled her into his arms.  He
hugged her tight, shoved her gently back, looking her over, and then pulled her
into another hug.  This one he held, and Shawn felt his own emotions make
themselves known when she wrapped her arms around her dad, closed her eyes and
held on.

After a good long time,
where not even Ian thought to interrupt, Lucas pushed her back again just as
gently.  “He didn’t hurt you?”

She snorted, and Shawn
wanted to laugh at the familiar answer to the same question he had asked.  “He’s
lucky; I wanted him to suffer, or I would have done more than hold his heart in
my hand, and bite off his nose.”

Watching them, Shawn knew
what Lucas was looking for.  Pain, devastation, loss; what he saw was Cleo in
all her glory.

Finally, seeing the blood-thirsty
gleam in her eyes and understanding that she was really unharmed, Lucas seemed
to breathe easier and something in his eyes softened, his shoulders dropping
just that little bit.  Then he chucked Cleo on her chin and bared his teeth in
something that resembled a smile.  “That’s my girl.”

When Lucas finally turned
to head out, Ian stepped up and unexpectedly swept his sister up and into his
arms, too.  Cleo flailed a bit, looking a little panicked.  When her wheeling
eyes found his above her brother’s shoulder, she mouthed a silent “What the
fuck?” his way while awkwardly patting her brother’s back.  Just as fast, she
was back on the ground teetering only a little, while her brother turned to
follow Lucas away from the clearing.

Lucas stepped up next,
but he just looked her over and smiled.  “Saw what you did to Gerent,” he
finally said, his mouth twitching with suppressed humor, “remind me never to
get on your bad side.”  Then he, too, turned to head out, his hand making one
swipe down her wild hair in affection.  She watched them disappear and turned
to look at Shawn, who had been handed clothes from someone while she was
distracted because he was dressed in the commando black of the rest of them.

“Ready?” he asked,
putting his hand out for hers.  She looked at the departing men, then his hand,
then she met his eyes and smiled, taking the proffered hand.

“Ready,” she answered,
and they followed the others.

Shawn caught her looking
behind them once, and he nudged her forward.  “Come on, kitten.  The faster I
get you home, the faster we can get back to the raincheck sex you called.”

“Awwh!  My ears!”  They
both heard Ian from far ahead of them and this time it was almost funny. 
Especially when they heard the
whack,
and, the “Ow, shit!” that
followed.