Excessive Force (Force of Nature Series) (13 page)

“Do you want to come?” She nodded
, no longer capable of speech, at least anything that made sense. “If I let you come, will you let me fuck you again? Take you from behind while I play with this pretty pussy of yours.”

“Anything.
Please anything. I need to come.” She screamed when he bit her clit, and when he commanded her to come, she felt as if she were poised on a great mountain and was ready to freefall when suddenly she did just that. She came so hard, for so long that her voice was thick with it, her body like a coiled spring that when she let go the second time and then the third, it was all she could do to hang onto consciousness.

But he wasn’t finished with her. Almost as soon as he let her go
, she was being flipped to her belly. His hands jerked her hips up almost as soon as she could get her knees under her, and he was deep inside of her before she could take a breath. And then he covered her with his body.

“I love having you this way.”
He nipped at her earlobe when he whispered in her ear. “You’re mine and now that I have you here, I’m going to never let you go.”

“
I don’t want to leave you.” She realized in that moment that she didn’t. “I won’t leave you. I swear. I love you, Reid.”

“And I you.” He moved slowly
, making her ache again, her need spiking up until she wanted him to let her come again. “You’re in heat. I didn’t know that before or even with the damage you sustained that you’d do that, but Christ, my wolf knows it and wants to fuck you.”

The pain of not being able to give him children ran th
rough her, but he didn’t let her dwell on it. When she started to pull away, he growled low and told her not to leave him.

“
Your scent is so sweet right now. The smell of your skin is like spring in Washington when the cherries are in bloom.” Her body started to respond to his words, and she moved back with each of his forward strokes. “I want you to mark me, Jodie. I want to feel your teeth sink into my flesh and tear at me. Will you mark me?”

She nodded
, and he moved off her to roll over. As soon as she was on her back, she lifted her knees to her chest as he filled her again. Reid offered her his throat, and when he did, she licked along the pounding vein until she found his pulse. As soon as he told her, screamed really, that he was coming, she sank her fangs deep into his throat and drank from him. This time when she came, she barely sealed the wounds with her tongue before she let the darkness take her.

She woke once when he laid her on the bed.
Curling into him when he laid down beside her felt like the most natural thing in the world. And when he wrapped his arms around her, she snuggled deep into his body and heard his heart beating under her ear. She was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.

He moved once
, reached for something on the night stand, but pulled her back to him when he had it. Before she closed her eyes, knowing that she’d sleep well, he lifted her chin up to look at her.

“I love you.”
Reid kissed her nose. “And I wanted to know if you’d marry me. I meant to ask you before we went out of doors tonight, but you distracted me.”

He slipped the ring over her finger
, and then kissed it before she looked at it. “Good Christ. Where did you get this thing?”

He laughed when he held her hand up to look at the ring as it sparkled around
the room, the lights from the fireplace making it shine. “It was in the things Phil sent here today. It was in my family’s things, but he said that as far as he could tell, my mother never wore it. I think it was my father’s mother’s. It was in a safety deposit box that hadn’t been opened since she passed away when I was little. Phil made sure that I had it for you. So you like it?”

It was yellow gold and old. Four diamonds surrounded the emerald in the middle
, and a sapphire, dark blue in brilliance, cradled the tiffany setting of the diamonds. It was simply the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The lines of script on the inside were nearly unreadable, but Reid read them to her.

“My love for you is
in perpetuity, my life is yours but for the asking.”
He kissed her again, gently and as if she were fragile. “And it is as true of me to you as it was to the person who wrote this for her.”

Chapter 13

Curt was a wanted man.
He read the article twice before he realized that they were talking about him when they said that there was a manhunt out for him, and that he was considered armed and dangerous. First of all, he had no gun or even a paperclip right now, so the armed part was a lie, and how on earth did they even think that he was dangerous? It wasn’t his fault that Mike had egged him on.

“You’re going to leave here as soon as it’s dark.”
Curt looked up at the man who’d brought him here in the first place. “You’re no longer welcome here, and frankly, you’re useless to me. I can’t even use you as good bait to get Jodie to come to me. She dislikes you as much as I do, and that is a great deal.”

“You said you needed my help.”
Ethan shook his head and moved to the little table that had been set up with their dinner. Curt moved to the table as well and noticed that there was only one place setting, and Ethan was sitting at it.

“I’m afraid you’re on your own for your meals as well. I will no longer take the chance of anyone seeing you here with me. I will not go to jail for a moron like you.”
Curt started to tell him he was no such thing when Ethan continued. “You’ll be gone by midnight or I’ll make sure that you’re permanently gone. As in dead if you don’t.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?
I gots no money and I gots nothing to drive around in. My brother stole all my money and that’s why I killed him.” Ethan cut into his steak, and Curt felt his mouth water. “You really ain’t going to feed me either?”

“I am not.
You’re of no use to me, and I should have known that before bringing you here. It is entirely my fault, I will admit that. I should have checked to see what your relationship with that girl was before investing my time into bringing you to my hotel.” Ethan took another bite of his steak with a piece of his potato and chewed it completely before continuing. “You’ll see that I’m right. Why would you want to endanger me when you’ve fucked things up so badly for you?”

Curt sat down. He
didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about, and worse yet, he knew he was going to be living on the streets in a few hours. Maybe he could go and find his sister and ask her for help, but he was kind of afraid of her boyfriend and what he might do to him. He looked down at his clothes and wondered if the man would give him something to wear better than this, or would he be expected to be naked again.

“You’ll be given a nice set of clothes
, but new ones, not mine. I do not want my DNA on any part of you.” Curt nodded, not really sure why he thought he’d be giving him his germs, but said nothing. “And I’ll give you…I was going to say a hundred dollars, but why would I do that? I’ll give you twenty, and hopefully you’ll be able to keep that for longer than it takes you to leave this building.”

“It wasn’t my fault that my brother took my money.”
Ethan only nodded at him as he bit down into a flaky roll. “Can I just have one more dinner? I swear to you I’ll go right afterwards.”

Ethan
continued to eat his meal, and when he was done, he left nothing on the plate and used his roll to clean up anything that might have been there. Curt tried hard not to hear his belly screaming at him. And when Ethan set the trays on the little trolley and put it in the hallway, Curt thought about attacking him for not even giving a shit he was hungry.

Curt stood up and moved toward the man. He could feel the room tighten as if he was planning to shift
, and that confused him enough that he stopped. It was probably the only thing that saved him.

The light that came from Ethan’s fingertips startled him for a second. When it touched his arm
, it felt as if he’d been branded by a hot iron. Curt started screaming even as he moved toward the man. As soon as he had his fingers around his throat, he was tossed away as if he weighed no more than a loaf of bread. He hit the other wall hard and heard the glass breaking as he slipped to the floor.

Ethan was speaking
, but Curt had no idea what he was saying. It wasn’t English, he knew that for sure. As soon as he was within touching distance, Curt picked up the leg of the table and slammed it across Ethan’s legs, splintering the wood.

It was his only
chance of getting out alive. As soon as Ethan hit the floor and tumbled back, Curt ran to the door. He could see the book laying there and grabbed it up too. He had no idea if it was worth anything, but knew that Ethan had been reading it like it was War and Pears or some shit like that. He was out the hall and in the closing elevator when he heard the man scream.

Curt ran out of the hotel just as the police pulled up in front.
He was stopped for a second, and he told them that there was a giant snake in the lobby. They let him go and took off running, pulling their guns as he went. He had no idea what they’d been called for, but he was down the street five blocks when he finally slowed. Christ, he was too fat for this shit.

The book was thick
, and he nearly trashed it when he realized that it was just a notebook with pages and pages of drawings that made no sense to him and words that looked like they were foreign. But he slipped it into his pant waist band and walked toward the outskirts of town. Maybe he’d try to sell it back to the prick.

Curt walked into the little store at the corner. He
didn’t have any money, but he thought he could steal something little and maybe feel a little less faint. When he entered, there was a man standing at the register with a gun pointed toward the woman behind the counter. Curt stared at the man for a full five seconds before he pointed the gun at him.

“You, get on the floor.”
Curt looked down and saw five other people there and two kids. “You deaf? I said get the fuck on the floor.”

“I
ain’t gonna do that. This is all I have to wear and that floor looks nasty.” Curt looked at the gunman again and decided he’d had enough people shitting on him for one day and leapt at the man, knocking the gun out of his hand. Before he knew it, he was pounding the guy’s head in, and two people were trying to pull him off.

“You got him. I don’t think he’s going to get up.”
The man that had been lying on the floor smiled as he helped him stand up. “You saved our lives.”

“Nah.”
Curt felt foolish and tried to go to the door to leave. “I just wanted something to eat. I gotta go now.”

The man stopped him and handed him twenty dollars. While Curt was trying to
figure out what the catch was, the woman that had been behind the counter started pulling things off the shelves and handed him three bags of food and drinks. He was given seventy more dollars before he told him that he was in trouble with the cops and had to leave, the sirens were already screaming down the street. He slipped out the back door just as one of the cop cars came to a screeching stop. Curt was eating a candy bar and drinking a cold beer before he was a block away.

~~~

Reid watched Jodie carefully. She’d been sitting there staring out the window for nearly an hour now, and he was worried about her. He’d even called Nancy to come over, but she had been in the kitchen cooking since she’d taken one look at Jodie. He started to move to her when Nancy came into the room.

“Come with me.”
Nancy helped Jodie stand and led her to the kitchen. Reid followed but didn’t touch her. Jodie seemed so fragile, and he was afraid for her.

“When did they find him?”
Reid looked up at Nancy when Jodie asked. “My brother, when did they find him?”

“They police were at the house and left soon after the two of them were escorted off the property.
Dan…he’s the cop friend…said that they were pissed off but he didn’t think it was directed at each other. Just…well, just you and Austin.”

“He killed him.
Curt killed Mike for probably no more than the hundred bucks I gave them.” Reid had told her about the money being found at the scene. She’d only nodded at him then, and he wondered if she’d remembered he said that. Then she spoke again. “He’ll be desperate for money now. Curt never was one to earn a living if stealing it was much easier. I would bet that he wanted the money from Mike and he wouldn’t give it to him and attacked him.”

Nancy sat a cup of tea in front of an empty seat and handed Jodie a glass of water.
He thought the tea was for Nancy, but when someone knocked on the back door, he saw CJ and Austin there. Behind them were all the Force women, including Holly.

Austin motioned for him to go into the other room with him.
When he hesitated, Nancy gave him a gentle shove, and he went. As much as he loved this family, he wanted to be near Jodie a good deal more than his alpha right now.

“CJ told me that she and the others are taking her out.
She said that it’s about time they all got to know her, and this is the perfect day for it.” Reid shook his head. “You can tell me no if you want, I don’t give a shit. But if you think I’m telling my mate that you said no, you’re fucking stupid. She’s doing this.”

“She’s out of it.”
Austin nodded as he sat down. “I mean she just sat there staring out as if she was…. Fuck I don’t know. She didn’t take this like I thought she would.”

“Because you love your family and she doesn’t.
That’s more than likely what’s bothering her. Not that he’s dead, but that it doesn’t bother her like she thinks it should.” Austin leaned back in the chair and pulled out a cigar and put it in his mouth. He’d been doing that since Reid had known him. Never lighting it, just putting it there and savoring it, he supposed. Reid shook his head before he said anything.

“She said she’d marry me.”
Austin congratulated him. “Now all I have to do is figure out how to contact her father and ask him if I can. Do you suppose Phil can help me?”

“Phil can help you what?”
The man in question appeared in the room just as Tristan did. “Something has happened and we need your help. But what did you need?”

Reid looked at Tristan
, who looked like he’d been pole axed. Something was up, something major, and Reid would bet his last dollar that it had something to do with Jodie and her family. He started to ask when Jodie came into the room along with CJ.

“Where is he?”
She looked at him, then at Tristan. “Where is he? I have to find him before he sells it. You do know that he has the book, right? If he does, he’s in danger of Ethan finding him and getting it back.”

Book?
Reid stood up and started to say something when he was suddenly sitting with his head between his knees. He could hear shouting but not really able to make things out. When he was able to lift his head, Jodie was on her knees in front of him.

“You just got hit with it, didn’t you?” She smiled. “I told you last night that it was coming. You had to be careful.”

“What the fuck just happened?” He glanced at Austin, who was being held back by CJ and Tristan. “You morphed into about ten different people, then fainted. What the fuck is going on?”

“He’s a shifter. And if I don’t miss my guess, which I don’t often, he’s just had a dose of overload.”
Phil lifted his head and looked him in the eye. “Do you feel all right?”

“Yeah.”
Reid stood up and then sat back down. He felt all right but a little dizzy. He looked at Jodie. “She told me last night that once my body accepted the shifter in me that it would have to try it out before it gave me control. I think I have it now.”

Reid looked at CJ and thought that would be too freaky and stared at Austin.
He knew the moment that he’d become the big man when everyone took a step back. Then he let himself go to become Tristan, then Phil. He settled back into his own body and pulled Jodie to him.

“Mother fuck.”
Reid nodded at Austin when he spoke. “You can be anyone? I mean that’s…you can…mother fuck.”

“Yeah, that
about covers it.” Reid looked around the room. “I’m really sorry that I frightened you all. But Jodie is a shifter that has special abilities, and when we became mates and bonded, then of course I got them as well. She’s been showing me other things I can—”

“Don’t.
Not right now. I just don’t think I can handle you shifting into anything like a table or something.” Austin raised his hand when Reid started to speak. Poor Austin, he looked slightly green. Austin cleared his throat before he continued. “What is this about a book? He didn’t get the one from your mom, did he Phil?”

“No. it’s safe.”
Phil looked at Jodie, then at him before speaking. “It’s a book of spells. Ethan’s book as a matter of fact. It’s normally protected by the one who owns it. But once it’s out of his hands and into someone else’s, then…well then it’s sort of a beacon to anyone who has a great deal of magic. Like me and Tristan. Like Jodie and Reid now.”

“Most people with magic only have a few spells, twenty or so
, but not too many past that.” Jodie started pacing as she spoke. “A mage has hundreds. Some of them need ingredients to make them work, and others need markings or items not found but made by the mage. They have to write them down, perfect them by putting notes on them. They have to keep meticulous notes on the spells they weave in the event that they may someday have to break the spell.”