Jared (28 page)

She was finding she didn’t have a choice. Even though
it was completely embarrassing to know everything she was experiencing was
transferring to Jared, she was helpless to stop it. He demanded everything from
her. Another pinch of his finger, another buck of her hips. An answering groan
from him. He pulled her against him. So close she could feel the beat of his
heart, the depth of his breath. He wanted her. So much it was a need, yet
beneath the desire, there was the hum of determination. Was he counting on this
to change anything?

“Jared?”

“I thought we weren’t thinking.”

He was right; tonight was just about the pleasure they
could give each other. She linked her arms around his neck, pressing her breast
deeper into his grip, feeling his heat and strength all along her torso. “We’re
not.”

“Good.”

She turned her face to his. His mouth found hers. She
was expecting a kiss as fierce as the energy pounding though him. Instead, she
found gentleness, patience, a lure.

One she couldn’t resist. She shifted position to
better accommodate the angle, parting her lips to the brush of his tongue,
opening wider when he tapped the side of her mouth with his finger. Giving him
her pleasured cry as he rolled her nipple with firm pressure, all but crawling
into his lap in an effort to get closer. Oh, she needed to be closer.

With a deep growl, Jared’s arms came around her,
hauling her up against him as the kiss transformed to a hungry seduction. One
meant to destroy her inhibitions and release the lust pulsing within.

Her inhibitions were ridiculously weak. More token
than substance. Raisa rose onto her knees, pushing her mouth to his, needing
more. Demanding more. He gave it to her. Passion and energy crashed over her in
a giant wave so strong she thought it would overwhelm her, but then something
in her grew, too, rising to the challenge, pouring into the kaleidoscope of
emotion coming at her, meeting it, matching it, encouraging it.

She had to have more. She shook her head,
understanding riding hard on the heels of the thought, breaking the kiss. No,
not have more, give more. She wanted to give to him this time. Placing her
hands against his chest, she pushed. Hard. He cupped her head in his hand.
Their lips separated with a sibilant glide of flesh on flesh. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She nibbled at his jaw, finding the cord of
his neck, scraping down, letting him feel her fangs. This time he was the one
who shuddered. His grip drew her in. She resisted.

Scooting her feet back, she kissed her way down his
magnificent chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his nipple. While much
smaller than hers, it was pulled taut. She homed in on it, lapping delicately
at first, taking her cue from his hands and his breathing, centering it on her
tongue when Jared directed her closer, lapping it before catching it between
her teeth.

Both hands cupped her face. His breath hung up in his
lungs. There was no doubt he wanted this. She made him wait until his whole
body was strung as taut as a wire. And then she gave it to him, a soft bite
that pierced his complacency and dragged a curse from his lips. She sipped at
the drop of blood that welled, holding his dark gaze as she licked her lips,
the passion spiking through him whirling within her.

She lapped the bite, healing the tiny puncture, before
kissing his pectoral and nipping the top edge of his muscled stomach. Scooting
farther back, her butt rose as her mouth lowered. A slash of her talons, and
his cock was free. Hard, hot, and big, it sprang into her hand. She took it
into her mouth, sucking lightly at the heavy head, drawing intangible
sustenance from him as his pleasure screamed through her mind.

He held her to him, hips jerking to the rhythm she
set, his breath coming in searing hisses. Oh yes, she liked him like this, in
control but generous. Letting her please him. Giving her pleasure in return. A
small slap on the right cheek of her rear made her jump. There was tension in
the fabric covering her flesh, and then the cool rush of air over her buttocks.
He’d cut her jeans from her. The next slap added more heat to the fire between
her thighs. His hand came back down, not to spank but to caress. She pulled her
lips back from her fangs, stretching her jaws to align them.

“Damn!”

Both hands landed on her rear in dual incentives. She
bit down ever so slightly. His shout exploded into the small cavern. His shaft
jerked and thickened. She braced herself for the explosion.

“No, not like this.” He dragged her up, away from what
she wanted, ignoring her protests as he lifted her.

“Spread your legs.” As soon as she complied, Jared was
lowering her, slowly, deliberately, until his cock pressed against her opening.
Thick and intimidating.

She grabbed his shoulders, her inner tension
communicating to him through the press of her talons. “Nice and easy, sunbeam.”

She didn’t want nice and easy. Her body took him; the
soft flesh clinging, rippling, massaging along his length, she took the first
few inches. Her knees hit the floor. He steadied her until she caught her
balance, and then his hands were on her waist.

“Gently now.”

She shook her head. She knew what she wanted. “No.
Hard.”

“You’re new to this.”

“Not that new,” she gasped.

“Humor me.”

She worked him deeper, pleasure pitching her voice to
a throaty hum as she met his challenge. “You humor me.”

He laughed, he actually laughed, and then his thumb
was there, between her legs, pressing against her clitoris. Once, twice,
gathering up her moisture before coming back to swirl delicately. “My
pleasure.”

“Oh my God.”

His eyebrow rose; his amusement flowed with his own
desire, tangling with hers, blurring the line between, just flowing and
flowing, filling her thoughts even as he filled her body. “It’s just the two of
us, baby.”

Yes, it was. Just him and her, joined together. Her
passion, his passion. His thumb on her clitoris, rubbing and stroking. His cock
in her body, pulsing and pushing, spreading the burn of his possession to a
consuming ache that seared to her core before shooting outward in all-consuming
ripples of flame that called to her to burn along with him. She dropped down,
crying out at the perfect culmination.

She held them together for an instant, a perfect blend
of male and female, her body softening to the demand of his, her heartbeat
finding the rhythm of his, holding them together because it would never get
better than this and she wanted to savor the moment. Build a memory.

She couldn’t hold it forever, though, and when Jared’s
fingers bit into her hip and his thumb stroked her clitoris, her passion rose
in a wild call to his. One he answered with a pulse of his hips, his energy. She
rose and dropped back down, moaning at the sheer perfection weaving through the
moment. Over and over they moved together in a perfectly choreographed dance,
one that blended both pleasure and emotion, twining around them in a golden
shimmer of energy that felt so right, drew her so irresistibly.

Raisa buried her face in Jared’s throat as it became
too much. His lips brushed her ear. “Come for me, sunbeam.” His thumb stroked
one last perfect time. “Now.”

The order ripped through her a half second before her
orgasm did. She bucked on him. He caught her with a hand behind her head,
keeping her face pressed to his neck. His fangs scrapped her shoulder as his
cock thickened and pulsed inside her, bathing her in his seed, his passion. A
hot sting and then he was taking from her everything she wanted to give—her
blood, her emotions, her thoughts, her secrets. Oh God, her secrets. With a
desperate groan, Raisa slammed the mental door closed. As the last ripples of
her climax hugged him to her, she prayed she’d been in time.

SHE was hiding again. Jared observed Raisa as she
sewed the rip in her jeans with items from the kit she carried in her pack.
Nothing of what she felt inside showed in her face. For all intents and
purposes she appeared serene. She wasn’t, but she could be surprisingly adept
at presenting a false facade. That ability had taken him by surprise at the
D’Nallys’, made him assume the worst, but nothing was a given with Raisa. She
had depth, and in those depths lurked a world of hurt, layered in secrets and
covered with a belief that, if she just kept going, something, somewhere would
eventually change and it would all be good. No matter what happened, she always
believed in good, in doing good. Women who believed in doing good weren’t
coldhearted traitors. But they could be desperate. He sighed mentally.

She was just a slip of a thing. So small he could toss
her with a flick of a finger, overpower her with a surge of his mind, yet
nothing ever made him feel as vulnerable as she did. With a toss of her head,
she could make him forget what he should do and make him burn with the desire
just to touch her, and he’d be damned if he knew how to fight it. Or even if he
should.

Jared folded his arms across his chest and leaned
against the wall. He wanted to growl with frustration. He’d caught her
red-handed, riffling through Ian’s office. Why couldn’t he believe it was that
simple? That she was a Sanctuary plant who had suckered him. He’d blame it on
pride if something inside him didn’t rebel at that description also.

A thick swathe of hair fell over her shoulder. She
pushed it back in a now-familiar gesture. The lighter strands at the crown
glowed almost white as they shifted. His own little angel, dressed in one of
his extra shirts because she was still too shy to sit in her own clothes that
would leave her extremities bare. She was a strange mix of boldness and
modesty. Charmingly sweet and seductive, and as sexy as the groin-baring view
of her in a turtleneck and nothing else would be. He liked seeing her in his
dark green shirt, the tails barely preserving her modesty. He liked the fact
that something of his covered her, comforted her. He liked that as much as he
didn’t like to see her hurting. He sighed again, accepting what he’d tried to
ignore while clinging to his anger. She was hurting. Because somewhere along
her life she’d gotten the idea that forgiveness wasn’t for her. And in the
whirlwind course of their relationship, he’d never given her reason to believe
that he had any to offer her. He’d just assumed she’d know she had his loyalty
and what that meant. They’d both probably assumed they knew too much about the
other, but the assumptions stopped now.

She looked up, feeling his stare, and tugged the
needle through the waistband of her jeans. With a jerk of her chin, she
indicated his mended pants, forced pleasantness in her expression, also in her
voice. “Aren’t you glad I came prepared?”

He shifted his stance, letting his eyes roam over her
from the top of her head to the tips of her dainty toes. “Oh, I don’t know. I
like the way you look in my shirt.”

“Ha!” She tied a knot and bit off the excess thread.
“You’d have a conniption fit if another man saw me this way.”

Yes, he would. He eyed the amount of white flesh
visible on her right thigh. Creamy and soft, it drew down his fangs in a surge
of desire. He’d like to mark her there. A love bite to emphasize his
possession. Leaving his scent and energy on her wasn’t enough. A human wouldn’t
recognize them. And that meant they wouldn’t recognize her as taken. He didn’t
want Raisa vulnerable to anyone. She was his. “But,” he pointed out, the
darkness lifting from his spirit as he accepted the truth that his instincts
screamed at him. Rai would not betray him. “There isn’t anyone else around.”

The lightest of blushes touched her cheeks. “We can’t
stay here having sex forever.”

“Having sex” instead of “making love.” A significant
choice of words from his little romantic. She was putting distance between
them. Building a wall with words behind which she could hide from the hurt she
expected him to inflict. He couldn’t blame her. Back at the D’Nallys’, he’d
reacted rather than asked. Expected her trust, rather than let her learn that
she could trust. Been impatient when he should have waited her out. And with
every minute that passed, he grew more and more certain he’d had hold of the
wrong end of the stick when he’d accused her of spying for the Sanctuary. Spies
needed a certain hardness to succeed. Raisa was pure softness from head to toe.
“I don’t see why not.”

She stood and shook out the jeans and tucked her foot
into the leg. And she managed it without giving him a glimpse of the honeyed
territory he was interested in admiring. Dammit.

“Probably because I can feel your impatience to leave
all the way over here.”

All the way. As if four feet was miles. Tugging the
shirttail down, she stuck her other foot into the jeans. With a sexy little
wiggle a man could never imitate, followed by a hop that sent her breasts bouncing,
she had the jeans up and over her hips. He sighed as she zipped and buttoned
and wobbled.

He steadied her with a hand on her arm. “I want Slade
to check you out.”

Her hand went to the back of her neck where the
implant was buried. “Fine, but don’t get your hopes up that he can undo it. The
Sanctuary is loaded with geniuses, and I’m pretty convinced they all have a
diabolical slant to their minds.”