Midnight's Captive (Dark Warriors) (33 page)

*   *   *

By the time Charon and the Kings finished explaining the plan to Fallon, it was late into the night. Fallon didn’t have all the answers about the Dragon Kings, but for now he would leave it alone.

Charon had no doubt Fallon would be back after the battle.

After the battle. He hoped there was a time after the battle. Both Con and Fallon liked his plan, the question was—would it succeed?

“You can no’ see Laura worrying so,” Guy said as he caught up with Charon on the stairs.

Charon paused, a hand on the banister and one foot on the step above. “I know.”

“We’ve all agreed it’s a good plan. It’ll succeed.”

“You’ve no’ battled Druids.”

Guy shrugged nonchalantly and grinned. “You’ve never battled dragons.”

“You said the humans were able to kill dragons.”

Guy’s smile disappeared instantly. “Dragons aye, but no’ Dragon Kings. All dragons have magic, but they could be killed.”

“And you can no’?”

“There is much you doona know. Suffice it to say, a
drough
’s magic willna kill us.”

“It can halt us in our tracks, though.”

Guy shrugged one shoulder. “I agree it willna be an easy battle. Whatever you did or said to get Con’s attention, I’m glad of it. With us on your side, the scales have now tipped in your direction.”

“Which scares the hell out of me,” Charon confessed as he looked away. “We thought things were done. After killing both Deirdre and Declan, it should’ve been over.”

“It’s never over.”

Guy’s tone, harsh and low, brought Charon’s gaze back to him. There was something in Guy’s eyes that let him know as powerful as the Kings were, they weren’t without enemies.

“You’ll get periods of peace,” Guy continued. “But remember, it’s never over. Enjoy those times of peace and prepare for the next periods of hell.”

“What are you fighting?”

Guy glanced down at the stairs. “One of our own. People who want to expose us as shifters. And others of us fight the unending march of time.”

“How old are you?”

“We’ve been here since the beginning of time. The exact number I couldna give you, because I lost track. We all have.”

And Charon thought his life had been long. There were times he hadn’t believed he could get through another day. How did the Kings do it?

“Go to your woman,” Guy said as he walked past him and clasped him on the shoulder.

His woman. Charon wanted to think of Laura that way, but could he? Did he dare? He’d made love to her. He’d kissed her repeatedly.

There was no doubt he couldn’t keep his hands from her. The fact she was a Druid should have made things easier. But it didn’t.

He ought to let her go. He should get her far away from Scotland so she would never be touched by the same type of evil that seemed to breed here.

Yet, he couldn’t.

Charon took the stairs three at a time until he reached the landing and strode down the hallway to the room given to Laura.

He placed his hand on the doorknob, but hesitated instead of turning it. Music drifted to him through the door. With his enhanced senses, he heard Rihanna’s voice singing a fast melody.

So as not to startle Laura, Charon slowly turned the knob and opened the door. Only to find her sleeping in the overstuffed chair next to a table laid out with food.

He smiled as he closed the door softly behind him before he took the glass of wine dangling from her fingers. Charon had been dreaming of making love to her, but there was no way he was going to wake her after all she’d been through.

Charon set the half-empty wineglass on the table and walked into the bathroom to strip off his clothes. He could use a long hot shower, especially when he knew what was coming.

Wallace wouldn’t attack that night, and neither would the selmyr, thanks to the dragons. So they had a slight reprieve. And he intended to make the most of it.

*   *   *

Laura came awake to the sound of the shower mixed in with the music from her iPhone. She stretched and yawned as she glanced at the table to find everything just as she had left it while trying to stay awake.

She turned and looked out the window to see the sky was beginning to lighten, but this far north in the summer, that could be deceiving. A quick check on her phone told her it was just after two in the morning.

Laura rose from the chair and smiled when she saw the steam rolling out of the bathroom. Charon had pushed the door to, but hadn’t closed it.

While he finished with his shower, Laura filled two glasses of red wine and snagged a cube of cheese to pop into her mouth.

Next, she removed her jeans, shirt, bra, and panties. She folded them neatly in a pile to set atop the dresser before she grabbed Charon’s discarded button-down.

She lifted it to her nose and inhaled the scent that was all his—sandalwood. When she heard the water cut off, she hastily slid her arms into the sleeves of the shirt and buttoned two of the buttons below her breasts. Leaving just enough of a gap to show cleavage.

Laura looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the back of the door and smiled. She couldn’t have imagined being so bold a week ago, but then she hadn’t tasted Charon’s kisses or known the exquisite pleasure being in his arms could give her.

It wasn’t her magic that gave her the courage to be so daring. It was the all-consuming, overwhelming desire for Charon that did it.

He had turned her into the woman she had only dreamed she could be.

She’d always known she would do a lot for Charon, but she hadn’t realized to what extremes she would go to until recently. Instead of frightening her, it felt amazing. Freeing.

Laura leaned back against the wall next to the window and watched as Charon came out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped precariously low around his hips.

Droplets of water dripped from the ends of his long, dark hair to his shoulders, where the beads traveled either down his back or over the muscled planes of his chest.

God, he was a gorgeous man. She didn’t understand why he wanted her, but it was enough that he did.

He stopped short when he glanced at the chair she had been in and found it empty. In the next instant, his gaze swiveled to her. The dark chocolate depths of his eyes heated as they landed on her.

“How did it go?” she asked.

With a wicked twinkle in his eye, he reached for a glass of wine. “Thanks to your interference, perfectly.”

“You’re not angry with me for barging in?”

“I’m glad you did. I needed to calm down. You helped with that.”

Laura crossed an ankle over the other and hid a smile when she saw Charon’s gaze lower to her legs. “Is everything in place?”

“Aye. Fallon is probably still here talking to Con, but I wanted to see you.”

“See me?” she asked coyly.

Charon lifted the glass to his lips and drank deeply of the burgundy wine. “Oh, aye.”

“So do you believe I’m not working with Jason?”

His forehead creased as he set aside his wine. “Laura, please understand I—”

“I do,” she interrupted him. “I understand everything. I just want to be sure that you trust me.”

“Aye,” he said softly.

She wasn’t sure if he meant it or not. In time, she would prove her loyalty to him. For now, he said he trusted her. That was enough.

“Good,” she said and pushed off the wall to walk to him. “I think we’ve wasted enough of our time talking.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Laura put her hand against his chest and gave him a push. She knew he allowed her to do it, just as he allowed himself to fall back into the chair she had occupied a few moments earlier.

“Is there something you want with me?” Charon asked with one side of his mouth lifted in a devilish grin.

“Me? Not at all.” She moved to stand between his legs. “I just figured with all the kisses you’ve given me, you might be in some … need.”

“Need?” he repeated, choking on the word. “You could say that, lass.”

She ran her fingers through his wet hair. “I wouldn’t be doing my duty as your personal assistant if I didn’t help you out.”

“I do pay you rather handsomely to take care of all my needs.”

“Exactly,” she said, and let her hand trail down the side of his face to the hard line of his jaw.

He snagged her hand in one of his and brought it to his mouth. There, he spread her fingers and placed a kiss on her palm. “What need are you going to take care of tonight?”

“The one that burns you. The one I can see when you look at me.”

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, still holding on to her hand.

She nodded. “To me it is, but then I’m looking for it.”

“Are you?”

The lighthearted mood had somehow altered, grown more serious. Laura knew that sometime very soon, she would have to face the feelings churning within her. She feared they went far deeper than she knew.

Loving Charon, however, was a risky move. One she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to chance.

“Laura,” he whispered. His dark gaze was intense as it held hers.

She pulled her hand from his and reached down to pull open his towel. The sight of him full aroused and hard made her blood burn through her veins.

“You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she confessed before she straddled his legs.

Charon’s hands were instantly on her bare legs. He moved them up her thighs, shoving the hem of his shirt higher as he did. “If you want to talk beauty, I’m looking at it.”

Her breath hitched when his thumbs grazed the curls of her sex. To feel the wonderful heat of him so close was driving her mad. The seductive lust, the soul-wrenching yearning she had to once more be in his arms was too inviting to ignore.

For two years, she’d been content to work beside him, to be the one he turned to when he needed something in his business. She never expected to call him friend, yet it had happened.

Lover was one name she certainly never dared to even dream.

With one yank of his hands, Charon jerked her shirt open, sending the two buttons flying across the room before he pulled her down. Her chest was heaving as she watched him gaze so lovingly at her breasts.

And then he cupped them in his hands.

Laura’s eyes slid closed and her head dropped back. Her breasts swelled, aching for more. She rocked her hips forward as Charon’s thumbs teased her nipples into hard little points.

Desire filled her, encircled her.

Claimed her.

And when his hot mouth closed over a turgid peak, Laura cried out from the sheer pleasure of it. With one hand on her back, he licked and laved her nipple with his tongue.

Laura’s body was no longer her own. It was Charon’s to do with as he pleased. She arched her back to thrust out her breast as she wrapped her arms around his head.

He moved from one breast to the other, wringing more cries from her until she was a shuddering mass of need.

Charon grabbed her hips and pulled her against the long, hard length of him. She gasped at the contact along her sensitive flesh, but when she tried to reach for him, he quickly grabbed her hands.

“Nay. I’d spill the instant you touched me,” he whispered in her ear before he sucked her lobe in his mouth.

Laura continued to rock against his arousal until his fingers dug into her hips to halt her. She whimpered, needing the contact against him.

Charon smiled when her sigh of pleasure filled the room as he sank a finger into her hot, wet channel. He’d never been so close to a climax before, and he wasn’t even inside her yet.

The feel of her magic only sent his already heated body into a frenzy. He hungered for her, longed for her with a force that frightened him.

But that’s what Laura did to him. She touched parts of him he no longer thought existed, parts he was sure had died after he killed his father.

It was Charon’s turn to moan when Laura’s hands slid sensuously over his chest and shoulders down to his stomach. The back of her hand grazed the head of his cock. His balls tightened and his blood quickened.

That’s all it took. One touch, one look from Laura and he was putty in her hands.

He watched the pleasure fill her face and her lips part on a sigh as he moved his fingers in and out of her. His cock jumped, eager to fill her.

Charon loved watching the way her body moved against his. Slowly, sensuously. Wantonly. With her back arched and her breasts begging for attention while her hips met his hand each time he thrust his fingers inside her.

His breathing became ragged, his blood pounding in his ears as her cries grew louder. Her hands were braced behind her on his legs. Charon bent and took a nipple in his mouth as he swirled his fingers around her clitoris.

He groaned in excitement when her nails raked down his back. Charon wanted to hear her scream his name again, needed to see her body flushed with pleasure. Pleasure he had given her.

Laura began to rock faster against his hand. Suddenly, her body clamped down on his fingers as she climaxed. He continued to thrust his fingers to prolong her pleasure until she went limp in his arms.

Charon’s body shook, he wanted her so desperately. He stood and carried her to the bed. As he laid her down, her eyes opened to look at him.

In her beautiful moss green depths, he saw something stark and profound, something that a year ago would have sent him running from the room. He didn’t know if he was ready for it, but he couldn’t run. Not from Laura.

He lifted one of her legs and guided his cock to her entrance. She was slick with her own arousal, and it only fired his blood even more.

Charon wanted to go slowly, but she had already sent him well past his control. With one thrust, he seated himself inside her. She sucked in a startled breath, and then moaned.

He was beyond thoughts, beyond words. All he could center on was Laura. Charon began to pump his hips, plunging into her hard and deep.

His tempo increased when she matched his thrusts. He released her leg and leaned his hands on either side of her head. Her hands caressed his sides before sliding up to encircle his neck.

Their bodies were slick with sweat, their moans filling the room. Charon couldn’t hold back the tide of his desire.