Raven (Kindred #1) (23 page)

“I want it,” she said, wriggling in his grasp.

“You’re a dirty girl”—he reared up to flip her onto her chest—“you think you can ride my cock bareback?” he asked and spanked her. Groaning, her knees dug into the bed, raising her ass higher. “You don’t say when, I say when.”

Grabbing her thighs, he pushed them up under her until her bent knees touched the underside of her vulnerable breasts. Three of his fingers plunged into her and he worked them back and forth so fast that she had to bite the pillow beneath her face to stop herself from calling out again. After delivering another climax, he smacked her ass and snatched one knee to whip her over onto her back again.

“I’m gonna train you real good,” he said, kneeling between her legs and falling over her to brace his weight on his hands on either side of her. “You’re gonna need a strong hand.”

He rose up onto his knees and examined her body, sprawled in front of him as he towered over her. Her legs were parted on either side of him, and he pressed his thumb into her clit making her yelp again and wriggle against the resistance he offered.

“Tell me you belong to me,” he said, kneading his thumb into her, never breaking that contact as he spoke. “Tell me!”

Lost in the mist of approaching orgasm, her body was languishing in the chemical overload this night had brought. “I belong to you,” she cried out, barely able to see him past the weight of her eyelids.

“This snug, sweet cunt only reacts for my dick now, only mine, right?”

She curled her fingers into the blanket they lay on and whimpered out a confirmation. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she writhed down on his thumb. “My pussy is yours,” she managed to say then yelped. “Brodie, please, beau, fuck me.”

“Soon,” he muttered and pulled his thumb back to push it through her folds into her drenched opening. “Tell me it all belongs to me, your hands, your mouth… your tits, your ass. All of you.”

“All of me,” she called between ragged breaths. “All of me! I’m yours, Brodie!”

Pulling out his thumb, he put it in his mouth to suck it clean then dropped his weight forward, so he was looming over her again. “Zara,” he asked, looking her in the eye. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes,” she said, opening her arms and closing them around the back of his neck. “Yes, Brodie, baby, I mean it.”

Pulling him down to kiss her, she forgot about the sex and the pound of excitement prickling through her and kissed him until she tasted his soul. She didn’t feel his arm move, but when the thick crown of his cock pushed into her, the pressure of him stretching her made her forget to keep kissing him.

But he didn’t forget. He kissed her mouth, moved his amorous attention to her neck, then rose to look at her face as he pounded into her. The heat of him was different, the slick motion of his member moved faster and faster in her until she was no longer capable of thought. When she said his name, the shadows in his eyes burned to a thick ebony.

Clawing her nails down his back on the impact of her orgasm, she was still calling for him when he pulled out of her to shower her abdomen in the seed he’d promised to bathe her with. Unleashing a string of profanities, he squeezed himself out over her and she arched to accept his gift.

The air was hot and smelled of sex and sweat, but all she could feel was the warm glow of contentment. He bowed over her and lost his mouth in her damp hair beside her ear. “Next time it goes in your mouth,” he said and her smile actually grew.

Expecting that he’d let her sleep now was premature. He scooped her up and carried her into the huge bathroom adjoining the bedroom. It had its own central Jacuzzi bath and double sinks. But he carried her past those, slid aside the textured glass of the shower door, and put her on her feet.

Brodie turned on the water before going to grab towels from a concealed closet in the corner.

“Your house is amazing,” she said, leaning against the cool tile and stretching out an arm to test the temperature of the water.

There were two showerheads, one at either end of the cubicle, and jets on the walls, as well as a built-in tiled seat. But he’d just turned on one showerhead, so she guessed they were going to get cozy. She bent to roll off her stockings and threw them out past the open stall door.

“Thanks,” he said, hanging the towels over the top of the screen and pulling his jeans off to toss them aside on top of her stockings.

Getting to see him naked in all of his glory made her teeth clamber for her lower lip again. He was magnificent, sculpted, and muscular. His body was athletic indicating he did more with it than just lift weights, and his dick was so long and fat that she was enticed to leap forward and grab hold of the appendage as though she had never had the pleasure of experiencing it.

He entered the shower, and slid the door closed, then opened his palm toward her, so she gave him her hand. “Did you mean what you said in there?”

“Which part?” he asked, putting a bar of soap into her hand. Pulling them both under the water, he pressed the soap she was holding to his torso and began to move it in circles.

She got the message that she was supposed to do the washing so she took over. “About us being only for each other?” she asked.

Soaping his body gave her the chance to learn his form. She examined his scars and spent extra time washing his tattoos so she could learn their shapes and designs. All of them were black ink. He had one on the ball of his shoulder, one between his shoulder blades, and another on his chest. She crouched to get a better look at the one he had on his thigh.

“Maybe,” he said. “I guess.”

That wasn’t exactly the resounding confirmation she was looking for, but at least it was a confirmation. The water washed the soap away from his body and she was about to rise from the floor when his hand landed on the top of her head.

Bringing her eyes up, Zara looked for an explanation. It came when he closed a fist around his now erect dick and guided it to her mouth. Nudging his head against her lips, she opened and let him push himself into her mouth.

Closing her lips around her teeth, Zara sucked on him as he controlled the pace. “Damn,” he hissed, moving faster. “I just found my new hobby.”

Sliding his hand down to the back of her head, he pushed her onto him and he worked himself deeper. His curse came half a beat before he exploded in her mouth and the thick milk spread on her tongue. He withdrew but balled his hand on her wet hair to pull her head back.

“Show me it’s gone,” he said and she opened her mouth wide to prove that she’d already swallowed him down. “Wash up and then come to bed.” He patted her head and rinsed himself then left her alone on her knees under the shower spray.

So he wasn’t in the mood to put words to what was going on between them. He’d shut down her questioning fast enough to make that clear. Zara rose up and let the heat of the water steam her sinuses as she washed her hair.

When she came out of the bathroom wrapped in one of Brodie’s towels, Zara could just make out the outline of Brodie’s form in the middle of the bed in the darkened room with the aid of the bathroom light behind her. The covers were draped over his pelvis and he had a forearm lying across his eyes. She was pained to turn off the bathroom light because that would mean giving up her view of his ripped form.

Being here at his home granted her the privilege of seeing him relaxed and exposed. Scars marred some of his body and they added to her questions about his past. She’d seen him fight, Art had told her of his ability with weapons, but all of those skills hadn’t saved him from every blow.

“Lose the towel,” he grumbled and his heavy voice startled her. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t taken his arm away from his eyes, somehow he’d known she was there.

Casting the cloth from her body, she crept toward the bed and tried to figure out where he wanted her. His legs were parted and one arm lay far from his body. The bed was large, but so was he, and he managed to take up most of it, leaving no obvious space for her.

“Are you gonna stand there all night?” he asked.

No, she wasn’t, so she sat on the edge and ran her hands through her jet hair before moving close enough to rest her head on him. He flinched at the contact and his arm darted off his face before he lifted his head to scowl at her.

“My hair is wet,” she said, assuming the chill in her locks had startled him. Brodie closed his eyes and covered them again, so she settled to lie against him. His breath began to slow and he lowered his arm from his eyes to rest it around her. “Do you have a preferred side of the bed?”

“The middle is my preferred side, get used to it.”

Smiling, she turned her face into his hard chest. Bringing her knees up, Zara slipped her feet beneath the covers and ran her dainty toes up and down his bare shins. To most, it would be odd how fascinated she was with a guy’s legs, but his nakedness proved how comfortable he was. He stayed half-clothed when he was in places he didn’t consider secure, having him naked now was an honor.

“Are you still mad that Art let me in?” she asked.

“We don’t let strangers in,” Brodie said.

“I’m not a stranger,” she said, splaying her hand on his diaphragm to stroke the width of him. “I like Art, he’s very proud of you.”

“He wasn’t exactly nurturing, but he gave me what I needed,” Brodie said, tightening his arm to lock her against him. “He’s a good guy.”

A good guy, Brodie meant it, but there was a lack of sincerity when he said it. He could be talking about any guy off the street. She wondered if he played down his connection to Art because he was used to not letting others see his affection for the man, or if Art had just raised him to believe that feelings were vulnerabilities that could be exploited.

“I was nervous coming here,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your personal space, but when that guy sat down with me in Purdy’s… I couldn’t ignore the threat he made. I took the risk and did what I had to… would you have done it any different?”

“It’s not the same thing,” he said and his arm slid back up to cover his eyes.

Sitting up, she held her weight on one straight arm beside his body. “Why is it not the same thing?” she asked and rested a hand on the arm he used to cover his face, which urged him to bring it down to look at her.

Close to slumber, he didn’t look impressed that she was asking him to explain himself. “Because if a guy threatened you, I’d slit his throat, and you would never know that it happened.”

Closing her open mouth, she swallowed and could only stare down at him. Brodie might not wax lyrical about having feelings for her, but his possessiveness empowered her and betrayed that he wasn’t as detached as he tried to portray. While she’d never considered herself the type to advocate violence, she had never faced such life and death situations before, now she understood its necessity.

Moving her hand to his abs, she stroked it up over his chest to his throat and then down to the comforting rhythm of his heart. “I’m glad I figured out who you are,” she said. “When you first showed up in my room I was… scared and confused, but…”

“What are you now?” he asked, laying his arm on the bed, curving it around her ass beneath the arm she still supported her weight on.

A smile began to grow. “Still scared and confused,” she said, exhaling a laugh before she made eye contact. “But not about you. You’ve become the one thing in my life that I can rely on.”

Tracing the edge of his thumb in an arc over the top of her ass, he managed to stoke her desire and appeal to her heart at the same time. “I’m not a reliable guy. When I get pissed off people tend to get dead and I can’t tell you what will set me off or when. Sometimes I just wake up in a bad mood.”

“And you go looking for a fight?” she asked, concerned for his safety, which was ridiculous because Brodie didn’t need anyone to worry about him. “What pisses you off?”

“It pisses me off that you’re with Grant every day,” he said. “It pisses me off that I can’t keep my eyes on you twenty-four, seven. I promised to keep you safe and I plan to keep doing that. So you can scratch scared from your list, baby. I’ve got you covered.”

It wasn’t a declaration of commitment, but it gave her an opening. “And how long will that be for?” she asked.

One lazy blink followed another. “You’re asking if this is going anywhere?” he asked, cutting through the bullshit. “Don’t do that. Planning the future is a dumb waste of time.”

Dealing with death and disaster all of his adult life had made him cynical. “Sometimes you have to plan, so that you know what to avoid,” she said. “When I was growing up, my dad wanted me to run the house, my friends were getting knocked up and married. I was never supposed to make it out of that town and if I hadn’t been so damned set on getting out of there, I never would have.”

Letting his eyes close, she could tell that he was tired. “You’re strong, baby,” he mumbled and pulled her down onto his body. “You go after what you want.”

She had to make decisions on what she wanted and go after it, because she’d learned young that no one would hand over her dream life to her. Except she’d given up hope of ever being part of anything profound that could change the world, until Brodie strolled into her life and showed her that the chance was still out there.

“And you destroy what gets in the way of what you want,” she said, reminding him of what he’d said to her.

Tired, with his guard down, and the intimacy of the moment at its height, he sighed. “When my parents died, I locked myself in this house for months. Art was my only contact with the outside world, he kept me alive.”

Pained by what he’d endured, her empathy seeped to her words. “You were still a child, you’d just lost your mother and father,” she said, understanding why his reaction had been so strong.

After losing her mother, she’d been lost too. But her father hadn’t seen anyone’s grief except his own, so Zara hadn’t been allowed to shut herself off.

“Art didn’t put pressure on me to do anything or be anyone. For the first time, I got to be myself. When he was tired of being stuck here, he walked into my bedroom and told me to pack.”

Surprised, she guessed that’s when his international adventures began. “Pack? Where did you go?”

“We went to India. I got my first tattoo there and being part of something so different to everything I’d known was invigorating. I forgot everything I’d left behind. Living a life without the expectation of my parents changed me. I promised I would never tie myself down again, that I would always be free.”

Making such a decision at thirteen was extreme, but he hadn’t reneged on it. Art’s nomadic lifestyle had become Brodie’s and was probably why Brodie had never thought to finish his education or get a traditional job. He had responsibilities now, sure. But he was still as free as the bird he took his alias from.

“You’re lucky to have had experiences like that,” she said. “I always wanted to travel, but I’ve never made it out of the States.”

“You’re bogged down by responsibility,” he said, moving his hands to squeeze and stroke her ass. “For some reason you’re addicted to working for my brother.”

“I’m not addicted,” she said, climbing up to lie on top of him, parting her legs over his hips. “I’m easily replaced and I don’t want to lose my job.”

“You think you’d lose your job ‘cause you took a vacation?” he asked and his head tipped back as his eyes became curious. “When was the last time you spoke to your dad?”

Talking about her family always made her uncomfortable. “A while ago,” she said, opening her hands on his chest. “He doesn’t need me anymore. I let him down by leaving town.”

“That why you’re scared Grant will replace you?”

She pounced onto the defensive. “I’m not scared,” she said, trying her best not to get angry with him for pushing her buttons. “Why don’t you tell me what happened between you and your brother?”

“That’s ancient history,” he said, rolling onto his side to push her body off his. “Get some sleep.”

Grateful that he’d opened up to her at all, she nestled close into him and he swept an arm around her to hold her near. Zara quite liked that his central position forced him to hold on to her. When she ran her feet up his shins again, he lifted a leg over hers to pin her feet against the mattress.

“You keep doing that, you won’t get any sleep,” he mumbled before he yawned.

It had been a long night, he’d been working, and was tired. He was also just like every other man and would probably do whatever it took to avoid having “the conversation.” Still, there was no rush. She’d made headway by just being accepted into his home. For now, incremental progress would have to be enough.

Sleeping with Brodie was easy and waking up with his fingers playing inside her as his mouth sampled her neck was nicer. That happened twice through the night and she had ideas of waking him up in her own special way when morning came.

Except when it did and she woke up, she was alone. Brodie wasn’t in the bedroom, the bathroom or what she discovered was a walk-in closet. Taking a few minutes to examine his clothes, she learned he didn’t venture far from tee shirts, jeans, and hoodies though he had a few leather jackets as well.

One of the units in the closet was locked and required fingerprint authorization. She wondered if he had a Rolex collection or something similar that he wanted to protect. Most of the closet was empty, but if he was used to globetrotting, he probably got used to traveling light.

Being this close to his private possessions made her feel closer to the reality of who Brodie was. Glimpsing his underwear, his toothbrush, his shampoo, it was all so normal and yet he didn’t let anyone else this deep into his inner sanctum, so being able to touch these personal products made her feel special, valued, and grateful for his trust.

She showered and did her best with what she found in the bathroom to make herself presentable for the day. There was no way for her to dry her hair, but it was the weekend. She didn’t have to worry about work, so she could let her hair go a little crazy. It seemed the rest of her had. But she liked the new adventurous side of herself that Brodie brought out and she looked forward to pushing those boundaries even further.

Her stockings were gone. Her panties and bra were torn, so all she could put on was her skirt, shirt, and jacket. Examining her rumpled appearance in the bathroom mirror, she removed her jacket because it looked ridiculous to be so buttoned up when her clothes were crumpled and her hair was drying in its natural wave. But when she took it off, she was mortified to see the outline of her nipples through the sheer material of her shirt, so she put the jacket on again.

Having delayed the inevitable for long enough, she ventured into the hallway, and tried to remember which way to go. The bedroom door closed behind her and the click of the lock made her jump. The blue fingerprint pad secreted in the knob flashed, indicating that she was locked out, so she couldn’t go back inside even if she wanted to.

The first turn was easy because there were no other doors in this narrow section. She went to the end and turned right. But when she got into the next section, she wasn’t sure of what to do next. She tried a couple of doors and found a couple of different rooms, but no stairwell.

Trying further down the corridor yielded no results. When she began to panic about how long she’d spend getting lost before someone came across her, a door behind her opened and Art hung into the space wearing a smile.

“This way, girlie,” he said, holding the door open for her.

Grateful for his help, she went through the door and started down the stairs. “How did you know I was lost?” she asked over her shoulder. “I thought I was going to be wandering the house for hours.”

“Brodie turned on the motion sensors when he came downstairs,” Art said.

This statement made her pause, but Art passed her and continued to descend. Shocked that anyone had such high-tech security in their home, Zara speculated about the number of enemies these men had. “You have motion sensors?”

“Infrared too,” Art said, looking over his shoulder at her. “But he wouldn’t let us turn that on.”