Redemption (13 page)

And the scar didn’t seem to bother him, so it didn’t bother her either. At least not at this moment. He pressed a hand to her hip and arched deep inside her, pushing at the small of her back with his other hand to tip her forward. His mouth closed hot and demanding over her nipple and he sucked, more than just the tip into his mouth. She locked her arm, braced against the wall and held herself very still. If she moved she would lose contact with either his cock or his mouth and she didn’t want to give up either one. He pulsed gently into her pussy and suckled her hard. He flicked his tongue over the tip then caught her with his teeth—a sharp sting and tug before he released her when her body instinctively jerked.

“You’re sensitive there.” There was a smile in his voice.

“Don’t. Not too hard, please.”

“This?” He licked at her other breast and a shiver ran down her spine. “The brush of a butterfly wing.” He nipped at her again and she moaned. “Tell me you don’t like that.”

She couldn’t.

“Sophie Martin,” he teased her. “I think you like it rough.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. Usually. Lately, she’d been using sex to forget, to lose herself in heat and passion that edged toward pain. But right now…

He shifted his body so she could sink fully onto him again, pulling her close and stroking down her spine. “Now?”

She shook her head. Maybe in a little while, she’d want hard and fast again but right now, this was exactly what she needed. She rode him slowly and he, sensing her need, ran gentle fingers over her body, exploring her, stroking her hair and nuzzling her neck, her chin, pressing kisses to her shoulder and collarbone, letting her set the pace.

“So sweet, Sophie. I love the taste of you.”

Her heart was thudding. She knew he could feel that, probably hear it too. Her breath was coming sharp and shallow but she kept her pace slow and easy. She could feel every inch of him that way, every twitch of his flesh buried inside of her. The pulse of his blood. The beat of his heart, a deeper counterpoint to her own. She could hear the air drawing into his lungs. She opened her eyes and tipped her head back, letting the feel and scent and heat of him surround her.

Adriano cupped her jaw and slid his hand down the column of her throat. When she opened her eyes, she could see every pit and groove in the stone ceiling. The glitter of each speck of quartz, like stars in the night sky. Just like the first time.

“Come on, baby. A little more.” His voice filled her head, dark and rough. “It’s alright. I’ve got you now.”

Her body closed around him tighter and this time, when she sank down, she swore he’d grown larger, harder, filling her up completely. She could feel the wiry hairs on his thighs. The veins wrapping his cock. The wetness coating his balls when they pressed against her. He smelled like strength and desperation too. She absorbed all of it, soaking up the sight, scent and taste of him until she thought she might explode. He placed a hand on her thigh and she whimpered. All he had to do was brush the pad of his thumb over her clit and she was gone, screaming her release and flying high.

He flew with her, hands clamping over her hips and thrusting up into her with his own strangled cry of release, driving her higher. And then she was crying and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her trembling body against his own, drawing her gently back to earth.

“Sorry. That was stupid. I wasn’t even thinking about…damn. They used a narcotic mix in the poison. We should have waited in the other cavern while it burned out.”

She drew in a shuddering breath and wiped her face against his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“The smoke. It heightens the senses. Not that they were having orgies here but…I should have known better. Are you alright?”

She nodded and a shiver ran through her body. She could still feel the blood coursing through the cock lodged inside of her, the spreading heat from his come. “It was intense.” She smiled wryly. “Too much, I think.”

Bruised inside and out, she slipped off him and looked around. She could see better, every detail seemed sharper. “Will I be able to see in the dark on the way back?”

“I don’t know how strong the effect will be for you or how long it will last. I hope so.”

His eyes searched her face and she had to turn away. She couldn’t do that again, let herself go like that. At least not with Adriano. Not if she was going to be able to walk away from him. Not if she wanted to stay whole when he walked away from her.

Building her walls again. Sophie would do a mason proud. He let her slip away. Not the time to press her, especially when he didn’t know if they would survive. It would be time soon enough to make decisions and say their goodbyes. Or not. Sophie, he knew, was bracing herself for goodbye. His hands clenched into fists at his side. He wanted to shake her, pull her back into his arms, lay her down on the stone and fill her again so that she would have to look at him, see him, acknowledge in some way that he was more than just a casual lover. He had no place to make those demands so he let her walk away.

The fire began to die down. The dry wood had burned fast and hot. Now from the effects of the smoke and the light from that fire, she could see some of what he’d seen when he first entered the dark cavern. Gold. Carvings on every surface, anthropomorphized jaguars, cayman and harpy eagle, the symbols of the tribes of his people. Sophie had been right. Each identified a separate tribe and their city, its treasures of produce, livestock, gemstones, some of its history. Only one of those tribes remained now.

It was a peculiarly interconnected form of communication, extremely visual, highly symbolic and difficult to decipher if any of the pieces were missing. That Sophie had been able to see so much with the little she had to work with still amazed him.

Squinting through the rising smoke, she took a couple of steps toward the fire before he caught her arm. “Only a few more minutes and I can leap over the top.”

She scowled and he kissed her nose. “You want me to toss you over the fire? No. Don’t answer that. I’ll just scout it out, see what we’ll need to remove the obelisk and by then, you’ll be able to make your own way across.” He tipped his head to the side. “That spot nearest the wall is already almost clear now.”

She checked it for herself and nodded a grudging acceptance. “You’re just going to hand it over to them?”

“I can’t let them have it. I’ll try to get him to release you. If he does, you’ll run, take the second vent to the right. It’ll be a tight fit the first dozen feet but it lets out into a shaft with a narrow stairway to the old temple. Don’t follow the Rocas. He’ll have others waiting there.”

She frowned and something inside of him clenched. No one had ever wasted much worry on him, not even his family who expected him to be capable enough to take care of himself. Ridiculously sentimental, his human. “What about you?”

“I’m a warrior, well trained and entirely capable of handling one wolf.”

“You just said you didn’t know how many there were.”

He stroked her cheek. Her breast, tight nipples pointing up from that sweet slope. He couldn’t resist pinching one lightly between thumb and knuckle. The smell of her rose up to him. The rich scent of her arousal, even now, mingling with his own. Marking her as his. He wanted to keep her, but what promises could he make?

“You will run. I will fight and we will see what happens.”

“If you lose, they’ll have the stone anyway.”

He looked at her, her eyes dilated from the smoke, her expression worried, her lips full and bruised. He kissed her gently. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he would need to destroy it. The wolves were only using him to save time. Lazy beasts, wolves, and not particularly bright. Although there were branching tunnels from every cavern off the main path, the route to the stone had been far less complex than he’d anticipated. Legend had exaggerated the difficulty. When it came down to it, this was only a humble temple much like any of dozens he’d entered before. The wolves would have figured it out eventually even without being able to translate the carvings.

“First things first,” he said and threw himself over the dying flames.

He rolled as he landed and found the obelisk almost immediately in the place of honor at the center of a circular pit. A miniature of the one that once graced the plaza above them, fitted into a square stone base. When he tested its weight, he found that, though heavy, he could lift it. It would be a bitch to cart across the bat-infested cave without overbalancing but it was small enough that it was worth the try. There wasn’t much he could use here to deface it in the amount of time he had left. Only one viable option would place it out of the wolves’ reach, at least temporarily.

Sophie would have to walk so they needed to get going before the effects of the smoke wore off. He didn’t have time for an argument and he kept his intentions to himself.

Staring at the stone, she knelt down beside him, that expression on her face again. Her eyes were bright and the hand she lifted to touch the carving trembled. He hadn’t even bothered to look at it really, other than to confirm it was the right stone. Sophie studied the artwork with professional scrutiny. No time for that now. He wrapped his arms around the base and hefted the obelisk into his arms.

And then she did something that almost made him drop it. She glanced up, brows drawn together in a scowl and said, “We’ll need to toss it into the pit.”

Even though it broke her heart, she knew they were doing the right thing. Adriano wasn’t given to melodrama, so she knew by the way he’d lost it talking about the fire and his people that he’d come to the end of his rope. No way would he have confessed all that to her unless he thought they were going to die. At first, she’d thought he’d been exaggerating and, truth be told, her brain had still been trying to process the concept of shifters. But one look at Adriano’s expression as he stared into the flames and she’d known there was no hope for them.

So she stood aside now and watched him heave the priceless stone into the abyss, knowing full well that they were losing any bargaining chip that might keep either of them alive. They both stared after it for several moments, listening to the crash and clatter of falling rock chasing it down, fading into echoes and then to silence. She looked up at the narrow bridge they’d crossed and shook her head.

“I can’t believe you carried me across this.”

“Was my pleasure, Sophie.” He shrugged. “Or would have been under other circumstances.”

He knelt near the crumbled section and leaned over the side.

“Be careful. You’re making me dizzy just watching.”

“I want the rope. Come hold my legs.”

He splayed flat on his stomach and started to edge his upper body out over the side. She hurried over to sit on his ankles, pressing her hands to the backs of his calves. And because these were some of her last moments left alive on earth, no matter how horrific, she took the time to appreciate how soft the hair was on his legs and how she loved the way his muscles slid beneath his skin. The way his ass wiggled as he shifted his weight. As far as bucket lists went, discovering new species, finding lost treasures and falling in love wasn’t too shabby.

Love?
Her smile faded away.

“Ah, almost there. Damn rocks.”

She winced on his behalf. She had the feeling that she should be more afraid than this and wondered again if the drugged smoke had anything to do with it. She’d never been brave. “Why do we need rope?”

He grunted and his shoulders moved. “If it’s still strong enough we might be able to climb down to see how those bats got out.”

Oh. Hell no.
She almost let go of him but he started to slide himself back. “Did you hear that?”

She shook her head. All his attention focused on some point in the darkness that she couldn’t see. A low vibration of sound came from him that reminded her he wasn’t entirely human. At the same time she heard a splash of water in the distance, followed by a muttered curse. She shrank back against the wall. Maybe the smoke was starting to wear off after all because suddenly she was very, very afraid.

“It’s too soon,” she whispered. “They shouldn’t be back yet. It can’t be time.”

“Come here. The rope is strong enough to take your weight at least. I’ll brace it.”

His expression grim, he gestured to her impatiently.

“I can’t do this.” Sweat trickled down her spine in a fine rivulet. Another splash of water echoed from the low ceiling. They were coming. She fisted her hands to stop the trembling. Okay. Now she was scared. They were going to die, whether from the fall or the wolves.

Adriano caught and held her gaze. “Don’t be a coward.”

She choked out a little laugh. “Calling me names is not going to help at this point.”

“You’re stubborn as hell too. You hate to lose. We just destroyed the biggest treasure you’re ever going to find before you even got a good look at it and all because of those bastards. Are you going to let them win, Sophie? Just sit here and wait for them to come kill you too?”

Damn him. He saw too much and knew what she was going to do even before she did. She took his hand and he pulled her to him.

“You’re a rat bastard, you know that?”

“Cat,” he corrected.

“Cat bastard then.”

Ridiculously, this seemed to please him. None of it slowed him down. He wasn’t giving her a chance to change her mind. Quickly, he wrapped her hand around the vine, closed his over hers to test her grip and before she knew it, her legs were dangling out over the edge. She looked up at him and already she could barely see his face.

His expression was closed, his eyes somber and filled with regret. He grunted, leaning his weight back and she dropped her eyes, bracing herself as her body twisted and her shoulder slammed against the rock. She managed to set her foot against the wall to steady herself and tried to peer into the darkness, searching for an opening. Her vision was fading fast.

She trailed her toes along the rough stone, cringing at the slime that coated it. Not wanting to think too closely about what had likely caused it. Her foot on the rock kept her facing the right direction and made her feel safer somehow. She felt the opening before she saw it. Suddenly the rock curved inward, her foot lost purchase and she began to spin.