Fated in Stone, page 26
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
“You’re not naked yet,” she answered.
His lips lifted in that wicked grin that made her forget her own name, and then he removed his jeans without any more delay.
Once he was naked, she sat up so she could grip his cock in her hand, test the length, the thickness, the silky smooth skin over hardness. He hissed at her touch, dropping his head back, his eyes closing.
Without him looking at her, she let herself soak in the rest of his body as well, even as she stroked his cocked, slowly, steady, a firm hard grip. He was magnificent. Large, muscled, the now familiar hair over is chest. No sign of the wound he’d received that first day. She had tried, even when he was shirtless, not to stare too long, because she didn’t have the permission. She had the permission now. And she took advantage, letting her free hand roam over the place where he’d been shot, feeling the smooth skin over rippling muscles, the rougher texture of his chest hair. Then she let that hand slide down his abdomen and cross one of those magnificent muscles over his hip. She’d never been with a man who had that muscle in real life. She’d only seen that muscle on sculptures.
And the realization that he occasionally turned to stone and looked like a sculpture just fascinated her more. Were some of those stone statues she’d seen in pictures and museums…real living people inside? The idea was weirdly distracting, so she set it aside for now. Because in that moment, all she wanted to do was explore Ben.
She moved her hand over his thick thigh, across more rough hair, and danced her fingers over his tight fist where it still rested against his lap. When she looked up, he was staring down at her, his eyes dark, his jaw tight. She smiled and gripped his cock harder on her next stroke and he rewarded her with a low growl that made her shiver.
He leaned forward and captured her mouth with his, swooping down so fast she gasped. And before she knew what he was doing, he’d moved her hand from his cock and eased her back against the seat cushion again. She wrapped her arms and legs around him again, bumping up against his erection in a wordless invitation.
“First,” he said against her mouth, “I need to taste you. I’ve needed to taste you so badly.” He kissed down across her body, pausing at her tits to suck each nipple deeply before sliding his lips down over her belly as she scooted a little farther up and back to make room for him to settle between her legs.
She sucked in a breath when he hovered over her curls, his breath fanning hotly against her. She was wet and desperate and panting as she watched him. “I imagined this this morning,” she whispered, hoarsely. “In the shower. You like this, looking up at me. You licking me.”
“Were you touching yourself when you pictured me here?”
She nodded. “This is the image that sent me over. That made me come.”
His eyes fairly glittered as he stared at her, a slight smile curving his mouth. “I’m delighted to bring that fantasy to life for you.”
“Yes.” She dropped her head back against the door when he licked her slick folds. Her hips bucked up against his mouth. And then he sank in, licking into her.
He toyed with her clit, sucking and licking her until she was writhing, panting, clawing at the seat cushions as her orgasm built and her body tightened and everything in her gasped and reached and tumbled. She cried out when she came, the orgasm hitting her hard, lasting longer than usual as he continued to lick her, pressing his tongue to her clit, drawing out every ounce of sensation.
When he licked her folds again, she was too sensitive and the feeling zinged through her almost like pain. Her hips jerked up and she had to grab his hair and ease him away. “Need a minute,” she murmured, dragging him, unresisting, back up so she could kiss him. His body was so hot against hers he was like a furnace, but in the best possible way. She was too limp to warp her legs around him just yet, but she did wrap her arms around his neck, holding all that heat close to her.
He lifted his head with some reluctance, still dropping kisses over her cheeks, across her neck, as he murmured, “I need to get into the trunk. Really quick. I’ll be right back.”
She barely had time to frown, no time at all to ask a question, before he was gone and back. Moving so fast, he was already closing the back door as she felt the car bounce under the trunk slamming shut. She giggled at the speed and the delayed reactions.
“What was that for?”
He held up a box of condoms. “In my bag. I hadn’t exactly planned on ravishing you at a rest stop.”
“Would have put them in the glove compartment otherwise?” she asked with a cheeky grin.
His chuckle lit up her nerves again, like a caress all its own. “I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about this, am I?”
She shook her head as he slipped on a condom. “Shower and my own fingers were nothing to reality,” she murmured.
He leaned over her, his gaze sweeping over her face. “The reality is…everything,” he murmured. “Not exactly where I wanted our first time together to be, but…”
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Shut up and fuck me.” She wrapped her legs around him again, angling her hips for him.
He slid into her slowly, the friction drawing out his entrance and making her moan. But when he settled, seated fully in her, filling her so full, she felt home. Like this was always the way her life had been, having this magnificent man inside her. He rocked against her once and the sensation rippled through her, just that to start the building tension again. Another thrust and she gasped. Hard, but slow and steady, he drove into her. Holding her head in one hand so she wasn’t bouncing against the car door, his other hand braced on the car seat as he looked down at her, watching her. Her every gasp and moan made him drive in harder, but he kept up the slow pace, the steady rhythm, pushing her until she was desperate once more.
She gripped his shoulders and looked down, watching their bodies come together, watching his cock slide in and out of her. When she looked up he was watching as well. He growled in a way that felt like possession, and she ground up against him to claim him too. All hers, she thought. All hers. She was his. Somewhere in all this, that had become an indisputable fact. She couldn’t imagine him out of her life anymore. And yet he’d been a part of her life for such a short time. None of that mattered, though, because she knew, in her soul, this was what she wanted, what they’d been made for.
The building tension coiling inside her hit a tipping point, moved beyond her ability to slow it down. She tried to savor him longer, but then he sped up, changed his rhythm, fucking her harder and faster and all her attempts at control shattered. And so did she.
And then so did he. She felt him come apart, in her arms, in his thrusts, in the growl that filled the small car interior. But she missed the sight of it because her eyes were closed as her own orgasm ripped and rippled through her.
Next time, she promised herself. Next time she’d watch him come.
He gathered her close and shifted a little so they were laying on their sides, facing each other, his back to the seat and her securely held in his big warm arms, their legs tangled together.
For several moments, they stared at each other, quiet but for their settling breaths. Her cooling sweat left her back a little cold, but her front was toasty warm against the furnace of his heat.
“I know we have to get back on the road,” she murmured, “but I could fall asleep like this.”
“Rather we did that in a proper bed,” he said, brushing his fingers gently across her cheek, around her neck, toying with the short strands of her hair near her nap.
“Can’t afford to stop long enough for a proper bed.” She smiled. “Yet.”
“That might just be the best and worst word in the English language,” he said, kissing her hard and deep when she chuckled. But when he eased back from the kiss, his expression was serious again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a bed this time. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for that.”
She snorted and shook her head. “Don’t. This was perfect. I couldn’t have waited either. If you hadn’t noticed, I was pretty desperate for you.”
Really, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to drive another mile without losing her mind wanting him. Even now, the want, the need was still there, banked but not extinguished, ready to explode into flames again.
Was this the Nam-tar thing? The rite? Or just…Ben? And would it always be like this?
For the first time since discovering the reality of his world, what she was to him, what her attraction to him might mean for her life, she actually welcomed the bond. Welcomed the thought of all those years ahead of them. All that time to explore and learn each other. All those moments like this, secure in his arms…
If she got to spend the next few centuries with Ben, just like this, she’d considered herself a very lucky woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
After a full night and another day of driving, Elle’s tracking skills brought them to a multi-story box of a building not more than a mile from the Canadian border, in another isolated area surrounded by pines and maples. This building looked new, though, like it had just been finished in the last few months, with a clean, light tan exterior and no windows anywhere.
No windows meant no light leaking out. And no idea if anyone was inside.
She and Ben had left the car a few miles back, parked at a short pull-off just off the narrow two-lane road that climbed into the area. The evening had closed in around them as she turned off the ignition. Long shadows stretched across the darkening road, the sun setting behind the trees as Ben opened the car trunk. And finally showed her all the weapons in his weapons bag.
An impressive array that would have pleased her father—a fact that left her conflicted over how she felt about the number of swords and daggers inside the bag. But since they were going in to extract Professor Arron from the midst of a lot of humans and possibly a lot of monsters, she decided being prepared far outweighed any conflicting emotions she had from her childhood.
Watching Ben gear up wasn’t as disturbing as she’d have suspected either. Not given what they were about to face. He strapped on various knives and daggers, slipping them into his boot, belted on scabbards for some of the smaller weapons. And he pulled out the sword he’d taken from the guard that first night and used one of his own scabbards to drop the sword over his head to lay along his spine.
At her raised brow, he said, “It’s a good sword.”
He offered her her choice of weaponry. But as she’d already told him, the daggers and swords weren’t within her skillset. She’d probably have to bring them into her skillset if she was going to live in a world full of monsters, but for the moment, her preferences were her two smaller hand guns, including the plastic one from the backseat, her shotgun, and the recurve bow and quiver of arrows Ben had brought.
He nodded in approval as she slipped the quiver over her head. “Every arrow in there is a fire arrow, in case there’s another Water Elemental involved. Don’t hesitate to use them.”
“Will they work on the other monsters? Like normal arrows?”
“They’ll seriously wound and burn any other monster you hit them with. They won’t take a head. That’s the drawback. But they’ll slow a monster down more than an ordinary arrow would.”
She angled the bow over her head so the bowstring lay across her chest. She’d already tucked her two handguns into the side pockets of her cargo pants—she didn’t have a holster for them as she never carried them around. Then she lifted up the shotgun. “I know this won’t remove a head either, but the shots are heavy. They’ll slow a monster down, too?”
“Yes. But…” He took hold of her shoulders and brought her as close as their various weaponry would allow. “Don’t engage the monsters if you can avoid it. I’ll take care of them. You get the professor. Get him out. Get him back to the car. That’s the job. Your job. Mine is the monsters. Okay.”
“Not sure the monsters will give me a choice, but I’m in no hurry to face them so I’m good with this plan.”
After they had what Ben deemed a sufficient array of weaponry, they hiked up to the building in the woods. Elle’s nerves tingled as they approached, confirming they were in the right area. She could practically feel herself being pulled toward the building, knowing the professor was in there somewhere.
There was a dirt road that led up to the building, a road that looked half-finished, like it might be paved eventually, and that added to the sense that the building and everything here was new. No cars were parked outside, though, and no evidence of tire tracks in the dirt road. That might have worried her if her tracking sense hadn’t honed in on the place so thoroughly. The building was large enough to have parking inside, on the lower level, and still have plenty of room for labs and offices on the second and third floors. At least, she assumed the building was split into three stories, but without windows, she realized, she couldn’t be sure. Just a giant block. Could have any configuration.
“So,” she whispered to Ben, who was standing very close to her shoulder, “this is definitely the place, but I’m not seeing a way inside.”
They’d circled the building from the cover of the woods, and there didn’t appear to be any way in, at least not at ground level. No garage doors, no people doors, no obvious openings of any kind. Like the architect and builders and forgotten all about the part where people had to get inside somehow.
“There’s got to be something,” he murmured, “since they had to get the professor in. But it might not be at ground level.”
“Can that tentacle monster fly?” That was a horrifying thought.
“No. But it can climb well. Scaling the side of a building wouldn’t be difficult for it, and doing that while carrying a human wouldn’t push its abilities either.”
“There was more than just Professor Arron, though. All the human guards?”
He shrugged without taking his attention off the building. “Grinluk can carry more than one human. Bastards are extremely strong.”
“Oh good. That’s what we need right now.”
“We’ll have to search closer to the building to find the entrance. But they likely have cameras or a lookout or something. We’re not going to have much time to get close before being discovered.” He glanced at her. “You’re stronger now, and faster, but you can’t move at the speeds I can. Would you be willing to wait here while I scouted at my top speed?”
For some reason, she thought of him rushing from the backseat of her car to get condoms, the sound and bounce of the trunk slamming shut happening just as he got back into the car. The man moved like lightning when he wanted to.
But thinking about that moment distracted her from what they had to do, so she jerked her focus back to the moment and the building they had to get into. “I’ll keep an eye out for anyone patrolling in the woods.” She looked at him, held his gaze. “Don’t go in without me. Don’t try to do this on your own.”
“I am used to working alone.”
His attempt at sounding reassuring did nothing to ease her worry. Especially when he pulled the sword from the scabbard across is back. That looked suspiciously like he was preparing to fight. While leaving her in the woods. No. That wasn’t happening.
“Tough. This is my job, too. I agreed to let you handle the monsters. But I have to go in to get Professor Arron out.” She lifted her shotgun and pulled the quiver strap that lay across her chest. “I won’t be helpless. We’ve done this together from the start. We’re not changing that now.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped, and she thought for a moment he’d argue with her. Unlike when they’d tracked the monster through that small town, he didn’t look relieved to have her with him. He looked a lot more worried, the crease between his eyebrows deep as he stared down at her.
But he nodded. “I’ll be back in a minute, whether I find an entrance or not.”
Before she could respond, he flashed away, moving so fast, she didn’t actually see him go. Only felt the brush of air after he’d passed. She blinked and scowled at the trees. He could have at least given her a warning.
She hunted the immediate area again, looking for footprints or tell-tale signs of someone walking the perimeter. She’d barely made it a few yards before Ben was back at her side.
She let out a breath, relieved for more reasons than she wanted to get into at that moment. “Find anything?”
“Small hidden door on the opposite side of the building. Motion detectors near the wall—I had to move outside their range to search.”
“We won’t be able to go in without them knowing. Unlike the house.”
“Unless we go through the roof, but I didn’t search up there yet.”
She blinked. Glanced at the three-story building. Looked back at Ben with raised brows. “The roof?”
“I can leap us up there. But it might still be sensor protected. And the doors, up there as well as down here, are going to be hard to get through. Locks designed to keep monsters as well as humans inside.”
“I can pick a lock if it doesn’t have biometrics. Does it have biometrics?”
Ben’s turn to blink. Well, that was a nice change of pace. Especially after the revelation that he could leap up to the roof of a three story building while carrying her. She was still processing that. Three stories? That was really high. Lock picking was nothing to that.
“I’m not sure why you being able to pick a lock surprises me,” he said, almost as if in answer to her thoughts. “You made yourself a plastic gun and knew how to rig an explosion in a gas generator. Of course you can pick locks.”
She shrugged. “My father wasn’t the one responsible for that skill, though. I learned that on my own later. When I started tracking for a living. Useful skill when trying to rescue someone.”
“It really is. Do you have lockpicking tools with you?”
