Sienna, page 9
“Then why stop?”
“If I keep kissing you, I mightn’t be able to stop at just that.” He inhaled sharply. “I’ll want so much more.”
“Maybe I want that, too,” she said tremulously. “Maybe I need to feel a man’s arms around me. Need to feel a man inside of me.”
The savage compression around his chest couldn’t be good. “I’m not just any man, Sienna,” he reminded her roughly. As if his near-painful, pulsating dick wasn’t bad enough, now jealousy had him in its grip imagining her with a man who wasn’t him. “I’m a whole different species.”
Her glowing eyes didn’t shy away from his stare. “You’re exactly what I need right now.”
His groan morphed into a growl, and he slammed his mouth against hers, taking their kiss to the next level of urgency.
This was no gentle seduction. This was two starved souls crashing together.
That she pulled back for one breathless second to drag his T-shirt off made him burn hotter still. What was it about a woman who wasn’t afraid to take charge? But then she was also a woman who stood alone in many ways, with her power and abilities making her a force to be reckoned with.
She was perfection.
He stripped off her clothes in return, doing it in record time before laying her naked on the bed beneath them. That her stare lit up the semi-darkness just made the moment that much more surreal.
He bent, claiming her mouth once again in a deep, drugging kiss that electrified his insides and made him want so much more. He kissed her jaw next, then worked his way down to the hollow of her throat, where her pulse beat furiously. His heart swelled, the strength of feelings he had for this woman almost overwhelming.
He wanted to taste, to touch, to fuck and be as one with her.
He sucked the tip of her breast into his mouth, scraping his tongue over her nipple and making it pebble hard. She pushed against him, her back arching. He sucked harder, and she gasped and squirmed, her desire impossibly heightening his own.
Like I’m not already close to exploding?
He released her breast to give the other one the attention it deserved when she reached for his cock, slipping her hand up and down its length.
His closed wings shivered, every part of his body burning up for her. He slapped his hand over hers, his eyes lifting to hold hers while the entire room was lit up with green. “Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “It’s...been a while,” he added.
A smile curled her lips. “You’re that close?”
He nodded. “I want to make this good for you, too.”
She released her hold of his shaft before she stretched with idle satisfaction, her breasts brushing against him. “Don’t worry, you’re doing everything right.”
Was it arrogant to want her to say more than he was doing everything right? He wanted her to lose herself completely to him. He wanted her to lose all control while she slipped into another dimension where ecstasy was the only thing to greet her.
He opened his mouth and latched onto the tip of her breast, flicking her nipple with his tongue while sucking hard. She writhed against him even before he touched her core with one hand, then slid a finger easily inside her wet heat.
He pushed in and out of her, adding another finger. He released her breast with a pop to watch the myriad of emotions flicker over her face. She probably assumed he couldn’t see her in the darkness, which was great, because now he had a front row seat to her honest emotions.
Not that he needed amazing night vision. Did she realize her eyes were lit up like green fireworks? She was so turned on she glowed with effervescence.
His dick jerked, his balls swollen to the point of no return. But it wasn’t his physical response that worried him, it was the feelings inside his heart, an aching wrench that told him he was already in far too deep, and he hadn’t even physically connected with her yet.
“You’re drenched for me,” he said hoarsely, pumping his fingers in and out of her in a rhythm he wanted to emulate all too soon with his full-to-bursting dick.
“And you’re huge,” she countered huskily. “I’ll need every bit of that moisture to make you fit.”
“Then we’d better make sure you’re soaking wet.”
Her eyes widened, then dazzled him with an even brighter green as he kissed his way further down her body. At the apex of her thighs, he withdrew his fingers and pushed apart her outer folds to expose the plump bud of her clit. He flicked it a little, and she moaned and pushed her hips up.
“So responsive,” he growled.
He inhaled her sweet, musky-aquatic scent, and with another, fiercer growl, he licked her flesh then drew her clit into his mouth before lashing it with his tongue. She jerked and cried out, and as her juices flooded his mouth he sucked on her plump bud, forcing her to climax twice as hard.
He didn’t wait around for seconds. He needed to be inside her. Moving back over her, he one-handed his dick and guided it to her sweet spot, then he plunged inside, going from hard and fast to supersonic speed in minutes.
She mewled as she came again, falling apart with her eyes glazing over and the room lighting up like the fourth of July.
As her inner muscles tightened, then released, he bellowed as he came, his seed emptying inside her while stars and rainbows burst behind his eyelids and pleasure all but overwhelmed him.
Son of a bitch. He’d never expected their coming together to be anywhere near this...breathtaking. His heart still thudding with the aftereffects of mind-blowing sex, he reluctantly withdrew from her. If he stayed inside her, he might never want to leave.
He all but collapsed onto the bed beside her, aware that her breathing was just as unsteady, her pulse erratic at the base of her throat.
She blinked, her glowing eyes dulling just a little. “That was...unexpected.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. What could he say? The truth would be too much too soon for Sienna. He was struggling to come to terms with it himself. Silence seemed like the better option.
With a huff, she turned on her side, seemingly staring at nothing. Was she as completely overcome as he’d been by what they’d shared? She probably hadn’t expected sex with him to feel so good, so right, like they’d been meant to be together.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft, verging on tender.
She stiffened. She clearly wasn’t about to fall for his affections now. She probably suspected he was playing her, using everything from their intimacy to his advantage. “Of course,” she said before she rolled back to face him. “This was nothing more than a business transaction between us. No strings attached.”
He inhaled sharply. Did she really believe that? “Who are you trying to convince? We shared far more than that.”
“No, we didn’t.” She sat and retrieved her T-shirt even as she glanced outside at the quickly lightening sky. Dawn was arriving all too fast. She pulled the shirt over her head and glanced at him. “I think I know where to find the other rares. Is it possible for you to carry me while you glide to the river?”
Chapter Fifteen
Sienna closed her eyes for just a second as she allowed her other senses to kick in. The wind sliding through her T-shirt and whipping at her hair, the scent of grass and pine and the faintest tinge of wood smoke in the clarity of air up high.
At least Bongo’s barking had faded into the nether. He hadn’t liked being left behind, despite having his own doggy door he could go in and out of at the back of the house, and enough food and water to last a week. She only wished she could tell the dog he was safer at home alone than he’d ever be with them. And it wasn’t like Bongo could keep up to them in the water.
So why did guilt pinch at her insides when finding the rest of the rares was imperative to their survival?
She flicked her eyes back open. She needed to focus now, not concede to how close she was getting to Gray and his sidekick, Bongo. She didn’t want to miss the thrill of gliding through the sky. Gray had mentioned he couldn’t fly, yet her added weight as he cradled her against his chest with his huge wings spread out either side didn’t seem to weigh him down.
The treed valley soon gave way to cleared farmland before transitioning quickly to townhouses, their lights coming on below them as the people inside woke and no doubt got ready for their working day.
She snuggled closer to Gray, feeling the heat of his body even through the armor he’d put back on. She was confident he’d keep her safe even so high up in the air. When did you start trusting him? He kept you captive! Has sex really made you change your mind about him that easily?
As much as she hated to admit it, being intimate with him had changed things between them. Like it or not, she was closer to him now, less immune to his charms.
He dipped a wing and they swung to the left, the glint of the river easily visible below while the edge of sun appeared on the horizon, lighting the sky far too quickly while highlighting the grassy bank of the river and the weed infested and gravelly, barren ground alongside it.
Gray had clearly chosen this area because it was deserted. No one would be likely to see them.
She shivered. What would people say if they caught a glimpse of this huge winged man with his striated orange and tan skin? She didn’t want to think about the fallout of such a thing on social media or even the news. She didn’t doubt for a second the Dronians would get hold of the footage and use it to their advantage.
The railway line came into view then, too, the train visible far off in the distance. That it seemed so surreal now that she’d made a carriage her home told her just how deep she was getting with Gray. She couldn’t imagine him no longer in her life and she’d barely known him for more than a few days.
The ground was rushing up fast when Gray pulled his wings up high, then bent his legs in preparation for landing. She inhaled deeply, the scent of the river pulling at her already and making her senses buzz with anticipation.
Thud.
Gray grunted as he landed, his legs giving way before he dropped then rolled, tucking his wings around them to cushion the fall.
With her breaths coming hard and fast, and her pulse beating furiously, it took her a handful of seconds to realize she was unharmed and still in Gray’s arms on the ground and enfolded in his wings. She sat and peeled apart his wings, dawn light for a moment making her blink before she climbed free from his hold then turned around to face him. “Are you okay?”
He pushed to his booted feet and shook his wings experimentally before he nodded. “Nothing but a few cuts and bruises, and a dent to my ego.”
She snorted. “I’m betting it’s not every day you carry someone through the air.”
He wiped some grass and bits of gravel off the palms of his hands and onto his gray sweatpants. “I’ve trained for all kinds of scenarios,” he said. “Though mostly I’ve been taught how to protect and defend myself.”
She absently pushed her windswept hair back from her face. “Was that part of your bounty hunter training?”
“No, actually it had been part of my assassin training.”
Her heart skipped a beat, sudden coldness hitting her hard in her midriff even as her skin went hot and clammy. He sounded so matter-of-fact, so careless. “You were an assassin?”
A coldblooded killer.
He exhaled heavily and looked away. “I wasn’t always a bounty hunter.”
“Clearly not,” she said in a brittle voice, the nausea swirling around in her stomach threatening to rise. He was no better than the Dronians who’d killed her people. Had he killed for pleasure like the Dronians did? She took a step back from him. “I really don’t know you at all, do I?”
He looked back at her, his eyes narrowed. “I eradicated bad people, Sienna. Murderers, rapists, people without a conscience who didn’t deserve to live. I always made sure of that before I accepted a target.”
“How did you know they were bad people? How did you know if the intel you received was even true?”
“Other than the fact I saw it in my target’s soulless eyes?” He sighed heavily, then added, “I made sure I watched my mark for days, sometimes weeks or months before I took away their last breath. I needed to know first that they deserved their fate.”
“Judge and executioner,” she said coldly. “How you must have enjoyed all that power.”
He flinched as he stretched one wing out, revealing a bloodied and significant tear in the thin, leathery appendage. Shit. He’d really hurt himself protecting her. She resisted stepping toward him and taking a closer look. No. He deserved the injury. He was a stone-cold killer!
He folded his wings carefully behind his back and crossed his arms. “If I enjoyed that power I would never have left the business of killing the bad guys.”
A sour taste filled her mouth. “No, you’d prefer earning oodles of money being a bounty hunter.”
He’d certainly enjoyed her body while dragging out any information he could about the Dronians. What a stupid, bloody fool she’d been! She’d even believed he’d cherished being with her, that their coming together had meant as much to him as it had to her.
He frowned. “This is getting us nowhere. I’ve told you a big chunk of information about myself while you’ve yet to give me a slither of news about anyone or anything.”
Her pulse pounded in her ears, her voice shaking. “That’s all I am to you, aren’t I? A nameless piece of flesh to interrogate and extort information from by fair means or foul.”
His lips pressed together as his eyes narrowed, his expression stern. “I didn’t sleep with you so that I’d get answers out of you.”
“Didn’t you?” she gritted.
He stepped toward her, then stopped. “No, I didn’t.” His pupils were slits in his eyes that blazed an eerie gold-yellow. “I had a thing for you from the moment I was sent holo-images of you and the six other rares who survived the near-extinction of your species. I chose you without any intel whatsoever. From the very start, I was drawn to you.”
She ripped off her T-shirt, her whole body quivering. “Then take a good, hard look at the one woman who got away.”
With one of his wings next to useless, he’d never catch her underwater now.
His nostrils flared and his eyes bulged. He lunged for her but she leapt backward, then spun away and ran for the river, throwing herself over its bank into a neat dive, before she was swallowed up by the glorious water.
The river was shockingly cold on her human skin, but so full of nutrients she could have wept with relief. Her scales formed without thought, along with her webbing. But her fin was her major focus. She needed all the underwater speed she could get, followed by her gills so that she didn’t drown in her effort to get away.
Plunk.
Gray wasn’t going to let her get away so easily. Even if she hadn’t heard his body hitting the water, she would have sensed him behind her. She drew her fin back and forth, her body torpedoing through the water. The hole in Gray’s wing meant he’d never catch her.
So why did that make her sad as much as it made her glad?
She pulled a face. Whatever! She’d been stupid enough to sleep with Gray, but unlike every other man she’d screwed in the past; she’d be paying the price of getting over Gray for months, perhaps even years, to come.
A school of silver fish darted out her way. Of all the men she could have fallen for it had to have been the one male who’d held her captive against her will.
She’d like to chalk it up to a lesson in life, but she doubted she’d learn from her mistake. She’d want Gray to the day she died.
Her talk-stone abruptly warmed, alerting her to the fact another rare was near. Her eyes going wide, she searched the river left then right, but her talk-stone as quickly cooled. No doubt Gray’s floundering had alerted her fellow comrade into hiding.
Shit.
She swam faster and peered ahead through the water at the faintest tinge of sparkling red. Zander! She flipped her fin, chasing down the trail, but the color rapidly receded, then disappeared.
Fuck!
It’d been her one real chance to catch the male and let him know about the meeting. Now she mightn’t ever see him again.
It was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She’d been so close!
Unless she wanted to live permanently in the water—tempting!—in the hope she might stumble across another of her comrades, she now had no clothes, no weapons, and no way of knowing if those rares she had been in contact with were even still alive.
A shudder of dismay went through her. Why were the Dronians targeting her now if Nero was still alive? Had they killed him in the last few days? She pushed a long strand of river weed away from her face. She had to find out if he was alive...or dead.
She didn’t want to think about the possibility of the latter. Not only would she have lost a close friend and ally, but without him and his powers, the rares were a whole lot closer to extinction.
She’d have to risk returning to the riverbank where she’d stashed her clothes and where Gray had also stashed her rapier. She couldn’t exactly walk through the streets naked while hoping her mind control ability was still powerful enough to ask someone for clothes.
With her decision made, she flipped her back-fin back and forth and surged through the water, hoping against hope Nero was in full health and the Dronians had simply decided to target whichever one of them was in range.
An hour later she was wading out of the water, her eyes swiveling back and forth for any potential threats. It might still be considered early, but it was full daylight now, with nowhere to hide. This part of the river was too close to the railway tracks for her peace of mind.
She sank back into the river and willed her shift into her secondary, human form, taking her sweet time so that the pain was kept to a minimum. Even if Gray decided she might return here, there was no way he’d arrive in time. She’d be shifted and dressed, her rapier in hand, and long gone by the time he got there.
Not only couldn’t he swim with any speed now thanks to the tear in his wing, he’d be unable to glide now, either.
