Back From Hell (8 page)

Then he shoved inside her, his cock breeching the tight, dew-slicked muscles of her pussy. With one long, possessing thrust, he took her. Her breath caught in her lungs—she could feel him staring down at her.

She wasn’t sure what he was, but she had an odd feeling he could see her better than she could see him. “You’re mine, Jenai. You know that. You can’t pretend it’s not going to happen, not anymore.”

No. She knew that, hell, she had known it for a while. But fighting it, fighting yet another thing destiny had thrown in her path was something she’d felt compelled to do. It was over now though. As he slid back out, withdrawing until all but the tip of his cock had left her body, she clutched at him, trying to pull him closer.

When he shoved back inside her, hard and brutal, her mouth opened and she started to wail out his name.

“Hush,” he muttered against her temple, one hand coming up, pressing against her lips. “You can’t scream—bite me if you have to, but don’t scream.”

She sank her teeth into the fleshy pad of his palm as he muffled her scream with his hand. His hips withdrew, and then he thrust inside her again—the thick ridge of his cock pressed against the bundle of nerves buried by the mouth of her womb, pushing her higher and closer to climax.

Her teeth pierced the flesh of his palm and his blood splashed hot in her mouth. The taste of him had another hunger raging to instant, demanding life, but there was no vein in his palm and the flow of blood was sluggish. Whimpering with frustration, she sucked on him.

His breath hissed out and then he tugged on his hand. She let go with a mewl, but then his hand cupped over the back of her head, guiding her mouth to his neck.

At the feel of his pulse against her lips, her control shattered. Her fangs sank into his neck as he sank into her pussy and as she started to feed, they both began to climax.

His cock jerked viciously inside her and her pussy clutched spasmodically around him, trying to hold him inside as he pumped his cock in and out of her sheath. The fast, hard rhythm had her climaxing again, barely a breath away from the last one and then he arched against her, driving upward and inward, until he couldn’t possibly go any deeper.

And then, as her mouth slid from his neck, he started to laugh, a low, shaky chuckle as he sank to his knees, her thighs still wrapped around his hips.

“I find my mate—damn near get her killed, and then I fuck her in a closet while her sister is unconscious just a few feet away,” he muttered.

Jenai’s lips twitched. “You’re amused.”

His chest moved against hers as he continued to laugh softly. “Oh, I’m well beyond amused—this is in the realm of insanity.”

His laughter died and she felt her heart flip over in her chest as he lowered his head, finding her mouth unerringly in the near dark. It was a slow, gentle kiss—tender and sweet.

Tears stung her eyes by the time he pulled away, and suddenly, she was glad there was hardly any light. In the darkness, she could pretend to hide…just a little.

* * * * *

They showered separately. Ronan knew, just by the way she had gone so silent and still, that she needed a few moments to think.

To think… What in the hell was going on inside that pale blonde head of hers?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. There was so much they didn’t know about each other, but they both knew the important things. They knew each other’s hearts and souls. That was why mated pairs often spent so much time in the realms of dreams before they found each other in real life.

And he knew Jenai, to the very core of her being, would rebel against anything else that seemed to happen to her outside of her choice. Fate, destiny—life itself had taken too many choices from her. Born different, she had been destined from birth to be a hunter of evil.

He knew her parents had been taken from her, victims of a brutal murder.

Everywhere she went, it was because her instincts demanded it. Not because she chose to.

And then he’d entered her life. Although he wouldn’t change that for all the world, he knew she must be frustrated by it.

He finished drying his hair with the threadbare towel as he crossed the room. The hotel was an older one—the windows could be opened by a crank unit and he’d opened both the windows and the sliding glass door at the back of the unit.

The cool spring air blew through, helping clear the scent of sex from the room. He couldn’t focus if he kept smelling that, the ripe, musky smells of passion and heat. He’d hated washing her scent from his body, but he knew damn well that he was having a hard time concentrating right now anyway. He didn’t need another distraction.

As the scents of sex faded, he stared out the window, waiting for the shower to stop running. The water had to have gone cold by now.

Hiding from me again, Jenai?

As though in answer to his silent question, the water turned off. She started to move around in the bathroom and Ronan tugged on the T-shirt she had tossed at him. It was too snug, although he knew it would hang on her like a damn dress.

But he needed cloth between them right now. Some barrier as they tried to come to grips with how quickly their lives were changing.

* * * * *

Jenai slid her arms into the voluminous button-down, her fingers flying over the buttons, covering her flesh. Her jeans seemed to abrade the sensitive skin of her sex and she cursed as she realized she hadn’t brought any underwear into the bathroom with her.

“Damn it,” she muttered, lowering herself to sit on the edge of the small bathtub. As she drove her hands through her hair, she tried to understand exactly what it was she had just done.

Sex wasn’t something she indulged in often. If the need got too bad, she dealt with it, but she was good at suppressing those needs.

Until today.

No, until Ronan had walked into her life, just a matter of hours ago. Hell, if he had tried to strip her naked in the kitchen with Stephanie looking on, she might not have had the intelligence to stop him.

Her intelligence, her common sense, her focus, all of those seemed to shatter around him. It had been that way in her dreams—but it seemed more real, more vivid now that he was actually in her life.

She had to think. They had so much work that needed to be done. And Stephanie, she had to make sure her sister was going to be okay. A dark red flush of shame stained her cheeks. Fucking a man she barely knew in a closet while her sister lay ill, fighting the poison in her system.

“I’ve lost my mind,” she muttered, shaking her head.

When sex became a demanding itch, she scratched it, but need for a man had never had such powerful control of her.

Ronan, though, he was different. And try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself that he was a stranger. She may have just met him—but in her heart, she knew him.

Just as he knew her.

Tiredly, she rose, rubbing her damp hair with the threadbare towel. “Deal with it, Jenai,” she told herself shortly.

He was here, he was in her life. And she knew he wasn’t planning on leaving.

And oddly, that was comforting.

* * * * *

When Jenai slid from the room, Ronan eyed her with an arched brow. She met his gaze full on, but the pale ivory of her cheeks pinkened a little as he watched her.

“I’m hungry,” he said neutrally. “I imagine you are as well. And we need to have some kind of fluid to give Stephanie when she wakes.”

Wordlessly, she nodded.

Running his tongue over his teeth, he studied her closely. She wasn’t darting away from him. Wasn’t pretending he wasn’t there. He’d been prepared for that, or for anger. She hid behind anger all too often.

“If I go get some food, will you be here when I get back?”

Her eyes narrowed, her chin lifting as she glared at him. “I’m not going to take off and leave Stephanie here alone. And she can’t possibly walk out on her own yet. I won’t move her if it’s likely to endanger her.”

“And if Stephanie wasn’t an issue?” he asked gently, taking one small step toward her.

Her eyes fell away this time. Ronan closed the remaining distance between them and cupped her cheek in his hand, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze. “Jenai?”

He watched as her pale throat worked while she swallowed. “I don’t know,” she admitted truthfully.

A smile crooked his mouth and he brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Well, at least you didn’t outright say you’d haul ass out of here.”

She flushed. “I doubt it would do much good,” she muttered sourly.

He smiled. “No. I’ll find you, Jenai. Wherever you go, wherever you try to hide, I’ll find you. You are my match, the other half of my soul. And nothing will separate you from me.”

* * * * *

Nearly two hours later, she sat with her belly full and her mind hot with fury.

“What in the hell do you mean, I can’t help? Those bastards shot my sister! They destroyed my home!”

And if Ronan continued to stare at her with those patient eyes, she just might tear them out. His voice was calm as he said, “That wasn’t your home. You rented it. You didn’t really live there.”

That stung. Hell, she hadn’t had a home since her parents had been killed. Mutinously, she continued to glare at him. “I lived there. I slept there. Stephanie cooked there. We liked it there. Felt safe there—it’s the closest I’ve had to a home in a damn long time. And we had to run away from it. And they
shot
my sister,” she finished with a hiss, rising from the chair and slamming her hands on the table.

Ronan sighed, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. “Jenai, I’m starting to think you two were incidentals. They couldn’t have cared less about you. If you stay out of the way, maybe we can keep it that way.”

“Incidentals.” She ran her tongue over her teeth, the ache in her gums all but driving her mad. Fury always brought out the worst in her, namely fangs and an insane rage to draw blood. “They shot my sister. Holy hell, even if they are after you, you expect me to just sit back mildly, as though it doesn’t matter?”

Ronan’s brows arched over those lovely blue eyes. How in the hell could a man make her insane with fury and mad with lust all at the same time?

“You mean to tell me it does matter?” he asked, his tone ever so mild and polite. “If I managed to get myself killed, then you are free of this new shackle fate has thrown around your ankle.”

Her eyes narrowed. Jenai saw red. Her hands closed into fists, her nails slicing through her skin so that the scent of her blood filled the air. “You bastard. Just because I’m not happy fate has thrown you in my path doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

“But you’d be free.”

Her voice was low and hot with the anger billowing inside her. “I’ll never be free of you, no matter what happens to your sorry ass,” she snapped, spinning away from him.

“Why, Jenai…I’m touched.” His voice was closer—damn but he moved quietly. Too damn quietly. And he was just at her shoulder. The heat of his breath whispered along her neck just before he crowded against her, resting his chin on her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her.

She was surrounded by him—but it didn’t feel suffocating, the way she would have thought. He felt so perfect, so much like the other half of her.

“Tetched is more like it,” she said, her voice a bare whisper. “Don’t ask me to back away from this, Ronan. I can’t. This is my life and I’m tired of not having enough say in it.”

His arms loosened around her as he sighed. Turning around, she stared up into his eyes. She wanted to hate how whole he made her feel. But whenever she thought about how she felt without him, that aching emptiness was enough to make her throat tighten.

What had she had before him? Not much. Her sister was the most important thing in her life right now, followed closely by her own anger, her own drive to see her parents’ killer dead. After that? Nothing.

How pathetic was that? she mused, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on his chest.

His hand came up, cradling the back of her skull. “You know, if you had stayed so damn angry, I could have resisted.” His words stirred her hair as he spoke them.

A slow smile curved her lips and she lifted her head, staring up at him. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Ronan laughed softly. “Disappointed? Well, I can’t say that’s the right term. I want you safe—but at the same time, I know you can take care of yourself. Maybe I just want to be the one taking care of you.”

His words made something warm stir inside her. Nobody had taken care of her for some time. Even her mother had stepped aside once Jenai was trained. And she had been all of sixteen.

His head lowered, his mouth covered hers. The way he kissed her was soft, gentle, so at odds with the way he usually touched her, all hunger and demand. As his hands threaded through her hair, she rose onto her toes, arching against him.

Just as her hands curled in the soft cotton of his shirt, a soft moan drifted through the room, and slowly they parted, staring at each other.

Slowly, she uncurled her fingers from his shirt and stepped back, swallowing.

The taste of him was still heavy in her mouth, making it water and ache for more. But another soft moan drifted to her ears and she turned around, staring at the trembling body of her sister.

Ronan’s hand came up to caress her neck and she shivered. “Your taste… Bloody hell, your taste,” he murmured, brushing his lips against the side of her neck.

Chapter Five

A sick werewolf was a pain in the ass, Jenai decided about six hours later. This was the first time Stephanie had ever taken an injury from a weapon of silver and while the poison was working its way out of her system, the girl was crabby as hell and twice as irritable.

Stephanie stared at the sandwich Jenai held in front of her with a wrinkled nose. “I don’t want a fucking burger. I want a steak.”

A muscle twitched in Jenai’s jaw and she tossed the fast-food bag into Stephanie’s lap. “Yes, I’m sure you do. I wouldn’t mind one myself, but they don’t have room service here, and I’m not about to go searching for a grocery store until I know the heat’s off of us.”