BlindHeat (4 page)

“Oh you are beautiful. So perfect. Perfectly ready to be
taken.” His nose bumped hers playfully. “Aren’t you?”

He tried to hold her gaze, but her attention skittered away.
She’d barely glanced at his face in past encounters, but this was different.
This time she wouldn’t escape his probing so easily. He grabbed her chin,
forcing her to turn her attention back to him, waiting until her eyes met his.
The connection barely there, as if she’d pulled lead-lined shades down behind
those windows to her soul. “Aren’t you?” he repeated, hoping to break through
her defenses by shocking her. “Aren’t you ready for fucking?”

“Y-y-y—” She broke off, her gaze skidding away and returning
with a boldness he hadn’t expected. “Yes.”

He rewarded with another deep kiss—Pantherian style—lips and
tongues connected, breaths syncing, life energy entwined. The ridge of his cock
rode the cleft of her pussy, scraping back and forth right over her clit.

What he hadn’t counted on was his vibration rising. He
couldn’t hold off a shift much longer. He wanted to take her, wild and
unrestrained, driving into her over and over until he broke through the barrier
she maintained between his thoughts and hers. How? How did she keep such
control when he had next to none left?

He went still and she squirmed against him. She opened her
legs wider, rubbed over the ridge of cloth covering his zipper.

“You want that?” he growled. She nodded. “Take it out.”

She wrestled his belt open, then the button, and at last the
zipper hissed down. Her fingers dipped under the elastic band to find warm
flesh. Her fingers curled around his shaft while her other hand forced his
briefs and jeans down. He leaned his full weight against her, trapping her head
against his chest, her shoulders and back firm against the oak’s bark. His cock
thickened more in her grip, despite her awkward attempt to pleasure him.

Everything, every step, had demanded she be responsible for
the surrender she offered. There would be no mistaking that this was indeed
what she wanted. And there was no mistaking that she was more willing than
worldly.

Shaking, she tried to urge him to fuck her. The tip of his
shaft pressed throbbing and sticky against the cool silkiness of her stomach.
Pre-cum seeped from his cock over her fingers, his male scent freed to feed her
craving as much as her scent drove his. Her primal nature was off the leash,
but her thoughts seemed more impenetrable. What was happening to her? To him?

He put his hand over hers, stilling it. He hauled his
self-control back from the edge she’d driven him to. “Breathe,” he said.

His fingers thrust deep in her pussy and withdrew, rougher
than he meant to be, but determined to win the battle of wills. He watched her
face. Pleasure flared, expanding her pupils, and vanished in a flash.
Almost
there. Almost.
He continued to fuck her slowly, his fingers where his cock
should be, held her there at the edge of the beginning. Waiting for something.
She arched, trying to ride his fingers faster. He could guess at her
thoughts—What did he want? What would it take to please him? He couldn’t touch
her true thoughts, confirm the guess.

“Look at me,” he whispered. “Look in my eyes, feel me, be
with me.”

She did look at him and he had the uneasy sensation that it
was as if she were seeing him for the first time, not as in seeing him more
clearly than she had in previous encounters, but more as if this was the first
encounter.

Green eyes. How many humans had green eyes? But his
attention moved quickly past the color to the dark centers. It was like falling
into deep space, slipping into a place inside him where everything was blocked
out but his desire. A humming sensation filled the air around them—an energy
emanating from her. If he could hold on, push her just a bit further…

Slowly, his fingers stirred magic, thumb sliding over her
clit, fingers moving in and out of her pussy, stopping each time she closed her
eyes, shifted her concentration, tried to escape his eyes probing her. He
wanted to penetrate more than her body. Any resistance from her stopped the pleasure.

How long was it? It seemed they played tug-of-wills a year
before her will parted, allowing his energy to merge with hers.

“Say my name when you come,” he growled. “I want to hear you
come with my name on your lips.”

“I can’t,” she gasped. She was clinging to him. Both arms
around his neck.

“Yes you can, sweetheart. You’re almost there. Let it
happen. Come with my name on your lips.”

She whimpered, too caught up in sensation to argue, but he
knew with unwavering certainty when he stared down into her eyes that she
didn’t have a clue who he was. Her thoughts penetrated as clearly as if she’d
shouted them.

I don’t know. I don’t. Did he tell me his name?

She tensed, fingernails digging into his chest. Her pussy
clamped hard around his fingers. She’d stopped fighting him, her body trembling
at the edge of orgasm. And his ability to resist her was hurtling toward the
edge with her. His energy hummed upward toward a shift, carrying him away as if
he were some green adolescent unable to control his hormones. Right at the
brink—he pulled back. Not only pulled back, but out. Curling his fingers into a
fist between her thighs, he fought the urge to plunge them back into her silken
heat.

She sobbed, begged, fought. He didn’t blame her. Unyielding,
he held her struggling in his arms, not giving in, not letting go. If he
allowed her to come, he’d be gone with her. He didn’t know what impact his
vanishing and reappearing as a leopard might have on one so young and
inexperienced. He thought it a safe bet she wouldn’t find it romantic. He’d
taken them both too close to the edge and there was no quick way to undo that.
It took a few minutes before he could respond as a human, with words instead of
a hiss or a growl. Softly he whispered for her to hush, stroking her hair and
neck. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Soon…maybe, but not yet.”

He had his eyes closed, his jaw set. It hadn’t occurred to
him that Allie wasn’t going to let him off that easy. It didn’t take much to
snatch control from him. She dropped to her knees, nuzzled and nipped his
belly, then licked lower and took him in her mouth. He cried out, a deep
guttural sound, more animal than human.

Again his fingers tightened in her hair, forcing her head
back, the other hand grabbing her chin, but she kept her mouth around him. He
could feel himself fading as humid warmth engulfed him. Going still, he
absorbed all that was happening, remained connected by attaching his attention
to the rain pouring through the trees like water in a fall, the roar of wind
and water like the roar of an ocean. Her scent lingered, mixed with the mists
and his male musk. Need roared in him, urging him to do whatever it took to
have her.

Again he pulled back and this time she released his cock.

He leaned his forearm against the tree and rested his head
there. His other hand was still curled in her hair so tight it had to hurt.
“Not now. Not yet,” he said.

He didn’t have to force her to look at him. She tipped her
head back to study his face. He didn’t need to read her mind to guess she
wanted to hold his gaze for the same reasons he’d tried to capture hers, to
probe his motives. She confirmed his suspicions.

“Why?” she asked.

He smiled. “You tempt me to do things neither of us is ready
for.” His fingers loosened and he stroked her hair. “You should run back home.”

She begged with her eyes.

“What?” he asked.

Looking at the ground again, she sighed. He knew what she
wanted. He needed to hear her say it.

“Look at me,” he demanded without knowing why. There was no
point in pushing her now. He did anyway. “Look at me and tell me what you
want.”

She lifted her head, swallowing. He clamped onto the truth
with a determined stare and wrenched it from her.

“You. I want you to take me,” she mumbled, and it seemed
once she started, the tight lock on what was proper slipped away and more words
spilled out behind it. “I want you to fuck me so hard, so long, that I won’t
forget.”

“You think you’ll forget this?” He shook his head, stepped
back and pulled up his jeans. “I know I won’t.” When he had his pants fastened,
he reached to help her up. “I want exactly what you want. I want more than you
know how to want. But this is not the time or place.”

He took off his jacket, then his shirt. He helped her into
his shirt, gave her a kiss that brought him right to the brink of stripping her
naked again.

He leaned back, cupped her face between his hands, one thumb
stroking reddened skin along her jawline where his morning stubble had rubbed
her raw. He gazed into her eyes as if he might find the key to unlocking her if
he just looked long enough. Allie’s shields were back up. On a sigh, he bumped
his forehead gently against hers, rubbed cheeks with her, grabbed his jacket
and walked way.

* * * * *

Marcus had to sit for a minute in his truck, rest his head
on the steering wheel, rein in his lust-soaked mind with long, deep breaths.
She hadn’t recognized him. He hadn’t learned a blessed thing more about her, or
Hella. Strike that. He’d learned she could make him lose his mind. He’d learned
she could rip through self-control he’d spent centuries refining. From the
moment he’d scented her desire, felt the sweet humming sensation reach to pull
him in, he’d been someone else. Not a side of himself he didn’t know, but a
side he’d taken pride in mastering—the beast within. He might have been more
successful controlling himself if Allie’s inner wild-child hadn’t chosen that
moment to come out and play.

Marcus put the truck in reverse and mashed the gas, shooting
backward in a spray of water and gravel. If he hurried he could make it to her
street and assure himself she was safely home.

How could she not recognize him? Why in hell would she give
herself to a stranger in the park at dawn?

It hadn’t struck him until he held her at the edge of
orgasm, even at the height of passion with all her senses open to him, there
hadn’t been a glimmer of recognition in those pretty green eyes.

So all those visits he’d made to the newspaper office to
purchase and approve unnecessary ads were completely forgettable. He was
forgettable?

He found a parking place close enough to observe, but far
enough back to remain unobserved. He eyed the lopsided boardinghouse where she
lived. New green gave life to the scraggly yard behind a sagging chain-link
fence. Small daffodils poked their cheerful heads from among the weeds around a
moss-speckled birdbath. It might be charming with some attention. He didn’t
like the idea of her in a place so obviously neglected.

She was crossing the ball field, her dark hair whipped
around her head like the tails of a flogger. His shirt reached to her knees.
The rain came down sideways. She carried her clothes, a dark bundle, pressed to
her stomach. Her chin was tucked to her chest and he doubted she noticed the
storm. She had the slow dreamy gate of someone deep in contemplation.

At the curb, she stopped, turned and looked back toward the
woods for a moment. Then she shrugged and jogged across the street and covered
the remaining distance to her door. Her room was off a side porch. First floor.
It made her such an easy target for prowlers. He tried to leash his protective
urges, refocus on the original task. Where was Hella? In all his encounters
with Allie there’d never been the slightest sign or scent of a cat. He scanned
the yard. He and Jake had already inspected it and her apartment. The only way
to discover what happened to Hella was to get closer to Allie. Casual
encounters hadn’t produced anything useful so that had left no alternative but
getting more intimately involved, use sex to part the curtain around her
thoughts. But how could he have been prepared for his reaction to her reaction?

She pushed a key in the lock, jiggled the handle, kicked at
the bottom and the door finally swung back. With a last thoughtful look across
the field to the woods, she went in and the door slammed shut behind her.

What baffled him most was her willingness. Everything he
knew about Allie told him she would never let a stranger past a handshake and
yet he was certain she didn’t know him this morning. Something about the
encounter was out of step, out of her control and out of his. As driven as he’d
been to take, taking things further would have been dangerous. Not that he’d
let that defeat him. He’d figure out what went wrong and fix it. Once he was
back in charge things could move forward. Forward meant finding out what had
happened to Hella. Forward meant exploring Allie more thoroughly.

He started the truck and smiled when he thought of her
looking back to the park before going inside. Maybe he was not so forgettable
now. Maybe. He didn’t like this uncertainty. One way or another, he intended to
become the least forgettable male in her life.

* * * * *

Allie leaned against the door. A smattering of white paint
chips sprinkled the floor. Back to reality, facing the grim existence she was
trying to crawl out of, she couldn’t believe what she had just done, almost
done. She didn’t have much, but she was a long way from the skinny girl who had
shown up at Franny’s diner for a dishwashing job. She’d earned her way into her
own place and using her talents from the old life one last time, had put
together enough of a resume and documentation to land an entry-level job
designing ads at the local paper. It didn’t pay much, but was more socially
acceptable than creating documents to give people new identities. Socially
acceptable and invisible were Allie’s only goals.

She was soaking wet and half naked, trembling. Shivering
would be a reasonable reaction, but her skin was still warm and flushed with
desire. Her trembling wasn’t triggered by cold, but emotion, something primal,
nameless.