Crimson Lips [Amazon Warriors] (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

She heard the beast grunt and fall to his knees. There was a look of shock on Delila’s face, and Crimson felt confusion and relief course through her.

As Crimson reach the injured warrior, she looked to the Cyclops to see what had stopped him in his attack. The beast had an arrow sticking out of the side of its head.

Crimson looked to the woods eighty meters away. Who had she posted at the southeast gate? Whoever it was was going to make one hell of a marksman.

She turned back to Delila to help stop the bleeding. Being the strong, stubborn warrior she was, Delila didn’t make a sound as Crimson applied pressure to the wound.

Gradually, all the warriors made their way over to where they’d heard the call, all reporting that the remaining Cyclopes had escaped due to all the warriors responding to the war cry of a fallen warrior.

She ordered a sweep of the estate and the collection of the young and old left at the estate boundaries.

Delila’s sisters helped her up and headed toward the small medical clinic they had on the estate.

From over her left shoulder, as she watched Delila limp away, her sister said aloud the thought that was running through her mind.

“Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? She has a sword wound, and the Cyclops only had a chain?”

“This chick really has got your panties in a twist, doesn’t she?” his brother teased.

“Shut the fuck up, Beau, and you can tell Gabe to keep his opinion to himself, too. I know he’s dying to say something about this.”

Sloan listened over the phone while his brother relayed the message to the youngest of the Baptiste clan, followed by booming laughter in the background.

“What, exactly, is so fucking funny?” he asked, getting annoyed with his brothers now.

“Oh, come on, I’m sorry you got ditched by the first woman you’ve ever referred to as ‘amazing,’ but you knew her for all of, what? An hour? Two? You’re talking about her as if you’ve been with her for years. You can’t deny, if it was the other way ’round, you’d be laughing your ass off, too.”

Fuck, he was right. Beau always was the reasonable one of the four.

It had just never happened to him before, plus it was the most explosive foreplay he had ever experienced.

“Just see it as an amazing, fun encounter with a really sexy woman, no attachments, no fuss, no muss.”

“You’re such a charmer, Beau.” He smiled for the first time in two days since he was left with a semierect cock in a back alley.

He’d been pissed. How could she just run off like that? If there was an intruder at her house, he could have helped or at least given her his number, something.

He wasn’t thinking it was love, but he definitely thought there was something between them. Even if it was just an intense sexual connection, he wanted to explore it.

He would try to take his brother’s advice and keep it as a smoking hot memory but nothing more.

“So how you guys doing in the Big Apple, looking to kill each other yet?”

“Nice change of subject, bro.” Beau sighed. “It’s all right. The SWAT team here is intense, and we are always on call, and we spend all our spare time together in case we get called to a job, so, yeah, there have been a few arguments, but we’re doing all right.”

“How’s Gabe?”

“Still in denial but making a good impression on the team.”

“I’m glad you’re both doing well, but I wish Gabe would finally accept the truth. I think we’ll all be better for it. How you doing on the female front?”

“What do you think?” he said with pride. Beau had never had trouble with women. He could talk his way past any woman’s defenses and panties.

“You’re a man whore, you know that?” he said in a teasing tone.

“Ah, come on, you’re just jealous, and you know it. At least the women don’t run away from me,” he said with humor, but it just reminded him how pissed off he was with Crimson.

“Just wait until this happens to you.”

“Not likely.”

“Got to go, bro. You may be a knucklehead, but I love ya. Pass that on to Gabe, will ya? Be safe.”

“Same to you, bro. Don’t let this chick get you down. You can come visit whenever you want. We’d love to see you.”

“I’ll consider it. See ya later.”

“Later.”

He hung up still thinking about the sexiest woman who had ever given him a mind-blowing orgasm and run away from him. In that moment, he decided her behavior was unacceptable and she would be punished for it.

A smile split his face as he thought of all the ways he could punish her. All he had to do was find her.

* * * *

“Spill.”

Crimson sat across from her sister in the kitchen of her personal house. She knew what her sister was referring to, but she did not want to talk about Sloan right now.

“What do you really think happened to Delila’s leg? We both know that was no chain wound, and who the fuck shot the Cyclopes in the kitchen? We don’t use guns. I’ve got more questions than answers at this point, why would the Cyclopes think we were plotting against them? It pisses me off when I don’t have a clue what’s happening in my own fucking tribe, on our own fucking land.”

Crimson was working herself up, and she knew it, but she’d been frustrated for days. Everything about that night confused her, and she didn’t like the feeling at all.

They’d spent the last three days on high alert. She’d increased the security around the estate. The mess of the bloody Cyclopes was cleared up, locks fixed, and her warriors were researching a way to get in touch with the Cyclopes so she could make sense of this situation.

She’d questioned Delila about her suspicious injury, coming up with nothing to indicate she was lying, but Crimson had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that that girl knew more than she was saying.

No one had come forward in the shooting of the Cyclops in the kitchen or the long-range arrow to the head of the Cyclops about to attack Delila. She had some of her Amazons investigating everything that happened that night but ordered them to keep it quiet. She didn’t like the idea, but as the leader of the tribe, she had to consider all the possible causes for the attack, including that someone within their community had somehow caused this.

Her sister distracted her from her musings.

“Hey, I know you’re under a lot of stress to discover what happened and ensure everyone’s safety. You’ve done all you can for now. You’re angry and frustrated with the unknown of the situation, but you can’t blame all the tension you’re feeling on the
invasion of the Cyclopes,
” she said dramatically, making Crimson smile. “If they want to start a war over nothing, we’ll deal with it. We always do. We’ll fight. We’ll win and move on to the next one.”

Annika made it sound so easy, but whatever happened to the hundred plus people part of this tribe wasn’t on her head, it was on Crimson’s. She knew that war was part of the Amazons’ culture, but they needed a break. They’d just won a decade-long war. The tribe deserved the chance to enjoy life, too.

“This isn’t all about the Cyclopes. It’s about that guy you’ve tried for the last three days to distract yourself from. Don’t think I’ve forgot, so I’ll repeat, spill! Forget about everything else for five minutes and talk to your sister about Mr. Sexy,” her sister said as she wagged her eyebrows.

Crimson laughed and finally relented, leaning her elbows on the kitchen table and toward her little sister. “Mr. Sexy, as you so accurately called him, is Lieutenant Sloan Baptiste, a marine just back from an eight-month tour in Iraq.”

“I’m already jealous, carry on.”

Crimson laughed. Her sister always made her feel better. “He is absolutely gorgeous, a great kisser, and he has a huge dick. Sloan smells and tastes like pure man. He made me come in a back alley for Christ’s sake, and it was the most intense orgasm of my life.”

“You bitch! You going to see him again?” Annika asked with a smile on her face and a hopeful look in her eyes.

That’s when Crimson lost her smile. “When you told me we had a problem at the estate, I got dressed, said sorry, and ran out on him.”

“You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“What did you want me to do, Annika, stick around to get his number when, for all I knew, members of my tribe were dying? He would have wanted to come. He’s a soldier, a protector of mortals. He wouldn’t have understood why he couldn’t have helped.”

“Okay, I can understand that, but he fought for you, Crim, and not because of the thought he had to, but because he wanted to. That means he has the potential.”

“I know what it means, but you’re reading too much into it. He’s a mortal. He’s not part of our world. Nothing could have happened between us except maybe a hot night of sex. It’s better this way.”

“It’s better that you’re miserable?”

“It’s better he doesn’t know about us. He’s safer that way.”

“How would you feel if someone took that choice from you?”

Crimson hated to see that disappointed look in her little sister’s eyes, but right now, she had to focus on the safety of the tribe, no outside distractions.

So Crimson stated flatly, “He was probably just looking for any woman willing to open her legs after no female contact for eight months. Anyone woman would have done. It was nothing.” She walked out of the room.

* * * *

No matter what Crimson claimed, Annika knew what she saw between her sister and the marine. It was definitely something.

She wasn’t going to let her only sister get dragged down by the weight of her responsibilities to the tribe. She deserved to be happy, and she was going to make sure this Sloan guy had the opportunity to do just that.

But if he hurt her, she’d put his balls in a vise and close it…slowly.

It had been five days since he met the tall goddess with bloodred lips and a name to match. There had hardly been a minute he hadn’t pictured her in his mind. That made things very awkward in public as he was always guaranteed to be standing to attention.

Every morning, he woke pitching a tent, and he couldn’t sleep without taking himself in hand, imagining it was her pussy instead of his hand. He must have gone through an entire box of tissues. The amount of times he’d beat off, imagining all the ways he was going to take her when he finally found her.

He was a marine, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t be that hard to find someone who stood out in a crowd from miles away, yet no one in that small town knew where he could find her.

Sloan was getting desperate, but he didn’t know where else to look.

He returned home in the early evening of day five of searching. When he stepped through the door with his Chinese takeaway, he saw a note had been pushed under his door. He picked up the note and deposited his food on the kitchen counter.

You’ll find Crimson 6 miles southwest of Strawberry Reservoir. Come out swinging.

Sloan took that to mean he’d have to fight to get to her.
Bring it on
. He was getting inside that woman tonight. The fantasy wasn’t enough anymore. He needed the real thing, and he was going to get it.

He left his food on the counter and took off in his truck, heading straight for the woman who left him hard and wanting.

Thirty minutes later, he thought he’d been sent on a wild goose chase. He was in the middle of the freaking forest. This shit wasn’t funny.

He saw a light up ahead that was either the place he was looking for or his unfortunate tour guide who’d have to direct one seriously pissed-off marine out of a fucking embarrassing situation.

The closer he got, he noticed more details about the place he was driving toward. It was massive and walled off around the perimeter. He wasn’t sure what he had found, but it made him uneasy. He killed the lights on his truck and slowed his progress, trying to assess the situation using his skills as a marine.

He stopped the truck and checked his surroundings. Once he was sure the area was clear, he left the cab of the truck, leaving the door ajar in case he needed to make a quick escape.

He crept over to the perimeter wall, which was ten feet high. He took a run up, caught the top of the wall, and pulled himself up.

Just like basic training. A warrior never forgets.

It was two foot deep, so he stayed low on his stomach as he lay on top of the wall. He tried to decide if it was a wall designed to keep people in or out.

As he lay there wondering, he looked out across acres and acres of land with dozens of buildings scattered throughout.

That’s when he remembered that the woman who interrupted him and Crimson outside the Res Inn said something about an unwanted visitor at the “estate.” Did he have this right? Was Crimson somewhere in this hidden community?

He could see security patrolling the grounds with some unusual but serious-looking weapons. Cameras seemed to cover the wide-open areas. And he thought all he’d have to do was fight to see her. He was not expecting to have to negotiate Utah’s equivalent of Fort Knox.