Dawn Endeavor 3: Julian's Jeopardy (3 page)

He muttered under his breath, but he didn't speak again as she ran her hands over his arms, neck, and face, taking away “the bad,” as she'd always called it.

“I…I have to finish. I feel more pain.” She ran her hands over his hips, and he shuddered.

“Yeah, the pain's getting worse by the second,” he growled. “Who the fuck are you? Why are you here?”

The strength of his voice encouraged her, but his anger didn't make sense.

“Did Montaña send you? You here to take all the pain away so he can give it right back?” He sneered.

“Shh, no.” She glanced over her shoulder at the door but continued to run her hands over his legs and feet while avoiding that large, insistent part of him. She could feel his hurt, and it was more than unfulfilled arousal. Had someone injured his groin as well?

“You're blushing,” he said in amazement, though how he could see in the darkness, she had no idea. “Good Christ, if you're not with Montaña, who the hell are you?” He paused, and his voice shook as he asked, “Are you real?”

“Shh.” She rose and put her fingers over his lips. “I work here.” When he stilled, she hurriedly amended, “I work in the botanical center. There's a legitimate lab attached to this area. I had no idea you were here. When Pedro told me, I didn't believe him. I had to see for myself.”

“Yeah, you've seen, all right.” He stepped closer, as close as his chains allowed.

“I'm still hurting, sweetheart.”

Her face felt on fire, but she couldn't avoid it any longer. She slowly feathered her fingers over his lower abdomen, down his groin to his inner thighs, and cupped his testicles.

The raw groan he gave made her nipples tighten, but there was more than carnal desire in the sound. There was real pain.

“How did this happen?” she asked, appalled.

“Montaña,” he rasped, no longer trying to goad her. “Fuck, that feels good.

Don't stop,” he ordered, sighing into her touch. Though still aroused, he seemed to care more that the pain from his wound leeched away. She eased her hands from his warm sac and slid them over his shaft, pushing away the sense of raw scarring that shouldn't have been there.

Now that she held the very essence of him, she recognized a part of the psychic makeup of his physiology. “You shouldn't need me to heal,” she said on a breath, amazed. Had she found someone like her, finally? In the heart of the jungle, deep in the Amazon, had she found a kindred spirit?

“No, I shouldn't, but, honey, I'm still aching,” his low rumble reminded her.

“You're making it worse.”

She realized that she no longer felt his hurt, but a new pain had blossomed.

The male in front of her pulsed in her hands, so thick, so hot and hard. He stirred in her a keen desire she'd never before experienced, not even with the few boyfriends she'd slept with.

“Tell me your name,” she said, the inane request making her blush all over again. God, she held his penis in her hands, she couldn't see what he looked like, and she didn't even know the name of this stranger chained to a wall. Talk about surreal.

“Julian,” he whispered, his breathing labored. “But my friends call me Jules.

Call me Jules, Sheridan. Oh yeah.”

He tilted his hips in time with her touch, and she realized he was thrusting into her palms. To her amazement, he felt slick, and she wondered if she'd missed the point where he'd orgasmed. But he didn't seem any smaller.

“No, don't loosen your grip. Hold me tighter,” he rasped and groaned as he literally swelled in her hands. “Fuck.” He swore and came all over her. So much seed. It hit her shirt and continued to leak from his tip, the scent of musk and vanilla bringing her so close to her own orgasm, she let go of him in shock.

“Damn, I'm sorry,” he said on a groan. “It's just been so long, and I—” He tensed, his eyes flashing.

“What? What's wrong?” she asked, alarmed. She couldn't stop shaking, not from fear, but from arousal.

“Someone's coming.”

Jules tensed and yanked furiously at his chains. Whatever the woman had done to him worked, because his body, if not his mind, felt at full strength again.

Though still dazed, he no longer ached. He had so many questions, but his beast demanded this woman get to safety. For all he knew, she was Montaña's newest way to get under his skin, but after all she'd done for him, after seeing the bright, shining white of her aura, Jules didn't much care.

“Stop. You'll hurt yourself,” she hissed. “I'll be back when I can. Don't tell anyone I was here.”

The sheen in her eyes froze him. Those glorious blue eyes made him want to do whatever she said without question. And that worried the hell out of him.

He slowly nodded. “I won't say a thing.” But he was talking to her back as she punched in a code and rushed out the door. He swore again as the damned thing made too much noise when it closed and locked behind her.

The rapid patter of her footsteps faded while heavier, familiar noises returned.

The changing of the guard. It would have made more tactical sense to never allow his door to be unguarded, but the assholes running the place insisted on daily briefings for everyone together in the central courtyard. He'd heard a few mention it in English—rogue Circs not from around here, obviously.

Thanks to the mysterious Sheridan, he felt better than he had in days, weeks, hell, a month. Who was she, and how had she healed him like that? Had he hallucinated and finally just healed himself? Though Jules normally healed quickly, whatever daily injection Silva gave him to keep him placid also affected his regenerative powers.

But nothing Silva had done should have accounted for the release of a building mating heat. With just the soft touch of her hands, Sheridan had alleviated that worry. Or had she? Had Silva's drugs somehow muted his instinctive need to mate?

God, he had so many questions. He'd been anxious about the mating heat as his time—what felt like forever—in this shit hole progressed. The mating heat might be the one thing that could break him. Because without ease, he feared he'd slowly turn rogue, unable to think about anything but sating his sexual and violent appetites.

His team's sanity had made them unique among the many sailors infected with the Circe serum so many years ago. The tight bonds they shared enabled them to overcome the madness that affected so many others. Yet the mating heat still struck them. Despite the bonding of Fallon and Olivia, and then Hayashi and Morgan, the entire team continued to need Circ sex. Only a Circ could satisfy the carnal needs that built inside them.

That Sheridan had eased his hunger in one large orgasm could mean several things. Her healing “power,” whatever the fuck it was, worked on Circs. Or his many injuries had drained him to the point that the mating heat hadn't hit, and his erection had been a response to the shy sex kitten who'd healed his hurts so generously. Or maybe he'd lost his fucking mind.

The dreaded haze of awareness he'd been forced to exist within returned, but this time, his distance from reality comforted. Gifted with a delicious fantasy, he allowed himself to linger on her memory.

As the minutes turned into hours, he couldn't stop dwelling on his visitor.

Sheridan.

Was she real? If so, who was she? And why was his beast so damned fascinated with her?

She'd been so small, fleshy, and so incredibly feminine that he could feel himself getting hard again just thinking about her. The woman wasn't tall, maybe five-four or five-five. Her hair was a rich auburn color, a thick mane of red he wanted to see spread over his belly as she went down on him. Sheridan had a woman's build, the kind men dreamed of and other women secretly envied. Not slender, not fat, but curvy, with ripe breasts and an ass made for fucking. He'd noticed everything about her the minute she'd stepped into his cell.

And such heat. Her touch was soft, healing, full of fiery energy that pulled at his beast and made him salivate to taste. He'd noticed her full tits, those hard little nipples begging for a bite. Would they be as red as her hair, or the soft peach of her blush? Such creamy, fair skin contrasted with the dark richness of her hair. Yet he hadn't seen any freckles, nothing to mar that smooth, innocent flesh.

To say nothing of her angel's face. A mixture of innocence and sultry beauty, a soft allure that lingered long after she'd gone. Jules had slept with a lot of women in his time. Even before he'd turned Circ, he'd had a voracious appetite.

In the course of his years, he'd never seen a woman to match Ava Belle's beauty. Mrs. Sharpe's assistant had a mouth that wouldn't quit, but her beauty couldn't be denied. The dark-skinned woman had a face and body that could have made millions had she bothered to show them off.

Yet Ava had never intrigued him as much as the mysterious Sheridan did. And he couldn't help wondering why.

If the woman was in fact working for Montaña, then Jules was screwed, because he'd be damned if he could stop thinking about her.

Even when Montaña arrived the next day full of questions and rage that Jules had healed so fully and so quickly, even when he gave Jules a stronger beating despite Silva's emphatic screams to stop, Jules could only think of Sheridan and what she'd make of his new bruises. His beast grunted under Montaña's brutal fists. He didn't flinch when Silva shoved a heavy dose of another burning drug into his arm, nor did he fight when Montaña spoke in detail about Jules's team, about things he shouldn't possibly know.

Jules made a mental note, but his thoughts, and those of his beast, remained solely on the curvy redhead he couldn't seem to quit thinking about.

* * *

The Croatan National Forest, North Carolina

Frederik Gunnar Tersch ran his hands through his hair and growled as he paced in the large conference room of Circ central. He knew he probably looked like the Viking his team often called him. His blond hair had grown longer, and as he ran his hands through it, it probably resembled an unkempt pile of straw. At six-six, he normally looked down on everyone around him. But when he grew so out of control, he inadvertently let the beast slip. And now he'd gained a few more inches, enough to make the women around him nervous.

“Tersch, sit your ass down. You're making me dizzy,” Jesse Fallon growled, as anxious as the rest of them. His mate, Olivia, worried her lower lip, the sexy gesture one that usually would have Tersch teasing her, but right now, he had nothing to say.

He didn't care how dizzy Fallon felt. Jules, their team leader, the man who could always be relied on, a man he fucking loved but would never in a million years admit the emotion to anyone but himself, had been missing for six hellacious weeks.

“Gunnar, it'll be okay,” Ava murmured and sat next to Mrs. Sharpe, their boss.

Ava's soft hazel eyes looked at him with worry. Her light brown skin, which never failed to enthrall him, because it was so rich and so much darker than his own, seemed to ripple, as if she too fought a beast inside her. His Ava, a human woman he had no right to think about as much as he did.

But even she couldn't make this right. He lusted after the female with a hard-on that never ended and with an affection that had really started to concern him.

But she could never fill Jules's shoes. Hell, no one could.

“No, it won't be okay, Ava,” he said through gritted teeth, not wanting to take his frustrations out on her. He couldn't sit still. The urge to destroy had been building for days, weeks, but he'd kept ahold of himself. For Jules, because Jules would need the team intact to get him out of whatever hell he'd fallen into.

The anger, the rage, continued. He knew he had to contain it. While the others on his team had psychic abilities that helped, his harmed. Fallon could read minds; Olivia, emotions. Hayashi could see glimpses of the future—though Tersch still wasn't sure what the hell his mate Morgan Reynolds could do, other than annoy the piss out of him. And then there was Mrs. Alicia Sharpe, their boss. She was a mystery no one had solved, even after eight months of working for—not
with
—her.

“Alicia.” He snapped her name, never one to give respect where it hadn't been earned. Everyone else called her Mrs. Sharpe, at her insistence.

The petite black woman had beauty and a presence no one could deny. Too old for him, and too classy, he admitted, glaring at her calm presence as she sat in a black business suit, those damned pearls she never seemed to be without at her neck and earlobes. Just once he'd like to catch the damned woman in pajamas or sweats. But no, she never appeared with a hair out of place or dressed in anything not fucking appropriate.

Mrs. Sharpe sighed. “Gunnar, please. I know you're upset, but—”

“Upset? My team leader has been missing for six fucking weeks, and we're still sitting here with our thumbs up our asses!” he roared and felt his entire body pulse with the need to fully
change
, to fit into the monster that knew just what to do with all the hurt and anger. Becoming a Circ had only increased the strength of his inner beast. Whereas the others had mental abilities, Tersch's manifested themselves physically. A traumatic incident in his past had changed him, enabling him to channel his energy into raw strength. Even when not in his Circ form, he could do some serious damage.

Tersch tried to control himself but had a hard time thinking past the haze of fury swelling in his blood. Jules needed him. Right. Now. “Why the hell are Morgan and Hayashi in Brazil when they should be here, working with us to find Jules?”

“Easy,” Fallon said.

“Fuck easy!
I
should be there. Let
me
search the jungle. I guaran-damn-tee I'll find Jules or beat the answers out of those who know where he is.” Jules would have calmed him down. Jules would have known how to handle him.

Olivia answered him quietly. “You know why they're there, Gunnar. Kisho had a vision of himself and Morgan with Jules. We just have to be patient.” She put out a hand, and he jerked back, out of reach of the empath.

He was sick to death of being patient, of waiting, of never being in control when it mattered. He was failing Jules; he fucking knew it. Just like he'd failed other important people in his life. He refused to let it happen again. “I'm going,” he announced and turned on his heel.