Hotter Than Hell (20 page)

Still on guard, he pulled back the flap a bit and peered in.

After a long pause, he let the flap fall very slowly and straightened himself, rolling his shoulders. He needed to walk away for a minute to get his mind together and to shake off the hot shard of desire that had filled his shaft. The image of what he’d witnessed replayed itself a few times like a CD with a skip in it before he could get the visual out of his mind.

“Horrible, wasn’t it?” Artemis said quietly, touching his shoulders. “Virgins since longer than I can remember and now it has come to this.” She looked up and swallowed hard. “I wish they would have never called me back here.”

For a moment, he just stared at her. Virgins? They were all virgins? What kinda insane environmental cult was this?

“Can I check on my remaining soldiers?” he asked, forcing his voice to be rough, forcing his mind to remain focused on the very real dangers these women presented…trying to get the hard-on to die down.

Artemis nodded but didn’t move. He could tell that she was giving him permission to go look, but that she didn’t want to see any more for herself. In a way he couldn’t blame her and was glad that she’d simply be staring at his back as he took a glimpse inside each tent.

“It is bad, is it not?” Artemis asked as he slowly returned to her side.

He nodded, mouth dry, and kept his gaze on the horizon. “Yeah.” That was all he could say before turning so that she couldn’t see his arousal. “I have one more man to check.”

Artemis graciously nodded as he strode away, peeped into the tent that held Jesse captive and winced. He quickly dropped the tent flap, inhaled a deep breath through his nose and tried to do math in his head to regain focus on the mission.

“The offense is grave,” Artemis murmured when Vince returned to stand before her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “So, how do we resolve this?”

“My nymphs are in the wrong, therefore, by rights, as has always been; you may decide the punishment…even though I am a goddess. There are still laws.”

“All I want,” he said quietly, “is for the hostages to be returned unharmed, and for me and my men to be able to walk out of here alive.”

She frowned. “That you would doubt my word when I said they would be unharmed is troubling.” She turned away and headed toward her tent.

“You also said they would be unmolested, and they have been.” There was amusement in his tone as she stiffened and dipped inside her tent.

He put the safety back on his gun and watched her pour water from an urn into a basin to splash her face. “Mind if I do the same?” he said calmly, watching her from across the expanse.

“Yes, I mean no—you are more than welcome to wash the stain of humiliation from your face.”

“I am not embarrassed,” he said in a low rumble. “It’s spring.”

She dabbed her damp cheeks with a thick towel and then wound her hair up into a knot atop her head, applying the wet side of the towel against the nape of her neck. A deep rosy hue stained her cheeks and small beads of perspiration kissed her cleavage. He couldn’t help allowing his eyes to travel down her breasts and over her erect peaks, knowing that if she felt anything near what he was feeling, she was also wet.

Against his better judgment, he neared her and gently removed the towel from her hands, dipping it in the cool basin water and then dabbing her collarbone with it.

“What was the vow?” he murmured, staring at her.

“That I would remain a virgin always until the end of time…as would my nymphs.”

Her breathing had become shallow from his attention, and it had the effect of stilting his too.

“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “To what end?”

She licked her lips as they parted and the pink tip of her tongue darted out. “Because rutting males are barbarians that pillage the wilderness,” she whispered.

“But what about marriages to honorable men, and then having children?” he asked, stepping in closer. “You need us barbarians for that, right?” Then again, he thought about the advances of technology and realized that that wasn’t a given.

“I don’t understand what has happened…why this time when we were called it was so different…why they would break a vow held for so long?” Her voice was an exhausted lament as she stared up at him. “Unless they felt the decency in each of you that I felt?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, finding it very hard to keep up any ruse with her or even to think of her as the enemy. There was something completely disorienting about her the moment he stood physically close to her. It also dredged the truth, this magnetic pulse and he fought with himself not to ask, but caved to the need to. “
What
is it about you that the moment I’m close like this, I…”

“My aura,” she murmured in a near rasp, her eyes now heavy-lidded and her breathing shallow. “I’ve never let any male being get this close—you have one, too…an aura field that is…spectacular.”

“Really?” he asked quietly, his groin throbbing so hard that he could barely breathe. “Your nymphs, they have this, too…is that what seduced my men or were they drugged?”

“We don’t use drugs; only Aphrodite does…it is their auras, which is why we stay in the wilderness and away from humans…normally.”

He didn’t know if it was complete hocus pocus or what, but the rational side of his brain was oozing out of his ears as she began to slightly pant. Her dewy skin made his fingertips burn to touch it, but he didn’t want to take liberties that could get anybody killed, so he kept wetting the towel and slowly bringing it over the swell of her breasts and down her bare arms, teasing her neck as they spoke in dètente.

“I am not against marriage,” she gasped, “and I am the protectress of women in labor…during childbirth.”

“Then why do you shun one of the most fundamental rites of spring…mating, making love, and becoming one from two?” He couldn’t deny it; he wanted this woman—bad guy or not.

Her answer was a quick gasp and a shudder as his thumbs finally grazed the swell of her breasts and he dropped the towel, standing inches from her. “I cannot remember.”

A YEAR OF ABSTINENCE WHILE UNDERCOVER
imploded in his groin as he took her mouth and summarily drowned in the sweetest kiss he’d ever tasted. He couldn’t help it; it was an involuntary reaction to stimuli too great to ignore. Her smooth hands fought with his jacket and stripped away the heavy outer layer, and she pulled back, her eyes glittering with pure fascination as her fingertips gently outlined the definition of his chest, making him suck in air quickly between his teeth.

“Your bodies are so different from ours,” she murmured, her gaze following her hands.

He didn’t breathe for a moment as she explored, then gasped as her fingertips left his abdomen and settled on his groin.

She drew away confused and concerned. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I—”

He stopped her apology with a kiss and sought her ear. “No, it doesn’t hurt…but aches like this,” he murmured and then kissed down her neck to spill the attention down her collarbone to bring a distended nipple between his lips through the sheer fabric she wore. When she gasped and arched, he gently thumbed the other nipple and then kissed her earlobe. “It hurts like that.”

“Oh…” she whispered on a rush of breath, sealing the space between them. “Then it is normal for every place else to hurt, too?”

He gently cradled her face with both hands and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, and then softly swept her mouth. “Yes…you tell me where it hurts, and I’ll kiss it till it stops aching.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“Especially there,” he murmured, gently bringing her face back to his with a finger beneath her chin and then slowly taking her mouth.

He lifted her with care, knowing he was wrong, knowing he was out of order, was so far off mission he couldn’t get back on track—but another more primal mission had taken priority. At least for the moment. Right now there was only right now, and the goddess draped in his arms clung to his neck with complete faith in her eyes.

When he deposited her on the bed amid the silk and pelts he studied her, taking his time to pull his t-shirt over head, slowly, cautiously, removing his weapon, unlacing his boots, wondering if he’d lost his mind…but her agonized stare wasn’t something that could be feigned. He unzipped his pants; she licked her dry lips and slid off her sheath. That was when he was sure it was safe. If she knifed him in bed…well…that was a risk he was willing to take. Never in his life had he been so drawn to a woman so fast, who was this beautiful, and so very off limits.

Thousands of years came to a central ache of need between her legs, so strong that she almost cried out with no shame when he freed himself from his clothes. Definitely a Titan, his body was pure chiseled symmetry, his mane a gorgeous rival to the most majestic of creatures on earth. Her hands throbbed to touch him, the center of her palms burning, her fingertips tingling. Unable to restrain herself, she reached out, and his burning body covered hers. The sound that rushed from her came up from her diaphragm, forced out of her by the sheer weight of him covering her. She arched and writhed against him, not exactly knowing what her body craved but sure that he owned it.

Torturous kisses flowed over her shoulders and breasts, his body heat receding like a hard tide, pulling down her abdomen, over the swell of her hips, sweeping over her thighs, opening them, plundering the very sensitive ache that throbbed between them until her body spasmed with sobs.

Limp, gasping, set adrift on her own sea, she never knew a kiss or a gentle tip of a tongue could cause then release such a building floodwall of pain. Yet before she could summon her wits, the hot tide of him flattened her, and she clung to his back, wrapping her legs around his waist, holding on as he kissed her deeply, making her taste her own salty sweet essence.

A strong hand flat-palmed the small of her back. Agonized eyes met hers. His dark bronze skin was damp with a glistening sheen. The scent of him was the very wilderness itself. She breathed him in with tears of appreciation in her eyes as her fingers twined in his luscious, textured hair.

He didn’t speak, but stared at her, easing himself inside her by infinitesimal degrees, holding her still by his weight and his firm grip that now captured her buttock, his eyes making her trust him, his grimace making her know how difficult his slow advance was…until she couldn’t watch him any longer, the pain-pleasure too great a beast to contain. Each brick of his defined abdomen pressed against hers, his pelvis locked into her pelvic cradle, his thick, muscular thighs trembling, holding back…her hands swept down his spine trying to gain purchase on his sensual, tight rise of haunches that were the source of his locomotion and power. He had to let whatever he held back go.

She was going mad, needed to hunt it, needed to let it run wild and free and had to chase it with her body lunging. Her quick breaths must have told him that. His breathing grew shallow as he lodged deeper within her, a groan forced from them both in unison.

Then he moved…beginning as a slow rolling motion that clenched every muscle in her body, his long, thick shaft a spear of pure pleasure each time it slid in and out of her. The exquisite sensation made her need to run hard, nearly gallop after what he’d loosed. But he held her firm, refusing to let her go until she arched and begged him, “Let me hunt you!”

He let go of her hip, kissed her hard, threw back his head, and ran. Tears stung her eyes as he thundered against her soft ground, her nails digging into his shoulders, her body lunging with his, against his, at times outpacing him and making him holler. Sweat slicked skin, air scorched lungs, muscles strained, veins standing in necks, they caught up to each other, the capture complete, total, bedlam—a battle of flesh and searing bodies, their mutual deaths coming in waves of convulsions, blinding ecstasy, and then they dropped twitching.

Heaving in air, sweat dripping off the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tightly, he slowly gathered her in his arms and rolled over so she could breathe.

She laid her cheek against his chest, eyes shut, listening to his heart thud, gasping, hair wet, wild, a massive spill across his chest and shoulders. His warm caress up and down her back offered reassurance. What had she done on the vernal equinox? The power of this Titan’s pull was so strong that she shuddered. And, yet, she could feel panic rising within him as his haze of passion abated. She also understood why.

He kissed the crown of her head. “This…”

“Yes. I know. Even though it wasn’t supposed to happen, it was…supernatural.”

She felt his body relax.

“I’m just a soldier, Artemis. I have to eventually report back…I have to tell the authorities something…have to take back the hostages.”

She nodded. “Shush, I know. At least wait until your heart stops beating so hard.”

He smiled; she could feel it against the crown of her head. “That might be hours from now,” he whispered.

That, too, she knew.

“What are we gonna tell the major, Vince?” Donovan glanced around the glen where they’d originally been ambushed as the men gathered into a tight huddle surrounded by beautiful nymphs.

“We were drugged,” Dutch said, nervously glancing around, but a mellow smile cascading across his face as the women from his tent waved coyly at him.

“Yeah, uh, the fight broke out here,” Vincent whispered, indicating with a nod. “A firefight ensued. Several grenades got lobbed…we were running, got hit with arrows that had the hallucinogen, couple of us were caught in the vines…uh, then, we staggered in that direction and found an encampment after freeing our own men. More fire power got unleashed, and the abductors fled. We dropped from the effects of the drug—but the other side had already pulled back—we hit one or two, but they dragged their own to safety. But we got all the hostages that were stashed.”