In the Crossfire (Bloodhaven) (14 page)

A cold dread swept into Liam’s bones that had nothing to do with the night air. He didn’t want to spend the next twenty years feeling this way. He didn’t want to feel this way
now.

But he’d already decided, hadn’t he, that he no longer wanted to keep moving? The longer he spent here, the more he wanted to stay. The more he wanted to stay with
her.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“What do you mean?” She sounded startled.

He stalked closer. Her eyes darted down to his bare chest, then quickly flew up to his, but it was too late. He’d seen it.

Closer again. He heard her breathing quicken. He saw, through the darkness, beneath honeyed skin, a flush of red sweep up the tops of her breasts to her neck and cheeks.

“Why do you want me to stay?” he asked softly. His heart pounded, waiting for her answer.

“I . . . I like your company, Liam.” She licked her lips, tried a dismissive shrug. “Few enough people I can say that about.”

She continued to stare at him, eyes traversing the rugged and ragged landscape of his torso. Her gaze veered lower. Liam felt himself stirring, growing hard, just as her soft lips parted and a hitch in her breath escaped her. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly beneath the scooped neckline of her fitted tank. She couldn’t take his eyes off him, and he felt a ridiculous, foreign urge to puff up with pride.

He scented her arousal.

His wolf growled with need.

Her head jerked up. She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said, and the husky quality nearly did Liam in. “Don’t mind me. I’m just . . . off tonight. On edge. I’ll take care of it.”

He stilled. “Take care of it?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. It’s not the first time I’ve emerged from a high-stress mission wanting. . . .” She waved a hand. “You know.”

“Sex.”

“Yeah.”

Liam’s nostrils flared. His heart rate kicked up.

“Ah,” he said, voice rough.

“It’s either decompress via sex or violence. You know how it is.” A thought must’ve occurred to Isobel, because she eyed him speculatively.

She was wondering which option he’d chosen. Liam’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Neither for me, I’m afraid.”

He’d been young when he’d enlisted. A mere twenty-two. He’d known very little about what to expect amid all the bloodshed and carnage. It had been the height of war, and his superiors had thrown them all into the deep end with little mental preparation. He’d reeled during those initial days of battle.

In the beginning, before the worst of it, he’d let himself be intimate with a fellow soldier. They’d sought release and consolation in one another. Later, however, as their unit had drowned deeper and deeper in the furor, Liam had found himself seeking her out less and less. He’d known there could be no tenderness left in him. He’d seen too much, done things he could never come back from.

The last time he’d had sex, he’d seen a grinning skull in place of his partner’s face mid-coitus. He’d pulled out abruptly and left, with her confused gasps still ringing in his ears. He never sought her out again.

Decompress via sex or violence,
Isobel had said. So he could’ve chosen to purge his pain via violence instead, but that had never come naturally to him. He was a simple carpenter, who thanks to his tracking skills had been tasked with leading not just his own unit but others as well to enemy encampments. He’d witnessed the brutality committed by his fellow soldiers. He’d gone through the same himself when he’d been captured and chained up like a dog.

He felt sick at the thought of regurgitating the same measure of violence he’d spent years trying to escape. So he suppressed it all, cramming the feelings back down his own throat, anything to keep from lashing out and hurting anyone again.

He was startled out of his memories by a light touch on his arm.

Isobel stood before him. So close, so warm. Her forehead creased in concern. She tempted him so much.

He thought about heading back inside his cabin and shutting the door. Maybe doing laps around the perimeter and burning it out of his system.

But he wasn’t supposed to bolt again, was he? They’d decided on a new dance.

He stared down at Isobel, unable to tear his eyes away. He recalled her earlier words, felt a corresponding tug deep in his gut. He was hard with pure want. “You’ll take care of it, you said.”

She colored and dropped her hand to her side. “I. . . . Yes.”

“By yourself?”

He was getting too personal, but he didn’t care. All he could picture in his head was Isobel on her bed, legs spread, hot and wet as she touched herself. Pinching her nipples as she slipped her fingers into her wet slit. Or using a toy. He could easily see her owning an array of toys to ease a pounding, unforgivably high sex drive.

He wanted to know what made her scream.

Isobel stared back at him, unblinking. A dark thought suddenly twisted through Liam. The words scraped out of his throat with abrupt fury: “Or with someone else?”

Whoever this unknown, unseen male was, Liam immediately hated him. It was irrational; Liam was well aware that he had no prior claim on Isobel. He didn’t care. He hated this male who was apparently familiar with Isobel’s body, who enjoyed her mouth and legs and knew precisely where to suck to make her come.

He couldn’t suppress a snarl.

Isobel stepped back. “I have a list.”

“Of . . . candidates?” He was nonplussed.

She glared defensively. “I’m discerning when it comes to my sexual partners.”

Liam gazed at her, his breaths turning quick and shallow. His hands fisted by his sides, skin prickling in silent demand. A riot of emotions rolled through him.

So she was on edge, was she? Restless and needing to do something about it? Well, he’d been on edge for far, far longer than she had.

“How does one get on this list?”

Isobel’s eyes widened at his silky tone.

“Go on. I bet background checks are involved.”

“Obviously.”

Done that.
“And then? What else?”

“Sexual compatibility.” Her voice turned cool with challenge. One he was only too willing to accept.

“And you confirm this compatibility by. . . ?”

Her nipples beaded underneath her tank, visible even through her bra. “A test run. Or three.”

Oh, yes. Challenge definitely accepted.

She drew back. She clearly didn’t know what to make of him. Liam found himself enjoying this new dynamic. He moved forward, matching her step by step.

“And they have to be Council agents.”

“Why?” He tilted his head. “Do they know special positions?”

Her pupils dilated. A quick scent and he knew she was wet between her thighs.

“They know the score,” she replied shortly, though she couldn’t keep the breathlessness from her voice.

“Show me the score, then. In elaborate detail.”

A startled laugh escaped her. Isobel stepped to the side. “I . . . don’t think so, Liam.”

They were circling each other now, like warriors in a ring, assessing each other from head to toe. Liam found his wolf satisfyingly intrigued. Already the animal inside was stretching, doing a little prowling of its own. Watching. Gauging.

This was one dance Liam knew he’d enjoy. The cautious, enticing play of advance and retreat. The slow beginnings of a chase. The allure of the hunt.

One step, then another. A third brought him just inches away before Isobel lifted a hand and pressed it flat on his chest. He nearly hissed at the sizzle of contact.

“I think,” she said softly, “you want to take off running right now. But you’ve already bolted earlier this evening, and you don’t want to exhaust your quota, so now you want to distract me. Provoke me. Send
me
running instead.”

“Is that what you think?”

“You want me off-kilter. I’m not that easily intimidated, Liam.”

She gently pushed back. For a moment he resisted the slight pressure. He grabbed her wrist, tugging her closer. Her eyes flared, and he felt triumph at the knowledge that she felt this electric current between them as well. However the hell she’d managed to hide it before, she couldn’t hide it now. She felt it. She couldn’t deny it. She
knew.

Her fingers curled, and Liam felt the scrape of her nails along his chest. A bite of exquisite pleasure. He wanted more.

Their gazes held for a long, suspended moment in time. It was punctuated only by the sound of their uneven breathing, air sawing in and out of them, heavy with need and demand.

Then she stepped back, and the contact was broken.

“If you’re angry at me, be angry,” she told him unsteadily. “Don’t run, don’t try to intimidate me. I told you, I can handle it.”

“Why do you think I’m angry at you? Just because I want you? You’re a beautiful woman, Isobel. It shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“You want an excuse to leave. I won’t give you one. You’re my tenant, Liam. And strangely—or maybe not so strangely—I find I rather like your company. I’d hate to lose you.”

“So, what, you’ll evict me if I don’t perform up to the standards of your list?” Liam smiled, almost predatory. “I promise I’ll do quite well.”

Another step back. Her eyes narrowed as she jutted out her chin. “So we have sex. Then what? You’d run, Liam. You know you will. I’m not going to help provide you with a reason to do so. What I want may be purely physical, no strings attached, but I refuse to be anyone’s excuse. So if you want to go, go, but don’t you dare pin this one on me.”

She turned to leave. In two strides Liam was upon her. He seized her by those rounded hips he loved so well, spun her around to face him, and yanked her into his arms.

“You think it would be that powerful between us, then?” he growled between clenched teeth. “Explosive enough to send me running? Oh, poor Liam, such a fragile wolf. Don’t spook him or he might run. He might break. Guess what, sweetheart: you can’t break what’s already broken.”

Isobel furiously wrestled her hands between their bodies, ready to push, he knew. Before she could move he grazed his lips over the cusp of her ear, his whisper unrecognizably dark and gravel-rough: “Do your worst.”

He felt a shiver run through her body, and could’ve howled with triumph. She was tempted, he knew. Tempted, edgy, and needy. Damn him to hell for taking advantage of that. Damn him for refusing to feel guilty about it.

He’d hungered for her for so long. He’d craved her like a drug, had set that craving aside all this time because she hadn’t betrayed even an inkling of awareness of him as a man. He hadn’t been about to force an awkwardness between them. But he saw the truth now. Isobel was a master at disguising her feelings, of masking her attraction. She kept that expressionless wall up all the time, and now he could see through the cracks. He’d tear down that wall with his bare hands until they were bruised and bleeding, but he wouldn’t stop. Not this time.

She lifted herself up on her toes. His breath caught. Isobel’s lips were so close that they brushed his scratchy, unshaven jaw. He could feel her own breath coming in light, hot puffs against his cheek, the feel of her exhalations stirring his loins. Her scent was a heady, intoxicating mix that was already sending him reeling past all boundaries.

Her soft, full mouth, the same one he’d been unable to stop fantasizing about since the moment he met her, was a mere heart’s quiver away.

“Goodnight, Liam.”

She pushed harder this time. He resisted for only an instant before stepping back, highly aware of his erratic breathing. He could see Isobel’s nipples, diamond-hard, through her top and bra. It was all he could do not to cup the swell of those perfect round breasts in his hands.

She knew it, too, from the bright blaze burning in her eyes. Without another word, she turned around and vanished into the darkness of the night.

Liam stood there. He couldn’t hear past the rapid pulse drumming loudly in his ears. He couldn’t control the wild surge in his veins. He felt. . . .

Alive.

The realization felt damn good.

His mouth widened in a slow, predatory grin. He drew in a lungful of crisp, cleansing night air, and went after her.

* * *

Isobel couldn’t stop cussing out that damn wolf.

What the hell had gotten into him? How dare he pull that kind of stunt with her? He already knew she was on edge with craving. He
knew,
and yet he’d pushed with all the insolence of a—

Her senses halted her mid-seethe. She whirled around just in time to see Liam emerge from the shadows, bearing down on her.

“What. . . .” she began, but got no further when his large hand slid through her hair to cup the back of her head. The hot gleam in his eyes startled her into silence.

“We’re not done,” Liam whispered. Then he tilted her head back and covered her mouth with his.

For a split-second, Isobel considered hooking her leg behind his knees and sweeping him to the ground. When her hands rose to his chest and felt the hot shift of muscles beneath her touch, however, she couldn’t find it in her to shove him away.