Lucas: #3 (Luna Lodge: Hunters of Atlas) (8 page)

He shook his head. “Not exactly.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes a little. “There’s something going on. How am I supposed to start a relationship with someone who doesn’t even trust me? You’ve all but admitted you’re holding back a lot from me.”

She was right of course. It had been something he had struggled with himself.

Lucas glanced away and then brought his hand up to his eyes. He pulled out the contacts. When he turned back around, she stared at him in surprise.

“I knew they had to be unusual,” she whispered. Taylor leaned forward and stared deeply into his eyes. Her breath floated across his face. “So beautiful.”

He knew the instant they flashed their bright blue light. She jumped back a little, surprised by it.

“I don’t…” she said in shock, her eyes watching him as he took a drink from his glass.

“I’m a hybrid,” he said quietly. “We all are.”

His words seemed to take a moment to fully sink in. He watched as she struggled to process his confession,

“A hybrid? Like from Luna Lodge?” she said after a moment, looking him up and down. “The size makes sense, I guess, but they look different. I’ve seen them on the news. Their eyes are amber, not blue.”

Lucas was surprised by how well she was taking this. He fully expected that she’d throw her glass at him or try to run away.

“We’re hybrids, but we’re a different kind than those at Luna Lodge.” He took another drink from his glass. “We escaped from the Horatius Group from a different facility after they did. We don’t have their resources or numbers, so we’re in hiding.”

She sat in silence for a few moments before taking another drink and then looked over to him. “And Lara?”

“Lara and Jenna aren’t hybrids but help keep our secret,” he said, not really sure how far he should go with things yet. The Vestal concept would probably just be too much for her to take right away.

“And me?” She stared at him, her face a little pale.

“We hope you will keep our secret as well.”

She nodded absently and then turned to him again. “Why are you telling me?”

Lucas swallowed the lump in his throat. It was now or never.

“Because you are someone special to me.”

Chapter Eleven

Taylor’s mind raced as she processed the revelation from Lucas, but they both sat quietly eating the spread of goodies Lucas had packed. The rustle of the wind and buzz of insects kept total silence at bay, but nothing from any larger animal or person interrupted her thoughts.

Though she knew he’d been keeping something from her, the actual truth had never remotely occurred to her.

How could it? Everyone knew the hybrids all lived in Luna Lodge. And even setting that aside, she’d never truly been able to fully process the idea of real-life flesh and blood super-humans living among normal people. Seeing a hybrid on the news was one thing; making out with a hunky one quite another.

She glanced back over at him, his shocking blue eyes now drawing her immediate attention. His brown contacts might have concealed the true color, but, upon reflection, she realized they’d made her more suspicious. His sunglasses and contacts just didn’t go with the rest of his features. On some level, she’d known they were meant to hide something.

Still, she understood the need for secrecy. She watched the news and saw the stories concerning the hybrids and some of the attacks on Luna Lodge.

Even the existence of the shadowy Horatius Group, though acknowledged by the government, seemed hard to believe. Yet, here she sat with a hybrid. A super-soldier.

She almost laughed. He seemed pretty sweet for a super-soldier. For some reason, she pictured them all as taciturn men running around barking orders and calling normal people civilians when they weren’t doing pull-ups or crawling under barbed wire fences in mud.

She bit her lip. There was so much she didn’t understand. Lucas said they were different than the other hybrids. Maybe they weren’t super-soldiers like the ones from Luna Lodge. Perhaps that is why he was so nice.

Just looking at him, it was clear they were different with those shocking blue eyes. They were so very different than the amber eyes she’d seen for the hybrids on TV.

Lucas cleared his throat. “You haven’t said anything.”

Taylor picked up one of the containers with chocolate cake and popped the lid.

“I love chocolate cake,” she said with a smile. “I can’t believe you managed to get some of this.”

Taylor took a large bite as he stared at her.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said quietly. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I want to know what you think about the other things I said.”

She closed the lid to the cake and set it aside. With all the food out of the way, it was a perfect time to lay down on the mattress and focus on the stars. With confusion still swirling in her head and heart, it was better to keep her eyes on the stars above rather than the hunky man beside her.

Lucas lay down next to her, their arms just barely touching.

“It’s just a lot to take in,” she said and sighed. “I’m a simple sort of person from a small town. The idea of you being in the Witness Protection Protection seemed crazy enough. Now we’re talking about hybrids, men I’ve only ever seen on TV or on the internet. It’s…” She shrugged.

The silence stretched between the two of them as she kept her gaze on the heavens above.

“Does that mean you want out?” he asked.

Taylor could hear the hurt in his voice and turned on her side to look at him as he continued to gaze up at the stars. His strong jaw line amazed her. It begged for her to trace it with her mouth.

“It doesn’t mean I want out,” she said softly. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Lucas turned his head to look at her now. Hope reflected there.

“I just need time to adjust and wrap my mind around all of this,” Taylor said. “As of thirty minutes ago, I knew next to nothing about you. Only that you were cute, nice and hard-working. Now I know a little more. Maybe even a lot more, I guess. I call that progress.”

Lucas gave a lopsided smile, and her heart fluttered.

She returned to looking at the sky.

“How did you become like you are?” she asked. She wasn’t totally sure what she was asking, but she wanted to know more about him. “The news said something about genetic engineering. At least that’s what they said about the men at Luna Lodge. Is it the same with you?”

Lucas let out a sigh. “We aren’t totally sure. In our group, our pasts were wiped from our minds, and the last thing any of my people remember is waking up from cryosleep.”

“Cryosleep?”

“The Horatius Group has special technology. They can use it to cool your body down, put you into a kind of long-term hibernation.”

“And they wiped your memory? With a machine?”

“We’re not sure. We don’t even know even how long we were in cryo.”

She turned her head to look at him. His gaze remained fixed on the stars above them.

“I didn’t know those kinds of things were even possible,” she said quietly. “Then again, I didn’t know men like you were even possible.”

Lucas shrugged. Not in annoyance, as she would expect, but more like he had come to terms with his past and moved on from it.

“What about family?” she prodded. Taylor couldn’t imagine what life would be like for her father if she just disappeared.

“The Luna hybrids found some information about their own births. They were given to the Horatius Group by their mothers for a price, and we can only assume it was the same for our kind.” He turned to look at her now. His blue eyes blazed in the darkness around them. “It doesn’t matter. My family is who I decide it is.”

Taylor swallowed. Her questioning had ended up being far more intense for her than she expected.

She cleared her throat a little and looked back up to the sky. The twinkling stars filled her with peace.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

Lucas moved a little closer to her, and she smiled at his warmth in the chilly air.

“Why are you sorry?” His soft rumble came close to her ear. A pulse of heat passed through her body in response.

Taylor turned. Her face was only inches from his.

“That life has been so hard for you.”

He stared at her in surprise, like it was the last thing he expected from her.

Lucas offered her a soft smile as he continued to stare at her.

“It’s not all been so bad. And it’s about to get a lot better.”

His mouth closed the distance for a soft kiss. It wasn’t at all like the demanding one they had shared at the bar. This one had meaning behind it, feeling coursing through.

She let her hands drift into his hair and played with it at the base of his neck. Lucas groaned into her mouth. His tongue dipped between her lips and slid against her own in the most erotic way she’d ever experienced.

And just as quickly as it started, it was at an end.

Lucas pulled back from her, eyes blazing a bright blue illuminating his face.

“I think…” he said gruffly and pulled away from her. “I should get you back to the house.”

She frowned a little as he gathered all the items and placed them back into the basket. She didn’t understand how they could go from that emotional intimacy to him suddenly seeming irritated. Had she done something wrong? Said something wrong?

The old irritation flared in her. No. Just because he was a hybrid didn’t mean he could yank her around emotionally.

Taylor slowly made her way down to the back of the truck and slid out, Lucas not far behind her. He made his way over to the passenger side and held the door open for her as she climbed in.

They sat in silence as he drove back to the front of the house. When he stopped the car, she jumped out, not wanting to wait for him.

She shouldn’t feel upset, and yet she was. Things had been going so well, and then suddenly they weren’t. Maybe this was just a hybrid thing, but that didn’t excuse his behavior.

Not wanting to look at him, she hurried to the door, but he rushed in front of her. She almost cursed. Of course a hybrid would be faster than her.

“Taylor?” he asked.

She didn’t turn to look at him. How could she?

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

She turned when Lucas didn’t answer. Confusion was written on his face.

“You stopped so quickly,” she said. She nodded back to the spot they had been parked.

His eyes flashed, and this time it was her turn to be confused.

“I stopped because I didn’t want to pressure you,” he said gruffly. “Because holding you in my arms isn’t near enough.”

The air in her lungs whooshed out, and for a moment, the only thing she could hear was the hammering of her own heart.

She swallowed. “Well, maybe it’s not enough for me, either.”

Chapter Twelve

His mouth found hers the instant the words left her lips. Lucas had to have her in all the ways he’d only dared to dream about. He’d only been waiting for her to agree.

Her sweet cherry scent floated around him as he worked his way through the door and past the living room. The bed was his only objective at this point.

Lucas grunted in annoyance as they tried to walk and kiss. Not going to be hindered by anything, he picked her up and wrapped her small muscular legs around his middle. He hardened even more, happy to have her hot center pressed against his body.

He walked through the house to the bedroom and closed the door behind them.

Moonlight and the light from his eyes helped push away some of the darkness, but not completely. Not that it mattered much to him. He could still easily make out all the details of the room around him with ease.

Not surprisingly, Taylor had simple taste in decorating. He spotted nothing fancy at all. Of course, he wasn’t that interested in much other than the bed at that moment.

He pulled his mouth off hers to place her on her feet firmly on the floor before he discarded his shirt.

Lucas heard her gasp and looked down to find her tracing the slightly glowing lines across his body.

“What are they?” she asked with interest. “These aren’t just tattoos, right?”

Her soft fingers followed a line that dipped across his shoulder and to his back.

“Markings,” he said quietly. “They distinguish us from the other hybrids.”

Taylor looked up and then back to the glowing blue lines. “They are beautiful.”

He nearly choked when she leaned forward and trailed soft kisses along the lines. Her tongue darted out to taste the flesh.

“Taylor,” he managed to get out. He groaned and pulled her away from him.

He wasn’t able to take much more torture.

In one quick movement, he tore the tank from her body and groaned at the revealed lacy black bra.

Although her room might be simple, there was nothing simple about this bra. It was the sort of undergarment a man hoped his woman was hiding under her clothes.

“Fuck,” he grunted and traced the lines of the bra against her peach skin.

A slight pink tinged her chest and worked its way up to her face. Lucas smiled that he was able to get that reaction out of her.

He let his hand trail down her soft stomach until he reached her shorts. He shoved them down her legs with her help.

Matching black panties caught his attention. Lucas plucked the thin lace straps on her hips. He could hear Taylor’s breath hitch in her throat.

His eyes found her own in the dark. She stared back at him shyly.

Finding the look irresistible, he leaned down and kissed her again. This time he let all the passion he held back flow through the kiss.

His hands moved along the soft skin at her sides, and when they reached her back, he pulled her close against his body. Her soft breasts pressed against his hard chest.

She moaned when his tongue worked inside her mouth, mimicking what he wanted to do to her body.

He wanted her. No. More than that, he needed her. His cock throbbed with how much he ached to be inside her.

From the instant he saw her and smelled her, Lucas knew she was his. They still had so much to talk over, but that didn’t matter at this moment. Feeling her and knowing that she wanted him too was all he needed. They would deal with the rest later.