Marked (7 page)

He knew she felt it because she went still. All through dinner, as they’d made mindless small talk about the area and the lake and her neighbors, she’d been looking at him like she wasn’t sure what he would do next. For a while he’d thought it was fear making her wary, but now he knew that wasn’t the case. The way her body tensed, the way she drew in a sharp breath and held it without moving at their contact was a clear sign of arousal.

Neither of them spoke, and in the silence he could hear her heart beating its erratic rhythm. He lifted a lock of hair from her shoulder and ran it between his thumb and forefinger. It was smooth and silky, and he had a wicked desire to see the dark mass spill over his abdomen as her lips trailed south along his body. He lifted the lock to his nose and sniffed. “Oranges or grapefruit?”

She swallowed. “Bed Head.”

His brow lifted, and he knew she caught his confused expression from the corner of her eye. “It’s a type of shampoo.” She turned slowly and eased back just enough so her sweet behind brushed against him and then was gone. “You really do live in an isolated area, don’t you?”

He nodded, watching the way her eyes flicked over his face as if searching for the answer to some unspoken question.

“I’m almost done here,” she said, “and it sounds like the CD ran out. Why don’t you go into the living room and find something else to listen to? The CD player’s in the entertainment center.”

At her words, he realized the speakers in the kitchen were silent. “If you wouldn’t mind, there are a few stitches left in my leg that could be removed. I could use your help.”

Her gaze flashed down to his denim-clad thigh, hovering momentarily on his growing erection. Her eyes widened slightly just before a blush crept over her cheeks. She turned quickly back to her dishes. “Oh, yeah. Sure. I’ll, um, grab some supplies and meet you in the living room.”

A grin sliced across Theron’s mouth as he headed for the stereo cabinet. His leg was growing stronger by the minute, and there really was no reason to remove the few stitches that were left, as they’d be gone by the following morning, but he wasn’t above using any means he could to get his little human exactly where he wanted her.

She was, he decided as he opened the cabinet and glanced around the living room, a multitude of inconsistencies. When he’d asked how she found him behind that strip club, she’d told him she worked there. He’d tried to picture her in XScream but couldn’t. She was tall for a woman, and she definitely had the body to strip, but there was an innocence to her eyes that other humans who worked in those places lacked. The way she’d taken care of him after the attack—a stranger who’d stumbled out of a strip club, no less—was in direct opposition to the tough woman she obviously had to be in such an establishment. He tried to reconcile the two parts of her but couldn’t.

And then there was this house. Before he’d made his appearance in her kitchen, he’d taken a thorough tour and familiarized himself with both the interior and exterior. The house itself was old, the interior done mostly in white with bead-board walls and delicate crown moldings. The rooms were small, the ceiling only a foot or so above his head. The furnishings were antiques he couldn’t picture her buying, because they didn’t fit with what he’d seen in her bedroom: a red velvet club chair and fluffy gold pillows he could easily envision her sinking into. Modern art on the walls, a silver-framed mirror reflecting back into the room. Most of the house looked decorated by an elderly person. That one room didn’t.

He made a mental note to ask her about the difference, and then changed his mind. In the long run her answer wouldn’t matter. After tonight he’d never see her again.

He found the stereo equipment and was just opening the CD drawer when she walked into the room. A hint of
lavender preceded her, signaling her arrival to his senses, setting off a heated reaction in his groin.

“Did you find anything worth listening to?”

He grabbed the first CD in the stack and read the cover. “Bing Crosby?”

Casey burst out laughing. He turned at the infectious sound, not entirely sure why she found his suggestion so amusing, but enjoying the reaction. If there was one thing he’d learned about humans over the last two hours, it was that they were wildly unpredictable and passionate in ways Argoleans never were.

“Is that wrong?” he asked hesitantly.

“Not if you’re eighty, I suppose.” She walked toward him and stopped so close he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Her fingers brushed his as she flipped through the stack, sending a tingling along his nerve endings that, oddly, relaxed him. “Most of these were my grandmother’s. She had a thing for good ol’ Bing.” She held up two CDs with Christmas trees on the front. He knew enough about human culture to recognize the holiday. “She’d listen to these year-round. Didn’t matter if it was June or December.”

She put Bing’s CDs back and flipped a few more before she found one she liked. “Try this one. It’s mine. I’ll go grab my first-aid supplies while you do that.”

He glanced at the CD cover. A man in a white shirt and big cowboy hat looked back at him. He didn’t have a clue what kind of music it was, but he figured if she picked it, it had to be good. Music began filtering out of the speakers as he moved to the couch and sat down.

The seat wasn’t large enough for his big body, but he stretched his legs out and relaxed back into the cushions anyway. He could hear Casey rummaging in the bathroom cabinet and smiled to himself. It had been a long time since he’d had to seduce a female. As an Argonaut, Argolean woman were his for the taking. If he wanted
companionship, a crook of his finger was usually all it took.

She came back into the room and sat on the edge of the sofa just out of his reach, placing the first-aid kit on the low coffee table. “I love Kenny Chesney. He’s got the best voice.”

For a fleeting moment, he wondered just who the heck this Kenny person was and how he could find him and beat him to a pulp. Then when she started humming along to the music, he realized she was talking about the singer on the CD.

And wasn’t that just the weirdest reaction to have? If he were human, he’d have defined the feeling as jealousy, but that was an unknown emotion for an Argonaut.

He managed a wan smile.

She glanced at his face with a look of skepticism; then her gaze ran down to his legs and back up again quickly. A blush crept across her cheeks, one that warmed his blood all over again.

“You”—she cleared her throat—“are going to have to take off the pants if you want me to, ah, look at your leg.”

He fought to keep from grinning as he rose slowly from the couch, making sure to wince as if his leg was definitely hurting, and slid his hands to the top button of his jeans. Her eyes followed and froze, intent on watching what he was about to reveal.

A wicked thought occurred. And blood rushed to his groin.

Anything I want.

He popped the top button and hesitated. “I’m still a little weak,
meli
. I think I’m going to need your help with this. Give me your hand.”

He wants you to take off his pants.

Casey caught Theron’s meaning, but his words were muffled, almost as if from a dream. The blood roaring in her ears made it hard to hear his voice, but the sinful look in his eyes told her exactly what he wanted.

She wasn’t sure what made her stand, but she thanked God her legs didn’t give out. After swallowing hard, she wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs and stepped closer until she was heady from all that testosterone and sweet male scent.

She could already see from the bulge behind his zipper that he was aroused, and she’d wanted to know just what he looked like erect, hadn’t she? But if she did this, she’d be crossing a line from Florence Nightingale to Naughty Nurse that she wouldn’t be able to retrace.

Oh, God. Was she actually going to do this?

Her gaze skimmed his hard body, from his growing erection up his toned abs to those impressive pecs and finally to his rugged face.

No, he wasn’t classically handsome. His features were too prominent, his jaw too harsh, his cheekbones way too chiseled to be considered gorgeous. And there was a dangerous look to his dark eyes, to his entire being, that made her feel as if she were toying with a…god.

The thought hit her out of nowhere, but it fit. He looked like a large, dark, menacing biker god who’d ride her hard and put her away wet without a second thought.

No strings. No emotional entanglement. No regret.

She’d never bought into the whole one-night-stand
thing before, but there was something about
this
man that pulled at her. Enticed her. Challenged her to take one small, sinful taste and say the hell with the rest of the world.

Her conversation with Dana flitted back through her mind.

I don’t have a type.

And if you did, it definitely wouldn’t be the bad-boy biker type.

Yeah. She was going to do this. Screw predictability and walking on the safe side. For tonight at least, she wanted to do something completely wild and totally out of character.

She eased closer and lifted her hand. Her fingers brushed his as she touched his waistband. His hands fell away and he sucked in a breath as she popped the second button. And the third. And finally the fourth. She felt steel beneath the black cotton boxers she’d bought for him. Watched as his dark, hypnotic eyes blazed with an erotic light. And was filled with a confidence that swept through her out of nowhere.

Her skin warmed. She savored each brush of her fingers, each scrape of skin against cotton. A sweet ache settled between her thighs as she slid her hands into the waistband of his jeans and settled them on his strong, lean hips. Gently, and with her eyes still locked on his, she pushed down.

“Oraios,”
he rasped.

She didn’t have a clue what he’d said, but she loved his husky voice, the lilt of his accent. She eased the denim down his hips and swallowed back a groan as it skimmed his impressive erection, which was very obviously struggling to be set free.

For a moment she wished she hadn’t thought to buy him underwear at all, then realized it might be a blessing. It was like unwrapping a gift. One that kept getting better with each layer removed.

She was gentle as she pushed the jeans past his thighs, careful not to rub the denim over his injury. She knelt in front of him as she took the jeans to the floor and helped ease his legs free. The musky scent of his arousal flooded her senses as she worked, sending her libido into overdrive and shooting sparks between her thighs. Her body responded in turn, that sweet ache growing to explosive levels. She fought the urge to strip him naked right here and now and use him to extinguish the fire burning inside her.

When he was free of his jeans, she nodded toward the couch. “Sit,” she managed in a voice rough with her own arousal. She coughed once to cover it, but knew he had to hear it too. “I’ll, uh, take a look at your wound.”

She busied herself looking for supplies in the first-aid kit as he eased back. He didn’t speak as he sat on the couch beside her. When she had what she thought she’d need, she turned to face him and her eyes immediately ran to his hips. His legs shifted open, and that massive erection pushed against his boxer briefs, just begging for her attention.

Oh, God. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her pulse kicked up, and all the blood in her body rushed due south.

Focus, Casey.

She swallowed hard and zeroed in on the bandage on his thigh. Her fingers shook slightly as she reached for the corner of the tape and slowly peeled it away. He drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment she thought she’d hurt him. But when she glanced up to make sure he was all right, she saw pure, unadulterated lust tighten the features of his chiseled face. Her gaze quickly swept back to his hips, and the erection she’d thought was big before grew larger before her eyes.

Oh, man. She was in trouble.

She refocused on what she was doing. Then gasped when she had the bandage completely free.

There were no stitches. No evidence of a gaping wound. Just a thin red scar that would, she suspected, eventually pale.

“Incredible,” she whispered.

He glanced down at his leg. “It looks good, no?”

“It looks great. You’re a medical miracle, you know that?” She ran her fingers over the scar and marveled at the tiny ridge the wound had left behind.

His breathing stopped.

Casey immediately pulled her hand back. “Oh. Did that hurt? I guess I just assumed that since it looked so good, it had healed complet—”

His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he drew her hand back to his thigh, back to his wound and the skin she’d been stroking moments before. “No,
meli
. It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. Soothing. Don’t stop.”

She glanced from his leg to his face and back again.

She should stop. She was wading into uncharted waters. In her grandmother’s living room, for crying out loud. In a matter of minutes she’d be in over her head. She ran her fingertip back up his thigh, hovered on the edge of his boxer briefs and licked her lips.

“Yes,” he whispered. “More like that.”

Feeling bolder, she traced the hem of his boxers, slid her fingers along the downy hair on his inner thigh. The muscles in his throat constricted and his cock twitched beneath the black cotton so close to her hand.

Point of no return.

“Your fingers are like
magikos
,” he whispered. “You talk about how amazing my healing has been. Yet you seem to forget, without you, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

That was true, wasn’t it? She slid her hand up his thigh to the junction of his leg and hip, felt the corded power beneath as his words sank in. Gently, she pressed her thumb into his pressure point and was rewarded with a small gasp that told her he enjoyed what she was doing to him.

“Your touch is more pleasing than any healer from my world,” he rasped. “Each pass of your hand gives me strength.”

A smile pulled at her mouth. She knew exactly what kind of strength he meant, and if anyone else had pulled that line on her she would have scoffed. But with him? Right now? For reasons she wasn’t about to examine, instead of moving back, she shifted closer. And was rewarded as he reached out and brushed his knuckles across her abdomen.

Sparks shot to her center. Her pulse leaped, and she glanced up into his eyes.

Anything I want.

“You must be tired from all this…healing,” she whispered. “You’ll have to tell me what I can do to make it easier on you.”

One side of his mouth curled at the corner as he caught the playful tone of her voice. Arousal darkened his eyes. His hand grazed her arm, slid up to her cheek and gently caressed her skin. She leaned into his touch and held her own breath while his thumb ran over her bottom lip. “You really are a fantasy
gynaíka
.”

It crossed her mind to ask just what he meant, but before she could, he was pulling her face forward. And suddenly she forgot any questions she had and gave herself over to his touch.

His lips brushed hers, soft at first but with more ardor as the kiss deepened and his fingers tightened in her hair. On the second pass she opened to him without hesitation as his warm, wet tongue snaked into her mouth and stroked hers with long, seductive strokes.

He tasted like heaven. A hint of mint, of the dinner they’d shared, of sin served up on a golden platter. One of his large hands slid down her back and pulled her closer, until she was forced onto her knees, straddling his hips.

Her skin was on fire as he changed the angle of the kiss and his hands became more urgent. For a second she
wondered if he was too weak for sex, then quickly dismissed the thought when he tugged her down and she settled on that monster erection she’d drooled over before. If he didn’t have the strength for it, she’d do all the work. No way she was stopping now.

Her hands took on a life of their own as she examined his muscular torso and kissed him back. Her fingers ran down his black shirt to the hem, then up under so she could feel his chiseled abs and the silky smooth skin of his belly. His cock twitched against her, and she pressed against it in answer, wanting nothing more but to feel him deep inside her.

He growled his approval. His kiss turned frantic. Possessive. His hands rushed to the buttons on her jeans. “I need to touch you,” he managed between breaths. “Need to feel if you’re wet.”

She was soaked, but she couldn’t take the time away from kissing him to tell him that. As soon as his fingers found the button at her waistband, something inside her snapped. An urgent need she’d never experienced before. Suddenly she was wiggling against her jeans, helping him in any way she could.

He wrenched the zipper free, pushed her back just enough so he could slide one hand inside. He bypassed her underwear and went straight to her skin, and she gasped at the first touch.

His finger found her slick knot, already hard and aroused. He rubbed over and around until she broke free of his mouth, threw her head back and moaned in ecstasy.

His lips slid over her throat. He bit down, and a lick of pain shot through her. Then he suckled the spot until she was moaning all over again. “Oh,
meli
. You are so wet.” His finger slid lower. Deeper. Inside. He groaned against her pulse. “And so tight.”

Casey couldn’t speak. Could barely move. Her release was coming and she was powerless to stop it. Gripping
his shoulders with both hands, she tightened around his finger and let go.

But just as the wave was about to hit, his hand slid free and the pressure eased. He growled low in his throat and grasped the loose denim at her hips. “Need these off. Now.” He pushed her quickly to her feet and stripped her free of her jeans in one quick swoop.

She didn’t have time to protest, and should have been embarrassed, standing in front of him in only her sweater and low-rise boy shorts, but she wasn’t. As he lowered his head and kissed her again, she gave herself over to him and kissed him back while he pulled her close and that erection stabbed into her belly.

“I want to touch you,” she whispered.

He drew her bottom lip into his mouth in approval. While he took his fill, she reveled in his kiss, brushed her hand down his torso and slid it palm up into his boxer briefs. He groaned long and deep against her mouth as her fingers wrapped around his arousal. Velvet and steel filled her hand, raw power and the promise of mindless pleasure. She stroked up the shaft, circled the head, and marveled at the control she held over him as his big body shuddered against her.

His hands brushed her breasts, slid under her sweater and into her bra. Her nipples tightened as one rough finger grazed the tip. His mouth nipped her jaw, kissed its way across her skin and settled on the soft skin beneath her ear as he played with her breasts and brought her to new heights of sexual arousal.

Her strokes grew longer, bolder with every touch from his hands. On the downstroke she slid her fingers lower to grasp the twin weights beneath.

He groaned against her neck. “You’re playing with fire. In a moment I won’t be able to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop. I want to know what you feel like when you come.”

Whatever restraint he’d been exercising broke with her words. Her sweater was quickly wrenched over her head, her bra ripped free of her breasts as if it were paper. He bent, and his mouth captured first the right nipple and then the left, until she thought she would explode from just that attention.

Just as she was about to beg him to finish her, he turned her quickly and pushed her to her knees on the seat of the couch. One big hand pressed her torso into the cushions so she was leaning over the back of her grandmother’s blue-and-orange-checked afghan.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he growled at her back. His weight depressed the sofa as he braced one knee on the cushions between her legs and nudged her thighs wider. “I can’t wait to find out if you’re as tight as you were in my dream.”

His dream?
Oooooooh, yes.

It struck her then that she should probably be a little afraid. She was with a massive man she didn’t know, in a submissive position where he could do just about anything he wanted to her and she’d be hard-pressed to fight back. Considering what those two guys had tried to do to her outside XScream a few months ago, she should have been scared out of her mind. But she wasn’t. Somehow, she knew instinctively Theron wouldn’t hurt her. And his erotic words were sending her into a complete mind-melting frenzy.

One of his rough hands wrapped around her torso to cup her breast, the other clamped onto her hip. His mouth found her ear and nibbled her lobe until she wanted to scream. And when he pushed his hips into her from behind and rubbed back and forth, white light erupted behind her eyes.

The pleasure was swift and electric and not nearly enough. She didn’t realize until moments later that they were both still clothed—he in his boxers and she in her
underwear. He pressed forward again, retreated, teasing them both, mimicking what he would, in a moment, do to her naked flesh.