Neptune's Lair (sensual paranormal romance) (The Protectors) (7 page)

“That’s my brave girl.” He feathered a kiss over her lips.

His cock brushed up against her opening. It was hot, searing, like flesh on fire. Though scorching, it didn’t burn her tender places. Instead, the feel of his cock made her ache for him and beg for completion. She whimpered.

He rubbed himself against her wetness until he slid easily against her slit. Slowly he pushed into her. His moist tip was thick and full. So was his shaft.

Inch by inch, she took more and more of him. He filled her and pushed deeper. Just when she thought he’d sunk himself to his hilt, he pushed himself even deeper, stretching her.

Slowly, he moved. She heard the hitch of his breath. He muttered a curse and increased his pace. She matched his movements, raising her hips to greet his entry.

Faster.

Deeper.

Fuller.

His cock became her whole world.

It pounded into her slick, warm body.

“Come for me,” he commanded, and she felt compelled to obey.

Her body pulsed with every brush his cock made against it as he pulled in and out of her. The building pressure inside her begged for relief.

Never with a man. Never like this. She was giving too much of herself, which wasn’t safe. She couldn’t do it.

But his cock insisted.

Her body grew tighter.

No
.

He reached down. The pad of his thumb rubbed against her clit. With her hands tied above her head she couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t get away. Her hips betrayed her and pressed up. A long-silent piece of her screamed to take him deeper. And she felt him moving inside her. On the outside she was hot, wet and ready.

But fear still lurked deep in the shadows of her mind.

No!
The warm, pulling pressure inside her continued to build. She tried to stop it, but the way he moving inside her, filling her, and the way he stroked her was too much.

Please!
She stared into the nothingness of her blindfold and felt…simply felt. It came all at once. Her entire body shuddered. Wave after wave of energy washed over her as the orgasm she’d fought forced its way through her entire body.

And, for the first time in her life, she let go.

She simply let go.

In that moment she felt closer to Brendan than she’d ever felt to anyone. Though still blindfolded and tethered to his bed, she could see clearly for the first time in her life. She could finally accept that she needed to let go of her fears if she ever hoped to be loved. A sense of peace washed over her as she drifted smoothly through the nothingness surrounding her.

Her body was still pulsing when he pulled out of her. She heard the rustle of sheets. While struggling for a calm breath, she couldn’t help but wonder when he might suggest they try that again.

Without warning, a rough tongue raked over her sensitive clit. Her hips shot off the bed.

“Shhh…” His hot breath against her sex calmed her. “That was simply your first one. We have at least eleven more to go before I’m good and done with you tonight.”

Chapter Four

“I’m worried about Brendan,” Horace said. He’d been so worried that he’d taken time off from his nightclub to visit Frank Stone at The Oblique Café. “He hasn’t returned any of my phone calls.”

Stone, who looked older than his thirty-eight years, gave the woman who was sharing his table a pat on the hand. She smiled and, after gathering up her things, quietly left.

Few secrets existed among
the Protectors
, but there were a few instances when Stone decided to keep matters private. It appeared that this was going to be one of those times, which worried Horace even more.

“Sit down,” Stone said to Horace. He then gave a nod to Jake, the café owner. Almost immediately, cups of fresh coffee were placed in front of both men. “What’s worrying you?”

Stone sat back and calmly sipped on his coffee. Horace couldn’t fathom how Stone could act as if there was nothing wrong when one of their best and brightest was in mortal danger. He sure as hell couldn’t remain calm about it.

“He’s obsessed, Stone. You saw yourself how he nearly drowned himself trying to find her.”

“But he found her in the flesh,” Stone pointed out. “He called me the other day and told me that he was giving her time to get accustomed to the idea of being…um…different.”

“No, I don’t buy it.” Horace slashed his hand through the air. “He’s obsessed. There’s something else going on here. I can feel it like an ache in my bones.”

“He’s a Pisces and she’s powerful and beautiful,” Stone said as if that was enough to explain Brendan’s long absence. It wasn’t. Stone must have read Horace’s blank look, for he added, “Pisces are unaccountably attracted to powerful women. As a being strongly controlled by the stars, I’m sure he’s wanting to control and keep all that power and beauty for himself.”

“You mean he’s holed up in his apartment fucking her brains out?”

Stone shrugged. “Probably.”

“He’s likely to get lost in the fantasy he’s weaving around this new piece of ass who also happens to have a direct connection to the powers of the universe. He wears his heart on his sleeve, you know. Even though he pretends he’s a heartless bastard, he’s got a heart made of glass. And damn, add to that how he’s ultra-sensitive to the emotions of others.”

“That’s the Pisces in him.”

“Damn right, Stone. Pisces are drawn to their fantasies. And what will happen if he gets caught up in this fantasy and inadvertently hurts her?”

“She’s strong enough to hold her own,” Stone said, though he didn’t sound convinced. He furrowed his brows and started to say something else, but then waved whatever was bothering him away. “I’m sure Brendan can handle whatever fate throws at him. After all, he lived through hell growing up and is still in one piece.”

“We all had horrible childhoods,” Horace grumbled. “How could Brendan’s have been any worse than the rest of ours?”

“It was. Believe me, it was
far
worse,” Stone said. “Damien had tried to trick fate and give Brendan something better. Unlike the rest of us, he found Brendan as a newborn. What luck, right? We could train one of our own from infancy. And even more importantly, Damien had planned to give him the kind of childhood all of us wished we’d had. He planned to raise Brendan like a son.”

Stone closed his eyes. A rare show of raw emotion tightened his brows. “Damien would have taken the baby into his home, but there was an upheaval with the council at the time. He was worried that the opposing forces might try and take Brendan and use him as a pawn in their battle for power. With only a few moments to decide, he left Brendan with Lady Czarina, a mystic who knew about us and had vowed her friendship and cooperation.

“She promised to take good care of the baby. Several years passed before Damien could safely come back for the boy. By that time, Brendan was gone. She’d sold him. He couldn’t have been much more than three years old at the time, but Brendan remembers what had happened to him the day she’d sold him. Everything changed that day. His name. His home. His life. He went from sleeping on a cot above Lady Czarina’s shop to shivering in a pile of straw out in a barn three states away.

“It wasn’t until twenty years later that Damien finally tracked him down and rescued him. He found Brendan living with the working dogs in a barn. He was half-starved, naked and horribly abused. The owners of the farm had cruelly worked Brendan like a beast in the fields all day and then when he returned to the barn, exhausted and starving—well, you don’t want to know what tortures and humiliations they made him endure at night in order to earn a few morsels of dog food.”

“God.” Horace had no idea. “None of us like to talk about our past, so I didn’t even think twice when Brendan shied away from any mention of his childhood.”

“I’m not telling you this so you can pity him,” Stone said sharply. “Be his friend, Horace. Support him, but don’t push. Like fate, he will only push back and make everything worse.”

“Okay, I get what you’re saying. But…but…I don’t think you see what I’m seeing. He’s on a path of destruction. You and I both know that he’s vulnerable when he gets obsessive. What will happen to him if he loses control of the situation, or worse, loses the New One to
the darkness
? There’s a good chance of that happening, you know. For his own good, Stone, you need to get him away from her.”

“Fate wants Brendan and Dallas to be together. I’m sure as hell not going to tamper with fate…not when Brendan’s involved. He’s been hurt enough by our trying to outwit fate where he’s concerned.”

“Even if it destroys him?”

Stone’s strange silver eyes turned hard and cold. “I will not interfere with what fate has set in motion.”

* * * * *

Brendan brushed his fingers over Dallas’s exposed nipple. She sighed in her sleep. Her wrists were tied with that lovely red velvet cording and bound to the bedpost above her head.

Not that he always made love with her helpless and beneath him. He’d taken her against the tile wall in the shower as the steaming water poured over them. And then in the kitchen, he had hoisted her so she was leaning naked over the cool countertop with legs dangling, her toes not quite able to reach the floor and her perfect ass exposed to him. He’d enjoyed watching her shiver from the chill of the smooth stone and then from delight as he rammed into her. She came almost instantly, bucking and wiggling against him like a madwoman. Afterwards, she’d blushed from head to toe. Even her ass cheeks had turned rosy.

He couldn’t think of one place in his apartment that hadn’t seen some action. His kitchen chairs. The sofa. The table. The recliner. And, heaven help him, the coat closet where she’d locked the door, gone down on her knees, taken him in her mouth, and violently sucked until he was screaming with pleasure. And even then she didn’t let up. She’d wrapped her legs around him and impaled herself on his still rock-hard cock and rode him as if she needed his seed in order to survive.

No, he didn’t always take her with her hands tied above her head.

But he liked her that way, bound and vulnerable. Even in her sleep, he could feel her incredible power surging through her veins and tingling across her glistening tan skin. She had to be the strongest one among them. And she belonged to him.

His for the taking.

He couldn’t imagine ever letting her go.

* * * * *

“You’re not going anywhere.” Brendan grabbed Dallas’s arm and gave her a tug back toward his apartment door.

“Excuse me?” Dallas couldn’t understand what had gotten into him. Up until now everything had been perfect.

Something had changed that morning. But what?

Brendan was being unreasonable, and it made her itch to shout at him. A dangerous gleam in his eyes kept her from telling him exactly what she thought about his impossible mood.

“Explain it to me. Why don’t you want me to go to my apartment?” she asked. “I need to pick up a few things. Like clothes.”

The air in the apartment hallway grew almost too heavy to breathe as he pressed his will against hers.

“No.” His voice was barely above a whisper. And cold. Frighteningly cold. “Everything you need, I can provide.” He motioned toward his apartment door. “Come back inside.”

“And if I refuse?”

His grip tightened on her arm.

“I’m not your prisoner, Brendan.”

“No, not a prisoner, but you belong—” He ground to a halt and growled before sputtering, “You belong
with
me, dammit.”

You belong to me
, she suspected was what he’d barely stopped himself from spouting. What utter nonsense. She didn’t need or want a jealous, possessive lover.

A door a few apartments down opened and an elderly lady stepped out. She stopped cold when her gaze landed on Dallas and Brendan. Though Dallas was fully dressed, Brendan had rushed out the door wearing only a pair of navy blue silk boxers.

The lady’s gaze latched onto the heavy, nicely outlined package between his barely covered legs. Her eyes widened.

Brendan’s voice grew softer and more guarded. And more demanding. “You will do as I say, Dallas. Come back inside.”

“Why should I? I don’t think I want to be around you right now.” That was a lie.

She’d thought sleeping with Brendan would cure her of the feverish lust she felt for him. It hadn’t worked. Being with him, touching him, making love to him, had only made her ache for him all the more wildly. Even now, despite being so angry with him she wanted to scream, her panties had suddenly turned damp.

While
she
might not crave a possessive relationship, it seemed her body did.

“Do you need some help, dear?” the lady asked. She took a step toward them.

“Help?” Dallas rolled her eyes to the ceiling and swallowed down a nervous giggle.

Though she’d spent the past several days in his bed, Brendan was still very much a stranger. What was she doing getting her emotions and desires all tangled up with a stranger? And who was he to dictate to her? She’d depended on herself all her life. She had no plans to change that now.

“What do you think, Brendan? Do I need outside help, or do you think perhaps I might be strong enough to take care of myself?”

Another door down the hall opened.

His fingers released her arm and his hand fell limp at his side. Pain flashed across his face. “Please don’t do this here, not in front of everyone.” He closed his eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper. “
I beg you
.”

His raw plea touched her in places that hadn’t seen the light of day in over a decade. It broke through a dam that had held back years of disappointments, regrets and frustrations. Tears filled her eyes.

“I’m okay, ma’am,” Dallas said. She blinked away the flood of feelings she wasn’t ready to face and flashed Brendan’s neighbor a bright smile. “We were just having a…um…discussion. Nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

“Well, don’t give in to him. Not one inch.” The lady shook her head and then wagged her finger in Brendan’s direction. “If he’s anything like my Chester, he’ll use whatever weapons he has available to get his way. I’m off to buy some eggs, because Chester wants an omelet.” She clucked her tongue. “It never ends, dear. Ah, but I love him and like him to think he’s got control every once and a while. So, if he wants an omelet, every now and again I’ll break down and make him one.”

“That’s sweet of you, Mrs.—”

“Thanes,” Brendan supplied. His voice was low, tight.

“Mrs. Thanes,” Dallas said, her smile blazing, though inside she was a tangle of confusion over Brendan’s odd mood. “I’ll be sure to remember your advice.”

Dallas followed Brendan back inside the apartment, figuring she could stay for a little while longer. Long enough to figure out what was going on in that non-human mind of his.

While Brendan slumped on the sofa and stared straight ahead, Dallas closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her hand still on the knob.

“I have trouble with public scenes,” he said. He sounded defeated. Beaten down. Everything about him felt so very different from the strong, confident Brendan who had taught her the fine art of the multiple orgasms. Or the maniac who had demanded that she remain in his apartment and under his power.

“The people who raised me took pleasure in humiliating me in front of others.” His muscles were taut as he hunching in on himself as if trying to guard against a blow. “The more strangers they could get to watch”—he swallowed hard—“and participate, the more they enjoyed my mortification.”

She fought the urge to say something to fill the silence. His anguish weighed down the air in the room. It hurt her chest to breathe. More than anything else, she wanted to make things better for him. But he was remembering the past, and there was nothing she could do to help him with that.

“I was their pet.” His voice sounded flat. Hollow. “A thing. My emotions weren’t important. My mortification a big joke.”

He blinked up at her. “I’ve never told anyone.” His cheeks darkened and he quickly looked away. “I had promised myself I’d never speak a word about what they did to me, how they’d tormented me to the brink of madness. You’d once asked if I’d cried when I learned I wasn’t human. When the man who had rescued me from that hellhole and had explained what I was, what I could do, I lost it. I completely fell apart. It took the best psychic healers
the Protectors
to pull me back from the dark depths of madness. To remake me into something that could walk in society.”

“I’m honored that you trusted the truth with me, Brendan.” She crossed the room and went down on her knees in front of him. Thinking only of him and his needs, she took his hands in hers and after uncurling his fingers from the tight fists they’d formed, kissed his scarred and beautiful knuckles, each one in turn. He tried to pull away. But she held on to his hands with all her strength. “No, please don’t shut me out.”

Though she could fight him physically and keep hold of his hands, she felt him slipping back behind his sarcastic, slightly crooked grin and self-depreciating shrug.

“The healers did their best, but you have one sick puppy on your hands, Dallas,” he said with a laugh. “Damaged goods. A cracked—”

She kissed him. This was one argument she didn’t plan to lose. She planned to kiss away his pain, to use her hands to soothe away his hurts.

He jerked back, fighting her until she lightly flicked her pink tongue over his sealed mouth. He growled and loosened his lips just enough for her to deepen her kiss.

At first it seemed as if he was surrendering to her and the passion she was offering. Soon, his movements turned more demanding. He wasn’t surrendering at all. With a frantic edge to his movements, he ripped off her sweater, tearing a seam.

He reached down the back of her jeans with one hand while stroking her through the front of her jeans with the other. Her body ignited for him. She whimpered and tossed her head back. His lips closed over her suddenly tight breast.

Her world spun. She eased his boxers down his hips and then tore off her own clothes as she fought to get closer to him. More than physical need drove her. She ached to soothe the injured soul who had suffered those unspeakable indignities. She wanted him to know that he mattered.
To her, he mattered.

Without asking her permission, he tied a velvet cord around her wrists, and tossing her to the floor he took the long dangling end of the cord and tethered her to the coffee table leg. The velvet tightly bound her hands together. It made her fingers tingle. She didn’t complain. The pain etched in his expression was reason enough to let him have this moment. To take, without having to worry about what it might cost him.

In that, she realized, they were the same. While she hadn’t been able to enjoy a man’s body because she’d been too afraid of being hurt, Brendan had kept himself from enjoying a woman’s love for the very same reason. Even when they were making love, he was giving everything and accepting very little.