The Link That Binds (3 page)

Jace got lost in the moment until the buttons on his shirt popped off when Link yanked it open. Calloused hands roamed his chest, stopping to tease at his rapidly hardening nipples. As one of them was pinched between Link’s fingers, his other hand reached behind Jace to pull them closer, grinding their erections against each other.

Link used both his hands to grab hold of Jace’s ass and lifted him to sit on top of the bar before he started yanking down Jace’s pants, almost making the shifter yelp out loud in the process. Instead, he got caught in a moan as Link bit into the side of his neck, a guaranteed hot spot for any shifter, although wolves got rather pissy about it unless done by their mates… actually
all
shifters tended to get antsy about that…

“Link,” Jace groaned as his captor got a rough hold on his cock and started a hard pumping motion. “Shit!” Jace yowled as a finger suddenly penetrated him from behind and he arched into Link’s tight grip. His eyes instantly turned into slits and his canines descended as Jace started attacking back, clawing at Link… who was very,
very
shapely for a human.

When Link fused their mouths together again, he purred as the larger male pushed against him and thrust his finger deeper, in and out of Jace’s ass. The purring only seemed to spur him on.

Jace’s hands went to tangle themselves in Link’s hair and he shredded the tie keeping it in pulled back, making it flow around his face.

When Link added another finger, Jace hissed at the burn. Unfortunately for him, it had been a while and the absence of lube didn’t help, but the slight burn gave way quickly and felt oh so fucking good, “More!” he demanded and Link granted his wish as he added a third finger, the stretch enough to make him cry out as Link nailed his prostate. Too far gone in their kiss, he barely even noticed when Link pulled him closer to the edge of the bar.

Keening in distress when Link removed the fingers, he growled as Link started to stab at his stretched opening with his own hard shaft. His cat only briefly argued the forced submission before settling down.

Their positions made it impossible for Jace to get a good look at what Link had to offer him, but from what he could feel, the man was
thick
. Adding to the fact there was no lube in sight, he knew he was in for a rough ride, but Jace loved it, the sting of penetration making him burn deliciously from deep within. When Link finally breached the ring of muscle, Jace almost came; holding back wasn’t easy as his lover kept pushing in and out to further bury himself inside.

Link grunted as he rammed himself into Jace’s core, holding a tight grip on the shifter’s hips to prevent him from sliding away from him across the bar.

Jace was panting and getting closer every damn second Link rutted into him. By now Link had located his prostate and kept nailing it with each thrust as he pounded his ass. Jace knew he’d be sore in the morning, but he just didn’t fucking care. It felt too damn good.

When Link started roughly stroking his straining erection again to match the pace he had set for his ass, Jace couldn’t hold it anymore and shot all over Link’s hand. In the heat of the moment he couldn’t help but strike at Link’s throat, burying his teeth deep in his neck.

Holy FUCK in hell, the man tasted good, but the strike he felt in his own neck when Link came, growling, inside of him wasn’t what he’d expected.

Jace jerked back as the syringe was stabbed into his neck, horror in his eyes at the betrayal. The world dimmed far too quickly and he barely felt it as the bastard pulled out of him and gathered him into his arms. The last he felt before passing out was the cold cement floor beneath his naked ass and a syringe extracting blood from his arm. Jace would see to it that Link paid for this… big time!

Link was aware the moment Jace woke up and had purposely kept his back to the cage. He knew he couldn’t apologize for his behavior earlier and he knew he’d crossed a crucial line, but at least he’d dressed him as well as he could after.

Jace’s shirt missed a couple of buttons after their encounter, but Link had buttoned it up as best as he could. He hoped what they said, about shifters and vampires not being affected by human STDs, was true because the notion of wearing a condom had been far from his mind when he’d tackled the cat.

And fuck, Link had
always
been careful… well, maybe not always, but he felt reasonably safe when it came to those things and who knew where the shifter had been. Jace had this mock innocence about him, but that look of his could turn lewd in a fraction of a second.

With a swimmer’s build like Jace, Link had strong doubts about the shifter being some wayward virgin. The cat had taken him in like a pro, even without lube. Hell, it was insane how easily he could slide in when Jace felt so fucking tight the rest of the ride.

Initially he’d been pissed when the cat took off, but the chase had given him a thrill and things had gotten out of hand. There was something about the man that just seemed to trigger his adrenaline, then again; Jace hadn’t exactly fought him off either. The claw-marks on his back and the bite in his neck were pretty much evidence of how Jace had clung to him during the act, pulling him closer than what should have been humanly possible.

He actually did feel pretty bad for the guy when he’d jammed the needle of tranquilizers in his neck, knocking him out cold, knowing perfectly well Jace hadn’t been kidding when he said he hated what the drugs did to him.

Still, he needed those samples. No way he’d give Mika what he wanted, but he at least had to make it look like he’d been searching for the poison; or cure as the vampire had called it.

Several minutes passed without a word from Jace and Link had to admit he was a bit worried when he hadn’t gotten any of the snide remarks he’d grown used to expect from him since the cat arrived…
had he passed out again?

The dose hadn’t been
that
high, not for a supernatural being like Jace at least. Looking over his shoulder he saw the cat wasn’t even facing him, but he breathed steadily and Link didn’t think he was asleep either.

“Are you ignoring me?” Link asked with a light tone, hiding his guilt for what had transpired. He saw the cat wince at the sound of his voice, but he never said a word. For some reason the silence bothered him. “Giving me the silent treatment, huh? I told you not to try anything,” he muttered as he turned back to his work.

It took him a few hours before he did anything, even though he was supposed to be working. He kept looking back over his shoulder, checking on Jace. He thought he’d heard the cat sigh a couple of times, even thought he’d heard him sniffle once, but other than that, Jace hadn’t said a damn thing.

Link startled as the phone next to him rang and berated himself for being so caught up in the shifter before taking the call.

“Hello?” he asked with a cold tone, the landline to the back of his club being strictly for business calls.

“Your time is starting to run out,” an annoyed voice Link recognized as Mika spat out.

“I’m sorry Mika, but finding a fucking bomb in a sample of blood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Besides, I have to retake the blood tests every two hours because they keep purifying themselves too damn fast after being extracted!” Link spat back out into the phone. And he didn’t even have to lie.

Whenever he took a sample from Jace, the blood would immediately start to rinse itself of anything that could be interpreted as signs of the otherworldly and he didn’t doubt if a shifter died, his whole body would start the same process.

When first checking the blood, Link had been amazed to see at least twenty-eight pairs of chromosomes, several of them being completely foreign to Link, and then when rechecking his findings a few minutes later, he only found the normal amount of twenty-three pairings. The perfectly normal genetic structure of a human male.

He thought he was seeing things until he took a second set of samples after he’d incapacitated Jace at the conclusion of their little display of carnal lust.

Link could hear Mika hiss over the phone. “I want results, Link, and you have less than twenty hours to get them to me.” His statement was followed by a loud click as Mika hung up on him.

Sighing, Link knew he would have to take another sample from Jace to get any work done. The cat still hadn’t uttered a word and had kept his back to him the entire time. If the cat didn’t fidget from time to time, he would have started to worry Jace had slipped into a coma or something.

Hesitating a bit, Link got up and walked over to the cage, which he realized was far too cramped for a man Jace’s size. Hell, even a goddamned beagle would be furious at the limited space.

“Jace,” Link could see the cat tense as he said his name, although he would have certainly heard him approaching. “I’m going to need another sample.”

Jace didn’t respond, which bothered him. He couldn’t let him escape a second time and they definitely couldn’t repeat their little tryst, even if his cock threatened to perk up at the idea.

“Come on, are you never gonna get over that little thing?” he asked, suddenly annoyed with the silent shifter. The glare that greeted him, though, almost made him wince.

“
Little thing
?! Who the fuck do you think you are, you fucking asshole?!” Jace sneered as he sat up and finally turned to look at him completely. “I’m used to morons doing some pretty fucked up
things
, but what
you
did was low, real low! Hell, even Mika would have the decency to drug you
before
taking advantage, you stupid ass!”

“Taking
advantage
?” Link chuckled darkly. “You could have easily gotten away, kitten, but you pulled me in like a cat in heat and I have the marks to prove it.” He ended by lifting up his shirt, showing off his abs where the skin was colored pink by angry scratches.

Link could have sworn Jace blushed at the sight, remembering how he’d given Link those marks and how
very
consensual he’d been.

“Whatever.” Jace caught himself in his blush and snarled before turning his back on Link again. Link knew the cat had to be pissed that he couldn’t shrug off those remarks, seeing as they were true.

When Link’s mouth had crashed down on Jace’s, he could literally feel the cats
need
ignite and take over completely. Jace had even bitten him in the heat of the moment, which he guessed had to be some kind of shifter thing, either that or the man simply liked to bite people. Even now, he could see Jace’s fangs descend just barely from under his upper lip at his close proximity.

Before Jace could protest though, Link grasped his wrist through the bars then slammed on the cold metal of a pair of handcuffs, now keeping Jace locked to the bars of his enforced habitat.

“Dude, what the fuck?!” Jace growled at him as he tried to pull his wrist free with little success. His beast seemed to struggle too, angry hissing sounds escaping from Jace. Physical restrictions didn’t appear to sit well with either one of them.

Feeling a bit cruel by doing so, Link dangled the keys to the cuffs in front of Jace. He quickly pulled them back when Jace lunged for them with his free hand. A hand now adorned by lethal looking claws.

“Bad kitty!” Link smirked, although he had to suppress a shudder at the thought of the damage Jace could have done had those claws been out during their romp on top of his bar. He still found himself fascinated by Jace’s temper though. “I will remove the cuffs
after
I get the samples and I promise these will be the last ones, okay?”

Jace was mad as hell with him. Clearly the cat did not enjoy being shackled like this and suspected even the cage had been harsh enough for the guy without being restrained as well.

Seeing Jace in cuffs, though, didn’t exactly give him an unpleasant feeling and an image of Jace restrained to his bed, wearing a ball-gag… would definitely be something that wouldn’t leave his mind easily.

Jace rattled the cuffs for another minute or so while cussing in a language Link was pretty sure he’d never heard before, although the meaning of the words was clear by the way Jace spat them out and hissed. He tried desperately to break the restraint without success before he finally gave up.

Resigned, he sat there, glaring at him as he realized he had no choice but to let him jab another syringe in his now well-used vein if he wanted to have his wrist released. Link sensed that whether it were drugs or blood samples, Jace didn’t much care for them and he definitely understood why. Well, when it came to the drugs anyway.

Link was well aware the drugs would mess anybody up and usually they resulted in a whole bunch of crap side-effects that ate at your body ‘til there was nothing left. Hell, even the not-so-deadly shit could leave you sterile if you didn’t watch yourself.

Taking the blood sample, Link noticed Jace kept his focus on his face and not on where the needle penetrated his skin. Could be Jace had a problem with needles in general. ‘Cause right now, the green tint on his face pretty much told him Jace would have probably preferred being stabbed by a hunting knife compared to being stabbed by a needle.

“There,” Link said as he filled the last vial. “All done.” He smiled even as the cat looked miserably defeated. Again, he couldn’t help feeling guilty for
tricking
the beautiful man, but he didn’t trust Jace to just give him his blood of his own free will, not even after his little moment of docile behavior. He’d fallen for that before and with what he’d done, the cat would probably strike for his jugular the next time he decided to bite him. Even after dosing up on pain meds the damn bite on the side of his neck kept on throbbing, but then again, wasn’t like he hadn’t deserved it.