Walker (Bowen Boys) (10 page)

Slowly, he moved in and out until he
could feel the sweat running down his spine. His balls were tight against his
body and he knew that once she tightened around him he was going to release in
her again. This time, he wanted her to bite him.

“Do you have any idea how much you mean
to me?” Her head rolled from side to side. “I want to feel you sink your teeth
into me, Caitlynne. I want to feel you bite me.”

“I can’t do that. You’re…Christ, yes
that feels good. Please, Walker, finish me.” He nipped at her throat and she
gave him all of it. “You bit me before. Why?”

He nipped again and raised his head. “Bite
me, Caitlynne. Please, I want to feel you bite me hard enough to draw blood.” He
lowered his head to hers and he felt her breath on his neck. Every part of his
body screamed at her to finish and his cat ran along his skin so close to the
surface that he felt his claws break through.

She pulled her head back and looked up
at him. “What was that?”

He kissed her so that he could take her
again before he had to answer questions. When he lifted his head this time, she
looked at his throat and licked her lips. “Do it.” When he lowered his head
this time, she nipped at him. Before he could command her again, she bit.

His cock jettisoned deep. His toes
curled as he held her to him. Pounding in her now, he knew she had come, and
when she screamed out again, he took her mouth and tasted his blood on her. They
were one now. Truly one.

Dropping on her and rolling her so that
she covered him, he lay there thinking of all that would come to them as a
couple. He knew that by law, he should have told her before he’d taken her
blood, but she had been so hot and delicious that he couldn’t help himself. He
held her for several minutes before he spoke. It was a lot easier for him to
talk to her when she wasn’t looking at him.

“I’m not really what you think I am. I’m
not…I’m not fully human.”

She giggled and he started to ask her
why when she spoke. “I don’t know, Walker. You felt pretty human to me just now
and last night. I was thinking last night that no man would ever be able to
give me the same satisfaction as—”

He rolled her to her back and held her
down. “No man will ever touch what is mine.” His beast had surfaced and wanted
to punish her for even thinking there would be anyone else. Walker tried to
calm him by telling him she didn’t know any better when he was suddenly on the
floor and she was sitting up in bed.

“You don’t own me. No one does. And get
his, big boy, the sex was good, damned good, but I can have that anytime I want
by whomever I want however I fucking want it.” He stood up and started for her
when there was a gun in her hand.

He stopped and raised his hands in
surrender. “I won’t hurt you.” He winced when he saw that he’d bitten her again
and had not sealed up the wound. Blood tickled down her shoulder and over her
bare breast. He wanted to drop down and beg her to let him taste her again. If
nothing else, she’d have to let him seal that up. He’d have to do that before
they left.

She stood up and staggered slightly. The
only reason he didn’t try to catch her was because of the gun that never
wavered. Not even slightly.

“You have to listen to me. You can’t
hang around me any longer. The man who I’m running from has a lot of pull. He’ll
kill you if he thinks it will matter to me.”

“Will it?” He knew he’d caught her off
guard, so he asked her again as he pulled on his briefs. “Will it matter to you
if he gets to you through me, Caitlynne?”

“You’ve no idea what sort of person I
am. I make my living by doing things that good men like you would never do.” She
sat on the edge of the bed and tossed the gun on it beside her. “Walker, what
the hell happened when you yelled at me?”

He sat on the chair and decided that it
was now or never. He did reach over and pick up the gun and put it into the bag
that he’d opened earlier. There was no sense in pushing his luck.

“The night that my family found you,
what do you remember?”

She shook her head.

“Do you remember the panther that found
you?”

“Yes. He was big and black. He looked at
me like he knew just what I was…how did you know that?”

“He’s my dad. And when I came to find
you when my mom said you’d saved Dad, I looked for you as a panther as well.” She
snorted and he continued. “My entire family are werepanthers. And my brother
Khan became our leader when my dad retired.”

“Right. And I’m Tinkerbell.”

She lay back on the bed and he found he
wanted to join her there so badly that he had to adjust his cock twice so he
wouldn’t hurt himself. He realized she was speaking and tried to calm his
throbbing cock.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?
I mean, seriously. Who believes that sort of shit? No one, I’ll tell you, no
one.”

“Would you like to see him?”

She only stared at him as he stood up.

“Don’t run from me, Caitlynne. If you do,
I will chase you down and bring you back here.” He was glad now that he’d
pulled on his boxers and not his pants. He slipped them off and let his cat
take him. Walker loved to shift. It didn’t matter if it was from human to cat
or the other way around. The feeling of the change was what he loved. The cat
moved along his skin like he was going to consume him, and when he did, he had
to blink several times to make this non human eyes see Caitlynne.

She hadn’t moved, for which he was
grateful. He didn’t want to have to chase her, but he would have if she had
left. He leapt up on the bed and lay beside her. She didn’t move, not even when
he licked her arm.

“Okay, don’t be fresh. I’m still…mother
fuck. You’re really a panther.” Walker moved closer to her and put his head on
her lap. When she reached her shaky hand out and caressed the top of his head,
he purred for her.

Neither of them moved for several
minutes. He could see her well, but he knew when she turned her head she was
going to say something he wasn’t going to like. He moved up her body carefully,
trying not to scratch her with his claws.

“This doesn’t change much. I’m still a
gunman for the government.” She turned back to look at him. “I’m working for
the government as a hit man. I’ve been doing it for a long time and I like it. And
I’m damned good at it. I don’t just kill people, though that’s something that
happens more often than not, but I also infiltrate computers, companies, as
well as bank accounts. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

He growled low and licked her arm again.
When he was off the bed, he let his human side take him back. Shaking his hair
out, he started for the bed and her. She started for the other side when he
grabbed her leg and held her. “You aren’t going anywhere without me. I didn’t
tell you this before I shifted, but you’re my mate. Do you know what that means?”

“You can’t be serious. You think I’m
going to be your little cat bitch? Think again, bucko. I’m just plain old human
Lynne McCray.” He pulled her toward him when she struggled to get away. “Let me
go, you overgrown ass. I’ve got to get out of here before I’m found with you.”

“No.” He waited for her to calm down and
when she did, he wasn’t fooled when she stilled. “You’re my mate, which means
where you go, I go. And I can find you anywhere because I have your scent now.”

Chapter Eight

The little town was shit. There wasn’t a
single car, including the police vehicles that he’d not be caught dead in. But
he had to play nice with the locals or they’d stop him at every turn. He was
smiling at the dumbass that was showing him a dead fish that was hanging on the
wall when he thought of McCray living in this town.

She’d hate it too, he would think. More
than that, she would have turned her nose up at it. He had always imagined her
to be high maintenance and not a little bit on the snob side. Conrad had never liked
McCray, but he had thought of her often.

“You can go on over to the house if you
want, but there isn’t anything much left of it to show you.” The chief of police,
Terrence Palmer, took him out to his cruiser and held the door open for him. Conrad
looked over at Nestor, who smiled and climbed into the back seat when that door
had been opened.

“It’s a far piece to walk if you want. Plus,
there are the dogs. Lynne’s neighbors said they would protect anyone from
strangers, but you don’t know the mind of a dog now, do you?”

They were finally moving when Conrad
asked a question. “You didn’t find any bodies in the house? I don’t know where
she’d be if she wasn’t in there.” The chief looked at him oddly and Conrad
tried to think what he’d said wrong. “I mean, she had to be home. She was on
leave from what I’ve heard.”

“Leave? I don’t know about that. She
wasn’t home much lately. Said she was working late at the local school. Never
saw a woman more dedicated to teaching as she was.”

Conrad winced. He’d forgotten that she
was a teacher and glared at Nestor when he didn’t so much as look his way. The
man was supposed to keep him straight. How the hell was he supposed to remember
all the shit that went on in the office? He had better things to do.

“Yes. She is good at her job.” He looked
out the front window when the chief nodded. “Christ.”

The house wasn’t just blown up, but
leveled. He hadn’t been able to see if from the view of the cameras for the
simple reason that the explosion had taken them out. There was debris in both
the empty lots on either side of her house as well as all over the yards of the
people across the street. When the cruiser stopped Conrad got out with the rest
of them.

“Can’t tell yet who, if anyone, was in
the house when it went up. We’re thinking she wasn’t home yet. Been collecting
her mail for a few days now and she usually comes on by and picks it up before
she heads home again. It’s going to be quite a shock to her when she comes
back, yes sir it will.” He pointed toward the other row of houses about half a
mile back. “That’s where we found the man. He’d been on her porch near as we
can tell ‘cause if he’d been inside, he’d be in pieces and not just broken up.”

“Broken up?” Both of them looked at
Nestor when he spoke. “What do you mean, ‘broken up?’ He didn’t get burned up,
did he?”

“Nah. We figured he was coming across
the yard toward the house when he was thrown to the other house. His body
hitting the wall over there broke near every bone in his body, including his
head. Brain nearly spilled out all the way before we was able to get him out of
the pool.”

Conrad willed Nestor not to ask, but he
did. “You mean to say he was imbedded in the pool? As in, a part of it?”

“Yeap. He was nearly flush with the
cement bottom when we had to peel him out. Don’t know how much longer he would
have been there if the Millers hadn’t have left a day or two late for their
yearly visit to their daughter’s. The missus looked out the window and saw him
laying there when she started screaming bloody murder.” Terrence laughed at his
own joke. “Course he was, wasn’t he? Murdered, I mean.”

Every drop of blood in Conrad’s body
froze. He looked at the cop, trying to ascertain what he knew or what he
thought he knew. A glance at his aide told him he was on his own with this one.

“Murdered? I just heard on the report
that it was a major gas leak. That there was such a buildup of gas in her house
that it blew.” The cop nodded. “Then what do you know that they don’t?”

“Don’t know nothing for sure. Just my
own brand of theories. Nice girl like her, what does she do for a living that
makes her be able to afford that big old truck of hers? Expensive too. Then
there are the long periods of time that she was gone. Days on end.” The cop
smiled again. “I don’t think whatever she does in on the illegal side of the
law, it’s just that…well…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded
paper. “Got this the day they showed up to look around. Says there that the
government was investigating this and we were to stay out. Didn’t like it much
at first, but I let them go on. Like that girl, we all do, and wanted some
justice for her house. Now you show up acting like you’re just another Joe Blow
and asking the same questions.”

Conrad figured out two things in that
moment. The cop wasn’t nearly as stupid as he’d first thought or even hoped
he’d be, and he knew more than any of the others, including himself, about what
McCray was and what she did for them. He tried to laugh it off, but even to his
own ears, he sounded manic.

Killing the cop came to mind. He was
reaching for his gun in the holster under his jacket when he saw two more
cruisers pull up. When Terrence reached under his jacket and took his gun from
him Conrad knew better than to try to fight him. He looked at Nestor, and he was
being disarmed as well.

“You should know that I work for the
government and I have the right to carry that. I’m going to get it back.” He
wanted to strangle the cop when he grinned and nodded. “You’re going to lose
your job over this.”

“Doubtful. You see, I work for the
government too. Chief of police might not be as exalted as you seem to think
you might be, but I uphold the law same…well, I was gonna say same as you, but
I’m thinking you don’t.” He handed off the gun to the officer standing just
behind him. “You see, there are rules. You broke them when you showed up in my
town without notice. Then you are carrying a gun you didn’t tell me you had. On
top of the fact that I just plain don’t like you. Now. This is how this here is
going to work. I’m going to take you back to the office and you’re going to
tell me what the fuck, pardon my language, you think you’re doing in my town.”