APOLLO RISING (The Apollo Saga, Book 1) (12 page)

Her fears were dissolved by his kisses, by his determined caresses. They were worn down by her desire for him. With each breath, they faded until all that was left was wanting him. Wanting more. Wanting it all.

She pulled him closer, kissed his lips, his face, his neck, felt the shivers race along his skin as she did so. He responded with a stream of his own kisses, each one tantalizingly closer to where she wanted him, each one agonizingly too far away.

His lips dropped from her neck down to her breasts, cupping and caressing them with his fingers. He caught her tender nipple between his lips, and when his breath escaped past the cooled skin, she thought she might lose her mind.

She couldn’t remember her skin ever being so sensitive – every touch, each breath, each gentle caress was driving her closer and closer to the edge of madness. She felt like delicate paper, kissed by flame, consumed, ablaze. It was a welcomed burn, and she could tell by his breathing that she was having the same effect on him.

As he moved to her other breast, she heard herself moaning plaintively. Why wouldn’t he hurry? Couldn’t he see how much she wanted him inside her?

Finally, she could bear it no more, and she reached down in desperation and took hold of him in her right hand. She moved him deliberately against the core of her sex, feeling the warmth they each gave off and smiled in brief satisfaction as he groaned in pleasure.

“I want you so bad,” she whispered.

There was still too much space between them; too much light, too much air, when there should be nothing more than two bodies, connected as one.

His eyes met hers, and she nodded, her lips finding his again to whisper a deep and abiding
yes
into his mouth as she welcomed him into her.

A rush of pleasure, relief and total surrender hit her all at once, and Allie gave herself to him, completely. Her skin warmed as the blood flushed through the veins of her body. Her muscles flexed and relaxed simultaneously and she quivered with excitement; the expression on his face told her that he shared in the same overwhelming joy.

“You’re too far away,” she breathed, clawing at his back and drawing him closer still.

He fulfilled her tangible desires with a slow, deep stroke, but the torment of having physical bodies, unable to just melt into one another, was killing her. She longed for total togetherness, linking her to him in essence—spiritually, cosmically.

“Oh god, you feel so good,” she moaned, savoring every inch of his flesh inside her.

His reply met her every satisfaction, “I can’t get enough of you,” he confessed, his breath heavy with exhaustion as if he had been holding it in. “I want all of you, like this, every moment, everyday. It’s been driving me insane.”

“Me too,” she sighed, all walls between them crumbling before her very eyes. She never expected to feel so free—so vulnerable, yet so easily emancipated—from worry, responsibility or regret. In that moment, the only accountability she was willing to take was for the emotions that were so generously pouring from her lips. “It’s all I can think about,” she admitted. “
You’re
all I can think about.”

He pulled his face away, caressing hers with his right hand as he stared into her eyes, “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he told her. “I’ve never felt this way about
anyone.
”

“Me either,” she meant to say, but it felt as though he had pulled the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t gasp, couldn’t move. It was all happening so fast. His pale blue eyes told her everything she needed to know, even before he spoke.

“I think I love you, Allie.”

Their bodies may never dissolve into one another physically, but one thing was for sure, he’d just melted her heart.

“I…I love you, too,” she heard herself say without thinking.

It had just slipped out, so effortlessly and honestly, and with it, any lingering fears about who he was or what they were getting themselves into. Tyler was hers, now in this moment, and hopefully for good. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

Allie clung to him desperately close, holding the man who’d meant only to protect her from himself, and somehow, inadvertently, he had rescued her from herself. She was his, she vowed, and the only thing still standing between them was the slippery sheen of perspiration building on both of their bodies, as they hungrily made love, for the first time, as two people devoted to each other.

The afterglow of sex was still readily noticeable on both their faces.

Tyler lay next to Allie on the bed, his shoulder beneath her head as he playfully tangled his fingers in her hair and smiled.

It was easy to like her. Besides her obvious beauty, she was strong, sovereign and, at times, painfully shy. Right now was one of those moments. She noticed him looking at her, and blushed, pulling up one of the sheets to cover her nakedness.

“You’re cute,” he laughed.

Her smile grew, “So are you.”

His fingertips made their way down her face, across her jaw and further still until they were tracing tiny circles just below her collarbone. He watched as her skin quivered under his touch and a soft coo fell from her mouth.

“I could lay here forever,” he told her.

Allie’s eyes moved to the window. It seemed she got lost in thought for a moment, then returned to his gaze. “I was just thinking the same thing,” she smiled. “Part of me doesn’t want to go back.”

No part of him wanted to go back, but for reasons he didn’t want to bring up again. Everything was going so well. Reminding her of his mounting fears of being tracked down or worse, caught, did neither of them any good. Besides, he really could lay with her forever, right here, and never look back. In fact, it sounded ideal.

His fingers found their way back to her chin and he turned her attention back to him.

“Why do we
have
to go?”

She looked into his eyes, perplexed.

“Think about it,” he added. “We have everything here we need here. We could stay and hunt, and live off the land and make love, all day. Every day.”

“It does sound nice,” she agreed. “But—”

“But what?” he cut her off. “You love it up here, and there’s no one else to take care of this place. You said so yourself. What’s in Apollo that you need to get back to so soon anyway?”

Allie rolled to her side and faced him, propped her head up on her left hand. “My job, for one,” she argued. “My boss is already gonna kill me for not showing up today. And Blake,” she paused, seemingly reminiscing, “she’s all I’ve got.”

Tyler soothed her worry, “Not anymore,” he assured her. “You’ve got me now.”

She smiled at that, but still looked concerned. “What about you? Your band?”

Tyler had neglected to consider them. What had been his most important relationship just a few days ago had somehow been lost to the bond he was forming with this woman.

“I don’t need a band, I need you,” he insisted, then used Allie’s own words to plead his case. “C’mon, Allie, stay with me.”

“Look, Tyler,” she offered, “it sounds great, in theory. I would love nothing more than to stay up here with you. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it hasn’t been on mind. It’s just…I don’t know. This is all so sudden, and we both have lives waiting for us back in Apollo.”

He didn’t get the feeling that she was rejecting him, but his heart sank anyway. It was true, she had a life, and he couldn’t run forever. The dilemma now became, no matter what faced him upon his return, whether or not he would be able to protect Allie from it.

A deep sigh rose and fell from his breath, “So tomorrow, then?”

Allie nodded and smiled, but it seemed forced. He wished she would just go with her heart – that is, if her heart wanted something different. But if it did, she never said so.

Tyler wrapped his arms around Allie and held her, tightly. A long silence fell between them, for minutes longer than was comfortable, as they both pondered, individually, about their future and what it may hold. She was the first to break the stillness.

“Thirsty?”

“A little,” he responded, his mouth dryer than he had anticipated. He cleared his throat.

“I’ll make some tea,” she said, wriggling from his embrace. She kissed his cheek, and a subtle grin appeared on her lips. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure things out. We’ve got plenty of time to make a plan while we’re packing.”

It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but Tyler smiled. It was impossible not to when she was looking at him that way. “Deal,” he agreed, and kissed her in return.

She eased out of bed, slipped the corner of the sheet out from underneath him and wrapped it around her upper body, dragging it with her. “Be right back,” she promised.

“Don’t be gone too long,” he called out as she disappeared around the corner into the hallway. “This bed is awfully lonely without you!”

It took a few moments for the smile to fade from his face. He raised his arms above his head and relaxed into the bed. Life was good. For now, he was safe. He was naked, in his lover’s bed, deep in the woods, and able to enjoy the last few hours of seclusion and tranquility in a world made only for the two of them. He closed his eyes; all was blissful, peaceful.

A soft tapping woke him from his daydream minutes later, and he heard Allie’s footsteps make their way across the length of the cabin. The crow was the first thing to come to mind; that menacing bird that scared the crap out of them earlier. Still, he liked that Allie cared for it; nurtured it the way she had nurtured him. It spoke volumes about her character and he delighted in his mental picture of her feeding it.

But that image quickly faded and panic ensued when he heard Allie shout, “Someone’s here!”

Tyler was up in a flash, scrambling to the window where he spotted a black Range Rover parked next to Allie’s jeep in the drive. He saw a tall, scrawny man in a dark trench coat walking around the back of both cars, toward the front door. His initial reaction was to get dressed, followed by his instinct to hide. He had been through these kinds of things before and—whether it was a relative, an ex, or even a current flame—they never turned out well.

But then Tyler saw something; something he wished he hadn’t the second that he did. Behind the man in black, from in between the cars, a woman stepped out. Tall and poised, with jet black hair and a fur coat—it was the woman from the warehouse.

She had found him.

“Oh
shit!
” Tyler yelled, running frantically toward the living room. “Allie! Allie! Stop, don’t open the door!”

Sheer terror filled his heart as he raced down the hall and made his way into the main room to stop her. “Allie! Wait! Don’t—”

It was too late, the door was open. Allie stood just inside the threshold, the sun and wind creeping along the wood-paneled floor already. The two women stared at each other, briefly, until Allie greeted
the woman he only knew as his captor.

“Vanessa?” Allie’s voice cracked with reluctance.

Tyler froze; both physically from the blistering wind as it hit his bare skin, and from the shock of what he had just heard. If his ears did not deceive, Allie knew this woman.

“Hello, Tyler,” the woman called to him. Her voice was smooth and daunting as she ignored Allie altogether, peering past her, and greeted him. Her cold, steely eyes locked onto him, and the moment his name left her lips, he knew he was in trouble.

Allie turned around, brow furrowed, and shot him a look of terrified disappointment. “You know each other?” Her voice cracked again; sharper this time and the pain piercing through her newly open heart was evident in her tone.

Tyler swallowed his own tongue. Nothing made sense. Who was Vanessa? How did she find him? And most importantly, how did
Allie
know her? He wanted answers, but by the expression on Allie’s face, he knew he needed to clear things up with her first.

“Well, yeah!” he said, matter-of-factly, but instantly realized that Allie wasn’t putting two and two together. He raised his hands, trying to explain, “I mean, no! She’s crazy—” 

His words were cut short.

“Tyler, honey, let’s not play games here,” Vanessa argued, shoving Allie aside as she let herself in. “I’m sure you’ve had a nice time up here with your new friend, but it’s time to come home.”

“
Honey?!
” Allie repeated, turning her back to the opened door. “
Home?
Tyler, what’s going on?!”

His response came out in a jumble of brief thoughts, none of which made any sense. It was clear Allie didn’t understand, but a better explanation would have to wait. As he tried to cover himself and retreat from Vanessa’s advance, three men entered the front door behind Allie.

“Let her go!” Tyler demanded, moving quickly past Vanessa to Allie. He shoved one arm protectively between her and the men. “I’ll go with you,” he surrendered, “just leave her alone - your fight is with me, not her!”

The two thugs looked to Vanessa for instructions.