Bound Guardian Angel (52 page)

“Calm the fuck down,” he barked, driving his
knee into the center of her back as he yanked her arms behind her.
“This is just a little courtesy call.” He was using a modulator to
disguise his voice.

“If this were a courtesy call, asshole, you
could have simply picked up the phone. Or, better yet, hacked into
my computer again.”

He wrapped a pair of flex cuffs around her
wrists and tugged the ends to tighten the bands before jerking her
off the floor and shoving her into the club chair by the
window.

She glared up at him as he paced to the
side, head turned toward her. Today, he wore a grey and black mask
that looked like something out of one of the war games her kids
played on their PS4.

But she could still make out his eyes
through the dark-grey screens of the eye holes. Those intense,
grey-blue eyes that reminded her of slate were like beacons, even
shielded as they were.

“Listen to me.” He bent forward and pointed
a finger at her.

She spat at him.

He pulled back, and an air of exasperation
and frustration fell over him.

Trying to worm her way inside his head, she
met with a wall of black. Nothing. He gave her nothing, his mind
sealed more tightly than Area 51.

He chuckled. “Nope. You’re not getting in
there, sweetheart. Too many things I don’t want you to see.”

“I’ll bet.” She glared at him.

He glared back, unmoving and rigid.

“What do you want?” she bit out, pulling
against her restraints.

“I want you to back off. Way off. My beef
with
Micah Black
”—he said Micah’s name as if it were a
curse—“doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns me
now
, dick face.
You’ve broken into
my
home. You’ve endangered
my
kids. Don’t expect me to let this go.”

He blew out a derisive breath. “You’ve got
bigger problems here than me.”

Cold dread rained down her back. “What’s
that supposed to mean?”

He pulled a bundle of thin blue rope from
one of the pockets in his cargo pants and began to uncoil it.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to do research.” He knelt in
front of her. “But if you want to know what I found out, stop
helping Micah. Stop searching for me in that little computer of
yours. And stop trying to track me. And then I’ll tell you what’s
really
endangering your kids. And trust me, honey, it’s not
me.”

“It is if you don’t tell me.”

He stood, grabbed the front of her shirt,
and yanked her out of the chair. “I’ll tell you after you drop your
manhunt. Then we’ll both be happy.”

“Then we’re at a stalemate.”

He remained motionless for what felt like an
eternity. “So we are.” He gruffly spun her around and lassoed her
with the rope.

Ten minutes later, she lay on her bed,
secured with a series of Shibari knots intricate enough to make
Micah drool. It looked like Skeletor had gone to the same school of
Domination and submission as Micah, but instead of fire and
floggers, ol’ Skellie got off on Japanese rope tying.

“Think about my offer, Cordray” he said,
straightening and tilting his head to the side as if admiring his
work. “I’ll be in touch in a couple of days to see if you’ve
changed your mind.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“We’ll see. Until next
time . . .” He opened her bedroom door and
disappeared like a wraith into the hall.

Cordray shouted after him. “Do you know
which portal the ankh opens?” It was a desperate move to see if she
could learn anything else about him, but seeing that she was tied
up and all, she was in a desperate position.

A moment later, Skeletor took the bait and
backed into the doorway. “You are a smart one, aren’t you? I’m
impressed.”

“Do you?” She glared up at him, praying he
would give her something. A clue. Anything that would help her find
him once she got free of these fucking knots.

The way the outside corners of his eyes
turned up behind the screens in the eye holes, she imagined he was
grinning. He raised his index finger and waggled it back and forth.
“Stop looking for me, Cordray. And stop working outside your pay
grade.”

“Or what? What will you do?”

His demeanor turned stony. “I’ll tell the
world who you really are.” He paused as if he knew he’d gained the
upper hand. “You wouldn’t want that, would you? To ruin your
precious
brother and his
saintly
reputation.”

What in the hell did this guy have against
her brother?

It didn’t really matter. The fact that he
knew she and Bain were related was enough to catapult her pulse
into the stratosphere. “How do you know that?”

He chuckled. With the modulator, it made him
sound like a demon, which was perfect, given the mask he wore. “If
I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He winked at her.
Winked!
Then he was gone.

And all Cordray could do was lie there like
a fucking human origami.

Chapter 30

Trace reached Asylum in less than thirty minutes and
roared down her driveway on his chopper like a hundred fiery steeds
breaking free from the gates of hell.

He killed the engine and burst through the
garage door seconds later. It was after midnight, so the house was
dark and quiet.

Too quiet.

“Cordray!”

He took the stairs three at a time, ran down
the hall, and threw open her bedroom door.

Only to find her tied up on the bed, her
arms and legs bent behind her, her wrists and ankles bound
together.

“What are you doing here?” Her face blanched
as she met his gaze.

“You were in danger.” He leaped onto the
bed, pulling out the knife he’d borrowed from Micah. Within
seconds, he’d sliced through the knots. “What happened? Are you
okay? Who did this to you?”

“I’m fine, and it doesn’t matter who did
this to me.” Rolling away from him, she flung off the rope and
planted her feet on the floor. “He’s gone. I’m alive. Thank you for
cutting me loose, but now you can leave.”

She dusted her hands down her arms and
darted past him into the hall.

Ah, hell no. She wasn’t running away again.
Not this time. Not now that he knew the truth that she was his mate
and that she loved him.

He caught up to her in four strides and
grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere you aren’t.” She tried to twist
her arm from his grasp. “Let me go, damn it.”

“No. Not until you tell me why you’re
fighting this.”

“Fighting what?” She tried to turn away from
him, but he grabbed her other arm and backed her into the wall.

“This.”

* * *

His lips claimed hers with a fervor she’d never felt.
And since this was Trace, she felt every ounce of the fervor he was
channeling from his lips into hers as his hands traveled from her
shoulders to her hands, which he slammed against the wall a moment
later.

After a long, dizzying stretch in which she
thought her lips might melt, he pulled back and searched her face,
leaving her wide-eyed and breathless.

The power rolling off him set her senses on
fire.

“Why are you fighting what’s happening
between us?” he said, breathing hard, gazing at her mouth. “Why are
you always running away from me?”

Reclaiming her courage and her conviction,
she freed her hands from his. “There is no
us
, hotshot. No
matter how great a kisser you are.” She shoved him away and turned
to make her escape.

“Oh no you don’t. Get back here.” Trace
tried to grab her arm, but she flung his hand away as his searing
touch lit fiery excitement inside her muscles.

“Don’t touch me!” She fled down the hall. If
she didn’t get away now, she wouldn’t be able to.

“Don’t you run away from me!” His body heat
bled into her back as he followed.

Arousal blasted through the pit of her
stomach, sending her thighs up in flames. The waves of power
pulsing from his body beat the air around her like heavy bass from
a high-def speaker.
Thump-thump-thump
. Only these hard
palpitations hit her between the legs, each pulse like a heartbeat
that throbbed deep inside her core.

She had to get away from him. She couldn’t
give in to whatever this was. If he was manifesting his power to
get her in the sack, she couldn’t let that happen.

With renewed effort, she hurried toward the
stairs, trying to escape.

He raced ahead of her, blocking her way.

“Leave me alone, Trace!” She spun and darted
back toward her bedroom.

But he was right behind her, assailing her
body with wave after wave of sexual heat, weakening both her knees
and her resolve.

“Tell me the truth!” He clutched her wrist
and swung her back around to face him.

She staggered as her feet briefly went out
from under her. “What truth?”

“That you love me!” His turbulent gaze
searched hers. “You do, don’t you? Don’t lie and tell me you
don’t.”

Damn Samantha. She’d told him.

“What does it matter?” she yelled at him as
tears blurred her vision. “You don’t want me! You hate me!”

“Just admit it, Cordray! Admit that you love
me!”

“Why? Why should I? What fucking difference
does it make?” She tried to break free, but he held her too
tightly.

“Because—”

“Let me go, Trace. Just let me go so I
can—”

“You’re my mate, goddamn it!” He shook her
then slammed her back against the wall.

Arousal exploded in her blood, and she
sucked in her breath a split second before—

SMACK!

Her palm connected with his face. Hard.

His head whipped to the side, and he
released her. The air thickened. When he brought his face back
around, he was rocking the most intense set of fuck-me eyes she’d
ever seen. As she slowly stepped to the side, he eased closer, and
a blast of hormonal heat pulsed from his body like a sonic
boom.

Warmth bloomed deep inside the heart of her
and slicked her core.

She swayed as she cautiously circled him
then took two backward steps toward her bedroom.

There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run,
no way of getting out of the coming storm as he bulldozed toward
her, chest pumping, fangs extending, gaze locked on hers as if she
were a pool of cold water in a desert and he’d been without water
for weeks.

Retreating, she backpedaled over her own two
feet until her back thudded against the wall again.

He was a predator, and she was his prey. In
an instant, his arms caged her. The warmth of his body seeped into
hers as another eruption of hormonal heat fired under his skin and
sparked the air around them.

“Trace . . .” She broke eye
contact and tried to duck under his arm, irrationally terrified of
what was happening between them.

He blocked her and encroached even farther
into her personal space.

“Hit me,” he said, his voice a deep purr.
“Hit me again.”

God help her, but she actually
wanted
to hit him, and not because she wanted to hurt him, but because she
knew—instinctively knew—that hitting him was the key to breaking
his arousal wide open.

And damn her to hell, she wanted that. She
wanted to feel him inside her, against her, touching her, kissing,
sucking, biting.

Even so, she proudly jutted her chin. “No.”
But her body screamed YES!

The corner of his mouth curled upward as he
pressed against her, setting off all kinds of alarms in her nervous
system as her sense of touch accelerated to full throttle.

She gasped and instinctively thrust her arms
out in front of her, only to meet with the brick wall of his body.
The muscles of his torso felt like sculpted marble. Thank God for
compression shirts that fit like a second skin, because she could
glide her hands over this shit all day.

“Hit. Me.” A low purr broke deep inside his
chest.

She met his hooded gaze with as much
audacity as she could muster. “No.”

“Wicked female.” The dark chuckle that broke
from his throat like a spritz of tequila and honey made her knees
tremble. “I know you want to. I can feel it.”

The front of his body crushed hers, his
chest mashing her breasts in such a delicious, erotic way. She drew
in her breath and tilted her head back as his lips brushed up the
slender column of her neck. His fists latched onto her hips. He
grunted and yanked them forward, making her gasp again as his
erection rubbed the juncture between her legs. Everywhere he
touched burst with sexual awareness. Hot. Like someone had injected
fire into her veins.

The sensory overload was almost too much,
and she nearly came on the spot.

“Trace . . . I can’t. I don’t
want . . .” Her voice trailed off, because what
she’d been about to say was a bold-faced lie. Because she did want.
She wanted everything he seemed ready to give her. If he stopped
now, it would destroy her.

“Oh, but you do,” he said, calling her
bluff. “I know you want it.” His warm breath flowed in staccato
exhales against her neck, right below her ear.

She was so close. An orgasm sat just on the
perimeter of her awareness, circling, closing in, almost there.

“Trace . . .
please . . .” She didn’t know what she was begging
for. Her mind was a scrambled mess of desire and need.

He slid his nose up the side of her neck and
into her hair, inhaling deeply as he continued rubbing his erection
against her. His slow, insistent grinding was nice. Very nice.
Take-her-breath-away nice.

“You’re my mate, Cordray.” His warm breath
washed over her skin. “Do you know what that means?”

She nodded then changed her mind and shook
her head. Her fingers curled over his shoulders like hooks. He was
so hard, so hot, so incredibly, insanely perfect.

“It means that this”—he thrust between her
legs—“is mine.”