Days of Redemption (The Firsts Book 6) (8 page)

He nodded and sa
id goodbye, sliding the phone back into his pocket.   “North, two miles, a cabin with a basement.  It’s actually set up as a vampire refuge.  She says there are numerous places all over South America for just that purpose.”

“Who is
she
?”

“Dez.
  Someone David knows.  A vampire who helped me to find ya, lass.”

“Oh.”

Bryn grinned at her again.  “Jealous?  Ya needn’t be.  I only have eyes for one woman right now and I plan to have her underneath me verra, verra soon.”

Lauren had no time to prepare as he moved them both again, and within minutes he was closing the door behind them to a small cabin in the middle of the rain forest.

Seconds later several candles were lit and the simple, unadorned interior flickered in the dim lighting.

Bryn turned to her.  “Hungry?”

Lauren nodded.  “Ravenous.”

“Then come with me.”

Bryn took her hand and led her to the back of the cabin, and as he reached the plain back wall, he touched up under a shelf filled with old dusty books, and she felt a shudder as the floor opened up beside her.

“A hatch?”
  Lauren asked, surprised.

“Aye.
  Dez says it’s pretty nice below.  Shall we?”

They descended a narrow stairwell, soft lights switched on just before they stepped off into the darkness.

“Motion sensors.  Clever.  Now let’s see, there should be a cabinet.”

Lauren watched him searching through some non-perishables in a large cabinet.  She watched his arms flex as he reached up.  
Her body had been revving since he first touched her tonight, and the twitching between her legs was growing insistent.   Food was
not
what she wanted. 
Not yet anyway. 

“Vampire,” Lauren said softly.  Bryn turned.

“I don’t want food right now.  I want
you
.  Any objections to changing the order of events?”

He didn’t move. 
A can of carrots suspended in his hand, he just looked at her.

“Well?”  Lauren asked.

Bryn swept her up for the fourth time tonight, his breath labored, and said, his lips against hers, “God, yes.”

“I just wish I wasn’t so filthy.”

“That won’t bother me, lass, but if it bothers you…”

Spinning, he moved her through an adjacent
doorway, the lights came on again, and revealed a big bathroom with a roomy shower. 

Lauren grinned now. 

“Allow me,” Bryn said, and set her on the tile to remove her boots and clothes.  He took that time to just look at this woman he wanted so badly.

Lauren wanted to cover her body with her hands and move into the dark.  She’d never felt sexy before and now that she was so exposed to this uber-male, and knew he had an impressive sexual history, her newfound confidence waned. 

“I know I’m not what you’re used to…” she suddenly tried to explain, but he covered her lips with a fingertip.

“Nay.
Not a word.  Ye’re magnificent, little scientist.  I’m going to come inside of ya so hard, ye’ll never forget it the rest of yer life.”

Any chance of breathing normally disappeared.  Bryn dropped his clothes slowly, letting her savor the reveal.  Every inch of his considerable body was pure erotic perfection.   She wanted her hands and her mouth on him, and shocked herself at how badly she did.  Her eyes lifted to his after she boldly let her right hand ease forward and curled her fingers around his cock, already erect
and straining.  It throbbed as her fingers moved down and caressed the swollen head.

Bryn groaned and put her into the shower, turned on the water, and as it cascaded over them, he told her not to move.  She didn’t,
while he lathered a new scrubby, and washed her entire body, beginning at her neck, slowly, moving from her shoulders to her outstretched arms, which lifted her breasts, begging for attention.  He satisfied them after a thorough scrubbing, by just gently moving his tongue across one nipple and then the other.

When his hands moved over her lower back, then across each buttock, she held her breath before he used the bar soap, lathered it in his hands, and slid them between her legs to cover her with bubbles,
sliding back and forth across the sensitive clitoris, his fingers lingered too long, and not long enough, as he finished the area and moved on to her legs and feet.

Neither of them spoke as he handed the scrubby to her, and Lauren spent the same lingering time soaping up muscles she’d only seen on lab subjects and never
expected to touch.  She’d dreamed of it, but this was nothing like any dream.

Bryn moaned and held onto Lauren’s wet hair when she knelt to scrub his cock and finished the same way he had with her breasts, by running her tongue around the tip.  He shot backward and pressed his hands to the tile then.

“We’re done here.”  His voice deep, he yanked her out of the shower, left the water running, toweled himself off quickly, then Lauren, and had them in the other room.  He glanced in the corner at the long, wide bed, just right for a vampire of his size, and said a quiet thank you to Dez.  He was going to need the room.

Lauren felt herself suspended for a moment as he almost threw her down on the bed, and then crawled on
to it, kneeling above her, hesitating.

“I want inside
ya now,” he said.

“Okay,” Lauren whispered.

“I want to make love to ya, Lauren, and properly, but at this moment, I need to feel ya.”

“Shut up and get inside me, then.  I want you to make good on that promise to come inside of me so hard, it will rock my world for the rest of my life.”

Bryn moved closer then, and lay on top of Lauren, slowly sliding his body across hers.  She felt his tongue moving against her neck as he nuzzled in, and she knew he wanted to bite.  And that he wouldn’t.

Her hands moved over his massive back, the muscles hard and smooth and perhaps the most perfect thing she’d ever touched.   She felt his fingers bury themselves in her hair, tight enough to pull a little, but it only felt even more sensuous when, moments later, she felt him lift his body and the tip of his cock mov
ed between her legs.

Lauren opened her legs
and brought them up, resting them on his buttocks as he finished probing and pushed into her, slowly at first and then deep, as far as he could. 

As Bryn moved inside her, her body responded with waves of pleasure that she didn’t know existed, her own body desperate for every touch, every motion,
every throb.  But it was the glow of colors moving around them that stunned her, Bryn’s aura that twined around them as he continued to move inside of her. 

A pale lavender glow began around them both, changing to a golden amber, then back to lavender, twisting between them and into them, pressing them together far beyond the incredible physical connection.

Her body had ached for him, and now, with him inside her, she felt her womanhood clutch his manhood.

This couldn’t be real, she had to be dreaming.  How could anything be so perfect?  They did
n’t really know each other and yet she knew that if he was gone, she would grieve for him.  Strangely, she knew he would feel the same if he never felt her again either.

They
orgasmed at the same time, so intensely, she wrapped her arms and legs around his body so they wouldn’t come apart.  He pumped into her and did exactly as he promised…she would never forget this moment.

Once the orgasm finished and they dropped together, still wrapped around each other, Lauren opened her eyes to see the aura
’s colors slowly dissipate, and the cloak it had created released them so they could part.

But they didn’t.

Bryn rolled off her, but pulled her close to nuzzle in under her hair again, his tongue and teeth moving against her neck once more.

There were no words.  They were both confused by what had just happened.  Lauren knew Bryn was very skilled with centuries of lovers behind him.  She also knew, because of the connection their love-making had created, that he’d never experienced anything on that scale before.

She turned her head towards him and he lifted his eyes to look into hers.  And still they did not speak.

Bryn pulled her closer and they fell asleep, both wondering what they could possibly say to the other when they woke the next day.

SEVEN

Lauren moved quietly up the stairs with a cup of steaming coffee, through the small dark cabin, and opened the door to peek out.  It was day, and by the level of light, early evening. 

Taking a deep breath,
she stepped out and scanned the perimeter around the cleared area in front of the cabin.  It really was spectacularly beautiful here.  A bird landed on a twig not six feet from her, nervously flicking its tail feathers.  Bright blue and yellow, its tropical colors were breathtaking, with brilliant white eyelines and extended tail feathers that looked like they couldn’t possibly be real.

The air was warm, but not stifling, as she had imagined in the tropics,
with winter just a few months away.

She thought about what had happened as they made love last night.

Only once in her life had Lauren actually seen a living aura, when she met Cherise in Colorado over a year ago.  All living things have an aura, a soft colorful glow of life that surrounds each person, animal, and even plant life.  The color of the aura indicated much about that life, whether it was gentle or harsh, good hearted or not, healthy or not.  She had studied the concept of auras and knew the idea to be considered a fable by mainstream scientists. 

But Lauren knew better.   Even so, she’d never heard of anything like she saw last night. 
Did it mean something?
 
And if so, what?

Shaking her
head, she sipped the coffee, closing her eyes.  These past days had been overwhelming.  The worst night of her life and the best.  She didn’t want to deal with anything right at this moment other than the taste of this hot cup of over-sweetened coffee and the beautiful day. 

Because worse was coming. 

Now she would have to go further underground.   And Bryn would say “thank ya, lass,” and go back to his own world.  The empty life she had been building in Chicago would look like a dream compared to her future.

Lauren smiled and lowered the cup to rest on her knee.  At least she
had
a future again.

Thirty miles away

Alarms screamed throughout the large facility and even into the glass-enclosed offices cantilevered above the main floors of the enormous building.   Often called Safehouse, it was the most remote location for the SRS, built specifically because of a breach in France last year.

Frustrated, Jacques Lamont turned to the slight man at his side.

“For fuck’s sake, stop that hideous sound!”

“Sorry, sir.
  One of the subjects got loose on level 3.  It’s automatic until someone presses an “okay” button, advising security that the escapee has been recaptured.  I’ll see if I can get it turned off.”

Lamont s
hot him an angry look.  “Don’t mistake that for a suggestion.”

The slight man hurried out of the room, worried.  It was rare that the prime director come to this remote facility.  He wondered what it meant that he arrived with no prior announcement today.

He approached a wide desk in an adjacent room where a heavy-set woman sat at a computer.

“Marie, can you override the alarms?”

“We usually don’t, Reuben.”

“But
he
requested it.  No, he demanded.”

“Oh.  In that case, I think I can.”

Moments later, the alarms ceased.

“Thank you.”

Reuben hurried back to the large central office that he ordinarily used in running this lab.  Not today.  As he reentered the room, he waited several feet away from Lamont, who was on the phone, his face even more red than when he’d demanded Reuben to stop the alarm.

“You didn’t get her,” he was saying, deadpan, still angry. 
Or perhaps more so.

“I trust that the next time you call, you will have.  There cannot be one reason a team of highly trained soldiers can’t capture one human woman.  She has no skills, no supplies, no contacts…
hell, she doesn’t even have shoes or clothes!   If she’s outrun or outwitted all of you, someone’s getting fired.  Understand?”

They all did, since they had just “fired” the last two guys who had failed to bring her to
Safehouse.

Lamont listened, surprised at what the voice on the other end of the line told him.   When he responded, it was with controlled rage. 
“A vampire?  With her?  It must have been the one Claude told me that was with her in Chicago.  Why the hell would he be with her here?  I don’t care.  Find him, find her.  Bring them to me at the lab.  I’m already here, and I’m waiting.  And you know
I don’t like to wait
.”

Lamont pushed the end button and though
t about how much more satisfying it used to be to slam down the receiver on a bad phone call.

“Reuben!” he called, loudly, even though Reuben was just a few feet away.

Reuben moved forward quickly.

“Sir?”

“I’ll be in the alpha suite.  Bring me wine, a steak, rare, with all the fixings, and a blonde.  Big tits. I like them large.”

“Sir, we don’t have anyone…”

“For God’s sake, use one of the subjects.  Don’t tell me you don’t have someone in the cages.  Those supernaturals may be inhuman, but they’re usually sexy as hell.  Hurry.”

Yeah,
Reuben thought, as he rushed out of the room,
I know, you don’t like to wait.

This job had been a good one.  He tried to meet the expectations of home office in France, with
viable research results and minimal problems.  Most of the time, he succeeded.

And he tried very hard not to do any more harm to the
subjects than he had to. 

Reuben realized that he was expected to obtain results with no concern for their safety or well-being.   While he accepted the job and its horrible goals, he knew, after working with these “inhuman” creatures for over a year now, they were not inhuman at all.  And they weren’t evil or bad. 

He wanted to leave here, because he did not believe in the mission anymore, but he knew with certainty that anyone who took his place would be much less humane.

So he stayed and did what he could. 
He’d learned the hard way that he couldn’t fix this.  The SRS, and Lamont, were too powerful.  He knew that the woman they sought, who was now lost in the forest, had been responsible for destroying the lab in Paris last year.  And he knew she was dead as soon as they caught her.   Which they would, eventually.

Right now, for Lamont, t
he food and drink he could provide easily.  His stomach was in knots as he realized he would have to pull someone from their cage for that monster to molest.  Reuben found sex distasteful, himself, and the idea of choosing one of the subjects to give to Lamont made him sick.

Marie was still at her desk.   She looked up at him when he came towards her.

“What’s wrong?”

“He wants food, wine, and a blonde with big breasts.”

“I see.  I’ll arrange the food and wine.  The blonde?  Give him Kalia.  She won’t mind and she’ll keep him happy.  Plus, if he’s brutal, he can’t hurt her too easily.  She’s tough.”

“I hate to.”

“You have to.  Once he’s gone, we can get back to normal.  Reuben, you’re doing good work here.  Don’t let him get rid of you.  I remember the first guy they hired and you can’t let that happen again.  I’ll never forget the smell of blood and burning flesh.   It was tragic.”

“Okay.  
Steak, rare, with everything else.”

“Not a problem. 
Kalia’s not in her cage right now.  She’s in the fourth floor nursery.  Although she’s anything but gentle most of the time, it’s amazing how good she is with the newborns and the toddlers.   She has a magic touch.”

His heart heavy, Reuben nodded and headed to the elevators.

Bryn woke suddenly, disoriented for a moment until his memory placed him in Dez’s hideout cabin in Brazil.  And the memory, too, of sex like he’d never had before with the tense scientist from Iceland.  His smile wide, he looked around the room, into the bathroom, which was empty, and had a moment of concern when she was gone.

Sliding
out of the bed, he headed up the stairs.  His head barely cleared the top of the stairwell, when he saw her through the door she’d left ajar, as she sat on the wood porch, relaxed, sipping something in a mug.

It was still daylight, he couldn’t join her.  But he watched her, the sunlight on her face, her body clad only in the white shirt he’d brought her and nothing else.

Bryn hadn’t been in love since Bess, too many centuries ago, and he was sure he wasn’t now. 
Hoped
he wasn’t, he didn’t want to be.  But she stirred him. 
Deeply.
  And what the hell was that with his ability last night?  Even with Bess, his ability to merge auras had never manifested unbidden during sex.  But with Lauren, Bryn’s odd power came on its own and enveloped them, especially during their orgasms, which became the strongest he’d ever known.   He knew, with the connection he’d made to her while he was inside her, it was the first orgasm she’d ever experienced during intercourse.   He really had no idea what had caused his power to do that.

Staring at her now, he only knew one thing
with certainty.  He wanted her again, now, and this time, he would take his time. 

Suddenly she sat upright and looked back into the darkened cabin.  Bryn popped up a little higher.

“Lass,” he said.  “Come inside.”

He watched her nod, but
hesitate.  Yeah, Bryn knew he wasn’t the only one confused.  But he knew to follow instincts, and his instinct in this case was to have her naked beneath him.  Or on top of him.  What mattered was, that they were both naked and at some point, he’d be inside of her again.

Lauren saw him looking at her from his safe place inside the windowless cabin.  She could feel his need, and her body responded, the twitching between her legs that she’d hoped was satisfied enough after last night
…oh, hell, it wasn’t.   If anything, she wanted him more today.  There wasn’t a chance he was going to stay in her life, but there also wasn’t a chance that she wasn’t going to fuck him as often as she could before he left.

Walking inside, she locked the door behind her, and watched him come on up the stairs.  He was naked, and she thought that maybe he should always be.

Going over to him, her hands went immediately to his chest, slid down and caressed his penis that literally grew in her hand as she held it.

“Gorgeous,” she whispered.
  “I think I want to taste you.  I’ve never done that before.”

“It surprises me, little one, that y
e’ve had so little experience in your life.  Ye’re very passionate.”

She wouldn’t tell him that it was only recently that she was even aware how strong her libido was.  That she’d never
thought she was sexy until this past year and no one had ever really wanted her.

“I like it when you call me little.  I’ve always been the tallest girl in the room.  Most men don’t like that.”

“Ye’re just perfect for me.  I think we proved that last night.  I think we need to prove it again right now.”

He lifted her easily and carried her down the stairs again.

“I can walk, Bryn,” she laughed, but kept her arms tight around his neck.

“That would take too long.  I get my hands on
ya sooner this way.”

“It wasn’t an objection.”

He set her on the floor next to the bed.

“I find this shirt offensive.  It’s covering that body I want to touch.”

“Aw.  Then it’s gone.”  Lauren began to unbutton the shirt, slowly, one button at a time, carefully, until Bryn growled.

“That scrap of fabric better be on the floor in seconds or I’m tearing it off
ya.”

She loved playing with him.  Slipping the final button out of the little slit, she let him push the sleeves off her shoulders
to drop onto the floor.

Bryn picked her up and threw her on
to the bed, where she bounced and got up on her arms.

“Come inside,” she said, repeating what he’d said to her a moment ago when she was outside.  He knew she meant something very different.

“Not yet.”

Bryn crawled onto the bed but stopped when he reached Lauren’s feet, and took one foot in each of his hands, spreading them slightly.

She drew a sudden deep breath and lifted her hands over her head to cradle them against the wall, dropping her head back.   She knew what he was going to do, every nerve on the surface of her skin lie ready for the explosion of sensations.