Dearly Beloved (6 page)

Harsh breath filled the enclave. Her lip split and she tasted blood…evaluated, and then reveled in it. Her fingers flew over his back, the fingernails sliding against flesh. Her legs wrapped about him, holding him to her, the position matching her earlier erotic vision. All of her pulsed toward him in an endless series of lunges. Desiring. Striving. Demanding. And wherever she touched sent sparks.

He moved the kiss down her chin and to her throat, feeling like it opened flesh, and then he latched onto her again, sucking and licking and sending nothing of pain, and everything of ecstasy. Courtney rocketed with it, the canopy above her rotated before wide eyes, and then descended into raging red-colored want. Need. Hunger. The emotions pounded through her; rampant, base, overwhelming.

His hands were hard, commanding, gripping to her hips to hold her pinned in position for his entry. It was Courtney who lunged up to join them, embracing and enwrapping, and taking everything he was, over and over, in an increasing volley of give and take. His hair had come loose, dropping strands of it to join hers, mingling dark and light about them.

There was no control. There was only joining. The mattress rocked beneath them, assisting the wild movements. Heat built as fire-like flickers consumed the area. Throbbing pressure built, along with heart pounding, breath stealing need. Light infused the entire area and it didn’t emanate from any candle. She tried to clamp her eyes shut to all of it, but then such beauty hit, her eyes flew wide on everything. She was in a bow of absolute wonder, her mouth stretched to accommodate the cry as everything careened into a time-consuming vortex of ecstasy.

The keen died away, absorbed into the deeply-voiced grunts that accompanied Dominick’s movements. Muscles bunched and retracted, his face scrunched in concentration, pumping in an ever-increasing motion that just kept building. Harder. Faster. Another spark ignited, flared, grew, and consumed, sending her into another realm of amazement, accompanied by another harsh, throat-tearing cry. And again.

The man was a machine. A wonder. A complete mystery. Where Courtney gripped, she slipped; her arms, legs and entire frame alternately tightening and then going limp, and still he filled her, giving absolute pleasure, and total satisfaction, and then it changed. Dominick turned into a churning monster of motion, shoving into her with hard thrusts that kept rhythm with the deep grunts that accompanied them, and then he moved his head, speared her with a dark look that completely stole her heart, and dropped his head.

This kiss stole. And it stunned. And then it warped, changing her entire reality as he went ram-rod stiff, his loins pulsing against her as he emptied into her. He shook, moving her with it. She wasn’t just tasting life fluid; she was slavering in it, sucking and licking, and for the first time in her life Courtney knew absolute and complete fulfillment. His movements slowed, stilled, and then he sank into the embrace she’d kept on him the entire time.

His weight was crippling but she wouldn’t change a thing. One hand lazily stroked at his lower back, and then his buttocks, following hills and valleys of skin-covered sculpture. Wow. She’d never felt like this. Ever.

And then a loud alarm thing went off, making them both jump.

“Looks like I’m interrupting.”

Amusement colored the words. Dominick didn’t move his eyes from a screen that showed a shadowed desk fronting a stone fireplace. Nothing more.

“I’d apologize but that’s just not my style. Aside from which, you’ve been ignoring my messages. I only use the alarm when I need to.”

“State your business. I am busy,” Dom finally replied.

“Wrong answer, St. Guis.”

Dominick pulled his hair back and circled the tail with a band, taking his time. Waiting. Then he smoothed down his shirt. Wonderful material. Didn’t wrinkle. The same couldn’t be said of his pants. Definite crease marks showed where they’d lain crumpled on the floor. For what hadn’t felt like hours, but must have been. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen the entire time.

“What do you wish of me?” he finally asked.

“What? No pleasantries? No inquiries to my health?”

“I pity the fool who worries over your health, Akron.”

“Hmm. You? Pity anyone? Never. You want to tell me what happened?”

Dominick pursed his lips and waited. Such a question had too many answers, all of them meant to entrap. It was Akron’s usual method. And Dominick didn’t waste words if he didn’t have to.

“You want me to fill in the gaps?”

“You are the one calling this meeting.”

“I’ve got a problem. It deals with you. And that means, you’ve got a problem. Me.”

Dom nodded and waited again. Akron finally sighed.

“It’s about a little thing called media attention. I avoid it at all costs. I thought we were in accord about it.”

“We are.”

“Well, we’ve got a lot of it now. Messages circling the globe. Speculation. Investigation. Inquiry. Rampant publicity. A soon-to-be-recognized widow who is very annoyed and not leery of texting over it. Using her toss-away, untraceable cell-phone to my unlisted and now vacated number. Silly woman. Everything leaves traces and I don’t give refunds.”

“You have woman troubles?”

“We’re not discussing me.”

Dominick grunted a reply.

“There’s been a vessel lost at sea. A rather large yacht belonging to a fairly prominent and wealthy man. Happened during a pleasure cruise. Disappeared without a trace sometime last night.”

“So?”

“The search is on. They’re using all resources. Military. Civilian. Mercenaries. All sorts of riff-raff looking for an opportunity to cash in on the publicity…
Hunters
.”

Dom stiffened without meaning to.

“Taking a kill this close to your home was a risk. Taking the entire crew was even more so.”

“It was an accident. I was not responsible.”

“You take an assignment. It gets screwed up. You’re responsible. Got it?”

Dom nodded.

“This gives me a very nice conundrum. I now have to waste time watching as they widen their search. Perhaps close in on your secrets…and that could lead to mine.”

“They will never find me.”

“You fulfill the contract?”

“Yes.”

“How many involved?”

“Six. No. Five.”

There was a chuckle at his slip. Dominick’s hand clenched. He didn’t let it be seen.

“You want to elaborate on that loose end?”

“I do not have a loose end.”

“You really should try putting contractions in your speech sometimes. You sound archaic, along with foreign. Both very identifiable features. Romantic. Considering you’re already very memorable when seen in person, it’s too much.”

“I am never seen.”

“Keep it that way. There’s not a woman around who wouldn’t remember you to a finite degree. Probably most men, too.”

Dominick flushed. He could feel it. “Your point?”

“You were paid well for this assignment.”

“I am always paid well.”

“Four-point-three-million. In full.”

“So?”

“So…I’m in a quandary here, Your Highness. I need to decide whether to launch an offensive against your island or not. There’s sensitive information that could get leaked. This means I have to take a chance and I don’t gamble. You’re not giving me enough information to make a decision. Perhaps you could find some communication skills and start talking.”

Dom sighed. “I found her, Akron.”

“Who?”

“My
mate
.” His voice slipped on the word, revealing too much. He couldn’t help it. He still couldn’t believe it.

A long whistle sounded. “You sure?”

Dom leaned back in his chair as if considering an answer. Or the stupidity behind it. “Yes.”

“This is a definite complication. She’s from the yacht?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…reported missing is internet sensation Shawn Elliot, his personal secretary, three crewmen, and a rather uninteresting figure listed as Courtney Dwyer. That her?”

Dominick nodded.

“She see anything? Know anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmm. I see. I’ll keep in touch. Don’t ignore my messages again. Oh, and Dom?”

Dominick stopped with his finger on the power switch.

“I wouldn’t tell her you just killed her brother-in-law. Or that her sister paid for it. Never mind.”

“What?” Dom’s forehead wrinkled in a frown.

“She’s standing behind you. Catch her before she faints, will you?”

The screen went black.

Shock was an undervalued condition, especially the numb part that seemed to accompany it. Courtney was solidly in its grasp as she rounded the fourth circle of steps in her quest to get out. Her heart pumped madly and she panted from the exertion, but that was better than dealing with what she’d just heard and was expected to believe. No. Wasn’t true. Didn’t happen. Couldn’t be. Nothing like this happened in the world anymore. Well…maybe on some new cable show, but not to her. People from Seattle didn’t end up in some Mediterranean labyrinth; they didn’t have their world blown to smithereens about them; they didn’t wake up with millionaire princes; they wouldn’t fall heavily into passion-drenched lovemaking sessions with them; and they’d never be expected to believe that said wonder-guy was a real-life murderer.

It was bad enough he had vampire delusions and acted on them. No. That didn’t happen either. None of this did. Courtney blinked against a blurred view that smeared the steps into one long snake built of stone. She wasn’t just denying this entire episode. She refused to believe it. Period.

Numbness should’ve gotten her to the top of this damn spiral staircase. She should be racing steps, rather than watching the series of them distort, elongating before her eyes. There was a landing of sorts where the steps semi-vanished into what was probably another floor of his cave mansion. She’d passed three of them. Maybe four. The guy must have ten floors in here. That wasn’t fair.

Fair?
What a joke.

She blinked, clearing her vision again, and then she was at the next set of steps. Hearing that self-confirmed asshole, Shawn Elliot, was dead didn’t bother her. Much. He had such an over-inflated vision of himself, the world all of a sudden felt bigger. Her sister using his own money to rid the world of him – now that bore consideration, if and when Courtney got past the bigger one: She’d actually bedded the murderer…and loved every moment of it.

Argh
.

Numb was supposed to last longer. Courtney swiped at both cheeks. She wasn’t facing any of it yet. She had time. She had to get this physically grueling climb behind her first, though. It was obvious Apollo/Dominick didn’t need to work out much. All he had to do was climb his stinking stairs.

The man loomed out of the shadowed recess marking the next floor, making her stumble. Courtney grabbed for the rail, wrapped both hands around it, and looked over the precipice at darkness that went a long way down. The steps were safer. She turned back. But that meant she had to face him…and everything that went along with that.

The split dress she’d tied back together with one of his canopy ties was sweat-damp at her waist. She supposed that helped keep it closed. She didn’t have a stitch on beneath it, and silk skimmed and stuck to just about everywhere. She was sticky with sweat. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her raspy breaths over it. Those breaths were close to taking her to her knees with the strength of them. And that god/man didn’t even look winded. He just looked good. All-over good. She sneered up at him.

“You could…have told me…you had…an elevator.” The words were broken into sections controlled by her panting.

“I do not.”

“You don’t.” She corrected.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Oh stop already, Dominick Miklos…St. Guis. If that is even…your real name.”

“Why would it not be?”

He raised one eyebrow as he asked it, putting way too much emphasis on how gorgeous he was. Her tongue felt swollen. She needed to look at something else. She settled on the cavernous black behind him.

“Why wouldn’t…it be,” she repeated finally.

“That is what I said.”

It was getting easier to breathe. If she kept the conversation littered with trifles, and avoided looking at him, her heartbeat might ease up as well. It was worth a try.

“I heard you. I’m trying…to demonstrate…how it should be said.”

He pulled back and stood to his full height, which was considerable, thanks to that Norman heritage. Then he crossed his arms, putting massive arm size atop ripped abs on display. There was that Norman stuff again, added to by a warrior work-out he probably did. He had one side of his face scrunched in thought. That just highlighted the Greek ancestry. Damn everything, but the guy was stunning, even in that configuration. Courtney nearly sighed aloud with it.