Driving Force (19 page)

How could she have become so addicted to him in so short a time? She absolutely must stop thinking about him, obsessing over the way he looked and felt, the sensations that he gave her.

Why didn’t it bother her that he was a Shifter, that he wasn’t entirely human? Anyone else would certainly think that abnormal and terrifying. She glanced at Gregor eating quietly while his amber eyes kept watchfully scanning the room. She should be frightened of Gregor too, now that she knew he was a lion in his other form. But she knew Gregor, as she knew most of the Lowes, as she knew Abel, Nick and the other Shifters here in Wade County. She was friends with many of them and knew the rest at least by sight.

Ian might be the only one she had seen shape-shifted so far. Maybe if she saw Gregor when he was a lion, she would be afraid. But she didn’t think so. None of them were the mindless monsters of books and movies. They were individuals to her, sentient and intelligent. They were people.

Work would distract her and keep her from thinking too much. She wanted to just go with the flow for a while. She really did have an order to complete, so she spent the afternoon taking care of that in the studio Ian had set up for her, then went to help Annie with supper. Ian still hadn’t returned by the time it was ready and everyone else arrived. He had said he would miss lunch, but he hadn’t said anything about missing dinner. Just as she was starting to be afraid that something had gone seriously wrong, Annie came and told her he was on the phone.

“Ian?” she said, snatching up the receiver. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yes. Nothing to worry about. Just letting you know I’ll be a couple of hours late getting home. Nick’s Jeep’s playing up and we have to fix it. We’re still in Perdur. Abel was bright enough to bring grub along, so tell Annie not to make dinner for me.”

“Right.”

“See?” he said softly. “This time I did remember to call. Do I get points for that?”

“You do.”

His voice dropped suddenly into a deep, warm purr. “Might those points add up to a reward?”

“I think that could be arranged,” she said huskily. “What would you like?”

“A lot of things, but I can’t tell you what they are because Abel and Nick are only a few yards away and Shifter hearing is acute. How about you tell me what the choices might be?”

“I’m standing in the kitchen.”

“With Annie nearby?”

“Yup. And the hands. So I can’t talk about it either.”

“Can think about it though, can’t we?”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Yes.”

“
Are
you thinking about it?” His voice had gone even deeper, but she could hear the laughter flickering through it. She shivered involuntarily with pleasure and pressed the receiver harder to her ear.

“Oh, yes. In detail. All day.”

“Sierra…”

“And about choices? I’ve thought of a few variations you might have to show me how to put into practice.”

She heard the little sharp hiss of his breath. “Do you have any idea what you just did to me?”

“Zip a bit tight?” she murmured after a quick glance around to see whether anyone was listening. “Mine’s kinda wet right now.”

“God, you know how to push my buttons, don’t you?” he said, his voice at once amused and ragged. “Have mercy.”

“Just giving you some incentive to get back here fast.”

“That Jeep’s gonna get fixed at light speed,” he muttered and the line went dead.

She was laughing as she hung up and he had been laughing too. But the heat had been there under the laughter for both of them, raw in the rasp of his voice, burning in the flush she could feel on her face.

Annie glanced at her. For a moment she looked as if she were debating making a comment or even giving Sierra a warning. But there wasn’t anyone in town who had to be warned about Ian Raeder, certainly not Sierra, who’d had his number years ago. In the end, Annie just turned away without saying anything.

Annie knew his rep, knew it wouldn’t last. Well, Sierra did too, and she’d guard herself. She knew the score about Ian and she didn’t need to be told she had to watch out. But she wasn’t going to give it up. Not yet. It felt too good. It was too much of a delight.

They got everyone fed then cleared the tables, loaded up the dishwasher and made things ready for breakfast the next morning. Ian still wasn’t back by the time Annie left, so Sierra went into the living room to wait. She switched on a light, saw that the drapes had not been drawn against the night and went to close them.

Outside in the darkness at the far end of the lawn something bulked, black against the blackness of the shrubs and plantings. Sierra froze.

Something sparked green in the light falling through the living room windows. Eyes?

A trickle of ice water shivered down her spine. She looked closer but the distance was too great and the night was too dark. She couldn’t make anything out. She moved slightly and the lamp behind her reflected golden in the glass of the window. It wasn’t eyes after all, just something in the room reflecting in the window. She was imagining things. Ian and Gregor being so overprotective was getting to her.

She heard the sound of a car pulling up in front of the house. The green flash vanished as she turned her head. She tried to find it again, shifting from side to side. But it was gone, if it had ever been there. Her imagination was playing tricks, she told herself, listening to the sound of laughter and voices—Ian’s, Abel’s, Gregor’s.

She yanked the curtains closed and hurried across the living room.
I shouldn’t be so eager!
she thought. But she was. Hungry for his body in her arms and his mouth on hers and the sight of that strange intensity in his eyes when he looked at her, which at once excited her so fiercely and frightened her because she didn’t know what it meant.

By the time she reached the hallway, Ian had come in and was locking the front door behind him. He looked around, his eyes all green fire and laughter.

“I hope you haven’t changed your mind about those variations,” he said softly. “Because I haven’t been able to think of anything else. Once we got the Jeep fixed, I insisted on driving. Floored the gas all the way home. Abel and Nick think I’m nuts.”

She flushed hotly. “Any variations I can think up are probably all pretty vanilla.”

He blurred toward her at such speed that she gasped in shock. Then she was snatched up from the floor.

“Vanilla sounds good to me,” he purred and kissed her, his mouth devouring hers.

Reality vanished. There was nothing but sensation—the feel of him hard against her, the scent of him, the taste of him. Her arms clenched about him and her fingers dug into his thick hair to hold his mouth to hers. There was nothing in the whole world but him.

I can’t let him get to me like this
, she thought desperately. But it was like being hit by a tidal wave, one moment safe on dry land, the next fathoms deep and drowning.

She found herself braced on something. He had backed her up against the hall table and was between her thighs, leaning in to her. She was glad she was wearing a simple button-through dress instead of jeans. It would come off easily. Points for predicting his actions, she thought and chuckled deep in her throat. Her legs rose without her even thinking to lock about his hips and hold his swelling hardness to her.

His hands were pushing up her skirt, spread fingers arousing as they slid up her inner thighs. Then he stopped abruptly, his forehead falling against hers and his breath shuddering against her mouth.

“Not like this. Too fast and in all my dirt. Let me clean up first.”

He swung her into his arms and swept her up the stairs to her room. She found herself set down on her feet beside the bed, breathless from the speed of it.

“Give me two minutes,” he said, yanking his tee over his head, then stripping off his jeans.

She watched him pad into the bathroom, unselfconsciously naked. He was beautiful to see, all that taut, rippling muscle, the sheer potent physicality of the man. It wasn’t a Shifter thing. The other Shifters didn’t affect her the way he did. It was just Ian.

“Come shower with me,” he said over his shoulder and she blushed vividly.

“Um, I just took one half an hour ago.” She had, readying herself for him.

“So? Come and scrub my back. It’ll be fun.”

“Uh…”

He grinned at her. “Too shy yet, huh? We’ll have to work on that.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She heard the shower turn on.

Sierra sucked thoughtfully at her lower lip for a moment, then stripped out of her clothes and pulled on the red satin robe she had worn yesterday. He had liked it, liked the feel of the material and the way the color contrasted against the tan of her skin.

“At least keep me company,” he called.

She drifted over to lean against the jamb of the bathroom door. He turned his head and smiled when he saw the robe.

“Are you wearing anything under that?”

“No,” she said in a husky voice.

“You really are good at those incentives.” He finished lathering up, tossed the soap into its holder and began to rinse off rapidly.

“Don’t hurry,” she murmured. “I’m enjoying the view.”

The shower door was transparent and she could see all of him as he twisted and turned under the spray of water.

He laughed. “Like what you see?”

Easy to make cracks, harder to stop her face from heating. Sierra wished she didn’t blush so easily, wished her bones weren’t liquefying and her insides going into meltdown.

Her gaze followed the suds washing off his body and she wanted to run her mouth in their wake. Down the long indent of his spine to that taut ass, down that lickable six-pack to his flat stomach and that delectable V-cut, then lower to his stiffening, lifting cock.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve liked it ever since you fell through my front door totally naked.”

He grinned. “Did that give you ideas?”

“All too many.” His eyes flared and she said hastily, “So no joy in Perdur, huh?”

“Not even tracks.”

“You should have waited for that boy to recover.”

“I know. Going to Perdur was to give Nick something to do. He gets antsy when he has to wait. Doc says Kihain is almost over the fever. We should be able to talk to him soon.”

He turned off the shower and reached for a towel. Sierra stepped swiftly away from the bathroom door. He had teased her about being shy and she was. In the hallway, she had just reacted without thinking, so lost in sensation that she wouldn’t have stopped him from taking her right then and there. Now her inhibitions were catching up with her.

Standing around awkwardly waiting felt silly, but draping herself across the bed like some seductress in the movies was even more ridiculous, since she wasn’t femme fatale enough to carry that off successfully. In the end, she just tumbled into bed, flat on her stomach, and buried her hot face in a pillow.

She caught a glimpse of Ian out of the corner of her eye when he came padding out of the bathroom, then the bed dipped under his weight as he eased down beside her. He leaned over her, smiling, to push her hair back and kiss her shoulder.

“Still inhibited? Even after last night?”

“I know that’s just dumb, but…”

“It’s adorable.” His hands moved under her to untie the sash of her robe. “You didn’t need to put this on. It’s only coming right off.”

He, of course, was still naked. He hadn’t even wrapped that towel around him.

He slipped the robe off her and dropped it onto the floor beside the bed. His hands slid down her back from the curves of her shoulders to her ass and back up again, moving in long, slow, repetitive strokes, lingering on every swell and hollow. His mouth took up the pattern, except from side to side, working its way downward. She moaned with pleasure and felt him smile against her hip.

“You like that,” he murmured.

“I like everything you do.”

He bit one cheek of her ass softly. “Even that?”

“Yes. The same way you like me biting you.”

He laughed against the base of her spine. “Yeah, I like your fangs, Mouse.”

His tongue had turned raspy. She shuddered as it ran up her spine, then his lips began to trail tiny nibbling kisses up and down the sensitive cord along the side of her neck. His hands slid under her, stroking and kneading their way up her thighs and over her belly to close on her breasts. Her nipples went hard in an instant and her back arched, pressing her breasts more fully into his hands.

“Yes,” he purred and softly bit the junction of her neck and shoulder while his fingers rubbed and played with her nipples.

She was burning, craving him violently. “Ian… I can’t wait.”

“It’s better for you slow. Not gonna rush you.”

But she knew different now. It wasn’t slow or fast that mattered. It wasn’t his skill or his technique. It was Ian—his lips, his hands and his body against hers. He only had to touch her for her to be hopelessly, immediately aroused.

She didn’t want to face what that meant. Her head fell back onto his shoulder and she groaned.