Eternal Prey (17 page)

“That would be me?” He looked puzzled.

If that crease between his incredible eyes wasn’t so cute, she’d probably plant her fist right there. How could he not realize what she was trying to say?

“Maybe I want to go out with a smile on my face.” No smiling going on now, just a you-big-doofus glare.

He glanced at the door.

“No one will pop in anytime soon.” Christine would take a while locating her guy and then convincing him to pay a visit.

When Utah looked back at her, something hot and hungry glowed in his eyes.

Lia shivered. It was a good shiver, the kind you got right before opening the present you’d waited forever for. “And before you ask, yes, you’re the only one who can put that smile on my face.” She stood to emphasize her point.

There was one chair in the room. Without comment, he picked it up and wedged it under the doorknob.

She had time for only a startled squeak before he reached her and backed her against the wall.

He leaned in close, his breath warm on her neck, his words hot and impatient. “We both want you, but I don’t think we’ll all fit on that little cot.”

Lia surrendered to her need. She reached up to run her fingers through his hair, concentrating on the silky flow of it, storing the memory away. “Who’s going to have time to lie down?”

His soft laughter nestled close to her heart. It was a thing to be nurtured because it was so rare.

He shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor.

“It’s amazing how the threat of death brings everything into focus, makes it all more intense, more urgent.” She glided her hands up his arms and across his broad shoulders. His muscles bunched beneath her fingers.

“Not for me, sweetheart.”

He kissed the sensitive skin right behind her ear, and she made a small sound of pleasure. Lia abandoned his shoulders to sneak her hands under his shirt and massage a path down his back. Smooth. Sexy. Lia figured she’d die of pheromone fever if she kept touching him. But hey, everyone had to die sometime.

“I’ve felt this way since . . .” He paused to suck in his breath as she worked her fingers down the back of his jeans to cup his ass.

“Hmm? Since when?” She dug her fingers into his flesh, craving the realness, not caring if she left her desire imprinted on him. Lia smiled. He wouldn’t be showing his luscious butt to any of the Eleven with her fingerprints branding him.

“Since the first time I saw you.” Utah seemed surprised by his words.

Her fierce joy surprised Lia.

“You’re a dangerous woman.” He nipped gently at her earlobe and then kissed a path down the side of her neck. “I like that. A woman with a gun and sword makes me hard.”

She muffled her laughter against his chest. Her amusement faded as she felt the pounding of his heart. There was nothing calm or contained about it. The heart didn’t lie.

And while she was contemplating his heartbeat, he was busy doing other things. Utah tugged at the bottom of her shirt, and she reluctantly abandoned his gorgeous butt to raise her arms. He slipped it off in one swift movement along with her bra. Then he stripped off his own shirt.

“Wait. Not getting equal access here.” She laid claim to his belt.

“Then you’d better move fast.” He flicked his tongue across one nipple at the same time he somehow removed her pants.

Her panties were gone before she even had his jeans peeled down to mid-thigh. But Lia didn’t complain because she was enjoying the thrill of discovery too much. “No underwear?”

“Underwear isn’t natural.” He emphasized his point by nudging her panties out of the way with his toe while running his hands over her stomach and hips.

“Neither are jeans.” She finally was able to slide them down his legs. When had he gotten rid of his boots?

He stepped out of his jeans. “Yeah, but sitting in a jail cell doesn’t feel natural either. So I’ll put up with them.”

Lia lost track of the jeans discussion as he braced his hands against the wall on either side of her and leaned in. He took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss.

She wanted to savor the sensations, but there were too damn many of them. The texture of his tongue against hers, aggressively male. His taste. Nothing as dull as toothpaste. He tasted of the elemental and dangerous, of something that beckoned to the wild child in her.

He moved closer until they touched, fused from chest to thigh, forming a searing path of want that dried her mouth and turned the rest of her into a pliable conduit for anything he chose to do.

And as she concentrated on the pleasure-pain of her supersensitive nipples scraping across his skin, he whispered in her ear.

“You scare me.” He didn’t sound happy about the admission.

His warm breath touched nerve endings that raced the length of her body to trigger responses in other places. The lights flicked on in all her secret spots. She clenched her thighs, trying to maximize the sensation.

“How?” She was only half concentrating on his answer because she’d managed to work her hand between their bodies and was tracing a line with her fingers over his hard stomach down, down, down.

“You make me . . .”

He simply stopped breathing as she reached her destination. Lia smoothed her fingers along the long, hard length of him. Utah shuddered against her. She cupped each sac, lightly tracing small circles of invitation with her fingernail before going on to the next.

“I make you what?” She was having some breathing problems of her own.

“Feel.” He breathed the word out on a long exhalation.

Lia muffled her laughter against his muscular chest. “Hate to break it to you, but I think it’d be pretty tough not to feel, considering.” She gently squeezed his sacs.

“Don’t mock me, woman.” He emphasized his fake ferocity by putting enough space between them so that he could reach his target.

He traced a path of hot anticipation around one breast with the tip of his finger before lowering his head. She couldn’t stop a small moan of joy as he closed his lips over her nipple and showed her the cost of that mockery.
Please, please keep going while I think up more mockery
.

Her world narrowed to one tiny point on her body. He scraped his teeth lightly across the sensitized nub before sliding his tongue back and forth, back and forth until she wanted to scream. She bit her lip to stop anything from escaping. The sound of too much enjoyment might annoy Christine’s minions.

But when he closed his lips tightly over the nipple and showed her the true meaning of “tease,” she had to
do
something or else explode messily all over him.

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she guided him to her other nipple. “You supersize
my
feelings, raptor.” She’d meant it to come out light and playful, but she recognized the desperation beneath the words. Lia was feeling too much right now, but she couldn’t stem the rising tide. She was in danger of drowning.

“Have. To. Explain.” Between each word, he worked his way down her body, kissing and nibbling an erratic path that threatened to wander off course a few times.

She lost her grip on his hair, so she simply anchored herself by grabbing his shoulders.

“In my other life . . .” He dropped to his knees in front of her.

Lia spread her legs. Wanting. Needing. And God help him if he disappointed her.

“. . . sex was the flash of a camera. It lit one scene, one
moment
. Then it was done. No thoughts attached. Sensations limited to that one flash.” He broke off his explanation to lick a warm path up the inside of her thigh.

And everything inside her ran molten, burning new pathways for her senses to follow. Her legs trembled, and she couldn’t stop them.

“Now, I
feel
. Not just with all my senses, but up here.” He tapped the side of his head.

He
didn’t
tap his chest. Lia’s heart gave a sad, dejected thump. Dumb heart. Expecting things that weren’t going to happen. Didn’t
want
them to happen. Her heart would just complicate things.

And as he raised his gaze to meet hers, she memorized the exact shade of his eyes and how his long lashes were so much darker than his hair. Just in case . . . She refused to finish that thought.

“What’re you thinking?”

His voice was soft, husky, and so erotic she almost forgot what he’d asked.

“I’m thinking that years from now they’ll find my remains, just a pathetic little cinder cone, all that’ll be left of Mount Saint Lia.”

“Your words are expanding my feeling field. They’ve gotten all the way to here.” He reached between his thighs and wrapped his fingers around his cock.

Lia felt his touch between her own thighs. And as he slid his fingers over his erection, her body responded. She was damp, her yearning so deep she almost reached down to stroke herself to ease the pressure building and building. Who knew? She’d heard of a meeting of minds, but this was . . . insane.

Then she forgot about everything as he leaned forward and
touched
her with his tongue.

Her knees buckled, and the only thing that kept her from collapsing in a boneless heap was his firm grasp of her hips.

He teased the swollen nub that was the center of her being right now. And each flick of his tongue set off a mini eruption. Her personal magma flow rose closer and closer to the surface. Any minute now she’d blow the top off her mountain.

Lia signaled the imminent explosion in a fevered whisper. “Now, now,
now
.”

Utah rose in one lithe motion. Then he nudged her legs farther apart with his knee. “Sure you’re ready?” Pressing tightly against her ready switch, he rubbed his knee back and forth to make sure.

Bastard. She rode his knee as she raked her nails down his hard, sweat-sheened chest. “I’ll. Kill. You.” As awesome as his knee was, it wasn’t a substitute for—

Without warning, he clasped her bottom and lifted her. She braced her back against the wall and grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. Then she wrapped her legs around his hips.

He slowly lowered her onto his cock.

Lia closed her eyes and
felt
—the stretching, the filling, the friction, the . . .

Her eyes popped open. He’d been right. Her mind wanted in on the action. Because without her mind, every feeling simply had a “the” in front of it. She needed
him
in every one of those thoughts.

His hair clung damply to his face, framing all his savage beauty. He stared at her, his eyes so dilated they almost looked black. She could see herself reflected in them—hair wildly tousled, eyes heavy-lidded, and lips parted.

She smiled. “Let’s dance, raptor.”

Utah returned her smile, only his was a lot more erotically charged. “Hang on.” His words promised a lot of hot, sweaty action. She tightened her grip on him.

She’d thought he’d filled her completely. Lia was wrong. With a powerful upward thrust, he buried himself in her. She gasped as she wiggled her bottom around to get optimum stimulus. Now it was his turn to gasp.

He lifted her slowly off his shaft. She clenched around him, resisting, resisting. His muscles flexed with his effort. Finally, he lowered her again, and she felt as though she was coming home.

He picked up the rhythm—lift, lower, lift, lower. Each time he lowered her, he thrust. And each thrust dragged a moan from her. She wouldn’t survive all the delicious friction.

The pressure built in her belly, heat and heaviness pressing down, gathering itself, waiting for the moment when she couldn’t contain it one more second.

What if this is the only time?

No, no, no. Now wasn’t the time for her mind to betray her. She pushed the thought aside and dived back into the rhythm of sex.

His thrusts were coming faster and faster. She’d wrapped her arms around him, and everything was a blur of sensation. The feel of him inside her touched, touched . . . A lot more places than she could describe. The touching drove her into a frenzy, made her claw his back and clamp her teeth into his shoulder to anchor herself to Earth.

What if this is the only time?

Oh damn. Not that again. She’d just have to work past it. Lia didn’t wait for him to thrust. She rose off his cock and then slammed back down. Again, and again, and again.

Now, now, now! She stopped breathing as her orgasm took her and shook her like a giant castanet. Oh. My. God. The spasms went on and on even as she sensed Utah shuddering in the throes of his own climax.
This.
This was worth dying for.

And as she clung to his body, the waves of intense pleasure fading in ever-widening circles, she realized she was crying.

What if this is the only time?

The hell with Utah’s theory about feeling with your thoughts. She wasn’t inviting her mind to her next party.

When Utah finally lowered her to her feet, she had to hang on to him for a minute. She was that weak. Neither of them said anything as they quickly dressed.