Hunting Medusa: The Medusa Trilogy, Book 1 (33 page)

He rolled her beneath him in a flash and wedged his knees between hers. Her laughter was surprised. “Screw supper.” He slid one hand between her thighs, finding her damp already. He eased one finger inside her, felt more moisture rush to meet him, so he shifted to position his cock there instead.

Andrea sucked in a quick breath, bending her knees at his sides. “Yes.”

Kallan eased into her rather than just thrusting to the hilt as his body demanded. Her sheath clenched around him, then relaxed to allow him to slide deeper.

She cupped his face, drawing him down to kiss her. “I love you,” she whispered against his lips.

He settled as deeply as he could, then set his jaw to resist the need to move. Not yet.

She tightened her inner muscles , a faint smile touching her lips. “It’s all right.”

He kissed her again, rolling his hips in a slow circle against hers.

She moaned her approval.

He slipped one hand between them to stroke her clit, making her hips jerk up toward his. The hot wet silk of her body around him contracted harder. He groaned.

She wrapped her legs higher around him and nipped at his lower lip. “Please, Kallan.”

He withdrew just a little, then pushed back into her welcoming sheath. Over and over until they were both breathless and dripping perspiration. Until they were both shaking with release and relief.

He rolled to his side, bringing her with him, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her mouth.

He couldn’t lose her. Not now.

Her warm fingers massaged the muscles at the back of his shoulder. “You’re thinking too much.”

He grunted into the side of her neck.

“How about neither of us does that until we get some food? Deal?”

“I think I need a shower before we can get food,” he murmured, sliding his hand down her damp back.

“We can do that too.” She tipped her head back to look at him. Her blue eyes didn’t miss anything—even things he intended for her to not see, he was sure.

Her breasts lifted against his chest with the deep breath she took. “Promise me something.”

He frowned.

“Promise me you won’t step in the way if they get to me. I don’t want you to die for me.”

His heart constricted with pain. “I can’t promise that.” His words came out raspy, hoarse.

Her gaze was somber. “I don’t want to see you die.”

“Any more than I want to see you die.”

Her mouth pursed a little at that, and she looked away.

“Andrea.”

Reluctantly, she looked back up at him.

“If we leave now, we can be all the way across the country in a few hours. Or we can drive. I don’t care. But we’ll be away from the ambush waiting for us at your house.”

She shook her head. “No. We have to go back.”

He kissed her gently, and her eyes fluttered shut, but when she opened them, they were shadowed, troubled. “We’ll deal with them.” He didn’t know how, but they had to. He wasn’t going to lose her.

Andi felt both better and worse in the morning when they got underway, Kallan behind the wheel of the rental car. She was rested now. Not only had they slept away the afternoon and evening, but after they’d found a pizza shop open in town and picked up a loaded pizza to take back to the motel with them, they’d slept again until nine a.m.

But she’d hoped to make him see it wouldn’t do her any good to have him die in front of her. That he refused to consider her request made her heart ache. And annoyance bubble in her middle.

He was such a man.

Sure, the protectiveness was nice. But she could do some of the fighting too, dammit.

She propped her chin on her fist and stared out the window at the passing blur of homes and trees.

His old cell phone vibrated on the console between them.

She shot him a questioning glance when he picked it up to look at the screen. It was a wonder the thing still worked with half its case missing.

He shook his head. “In case there’s some way they can track while I’m on the line.”

Which there probably was.

Andi frowned out the side window. By now, his cousins would have figured out their tracking program in the laptop was gone. They would also know the device they’d planted in his phone was lying along the interstate outside of Baltimore, and his car sat at the airport in Philadelphia.

These guys were persistent, even when one of their own was the quarry.

That didn’t bode well for her.

She booted up the laptop after they’d been on the road for a while, checking again for the tracking program and coming up clean.
Good.

No email from Aunt Lydia.
Not so good.

“
Agaph
.” He touched her balled-up fist on her thigh.

She shot him a glare.

He smiled anyway. “Give her some time.”

“We don’t have time.” In a few hours, they’d reach Boston. Then they’d be back in Maine a little while later.

And she needed to know what the changes to her tattoo meant.

She’d looked at it again that morning in the mirror, surreptitiously. It was still there, outlined, but flesh-toned. Something was keeping it with her, and she didn’t know what. The curse? Maybe.

She did know, though, that she loved Kallan. It wasn’t that.

So maybe really she
was
stuck with it.

He touched her fist, insinuating his fingers into hers and lacing them on her leg. “I think we should wait till tomorrow to go to your place.”

She met his gaze, her brain shifting gears. It would be smarter to go in during the day, when they could see just what they were up against. If they went in later today, or tonight, there would be plenty of places for Stavros and his crew to hide.

That made her blood bubble in her veins.
On her mountain.

She wanted them off.

She glared at the dashboard. Bastards.

A tiny ding appeared in the plastic.

She blinked, startled.

It was too soon for
that
again.

Kallan glanced over at her, and she forced a smile for him, giving his fingers a little squeeze.

When he turned his attention back to the highway ahead, she shot a surreptitious glance at the dashboard. Yep. Right there. She inhaled unsteadily. The stress. Usually, she was pretty regular. Most of the time, she amended silently—once she’d adjusted to her life After the Curse. For almost the first year of being the reigning Medusa, it had been a very irregular thing. But not in a long time.

She did a quick mental count in her head.
Way
too early. But it might be a good thing for when they got onto the mountain tomorrow.

In spite of herself, she felt the smile curving her lips. “Okay, tomorrow it is.”

Then she could take care of Stavros and whoever else he’d brought in to kill her.

Chapter Fourteen

Kallan frowned as he maneuvered the car off the highway. Andrea was very quiet, though not seething as she had been that morning. The smile on her lips earlier had made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. When he caught her hand in his, she’d jumped a little, a guilty look flashing over her face before her smile shifted to something gentler.

But she’d been plotting. He’d bet on it.

His jaw tightened. She was not going to get herself killed if he could prevent it. He wouldn’t allow it.

Then again, he didn’t see how he could prevent his cousins from killing both of them.

That wasn’t any comfort.

He eased the car into the parking lot of a diner. She sat up a little straighter, her eyes focusing as if she’d been daydreaming. “Supper,” he said.
 

She nodded.

He met her at the front of the car and caught her hand in his. They were just north of Portland—blending in, he hoped, with all the summer tourists. “Some supper, and then a little more driving before we find someplace to spend the night.” He held her gaze until she nodded, her blue expression quizzical. “And I want to know what you were thinking about earlier.”

A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “I was thinking about what I’m going to do to you later.” She winked up at him.

While her statement heated his blood, he knew it wasn’t the truth. At least, not the whole truth. “And the other thing.”

Her smile faded. “We’ll see.”

That wasn’t good enough. “Do I need to handcuff you to the hotel bed?”

Blue sparks flashed in her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “We’ll see,” he parroted. He led her inside before she could answer and found them an empty booth at the back corner. It looked as if the dinner rush was mostly over, but there were still tourists in several other booths and locals at the counter.

Andrea folded her arms on her chest when she sat opposite him, her eyes averted.

When the waitress came, they glanced over the menus and listened to the specials before ordering. Then, after the waitress bustled away, he leaned on the table, arms folded on the cool surface. “I would dare, Andrea,” he said, low. “Because I want you safe.”

She didn’t look up, but her mouth tightened.

“I’ve been racking my brain all day long trying to think of a way for us to go up there and not get killed, and I can’t do it.” He stretched over the table to touch her clenched hands. “I’ll kill my cousin myself before I let him kill you, and if I have to lock you up to do it, I will.”

She glared harder at the table to her left.

And he saw the ding appear.

“Andrea.” His voice trembled, much to his shock.

She shut her eyes, her expression softening.

“It’s too soon, isn’t it?” He kept her hands covered with his, feeling a shudder ripple through her.

“It should be, but the first year—when I was super-stressed—it wasn’t a regular thing.” She met his gaze. “If this isn’t stress, I don’t know what is.”

Kallan considered that. In less than twenty-four hours, she’d be curled into a fetal position wherever they were, unable to run. But still fully able to defend herself without lifting a hand. He took a slow breath. “We need a new plan,” he said after a moment.

A hint of a sad smile touched her lips. “I think that
is
our new plan, Kallan.” She freed one of her hands to cover his. “We don’t have a choice now.”

“Of course we do.” He bit off his next words when the waitress sailed toward their table with steaming plates. He waited while the young woman served them and topped off their water glasses. After she’d finally hurried off to another table, he studied his plate for a moment, his appetite gone. “We’ll have to think about this. We can figure it out once we stop for the night,” he said at last.

Andrea nodded once, but he didn’t think he’d have an easy time convincing her to wait. Or to let him face his cousins alone.

Picking up his fork with his free hand, he began to eat, but he didn’t taste a bite.

By the time he finished, his meal sat like lead in his gut, and Andrea had done no more than pick at her own, her face wan and lined with strain. “You should eat more,
meli
.” He nudged her foot under their table.

“I’m not hungry.” She dropped her fork onto her plate and sat back.

He didn’t argue, nor did he argue when they got back in the car and back onto the highway. That would wait.

By the time he’d found them a vacancy in a touristy motor lodge near Bath, the tension in his gut had tightened like a vise. He parked the car in front of their room after checking them in, then shot a quick glance at her. She sat with her eyes closed, worry lining her forehead. “Come,
agaph
. Let’s go in.”

She opened her eyes slowly and pushed her door open.

This wasn’t like his Medusa.

He gathered the suitcase and the backpack she hadn’t yet grabbed and met her at the door to their room. He stuffed the key into the lock and pushed the door wide. Then froze. “Get in the car,” he breathed. Another member of the Tassos family was in the vicinity. Very, very close by.

Standing on alert? Or on their way to join Stavros?

Her eyes went wide at his command, and she backed up a step, then another, until she came up against the hood of the car. He jerked his head. She rushed back to her side, fumbling for the door handle for a second, then slid in, her backpack slowing her down.

Kallan dropped onto his seat and started the car at the same time. Andrea wrestled his bags into the backseat while he reversed the car out of the parking lot.

He drove quickly up the coast road, keeping his senses open. He’d been sloppy, he realized, his heart still beating into his throat fifteen minutes later. No one followed them. At least, no one he could feel.

He shot a glance over at Andrea. In the light from the dashboard, she was pale, but her jaw was set.

He might have no choice but to let her fight with him, in her own way.