Scorpio Sons 4: Chase: (SF/Shifter Romance) (15 page)

He grabbed her by the shoulders and drew her up so her gaze met his. Both their eyes were still metallic, and his were almost mesmerizing as he stared down at her angrily.

“I’m stopping to save you pain and terror, not because it wouldn’t be
fun
, for fuck’s sake.”

She did something then that totally stunned her. While he fumed with rage, she leaned in and kissed his lips, sending her tongue into his mouth as he had done to her.

He pulled her to him roughly and deepened the kiss, as if he was helpless to do otherwise. The passion ignited by the bite, banked by his rejection and her worries, flamed to life again. More than anything, she needed this man inside her. Her body felt strangely empty without him.

But after an endless, mind-numbing kiss, Chase pulled back and thrust her away from him, this time less gently. Then he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Anna followed him and leaned her head against the closed door. On the other side, she could clearly hear Chase’s harsh breathing. Then came the unmistakeable sound of a male in the throes of sexual release. He was getting himself off, and from the sound of it, doing it with an intensity that bordered on frenzy.

By the time the shower turned on, Anna felt capable of staggering back to her bed. His release had both embarrassed and inflamed her. Listening to him take his pleasure had been almost as erotic as the bite, and it left her aroused and almost as desperate as Chase had been.

But it was the panther inside her that wanted this, not her. It couldn’t be her. The human side of Anna knew better. Knew that lust was short-lived and would likely leave her feeling needier than she already was. No, the human didn’t want Chase that way. She wouldn’t let it.

When the news about the Alpha had come through, Chase’s first reaction was to get to Anna. It was totally absurd and illogical, but the potential disaster-in-the-making made him seek out the one person who could ease his suffering. He should have called his team together and talked it through with them, but in that moment the only opinion he wanted was Anna’s.

He’d secretly hated the idea of sending Amy into the thick of it, even more than he’d hated doing the same thing to Alyssa and Allie. But all the Mates seemed keen to do more than the part they’d originally been allocated. They didn’t want to just be baby-making machines. They wanted to make a difference in this undeclared war of theirs. So they volunteered for the dangerous, covert jobs that only they could do. And their mates had to suffer for it.

But sending Amy and Coop into the fray had been harder than for the others. They were two babes in the woods, as far as life-skills related to war were concerned. Coop, because of his wheelchair, had been consigned to medical research behind the scenes from the very first. Everything he knew about their war was second-hand.

And Amy? Well, Amy had been such a shy little mouse, who’d been so overwhelmed by the harshness of the people in her life that it had eroded her confidence, her ability to trust herself. Now she knew she wasn’t Guild, but she was still putting herself out there trying to be seen as one, for the human cause. Her spirit was strong, but he had to wonder whether her resolve would hold together under the onslaught of continually having to play her diabolical role.

If anything happened to either of them, or Connor and Allie for that matter, it would be his fault, no matter what Anna said to the contrary. He was the one who approved these activities. He knew what the risks were. And, had the pay-off been even slightly less important, he would have taken another path. But the possible benefits their involvement might bring had to be worth the risk. He didn’t like using women to fight their battles, but when the planet’s very existence depended on it, he had no other choice.

Anna had been just what he needed, just as he’d known she would be. She listened to what he told her and then gave him reasons to believe all wasn’t lost. Not only that, she’d offered him comfort, and he’d taken it, turning it into something more.

The first time he bit her it had been as much a shock to him as it was to her. And he’d been horrified by the significance of the act, even as he committed it. This time, even though his cat slammed against the wall of his cage demanding he take possession, he held back, letting her decide if she wanted his bite.

That she did had caused him unbearable excitement. When he gave himself up to the cat and sank his teeth into her soft flesh, it was bliss. Anna’s lack of fear and obvious erotic delight drove him higher. His urge to touch her intimately had been almost impossible to deny.

Then she’d touched him, like a dream come true. Never had he expected the damaged Anna to initiate sex. By the time she was feverishly undoing his pants, trying to touch his burning cock, the last of his sanity rose to the surface.

It wasn’t her. He knew it was her cat driving her behaviour. Had she been anyone else, he would have given in and let their cats have their way. But this was Anna, damaged-but-not-broken, who couldn’t stand the thought of having sex with anyone after what she’d endured.

So he did what he had to do. And, as he gave in to the need for completion by his own hand, he couldn’t help imagining it was Anna’s hand jerking him off, her soft fingers curled around his girth, driving him on to sweet release. He had even imagined her soft breathing on the other side of the door.

But it wasn’t her hand, and that realisation haunted him as he’d showered, put on fresh boxers, climbed in to his lonely bed, and turned to face her back in the other bed. His orgasm had taken a little of the pressure off but not nearly enough. Staring at her soft, fluffy white-blonde hair only made it worse. In the end he turned in the opposite direction and closed his eyes.

Maybe he should have gone back to work, but he knew he was too unsettled to focus. So he sought elusive sleep.

In the end, the orgasm did its job. He fell into a deep, almost drugged sleep of total exhaustion.

The moon hung low in the sky, its reflection creating a path across the ocean like a gleaming highway that led right to him. He felt free and alive, the exhilaration almost more than he could stand. The wolf howl that exploded from his chest was the only sound that could have captured his wild joy.

The rider in front of him turned to stare at him in concern. “What are you doing? Is something wrong?” He knew that face too well, could smell the alcohol fumes coming off her.

“Mom? You shouldn’t be driving in your condition,” he yelled, but his words were blown back into his mouth.

“You freaked me out, you idiot, howling like that,” she yelled back, using words that Mike might have used. They weren’t his mother’s, that’s for sure.

The bike began to wobble and his heart turned over in fear.
Not again
, was his only thought as his mother screamed and the bike began to lurch to the side.

He kicked free of it and rolled until he came to a stop on the carpeted floor of his parent’s living room. Hastily he looked for any blood that might have gotten on the blush coloured floor-coverings. His mom would have a fit if he bled on the carpet. Blood was so damned hard to get out.

And there
was
blood. A great pool of it, glistening darkly. Surely he hadn’t bled that much from the fall? Surely it wasn’t him who had ruined her carpets?

Crawling to his feet, he looked over at the sofa where he often found his mom, passed out drunk. But this time she wasn’t drunk. This time there was blood running down her arm onto the floor. That blood came from wounds all over her face and arms, even her legs. Why hadn’t they worn leathers? They thought it was so cool to ride without proper protection, as if that made them braver, somehow.

He wanted to get her to the hospital. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe, if he could just carry her to the car...

As he reached for her, the woman on the sofa morphed into a much younger, fairer version of femininity. The soft, white-blonde hair that billowed around the cut face was dark with blood. If her eyes had been open he knew they would have shone silver-blue. But they were closed and her chest didn’t rise and fall at all. There was just too much blood.

“No!” he howled out, as his cat screamed in agony. “NO!”

He dragged the limp, beautiful girl into his arms, and tried to breathe life back into her lungs. She couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t let her be dead. He wouldn’t be responsible for killing anyone else. Especially not her. Not his mate. Maybe he could allow the other Mates to die, but not this girl. Not Anna!

“Chase!” he heard the call. Heard the familiar, beloved voice as he cried out his anguish and pain. “Chase, it’s all right. Wake up, it’s a dream...”

And suddenly he was somewhere else and Anna was alive and warm and concerned for him. After what he’d done to her, she was concerned for him. He launched himself at her and clung tight, burying his head against her tee-shirt covered breast.

Gentle arms surrounded him, cradled him as he cried. His hot tears soaked her shirt, but she didn’t seem to care. All she did was rock him gently and croon nonsense words to him in a language he didn’t understand. Ukrainian, it had to be Ukrainian.

Finally, his body calmed and he was able to draw breath. Stroking his hair, Anna drew back so she could look at him. There was almost no light in the room, just the first faint glow from the window-lights that mimicked dawn.

“Okay now?” she asked with a worried, tremulous smile.

Okay? No, it was never going to be okay. He’d seen her dead, the same cuts he’d caused dug deep into her beautiful face. He’d done that. He’d caused her pain. Even now, the wounds were still there, mostly just red lines, but still evidence of what he’d done.

“You were dead. I couldn’t bear it,” he told her brokenly.

She stroked his hair back from his face and shook her head. “I’m not dead. See, I’m not dead.” She kissed his forehead, and the touch burned like the fires of hell.

Something like panic rose up inside him, and he fought to keep it down, fought to stay in control. But how could he, when his sweet Anna had, only moments before, been dead in a puddle of her own blood because of him? And now she was covering his face with soft, tender kisses. It was all so surreal, so impossible. The feelings of the dream had been too intense to be released so easily. They ate at him like acid.

Chase grabbed the sides of her face and brought her mouth into alignment with his own. Kissing her wildly, he did the only thing he could think of to give expression to his agony. He knew it was his friend who had ridden that bike with him, not his mother; he knew it was his mother lying dead on the sofa, not Anna. But nothing made sense anymore. All of the fears and guilt and pain blended together in a mash-up that had no name. But had only one outlet.

And so he kissed her, while his cat tried to take over and he was forced to fight to maintain control. He kissed her until his beautiful damaged-but-not-broken Anna was returning kiss for kiss, the passion real and human. He knew that if he looked at her eyes right now, they wouldn’t be glowing silver-blue. They’d be her human eyes, filled with compassion, filled with love.

No! She can’t love me! I’ll destroy her if she does.

Then he saw her as she’d looked the day he’d shared his dark secrets with her. Not a fragile champagne flute, a dented tin cup, unbreakable, as she’d said.

But was she? What if he let this go where it seemed to be heading, where she was allowing it to go? How much pain would she experience if he buried his cock inside her sheath? The sheath that had been brutalised by too many men to count.

He tried to draw away, tried to stop what was happening before it was too late. But her hands were sliding over the bare skin of his chest and shoulders, her every touch enflaming him further. When her small hand slipped beneath the elastic of his boxers and wrapped around him, he nearly choked on the sensation.

“Anna, we can’t... I’ll hurt you.”

She kissed him hard and passionately, duelling with his tongue for control. “I don’t care. I want you, Chase. Please. I want you...”

Even though he knew different, he had to give her an out. “It’s just your cat. It has to be your cat. You don’t want this.”

“Look at my eyes. They’re human. I can feel that they’re human. And I want this. Not my cat. I want this, no matter what. Please...”

He stared at her eyes in the pale light from the window. They
were
totally human; he could see as well as sense that now. And though his own cat was pressing against the bars of his cage, he wasn’t the one in control. Chase was. The aroused man was.

Some sane part of his mind pushed to the fore. If he was going to do this – and it felt like he was – then he had to make it good for her. It wouldn’t be enough to sink into her and ride out his own release. She needed more from him than that. Much more.

When he was fifteen a friend of his mother’s had taken his virginity and taught him how to pleasure her. When his mother found out she’d gone ballistic, threatening to report Penelope. Only the idea of scandal had stopped her from doing it. But, for all the unpleasantness, Chase had never regretted their time together. Penelope had gently taught him what sexual pleasure could be like when both partner’s needs were fully met. For those few short months she’d made him feel like a man and a capable lover, and for that he would always be grateful.

More so in this moment when he had it in his power to bring his mate to the point of bliss. Gazes locked, he drew them both up onto their knees and pulled her tee-shirt over her head and then eased off her boxers. She was nervous now, the uncertainty written in those clear blue eyes. The dawn was coming, the light from the window becoming brighter with every passing minute. He could see her glorious body now and it made him shudder with pent desire.

“You sure?” he managed to ask one more time before it would be too late.

She nodded. “If it hurts I’ll try not to show –”

“Fuck that!” he exploded and almost pushed himself backwards off the bed. At her cry of distress he came back to her, stroking her cheeks, raining soft kisses over her face.

“If anything I do hurts, you tell me. You hear me? I will
not
be responsible for hurting you again, even without realising it. You understand me, sweet girl?”

She tried to argue, but he kissed away every word before it had a chance to be expressed. In the end, she reluctantly nodded. He smiled as he kissed her lips one more time.

He wanted to make slow, reverent love to her abused body. Laying her back, so her head rested on his pillow, he began kissing and licking his way down her body, pausing for a few minutes to suckle her breasts, one at a time, until she writhed beneath him in frustrated pleasure, wanting more.

Then he continued his trail down over her flat belly until he reached her soft triangle of pale hair. He nosed into the cleft and felt her surge off the bed to meet him. None of those men who had taken their pleasure from her would have done what he was doing. None of them would have cared to bring her release, or even pleasure. Some would have even wanted to cause her pain, why else choose a child as a sexual partner?