Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters) (30 page)

She’d wiggled her eyebrows at that and Bas’s frown deepened. His chest felt like a killer whale had landed on it, his temples throbbing like drums as fury boiled inside of him. How could she write that story? How could she tell the world about them, when he’d told her what would happen if she did?

The fact that she was sending the story to an FBI agent and not whoever it was that had been e-mailing her about her brother was even more dangerous in Bas’s mind. The United States government was the absolute last group of humans that needed to know about the shadows. Fear and domination would be the tools they would resort to in their effort to try and contain the unknown group. The shadows were not going to be contained no matter how much diplomacy—which he did not think would be much—came into play. It was simply a disaster waiting to happen.

“Bas, are you all right?”

Priya had stood from the bed and was now about a foot away from him. She reached up to touch him and Bas took a step back. “We’re going to dinner,” he announced abruptly. “Get yourself together and meet me in the lobby.”

He didn’t wait for a response, couldn’t stand there in front of her without wanting to do something—but what? Shake her, yell at her, question her, berate her? What was he going to do with an adult human that had a job to do, not to mention a life to save? How was he going to contain the secret he’d so foolishly handed her? Bas didn’t have the answers. He didn’t have the control he normally possessed and he was very uncomfortable with his urge to shake some sense into Priya or toss her on the bed and sink himself so deep inside her nothing or nobody else mattered to either of them anymore.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, they were in the truck, Priya sitting all the way to one side of the backseat and Bas on the other. Tonight, Kaz was his driver instead of Jacques. Bas hadn’t wanted any more of the man’s advice on what he should and should not be doing and with whom he should be doing it, so he’d sought out Syfon to ride with him and Priya. Syfon hadn’t been available and Paolo, who Bas would have liked to have close to him again, especially after their latest conversation, was mysteriously nowhere to be found. So Kaz had been next in line and since it wasn’t as if he were heading out for a top-secret mission, Bas figured it was okay.

What wasn’t okay was the guilt eating at him. It seemed this was his favorite emotion, only this time the female he felt guilty about was different. Staring out the window as scenery darkened by the fall of night, he thought about how angry he’d been upon seeing the article she’d written. The article that had depicted the shifters, not as a new species about to claim their differences from the humans, but as a group of people united and committed to having a life amongst the humans. And wasn’t that exactly what they were? Wasn’t that what Rome and the Assembly were trying to build for them? Still, the sight of those words on her computer had sparked the first tingles of fear in him, an emotion he hadn’t felt in years and one he didn’t like feeling at all. But could that fear be placed solely at Priya’s feet? Or could it, as it was hundreds of years ago with the humans, be a simple result of impending evolution?

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, Bas wondered how long the Elders had actually expected to keep their existence a secret, especially with the rogues determined to wreak havoc regardless of the
Ètica
or anyone else’s rules.

“I think you’re probably causing more tension than releasing it,” she said into the silence.

Pulling his hand down quickly from his face, Bas looked over to her. “I’m not tense.”

She made some sound that seemed sarcastic and Bas decided to ignore it. The last thing he wanted was to get into another debate with her. It seemed every second they weren’t ripping each other’s clothes off and dying to get inside each other, they were engaged in a gentle tug of war, her on one side and he on the other. Just another reason why things between them were destined to fail.

“How do you suggest I relieve my tension?” he asked for the sake of keeping conversation going, but avoiding confrontation.

She shifted quickly, turning sideways in her seat. “I sing the alphabet song,” she told him.

When he didn’t immediately respond, she began to sing it. By the time she hit Q Bas was undoing his seat belt. Somewhere around U or V he was sliding across the seat, pulling her into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked after a startled note about Z fell from her lips.

“I’m relieving my tension,” was all he said before dipping his head to lick the skin that had been exposed through the low-cut top of her dress.

He’d tried. Nobody could say that he hadn’t, but damn if there wasn’t something continuously pulling them together. Whatever it was proved stronger than all the arguments Bas proposed in his head, even than the control he had over his cat that was now purring with pleasure as his tongue moved over her soft skin.

“We’re not supposed to do this, remember?”

Her voice was a breathy whisper, her hands cupping the back of his head, guiding him over slightly to the right. He followed her lead, letting his tongue stroke the curve of her breast. Her dress buttoned up the front and Bas’s fingers worked quickly to undo the first few. Pushing the material and her bra aside he cupped the mound, letting the tight little nipple rub alluringly over the pad of his tongue. She hissed and Bas growled, pulling her even closer, sucking her into his mouth hungrily.

Priya held his head in place, arching her back beneath him as her breathing hitched. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her, perhaps more based on the way she was breast-feeding him. Bas’s nostrils flared as a thick sweet scent infiltrated. With each inhale his body grew warmer, his dick harder. If he didn’t get inside her soon he was going to hurt somebody or something.

Instead he fumbled between their bodies for a second longer than he wanted until his finger finally pressed into the godforsaken seat belt clasp. The moment it clicked he pulled his mouth away from Priya long enough for her to whisk her arms free and for him to grab her by the waist, turning her so that she was now kneeling on the backseat. The additional enhancements he’d ordered for his Yukon had added to the other FLs teasing how self-centered and eccentric he was. But right at this moment, Bas was grateful for the leather bench and extended floor space in the back of his truck.

They weren’t supposed to do this. He wasn’t supposed to be with a human and the human wasn’t supposed to tell anyone who he really was. But as Bas undid his zipper, freeing his thick erection, he realized he didn’t give a damn about what should and should not be—not at this moment. As this moment, as he pushed her dress up over her hips, rubbing his hands over the rounded globes of her delectable ass, he knew what mattered most to him.

“Bas,” she whispered. “This is insane.” But she didn’t pull away, didn’t stop him when he slipped his fingers beneath the rim of her underwear to touch her bare flesh.

Bas shook his head, not willing to struggle to think of an excuse. “It just is,” he finally managed, the heady scent of her all but drowning him as he continued to rub her backside, mesmerized by her.

“I want you all the time,” she admitted.

The words were like an echo to what Bas had already been thinking. He licked his lips, all but panting at the sight of her bent over and ready for him. “You want me here, pretty girl? Tell me you want me right here and now,” he insisted.

Bas needed to hear those words. He needed to know this woman wanted him, not the rich resort owner, and even though she knew about his cat, he needed to hear her say the words that no other female had ever said to him before.

“I…” She hissed and arched back as his fingers slipped between her crease, down to her heated center, spreading her dewy essence. “I, oh god, I need you right now!”

It wasn’t enough, her words, her willing body, they didn’t seem to be enough, not this time. Shaking his head and moving so that he was ready to sink inside, Bas planned to ignore what was still missing. He planned to fuck her right here and now regardless of the fact he was feeling something pretty strange between them. Then, as if his own feelings weren’t bad enough, he inhaled and it hit him so hard he almost faltered.

Grabbing his shaft at the base, Bas guided his length to her, tapping the bulbous head against her plump cheeks. She moaned and pushed back, rushing him. With his other hand Bas pulled her apart, licked his lips once more at the sight of her plump folds, dampened by her arousal. He groaned at seeing how tight her ass really looked, after only feeling it up to this point. He couldn’t decide what he wanted more, which he needed to feel the most. When she groaned his name he pushed forward, pressing the head of his engorged cock into her waiting center until he was completely buried inside her.

A new scent surrounded them, neither hers nor his own, but theirs. Bas clenched his teeth at the thought, then pulled out of her until he was almost completely clear of her warmth. Looking down to her essence glistening on his arousal he cursed, sinking back inside her once more. It couldn’t be, he thought as he thrust again and again, keeping his eyes closed as if that would stop what he knew was happening.

He pumped slowly and she gyrated wildly as if she knew he was trying to get away, trying to save them both from a path that led to a dead end. It couldn’t lead anywhere else, not for him. None of that mating and joining bullshit was for him, his parents and then Mariah’s death had seen to that. Connections of the emotional sort weren’t worth it, not for a shifter like Sebastian Perry.

Even knowing all this, Bas wanted more. Clasping her hips, holding her still as he rammed in and out of her, he knew he wanted it all. Everything she had, everything she was. He wanted to claim her, to mark her as his and to dare anyone to disagree with those facts.

Without another thought he did just that, leaning forward and sinking his sharp teeth into the nape of her neck. She let out a scream, simultaneously clenching her thighs around him as her release ripped through her fiercely. The increase of that foreign scent, her tightening around him, her scream, the deepness of his thrust, all of the above pushed Bas right over the brink and he let loose what had to be the most powerful release of all his life.

“Sweet,” she whispered after they’d been still but for their racing hearts for a couple of minutes.

Bas had pulled out of her, moving back to his seat near the window, watching as she did the same. “Excuse me?” he asked when he realized she’d spoken.

She stopped buttoning her dress to look over at him. “It smells so sweet in here. Maybe we’re at the bakery or the mall has a Cinnabon shop.” She groaned. “I love Cinnabon.”

If Bas thought it was strange that she was talking about Cinnabons after a very intense and possibly game-changing round of sex, he didn’t say it, because something else had grabbed his attention.

The moment he’d climbed into the truck he’d activated the privacy window that blocked the front seat from seeing or hearing anything that was going on in the back, another enhancement which was actually in all the FL vehicles. So Kaz had no idea what they’d been doing back here for the last … how long had it been?

Yet the shifter had continued to drive.

Lifting his arm, Bas looked down at his watch. They should have been in town ten minutes ago. The truck should have been parked and Kaz should have either called him through the com link or knocked on the back door to get them out.

Instead, the truck was still moving.

“I need you to be very quiet,” Bas told Priya after he’d adjusted his clothes. Reaching forward, he opened a compartment just beneath the privacy window. There was a small plastic packet in there and he retrieved it, holding it up so she could see it. “Clean yourself up and do not get out of this truck.”

The calm that was in her eyes just seconds before was replaced by the slight edge of panic and Bas felt ready to kill. Instead he shook his head, returning to the seat and reaching out to touch her. “No. Nothing is going to happen to you. Nothing at all. I just need you to stay here until I come back for you. Do you understand?”

She nodded her head and Bas released his grip on her. She immediately took the packet of wipes from his hand and he moved across the seat to the window where he’d been before. Reaching beneath that seat Bas retrieved his gun, removed the safety, and spoke into his com link.

“Kaz, what’s our ETA?”

There was no response.

“I said, what’s our ETA?” Bas repeated.

A few seconds later there was still no response.

Bas cursed just as the truck swerved, jerking both him and Priya around on the backseat.

Chapter 25

“Press pound three and say code blue,” Priya whispered to herself as she held Bas’s cell phone in her hands like it was her lifeline. He’d thrust the phone into her hands just before opening the door and leaving her in the back of the truck by herself. She pressed a button on the phone and watched it light up. If he wasn’t back in seven and a half minutes, she was to call that number and hopefully help would come.

In the meantime, she thought with fear snaking along her spine, she’d just wait here, like a sitting duck. Looking out the window she saw immediate darkness and what looked like it could be streetlights in the distance. She pressed the button she’d watched Bas press when they climbed into the car and waited while the privacy partition was lowered.

“Dammit!”

The driver was gone. It hadn’t been the same driver she’d seen the first night, the one she now knew from Jewel was Bas’s best friend. This was a younger guy who had stared at her breasts much longer than was polite and gave a salacious smile when he’d held the door as she climbed inside. He’d had a creepy look about him but Priya was used to that. She hadn’t come from the best neighborhood in D.C. so she was used to dealing with scumbags and jerk-offs, only she hadn’t thought she would be faced with them in Bas’s quaint little resort town.

It was deathly quiet now. The word “deathly” echoing in her mind as soon as she’d thought it and her heart hammered in her chest.