The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (16 page)

‘You will bring this Ashling
DeMorgan to me before the moon wanes,
thegn
.’ Spitting words like
bullets into his face, the drill of his gaze never left Madden, even as he
addressed his loyal guard. ‘Brandr, Fite, you go with this pathetic excuse for
a male, and if he fails me in this you have my personal permission to castrate
him and present his balls to me on a platter, so that I have the pleasure of
watching him choke on them.’

Madden went bobblehead by way
of confirmation, right before he crumpled, his adrenal glands squeezed dry,
incapable of anything more than a hoarse wheeze. Sure, he’d take chocolate and
a pat on the back for motivation any day over being trapped in this Barbarian
courtroom full of psychos, but he had got what he came for; a second chance,
one he had no intention of screwing up.

Maybe watching him dig wasn’t
the best thing to do if they actually wanted to get this thing buried. The
creepy as fuck, tarpaulin-draped mound was studiously ignored as her eyes
fixated on the ripple of muscle, the smudge of dirt across his chest, the bead
of sweat tracking down his abs to disappear into the waistband of his denims.
She mentally smacked herself.
Stop Ash, this is your worst nightmare made
flesh and you decide now is a good time to eye-fuck the homicidal freak grave
digger?

The shade of the tree had
shifted as the sun moved lower in the sky, and mesmerised as she’d been, Ash
hadn’t noticed the darkness spread around her. It was the tingling that got to
her. The throb between her legs that started up the longer her eyes followed
his every stab and pound into the dirt. God, was it hot out here? She huffed at
her face, blowing air to cool herself, and pushed the heavy fall of her hair up
off the nape of her neck.

Yes, it was hot out here. It
was hot in her, deep within. The restlessness that had had her walking the
streets and stumbling into dogfights was back. The edge to her attitude that
had made her lap up male attention was a presence coaxing her to claim the
attention she really wanted. His. She despised it. Despite the nightmare
creature they were burying, her head was filled with lusty thoughts, making her
want the man in front of her. The man who had broken into her house, insulted
her coat, knew how to bury bodies and made it clear-as-day plain that he wasn’t
interested in her. Ash hung her head. She had serious issues.

The shock hit in the middle
of her mental tirade. Like lightning spearing through her to find ground, the
sparks from her inappropriate thoughts earthed at her core and caught fire on
the kindling of her lust. It was a jolt that replaced her blood with electric
arousal and filled her head with violent, coiling desire. If she’d been naked
and pinned under a guy, she could have understood the reaction. However, her
body was stoked with no physical stimulus, alight and on the brink of climax,
and all she’d done was look at the asshole male muscling into the dirt like he
was part Excavator. Her brain ceased to function, her body tightened. Her
thighs sawed until they clenched together so hard she swore she felt tendons
snap and the carnal wildfire swept her up. The crashing release crested over
her and she was drowning in it, fighting to surface and see sense. An invisible
cord kept her tethered to something out of reach. It tugged at the core of her,
controlling the orgasmic switch, and she didn’t think she’d survive the source
if she found it.
You are inside me. You are Mine!
It roared. It burnt
her up, sizzling down the line of connection and flaring wide, sweeping her
back and setting her up on the pyre of need once more.

No.

It would go away, it had to.
She was not sitting in the middle of a forest, with him, biting back whimpers
as her body came apart. Yet the heat grew as the sun dimmed and she was
twitching at the base of the tree nonetheless. What is happening to me?

It took until her ass went
numb for her to finally feel stable enough to move closer to where he worked.

Connal was ridiculously
unaffected, ploughing happily through the earth as though he were about to
plant a shrub, not a corpse. She got unsteadily to her feet, splaying a hand
against the rough bark for support as the rush of warmth left her dizzy.

God. Yes, he’s gorgeous,
yes, he’s massive and can snap your neck at any moment, yes, his eyes are the
colour of a fresh-polished blade, yes, he’d fuck you until you couldn’t walk.
But he’s a killer. You should not be undressing him with your eyes. You
definitely should NOT be this goddamn wet.

Ash inhaled, a calming breath
meant to centre her, but all it did was drag the scent of fresh-turned earth
and raw male to her senses. Another peek through her lashes ascertained that
her intruder was too consumed with his task to notice her wobble, didn’t even seem
to note her presence at all. He had been studiously ignoring her since he’d
left her hanging on his all too unnerving comment about her grandmother.

Flicking grass and leaves
from her sweats, she wandered slowly over with a little more hip twitch and saunter
than was necessary. Her edgy came out in the weirdest ways. Feeling like a cat
in heat, Ash ducked under Connal’s arm.

The dirt pile beside the hole
was growing steadily. Using the man-mountain as an anchor, she leaned to look
into the pit with a raised brow.

‘I think you're going to need
a bigger one.’

His gaze slid to her with a
low laugh, leaning his weight on the spade. ‘Well then, how about you work up a
sweat with me, Little Red?’ He indicated the second shovel, leant up against
the car, with a jerk of his jaw.

So, he wasn’t ignoring her.
‘I can think of better ways to work up a sweat,’ she said. Unable to believe
the words had come from her own tongue, Ash couldn’t help it. She winked at
him, taking up the extra spade, devilish as she hefted it in her hands. God
help her, but she didn’t think she had full control over her actions anymore.

No.

She’d given it over to the
flames.

‘I'll just bet you can,’ he
muttered under his breath, sinking the blade of the shovel into the dirt.
‘Smart ass.’

‘That's sexy smart ass to
you.’ Her tongue was definitely possessed. ‘You just want to see me bend over.’

He growled, flashing white
teeth, the sole of his boot kicking the spade deep into the earth. ‘Oh, keep
talking like that and I'll bend you over, beautiful.’

She narrowed her eyes, intent
on the snarl of his mouth, and backed away slowly. ‘You'll have to catch me
first, Big Bad.’

‘You want me to chase you?’
He wiped his forehead on a bicep with a slow, canine grin, eyes flashing a
threat. ‘You better run fast, little kitty.’ A low growl spilled from his
throat and the spade in her hands hit the dirt with a hollow thud.

‘Meow.’ She smirked, her eyes
gleaming amusement, and took a step back. And then another step back. Ash spun
on her heel and darted in the opposite direction, her footsteps light, leaving
only laughter and the dark cape of her hair trailing in her wake.

She
knew she’d thrown down the gauntlet when the distinct
sound of his spade embedding in the dirt preceded his deep growl. It didn’t
scare her, it thrilled her, and she lengthened her stride as he pursued. His
boots snapped twigs and pounded the earth behind her. She could feel his
self-restraint being cast off as he surrendered to her goading and gave in like
she had; reducing them to instincts she didn’t know anyone really had.

‘You can run, but you can't
hide,’ he called. ‘I'm coming for you, Little Red.’

Her laughter rose over the
sounds of his footfalls, the world a blur as she raced away.

‘You can’t catch me.’
Hollering back, Ash gracefully leapt the stump of a tree and darted off at an
angle, almost dancing as his growls were whipped to her ears by the wind. She
wouldn’t risk the momentary lapse in concentration looking over her shoulder
would cost her, but damn. She wanted to be caught. ‘Too slow, Big Bad!’
Breathless, her heart pounded out the nearing beat of his approach, the tiny
thrill of her fear hidden in a shiver of wild arousal.

His boots were eating up the
dirt behind her, he was gaining distance, but she pushed on, laughing triumphantly
when she veered and he cursed at her. He was so close. Ash was fighting to
cover more ground when the hot ghost of his breath seared the back of her neck.

Fuckfuckfuck!

His fist snatched her hair
into a rough ponytail and her spine arched, reeling her off balance. There was
a graze of teeth before his momentum carried them down hard into the leafy
floor and he was an animal threat at her back, pinning her.

‘Gotcha!’ Connal was
smirking, she could hear it in the rumbling, satisfied tone of his voice.

Her ass rocked up, pushing
against his weight in a futile, feigned struggle to move him. ‘Connal ...’ She
whimpered his name and he panted snarls against her throat, tantalising her
nerve endings to fire up in her core.

Ash needed contact, more than
the hold he had on her hair or the stubbled kisses bristling her shoulder. He
either read her mind or deciphered the heat radiating from her as he yanked her
sweat pants down over the cocked invite of her ass and bared her to the cool
air and the possessive caress of his hand. Welded to the curve of her spine,
his voice grated huskily against her ear. ‘You know what I’m going to do to
you, Little Red. Say it.’ He commanded.

Playing with fire, she was
aching for the burn. ‘You’re going to ...’ Breathe deep. ‘Fuck me, Big Bad.
You’re going to fuck me.’

His words were ragged. ‘Now
would be a really good time to tell me to back off, Ash. This is a one-way
ride.’

Back off? If he backed off
she was likely to detonate and it wouldn’t be pretty. He’d turned her arousal to
high and she was nuclear in her lust, liquid between her thighs and touches
away from begging into the leaf floor.

‘No. Connal. You have to
touch me. Please.’ Her pinned submission whimpered from her lips, to be taken,
to be owned, to be fucked, out in the goddamned middle of nowhere. Aflame with
desire, the tearing of her underwear, the erotic threat thundering in his
growls foreshadowed the utter sexual destruction that awaited her.

A feral noise escaped his
throat, and she dimly heard the rasp of a zipper as he tore open the fly of his
jeans. Ash whined when he readjusted his fist in her hair and pinned her cheek
to the mossy earth. He kicked her knees apart with his muscular thighs and she
nearly came from that alone, her body desperate for him to claim it. Ash cried
wordlessly as he took mercy on her and buried his erection to the hilt inside
her. The single, ruthless penetration filled her so completely, she forgot how
to breathe. Connal was all hard, animal male, out of control and taking what was
his and screw it, but she loved it.

Stretched to her limits with
every thrust, her body was begging for more. Feminine fear arched her spine. He
was a predator, pure and simple, and there was danger in being this close to
the edge. Ecstasy rose up in a violent storm. Grounding herself, she had his
dreads leashed, holding onto something more substantial than the dirt beneath
her cheek as Connal responded to her backward grinding demands with hammering
thrusts, a powerhouse of bestial need drilling her deep. It was flesh slapping,
spine-bowing, whimper-growl fucking and he was destroying her, driving her to a
high she feared she wouldn’t survive. His free hand dipped into the space
between her stomach and the earth, hunting the slick bud that was the nerve-centre
of her pleasure. He circled it roughly, keeping tempo with the repeated punches
of his cock into that pleasure spot deep inside of her. She could feel his
mounting tension at her back, channelled into muscles clenched and on the brink
of explosive release.

She surrendered, she fought,
she no longer knew. Her body bowed to his demands, gripping the pistoning
length of his cock in a twist of drenched inner muscles on every thrust,
kicking her hips up to the rhythm of his teasing fingers.

His hips pounded relentlessly
against the soft rounds of her ass and Ash trembled. She was stretched to the
most exquisite pain and exposed to such raw emotion, such soul-deep fucking she
could feel nothing but him, his breath on her neck. It was all too much and she
broke. Anything but graceful, she careened over the edge, hurtling into erotic
oblivion. Pounded raw, she shattered into shards of hypersensitive female
desire on howls. ‘Connal!’