“Afraid of you? No.” She gave a slow shake of her head, then pressed her brow to the center of his chest, feeling the hard drum of his heartbeat against her. “You’re the only thing that feels real to me, Gideon. Of everything that’s happened the past few days, the only thing I know for sure right now is the way you make me feel.”
His answering growl was low, vibrating from somewhere deep inside him. She felt his muscles twitch as he continued to hold her, his strength coiled and deadly, yet wrapped around her with utmost tenderness.
Savannah lifted her head to meet his gaze. His eyes had gone darker in the dim lamplight, yet in the depths of all that stormy blue, a mesmerizing fire seemed to crackle. The heat in him was a palpable thing, radiating into her everywhere they touched.
“You felt right to me last night, Gideon, when you kissed me. I was scared then too, but you felt so right.” She reached up to catch his rigid jaw in the cradle of her hand. “How is it you came into my life just when I needed you most?”
He said her name, a thick whisper that leaked from between his clenched teeth. A torment seemed to sweep over him, every sinew growing taut and still as they stood together in the meager sanctuary of the bedroom.
“If anything scares me when it comes to you,” she confided softly, “it’s how much I need to feel your arms around me like this. You make me feel safe, Gideon. In a way I never knew before. You make me feel as though nothing bad can touch me so long as I’m with you.”
“It can’t. I won’t allow that. Not so long as I am breathing.” His voice was thunder, deep and rumbling. “You’ll always be safe, Savannah. I’ll stake my life on that.”
She smiled, moved by the ferocity of his vow. “Spoken like one of Arthur’s noble knights. I’ve never had my own hero.”
He blew out a low, strangled curse. “No, not noble. And most certainly not anyone’s hero. Just someone who cares about you. A man who wants to know you’re never in harm’s way. A man who wants you to find the happiness you deserve. A man who wants...ah, fuck.” His gaze burned as he looked at her. “I’m a man who wants too damn much where you’re concerned..”
Savannah watched the tension play across his lean, angular cheeks and the broad line of his mouth. It deepened when his hot gaze locked on to her unflinching stare. “What do you want, Gideon?”
His searing eyes drank her in, and when he spoke, his answer came in the form of a guttural, almost animal snarl. “I want this,” he said, and brought her deeper into his embrace with only the faintest twitch of the muscles that held her caged against him. Power coursed through him with barely an effort, his pulse points drumming against her skin everywhere their bodies connected.
“And this.” He softly skated his fingertips along the side of her face, then brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Lowering his head to hers, he descended on her until their mouths were less than a breath apart. “And I want this.”
He kissed her.
Not the slow meeting of their lips from the other night, but a hungered kiss that claimed her mouth without apology, his tongue pushing past her teeth in fevered demand. He growled something indiscernible as he crushed her against him, his breath coming fast and hard, hot against her face.
His mouth consumed her. Drank her in with a ferocity that both startled and enflamed her.
Gideon’s hold on her tightened. His arousal was unmistakable, a hard, heavy presence that called to the most primal part of her. Savannah’s body answered, pooling with warm need at her core. She moaned as Gideon’s kiss deepened, passion-filled, questing. So naked with desire, it sucked the breath from her lungs.
He dragged her body flush against him now, catching her nape in his big hand. His fingers burned where they wrapped around the side of her neck, branding his touch on her skin.
And his kiss owned her too.
Her pulse throbbed everywhere he touched her, building to a roar that filled her ears as his lips and tongue consumed her. She gave it back to him, meeting his tongue with hers and drawing him deep. Pleasure rumbled through him, low like thunder, vibrating against her breasts and belly.
Savannah arced into him as his free hand found the hem of her sweater and slipped inside. His hard, hot fingers ran up her ribs and over the thin lace of her bra. She groaned with pleasure, lost to his touch as he kneaded her breasts and continued to wreak havoc on her senses with his kiss.
“I have to have you, Savannah,” he rasped against her lips, breathless, his voice oddly thick. “Ah, Christ...I’ve never wanted anything more than I want this with you now. I want you. All of you.”
He didn’t wait for permission. Stripping off her sweater and bra and tossing them aside, he bent to lavish her bare breasts with the delicious heat of his mouth. Her nipples were taut and achy under his attention, the wet need in her core turning to fiery lava with every lap and nip and suckle of his mouth.
Desperate to have her hands on him, she reached down to the zippered fly of his black fatigues and felt the steely bulge of his cock swell even fuller under her palm and fingers. His sex was raw power beneath her hand, pulsing with carnal demand.
She was on fire for him too. Hungry with the same need, the same urgency to feel his hard body up against her, inside her. She gripped him through the fabric, and he tore away from her breasts on a ragged growl. Head down, he kissed a descending trail of fire across her ribs and abdomen, sinking to his haunches before her. His questing mouth went lower then, teasing her sensitive skin above the low-slung waistline of her hip-hugging jeans.
“Gideon, yes,” she panted, trembling with sensation, her own words little more than a gasp of sound. “Oh, God, yes. I need this too. I need you now.”
She sucked in a shallow gasp as he unfastened the buttons and tugged both jeans and panties down with one swift, unswerving motion. Cool air hit the naked tops of her thighs and the exposed thatch of curls between them. Then a moment later, it was all heat, as Gideon pressed his face to her mound and kissed that most private place.
Savannah dropped her hands to his shoulders, holding on for dear life as his mouth closed down on her sex. His tongue cleaved into the seam of her, wet and hot and wicked. He suckled her, taking her tight little pearl between his teeth, toying with it, swirling the tip of his tongue over her flesh and making her mewl with mounting pleasure.
“You taste so sweet, Savannah,” he told her between those erotic, sensual kisses. “I wanna eat you up. Lick every sweet inch of you. Hear you scream my name.”
Oh, God, it wouldn’t take much more, she thought, closing her eyes and dropping her head back on her shoulders as he gripped her bare ass and buried his face between her parted legs. He teased her clit with his mouth, tantalizing strokes as he gently spread the swollen, wet petals of her core with fingertips made slick from her body’s juices.
“So tight,” he murmured, penetrating her slowly with just one finger. Her body clung to him instantly, greedily, her thighs quivering as he lapped at her and worked his finger inside the core of her sex. “God, Savannah...I knew you were extraordinary, but damn. I never would’ve been ready for this. You’re so sweet the way you respond to me. So fucking beautiful.”
She moaned at his sensual praise, the only reply she could manage as her blood rushed feverishly through her veins, setting every nerve ending on fire.
And Gideon gave her no quarter whatsoever. His fingers played her with masterful skill. His mouth was relentless, his tongue so very, very good.
Her legs were going boneless beneath her. She clutched his head, buried her fingers in the short blond silk of his hair as her pleasure built and crested, about to crash into her. “Gideon,” she gasped. “I can’t take anymore. Please...you have to stop...”
“Never,” he growled. “Let go, baby. Let me take you there.”
Her knees were jelly, the muscles of her thighs quaking as the rush of orgasm roared up on her.
“Mmm, that’s it, Savannah,” he coaxed. “Come for me. Let me hear you.”
Her vo
ice was a strangled cry as he suckled her harder, driving her higher as her climax raced for its peak. She couldn’t slow it down. Couldn’t hold it back another moment.
And then she did scream his name. It tore out of her on a ragged gasp as her entire being shattered against Gideon’s mouth. She was still quivering with aftershocks as he rose up from his crouch and quickly shed his pants.
“Shirt too,” she murmured, drowning in pleasure but wanting to feel his naked skin against her. He hesitated for a moment, his face averted--a strange pause that might have registered more fully, had she not been wrapped in the fog of the most incredible orgasm she’d ever had.
Gideon pulled off his shirt and she caught only a fleeting glimpse of intricate, tribal-like tattoos on his chest in the instant before he swooped down on her with a fevered kiss. “I need to be inside you,” he growled, sounding dark and hungered, the rough scrape of his deep voice virtually unrecognizable. “Now, Savannah.”
“Yes,” she agreed, needing to feel more of him too. “Now.”
He claimed her with a kiss so savage and carnal, it rocked her. She felt herself moving backward swiftly, her feet hardly touching the floor. She came up hard against the wall of the bedroom, Gideon’s big body covering her. His mouth still locked on hers, his strong hands drifted down to cup the cheeks of her ass. He squeezed her possessively, his erection rising hot and proud against her hip. He shifted his weight on his feet, catching her in a different hold now. Then he lifted her as though she weighed no more than a feather, guiding her legs around him.
He felt so good against her, warm and hard and hungry.
So real.
In the midst of so much terror and confusion, being with Gideon was the only place she felt safe.
She’d never known anything that felt so right.
“Take me now,” she murmured. “Take all that you want, Gideon.”
He didn’t answer. Not in words, that is.
Holding her aloft in his hands, he thrust his pelvis forward and seated her to the hilt on the thick spear of his cock. He moved with urgent strokes, in and out, deeper and then deeper still, pistoning her on his length.
Savannah felt tension rack him as his tempo increased to a fevered pitch. His shoulders were granite under her curled fingers, his muscles bunched and knotted as she clung to him and let him chase his own climax.
He found it swiftly, his hips bucking wildly, pushing farther inside with every claiming pound of his flesh against hers. Savannah was already breaking apart again, splintering with pleasure, as Gideon roared a wordless, reverent-sounding oath and filled her with the hot rush of his release.
CHAPTER 11
Bill Keaton knew he had company at his house in Southie that night, even before the tall, impeccably suited man peeled away from the shadows inside the front door.
He’d been expecting this visit, forbidden to ever seek the man out, but to wait always for his instructions. To carry them out without question or failure. Keaton was loath to disappoint, and he knew the news he had to impart tonight would not be welcome.
He got up from his recliner and left his half-baked frozen dinner sitting untouched on the TV tray to greet his visitor. Behind him in the living room, the television blared with sirens and gunshot sound effects. One of those cop dramas he watched every week, but now couldn’t recall why. Like the salisbury steak and mashed potatoes he’d warmed up for dinner more than an hour ago, he found he no longer had the taste for any of the things he once enjoyed.
He was different since the incident at the university a few nights ago.
He was a changed man.
And the cause of that change now stood before him in expectant silence inside Keaton’s house. Keaton gave a deferential nod of greeting, as respectful as a bow.
“Did the individual sent to deal with the girl show up as planned tonight?”
“Yes,” Keaton replied, eyes remaining downcast, subservient. “Everything was in place, just as we discussed.”
“So, the girl is dead?”
“She is not,” Keaton answered, anxious now. He hazarded to lift his eyes and meet the hard stare of the one he served. “She lives. I saw her leave the station with a man.”
The shrewd gaze narrowed on him, sparking with deadly fire. “What man?”
“Big,” Keaton said. “Tall. A blond thug in a black leather trench coat. I saw weaponry belted at his waist, but he was no police officer or law enforcer. And he was not mortal.”
This Keaton understood with full certainty, just one of the new senses he’d acquired a few nights ago, when his eyes were opened to a dark, hidden new world. The world this man showed him when he made Keaton all over again.
“Did they see you--the girl and her companion?”
Keaton gave a slow shake of his head. “No. I realized what he was, and so I made sure not to be noticed. He is one of your kind.”
A grunt of acknowledgment, while the fire in those predator’s eyes crackled even more coldly. “Of course, he is one of my kind. All the worse, he’s one of the Order.” Then, more to himself, he mused, “Could he possibly know about me? Does he realize I have that sword, after all this time?”
The sharp gaze came back to Keaton now. “You saw them leave the station together. Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Keaton answered, supposing that he should feel fear to admit that, yet compelled only to speak the truth to the one who owned him now. “I saw the girl and her companion exit the terminal, but then they vanished. I don’t know where they’ve gone. I went to her apartment in Allston to wait, but they never arrived there.”
A growl erupted from between gritted teeth. “I need to find that girl before she tells the Order what she knows. Fuck, it may be too late for that already.”
“Shall I locate the individual we sent to the station tonight and have him stake out her apartment?” Keaton offered, eager to provide a solution.
His suggestion earned only a dismissive wave. “That particular weapon is of no use now. Gideon will have killed the Rogue for certain. Then again, maybe this setback can work to my advantage.” A dark smile broke over his ageless, unlined face. “To think, I nearly killed my Breedmate when she stupidly gave away a number of my private mementos to the university. She didn’t know, of course. She couldn’t know. I never told her about that sword or how I came to have it.”
“And now you have it in your possession again,” Keaton said. “I am pleased to have served you in retrieving what belongs to you.”
The answering bark of laughter was sharp-edged, humorless. “As I recall,” he muttered, “I gave you no choice, Keaton. Once you saw what I did to that slut you were fucking in your office, you broke easily enough.”
Keaton felt no reaction to the reminder of his cowardice. He was detached from the whole event, freed of all the weaknesses of his former self. All that mattered to him now was doing what was needed, what his Master commanded of him.
“I will see to it that the task is carried out as you wish, Sire. Savannah Dupree will die.”
“No. I think not.” The vampire who owned Keaton’s life and mind now--his soul itself--paused with unrushed deliberation. “I have a better plan. Find her. Bring her to me. Since she obviously is of some interest to the warrior, Gideon, she can help me finish a score he started centuries ago.”
~ ~ ~
Take all that you want.
Savannah’s tender offer pounded in Gideon’s temples--in his blood--hours after they’d made love. He’d left her satiated and softly sleeping in the bedroom a short while ago, while he slipped out to the main room of the empty old house to work off some of his restless energy.
Shirtless, dressed only in his black fatigues, he went through a series of quick, sweeping combat maneuvers with the long dagger from his weapons belt. He kept his hands and body in much-needed motion. His mind churned on vivid recollections of the passion he’d shared with Savannah, earth-shaking passion that still had his veins lit up and electric.
Other parts of his anatomy were running on a short leash too.
But undercurrent of the incredible pleasure he’d taken from Savannah was the guilt he felt for having hidden himself--his true self--from her, even while she had surrendered everything she had to him.
Take all that you want, Gideon.
“Fuck,” he muttered, low beneath his breath. If she only knew how much he wanted.
He pivoted on his bare heel to make a savage swipe at an invisible opponent. Himself, or the Rogue who accosted Savannah tonight? He wasn’t sure who was the bigger villain tonight.
He needed to tell her what he was. It would have to be Savannah’s choice how she chose to think of him, after he gave her the truth she rightfully deserved a few hours ago.
The truth she deserved from the moment he first realized the pretty, innocent young student was a Breedmate, not a simple Homo sapiens female. Savannah deserved a hell of a lot more than he’d given her so far.
And if he was being honest with himself, she deserved more than he could ever hope to offer her as the mate of a male whose past was steeped in bloodshed and failure. A warrior whose future was pledged in full to the Order.
He needed to explain all of that and more to Savannah. Damn it, he’d meant to before things had gotten so far out of hand tonight. He’d let himself get too entangled, and now he was caught in a trap of his own making.
It would take time and some doing to make things right now. Time alone with Savannah being a luxury he didn’t expect he’d have for much longer.
After what happened at the bus terminal, it was imperative that Savannah be given the full protection and sanctuary the Breed nation had to offer. Before the danger that pursued her came any closer than it had earlier tonight.
As much as Gideon wanted to deny it, it was no coincidence that the Rogue just happened to go after Savannah at the station. He had stalked her there. Not through blood thirst or basic opportunity. Gideon would bet his sword arm that someone had sent the suckhead after her.
More than likely, the same someone who had killed her roommate and left her professor for dead. The same someone who was now, apparently, in possession of the sword used to slaughter Gideon’s kin.