Dangerous Promise (The Protector)

  “But people do things,” Nina said. “Stupid things, because they want them, or think they need them.”

  He didn’t have a good answer for that, because she was right. Instead, Ewan slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her next to him to stand, hip to hip. Both of them stared up at the sky without speaking for a few minutes, until a dark shape skittered across the moon’s vast silver face.

  “Everything changes,” Nina said quietly. “I never thought I’d see a bat in the wild. And look, the work your sister did has made that come true.”

  She hadn’t moved out of his embrace, and he noticed her ease with him, the casual way she allowed his touch. They weren’t really a couple, he reminded himself when she let her hand slide down his arm to tug at his wrist, moving him toward the cabin. Even if they felt like it. Not even if he wanted them to be.

  “Do you want to bring in the stuff we bought today now, or later?” she asked.

  “It can wait until morning. There’s nothing that will spoil. I could use a nightcap though, what about you?”

  She glanced over her shoulder with a grin. “Sure, I’ll have a cup of coffee.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know,” Nina said as she opened the front door and stepped through it, letting go of his wrist and going automatically into what he recognized as her protective stance. “Wait while I look around.”

  “There isn’t going to be anyone in here, Nina,” Ewan told her as he followed.

  She turned, a hand out to press his chest and keep him in place. “Ewan, we’ve been gone for hours. Let me make a sweep. Please.”

  It was the first time she’d ever added a “please,” so how could he be a jerk about it? Still, it rankled, that even here in this place that had proven to be safe, that she would insist on reminding him . . . what? Ewan thought, irritated with himself. That she would remind him he was still in danger, or that she was determined to protect him from it?

  Instead of complaining further, he watched her check the living room, the kitchen, then climb the stairs to the attic bedroom. Her feet moved on the floorboards. Moments later, she called to him to come up.

  Curious, Ewan did, wondering if she’d found some signs of danger. When he got to the top of the stairs, he found Nina standing at the foot of the bed. She’d removed her gear and set it aside on the dresser. She’d taken off everything, as a matter of fact, and stood there naked. Waiting for him.

  At the sight of her, Ewan wanted to drop to his knees and worship. She had the body of an old-time goddess, lush, firm, rounded. Strong. She was so strong, and while everything about her made Nina beautiful, that strength was what had made him fall in love with her.

  Love.

  Then he was in fact on his knees in front of her, his face pressed to her belly while she threaded her fingers through his hair. Her laugh was tender and amused, but when he looked up to see her face, her eyes gleamed with a different emotion. Her hand moved to cup his face and he closed his eyes, turning to kiss her palm. Her other hand curled behind his neck, her fingers digging just right into the flesh there. The sweetly mingled sensation of erotic promise combined with the hint of pain, the reminder that she could literally take his life with no more than a flick of her fingers, got his cock so hard it ached.

  “Ewan,” Nina murmured. “What are you doing?”

  In answer, he dipped his face into her center, breathing in the heady perfume that intoxicated him. His tongue slipped out to find her heat, the stroke of it feathering along her flesh until he settled on the sweet spot that made her gasp and bump her hips forward against his eager lips. Her fingers tightened again in his hair, holding him there even though he wasn’t trying to get away.

  He lapped at her with slow, even strokes of his tongue. His hands gripped the backs of her thighs. The flavor of her heated nectar forced a groan from his throat. He buried his face deeper, feasting.

  “I could live on this forever,” he murmured.

  She laughed, her breath hitching, and tugged his hair to lift his face. Whatever she saw in his expression softened hers. She pulled him upward to her mouth and kissed him. Soft at first, then hard. He waited, hoping for the sting of her bite on his tongue and groaned when she nipped.

  “Take off your clothes.” Her whisper was nonetheless a command, one that sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine.

  His gaze locked on hers, Ewan reached over his shoulder to pull off his shirt and toss it to the floor. Her eyes glanced that way as she pressed her lips together on a smile. She shook her head at the carelessness, but didn’t scold.

  Ewan undid his button and zipper, then pushed his trousers down past his hips, thighs, calves. They caught for a second on one ankle and he hopped, bouncing, to free himself while she laughed and shook her head again.

  “You,” Nina said when he stood in front of her fully naked at last, “are so beautiful.”

  “Men are not beautiful,” he reminded her in a husky voice.

  Nina put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Come here and kiss me.”

  He did, eagerly. The slope of her naked hips slayed him. The curve of her ass was a blessing. And her mouth, oh her mouth was sheer delight.

  When she took his fingers and slid them between her thighs to stroke against her, Ewan shivered. “Mmm. Yes. That. All of that. Every day.”

  “Every day?” Nina whispered into his mouth.

  “All day. Every day. Forever,” he said.

  She paused, the tension in her muscles giving away a shift in her response. She pulled away to look into his eyes. She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t look amused. If anything, she looked concerned. Maybe even a little sad.

  He didn’t want that. He kissed her, but only for a second or so before she pulled away again. She linked her arms behind his neck, pulling him close so their bodies aligned. His cock, thick and heavy with desire, pressed between them.

  “Forever’s a long time,” she said.

  Ewan nodded. “I know.”

  “You might get tired,” she added, this time with the small, quirking smile he adored. “All the sex.”

  “I’ll maintain a routine of cardio and weightlifting,” Ewan said, deadpan, “to make sure I keep in shape. For all the sex.”

  Nina ran a fingertip across his collarbones. “And the rest of it? Forever is a long time to fill with fucking. You might have to find other things to do with me.”

  “All the things,” Ewan said. “Mostly eating a lot of stuff or watching you eat a lot of stuff and then run really fast or crush things with your bare hands.”

  She laughed, snorting, then laughed louder. “Oh my onegod. You’re a jerk.”

  “I’ll cook for you.” He pulled her even closer and nuzzled at her throat. “I’ll buy you a restaurant. A grocery store. Whatever it takes.”

  Her fingers dug into the back of his neck, and he gasped. She slid her other hand into the back of his hair, tugging. He lifted his mouth from her skin to look into her eyes.

  “And . . . this?” She dug again, her nails pressing not quite hard enough to cut the flesh.

  “Yes,” he said. “That, too.”

  Nina blinked rapidly. He caught a glitter of what looked like tears, and alarmed, Ewan put his arms all the way around her. She pressed her face against his chest. Her shoulders lifted and dropped. He felt the rush and heat of her breath against him.

  He smoothed his hands over her back, settling at her waist. “Baby, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh . . .” She sounded choked, then looked at him with gleaming eyes but a brilliant smile.

  She might have been a woman unlike any other he’d ever known, but he recognized this combination of tears and joy, all over her face. He’d made her happy. He wanted to keep doing that for the rest of their lives.

  He kissed her.

  Thoroughly. Lingering. Tasting, teasing, tempting her with his tongue until she was the one who moaned. Together, they fell onto the bed and he moved over her body, kissing and li
cking and sucking every place he could get his mouth on.

  Again, he drifted lower to put his mouth between her thighs. Drunk on the taste and flavor of her, Ewan settled onto the bed with his erection pressing against the mattress. He rocked his hips, rubbing, but mostly focused on her. Her rising moans and breathy cries were an aphrodisiac more potent than any synthetic drug could ever be, sweeter than any candy. The mere sound of her voice as he urged her body closer to climax was enough to push him nearer the edge.

  When her fingers twisted in his hair, not trying to pull him away from her hot, slick flesh, but instead urging him to go faster, his cock twitched. He moaned against her. Her hips lifted, pushing her center against his mouth. Ewan ate greedily at her sweetness, feeling her bloom under his caresses. She was close. So was he. He ground against the bed a little more until he felt, at last, the throb of her orgasm vibrating through her.

  Nina murmured his name as he crawled up and over her body to kiss her mouth. “I love the way you do that.”

  “I love you,” Ewan said.

  Her eyes had been closed, her expression satisfied and languid, but now she looked at him. Her hand came up to cup his cheek. “I know.”

  * * *

  “I want you inside me,” Nina whispered. “Now.”

  It took a mere shift of his hips for him to enter her. Her nails traced lines down his back as he buried his face against her neck. He didn’t move, but settled inside her until she drew her legs up to hook them at the ankles behind him. She put her arms around his neck when he looked at her face.

  “I meant what I said about forever,” Ewan said.

  She put a hand over his mouth. “Shh.”

  He nibbled at her palm, making her laugh. When she took her hand away, he opened his mouth, this time to kiss her. There’d be words later. Time to talk about what forever meant. Right now, she rocked her hips to urge him to thrust, and he did.

  The past times they’d been together this way, the score of her nails on his flesh, the bite of her teeth, had pushed them both to a frenzy. This time, Nina let Ewan set the pace. She’d already climaxed so powerfully under the attentions of his mouth she could afford to be leisurely.

  More than that, she wanted to be. She wanted him to take his time. She wanted him to make love to her, not fuck.

  Make love. Love. Ewan loved her, and there was no way this could end in anything but regret, but she was still here. Doing this, all of it . . . with him.

  Slowly, Ewan moved inside her. Kissed her mouth. His hand cupped the back of her neck, holding her to him. Every so often he rolled his hips to press his pelvis more directly against her where she needed the pressure—and although she’d already come hard, pleasure once more built inside her until she couldn’t stop her hips from rising to meet his. From digging her nails into the meat of his ass. From taking his lower lip between her teeth and biting hard enough to make him gasp and groan and thrust deeper. Harder. Faster.

  They moved in sync, getting closer and closer. She hadn’t been sure she would be able to climax again, but looking deep into Ewan’s eyes, Nina could not stop herself from succumbing to this pleasure. When he said her name, it sparked the final burst of ecstasy and she cried out, riding it. With a shudder, Ewan buried himself inside her to the hilt and fell onto her shoulder with a rasping groan.

  They lay in contented silence for a few heartbeats before he pushed up on his arms to look into her face. Nina smiled, drinking in the sight of him. She drew a fingertip across his upper lip and licked away the sweat she’d gathered.

  “Mmm,” she said. “I love all your flavors.”

  The shifting shadow behind him caught her attention, and she was already rolling, getting from beneath Ewan’s weight even as he protested and struggled. The sheets tangled around one of her ankles as she shot off the bed, and she caught herself before hitting the ground. The position made her vulnerable, though, one foot caught tight, the other on the ground.

  She knew the man in front of her, and although the sight of him was a surprise it was far from a shock. There were only thirteen others in the world who could truly be expected to get through her in order to get to Ewan, and she’d have recognized them all. Connor Blakely didn’t even get close enough to touch her, just lifted his closed fist to his lips and blew. Nina ducked, but not in time. The dart hit her directly at the base of her throat; she gagged and batted it away, but it was too late. The fast-acting cocktail of sedatives would have been specifically designed to combat her body’s excessively swift ability to metabolize the drugs.

  It put her under immediately.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Nina woke to a ringing in her ears and throbbing pain from half a dozen bruises all over her still naked body. Blakely would definitely not have had a problem kicking her when she was down. She hawked out a metallic taste, her spittle blood-tinged, and ran her tongue along her teeth. One seemed loose, but none were missing.

  Through the blurry veil of pain, Nina could see Ewan in the chair across from her. His head sagged to his chest. She could see blood dripping from his nose.

  That was all it took. Gritting her teeth, she tested the restraints Blakely had used to tie her to the chair. She tested, too, the pain where the bastard had hit her.

  Both eyes would be black. Her nose, definitely broken. Nothing she couldn’t handle. With a slow, deep breath, Nina concentrated on her injuries. Contrary to what at least a couple of the anti-enhancement groups thought, she didn’t have supernatural powers, but she could focus on the parts of her that had been hurt and shift energy toward repairing her wounds, or shift energy into other functions, so she could fight even with broken bones or internal bruising.

  She’d kept her eyes mostly closed, her breathing shallow. Blakely must’ve been monitoring her for consciousness, though, because a sudden blow struck her cheek hard enough to rock her sideways in the chair. With a hiss, she tensed, opening her eyes. The man standing in front of her wore all black and a harness of gear, weapons strapped to him in familiar patterns.

  She’d been naked in front of him easily a hundred times, but this was the first time she’d been ashamed of it.

  “Blakely,” she said. “What the hell, bro?”

  “Bronson.” Blakely lifted his chin in her direction. “Sorry about this. Or hey, maybe I’m not.”

  He hit her again, on the opposite side of her face. This time, the entire chair fell over and Nina fell with it, tied as she still was at her hands and feet. She thudded to the floor but held back a groan of pain. She wasn’t going to give Blakely a single second’s worth of satisfaction.

  She’d tensed her muscles as she fell, and now there was wiggle room at her ankles. Blakely would know that, of course. The trick wasn’t going to be making him think she couldn’t get free. It would be kicking his ass once she did.

  For the moment, she could see that Ewan wasn’t going anywhere, and he also didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Blakely, on the other hand, she thought with an internal sneer, was about to figure out that all those hours they’d spent going hand-to-hand in training were going to rise up and hit him in the nuts. She knew all his techniques, as he would be thinking that he knew hers. The difference was, and had always been, that Blakely was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who didn’t believe he could be taken down, and Nina knew exactly where her weaknesses lay.

  Blakely would consider Ewan to one of those weaknesses. She knew that. What he didn’t know and could never possibly understand, was that Ewan had become her source of strength.

  “Bet you’re surprised to see me, huh?” Blakely nudged her with the toe of his boot. “Bet you are.”

  Nina snorted. “Surprised to find out you’re in the hire of some pieces of shit who are willing to pay you to do their dirty work for them? Not surprised at all.”

  Blakely spat onto the floor near her head. “You’re gonna want to shut your mouth, Bronson.”

  “Oh, Blakely,” Nina sighed. “I don’t think so.”

&
nbsp; She didn’t need to have her ankles or wrists free in order to get at him. She’d already felt the chair cracking when she fell. It took a huge effort, but she managed to bend and flex, breaking the chair apart with the force of her body weight. Still attached to the pieces of it, Nina rolled and kicked at the same time, breaking free of the restraints.

  The kick caught Blakely in the shin, nowhere near hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to distract him while she rolled again. She came down hard with her back on the chair against the floor, breaking off more pieces of it. Again, then again, rolling and ducking as Blakely came after her. He grinned, slowly taking a few swipes at her with his boots. Taking his time, because he clearly wasn’t worried about her getting free.

  Panting, Nina freed herself from the wooden chair and stood. Her hands were still fastened behind her back, but that didn’t matter. She could dislocate her shoulders and get out of the ties. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. A quick slam of her bound hands against her lower back popped the plastic tie free.

  She rolled to her feet just as Blakely came at her. He got in a hit beneath her chin, sending her back two stumbling steps before she ducked the next blow and came at him with both fists connecting. The first to the side of his head and when he staggered, she got in an uppercut that tossed him back a few steps.

  Blakely, mouth and nose bleeding, shook himself and grinned at her. “You hit like a girl.”

  Nina kicked him in the jaw. Before he could react, she kicked again, this time connecting with his crotch. Blakely wore protective gear there, of course, but the force of her blow was still enough to send him to one knee with a grunt. He launched himself at her before she had time to recover and caught her around her knees, taking them both to the ground.

  Time slowed, as it always did for her when she was fighting. Punches. Kicks. Teeth bared, she snapped at his face. There was nothing fair about this, and Nina wasn’t going to give up or give in.

  She grapevined his legs, using the strength of her thighs to hold him in place as she twisted and rolled them to get him beneath her. Blakely bucked but couldn’t throw her off. He punched, but she deflected the blows.