He moved his lips down to her neck again, sinking his teeth into the curve of her shoulder. He sucked in time with his thrusts, wanting to mark her.
She quivered underneath him, her body tightening with the promise of another orgasm. He smiled and kissed the spot he’d been sucking, feathering his lips over the area to soothe it.
Her nails raked his shoulders then dug into his back. He strained against her, trying to hold out, wanting her to come again before he gave in to the cascading force of pleasure rushing over him.
His eyes locked with hers. Then he bent to kiss her. Hot, open-mouthed, raging kiss. Their bodies arched and strained, and he captured her cry of release in his mouth.
He withdrew the tiniest bit then surrendered to the urge to bury himself in her again. He jerked his hips forward in a series of desperate plunges before exploding. He rocked against her over and over until finally he felt the firestorm begin to recede.
He carefully lowered himself until he was pressed close to her body. His chest heaved with exertion, and he gathered her tight in his arms. His lungs felt near to bursting as he dragged painful breaths into them.
After several long seconds, he reluctantly eased himself away from her and reached down for the condom. He tossed it into the garbage can by the bed then carefully pulled her back into his arms. He shifted so they lay side by side.
She breathed hard against him. Then she quieted. He could feel her heart beating wildly against his chest, but she didn’t make any motion to remove herself from his embrace.
He reached up toward the headboard and slid his hand along the wall until he felt the light switch. He flipped it, bathing the room in darkness. Then he settled down to wait.
She was patient. Eli would grant her that. He’d lain next to her for three hours feigning sleep, just as she was. She’d even perfected all the sleepy snuggle moves, occasionally stirring and nuzzling closer to him.
But he wasn’t fooled.
Obviously her back-up plan was to blind him with mind-numbing sex, although he could swear she never planned to take things as far as she did. It was too bad, really. It figured that the best sex he’d had in at least five years had to come with a woman who may well be trying to kill him.
Thirty minutes later, he fought the urge to succumb to a restful sleep. Then he felt her tense against him. Just the slightest bit, but he knew she was awake.
He willed himself to stay relaxed. He even managed a soft snore as she began to ease away from him. She took her time, moving in incremental spaces, pausing after each movement to evaluate his level of consciousness.
Finally, after an interminable period of time, he felt the bed dip as she got off. He listened as she gathered her clothes, and he assumed she got dressed. Then he heard her soft steps as she left the room.
He cracked one eye open to survey the room, but she wasn’t there. He stared up at the ceiling then closed his eyes, summoning the mental energy to shift to mist.
His body floated free from the boundaries and parameters set by his mind. A brief shock rolled over his system before he came apart, quickly reassembling into tiny molecules of water.
It was an addictive surge, one he never tired of. Shedding the constraints of his human body and embracing the freedom of the elements. It was powerful. It was a rush only rivaled by sex.
He hovered over the bed for a split second before shimmering from the room in his search for his mystery woman. He found her in his office rummaging through his desk drawers.
He settled in a small cloud just over her shoulder, intent on seeing just what it was she thought she’d find. He wasn’t stupid enough to keep important information just lying around, but she didn’t know that, obviously.
She cracked open his laptop, and after a few minutes of trying to access his files without success, she closed it. She pocketed the CD from the drive and moved on to the assorted papers littering the desk.
Suddenly she froze. She whirled around as if expecting to see someone behind her. Her eyes darted warily around the room, and oddly, she focused right where he hovered.
Her instincts were obviously good.
She turned back around, but her demeanor was cautious. She cupped something in her hand then suddenly rocketed from the chair and sprayed a tiny aerosol container directly at him.
“Shift your sorry ass so I can see you.”
The spray managed to blow him a couple of feet from where he’d hovered. How the fuck did she know he was there, and how did she know he was a shifter?
And what the hell did she hope to accomplish with her aerosol assault?
She eased sideways, her feet moving her closer to the door.
He streaked to the space between her and the door then materialized right in front of her, granting her wish. If she wanted him, then baby, she’d get him. She just might not like the results.
He reached for her arm, and to his surprise, she allowed him to take it. Then she exploded in a flurry of movement.
She rotated into his body. His head snapped back as she connected with her free hand. She went completely kung fu on his ass, and in the next second he landed on the floor with a thud, staring up at the ceiling in shock.
She gave him no time to shift back. She was out the door in a split second. Crazy bitch had given him the fuck of his life, then laid his ass out on the floor.
He gingerly picked himself up, irritated and impressed all at the same time that she’d been able to get the drop on him. Okay, yeah, he’d been fooled by the package. Even as toned and fit as she looked and felt, he didn’t expect her to take him down with such speed and skill.
The question was, who was she and what had she been looking for? And the million dollar question was how the fuck had she known he was a shifter? That wasn’t exactly something he went around broadcasting. For that matter, how had she known where to find him?
He moved around a lot. Never stayed in the same place for longer than a couple of days, and yet she managed to show up in Singapore within a day of his arrival?
This didn’t bode well at all.
If she knew about him, did she also know about Braden, Ian and Gabe?
He walked back into the bedroom, rubbing his aching jaw. He delved into his jeans pocket to retrieve his phone and punched in Gabe’s number.
It was time to get the team together and figure out just what threat Psycho Woman posed. He wasn’t chasing her ass around Singapore, that was for sure. He’d wait until she quit running like a scalded cat and then he’d lock on to her position using the tracking device he’d planted when he was planting other parts of his body in hers.
Chapter Two
Tyana Berezovsky cupped one hand over the end of her pool stick as she watched Damiano Ruiz lean over the table to take his shot. The members of Falcon Mercenary Group were gathered in the game room of their island estate, a common enough practice between missions, but tonight things were strangely silent and strained.
Tyana had arrived back on the island a few hours earlier, and Jonah was itching with impatience to get a report on her mission. And what could she tell him? How could she tell him what had transpired?
She grasped a small glass in her other hand, raising it to her lips to drain the expensive whiskey.
She should be toasted by now. She’d never had a huge tolerance for liquor, well, not when compared to her brothers, anyway. But adrenaline still hummed along her veins, even a full day after fleeing Singapore. No matter what she did, how she tried to drown her rioting emotions, she couldn’t douse the wildfire.
Off to the side, Jonah Pearson and Maddox St. Pierre watched in silence as D lined up his shot. Jonah took a swig of his beer while Mad Dog carelessly rolled a joint before lighting it up.