“Gar, don’t worry.” Drekk rose wearily to his feet. “I’ll take care of Rafe. You deal with Sernal. Because of the two of them, Sernal’s going to be more trouble than I can handle.” Gar couldn’t help the small smile that escaped. “Admit it, he’s a pain the in the ass.”
“Of course he is. All you peacemakers are. But Rafe, him I can tolerate. More than you,” Drekk muttered, offered Gar an obscene hand gesture, then simply vanished.
Gar stared, wide-eyed, at how Drekk had gotten his hands on a personal micro-teleporter and shook his head. “Show off.” He sighed. Now to save big brother, most likely from himself. Sucking in a breath, Gar did what he’d been dreading. He dialled another number, this time off his vidcom, and stared into Sernal’s likeness—Catam. “Well now, if it isn’t the baby of the family.” He tried for normalcy, hoping it bled through his pores like a fine sweat on a hot day.
“Gar?” The hopeful anticipation in his youngest brother’s hesitant smile cut Gar to the quick. “How are you? I’ve missed you—”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.” The thought of the last time he’d called, of the sound of children giggling in the background, pierced the dull armour around his heart, and he ignored the ache in his chest, wishing more than anything he could undo the past. “Sernal’s missing. I don’t have time for chatter. Now shut up and listen.”
Chapter Five
After three silent hours of nonstop movement through the forest, Erin wanted a break.
Not that she needed it, but she sought a handle on the man at her back, at the male staring holes through her every time she glanced behind her and caught his piercing gaze. More worrisome than Cheltam’s changing attitude, however, was the fact that the more time she spent in his presence, the more she wanted to bow to his favour. She found herself desiring to ask him what he wanted, if the pace suited him, if the direction was to his liking.
Stop it, Erin. He’s not your Handler. You are no man’s servant, not ever again. Yet her constant reprimands made her that much more aware of his natural dominance, of the light breaths he took while they marched at a warrior’s pace, keeping even with her. So strong, so masterful. And so damned tightlipped about what he thought.
“Okay, I’m taking a break.” Erin stopped at a nearby stream and sat down on waist-high rock, just daring him to argue.
“Fine.” He shrugged off the pack he’d insisted he carry. To her consternation, he didn’t look a bit winded. Her body shivered, wanting another taste and touch of such firm muscle, to feel his warm heartbeat pulsing under her hand again. “Thirsty?” He held up a cup taken from the pack and nodded at the water.
“No, you go ahead.”
He shrugged and crouched low, gathering the water for a long, slow drink.
Small beads dripped down his mouth to his throat, and Erin watched, riveted, as his throat moved in time with his swallows. His full lips hugged the metallic container holding the precious liquid, and his long-fingered hand cupped the small container, cradling it with a firm gentleness that would be devastating on her body. She could all too easily imagine Cheltam’s callused hands on her naked flesh, easing the material off her shoulders, her arms, baring her breasts that even now swelled in anticipation of his touch…
Erin cursed under her breath, suddenly overly warm. She kept her eyes averted from Cheltam and threw off her jacket, taking in great gulps of air. Her hair felt like a blanket over her head and she threaded her hand through the strands, allowing air to pass over her heated skull. Something was very wrong, because her entire body began shaking, overheating. And without thinking about it, she took two steps to the right and threw herself into the ice-cold water of the river, sighing with relief when she slowly regained a measure of normal body temperature.
Stranger than strange. I feel better, yet still tingly, not quite myself. She shook her head, smoothed her hair back, and sighed at how good that felt.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cheltam asked in a croak, staring at her.
“I was hot,” she answered lamely, not sure what to say. The air around them had cooled considerably, and their trek hadn’t been that arduous. She had no idea why she’d grown so hot, and now that she’d resumed a normal body temperature, she began to shiver as the wet cold penetrated her clothes to her skin.
He simply stared at her, but as his gaze travelled over her with deliberate slowness, she saw that the heat in his gaze wasn’t so much from anger as from arousal. Following his stare, she saw the clinging fabric of her thin blouse clinging to her breasts and stomach. The light colour of the shirt, unfortunately, turned transparent when wet, showcasing her stiffening nipples just visible under the ends of her hair.
“Come out of there.” His flat voice gave nothing away, so it surprised her when he leaned forwards and yanked her the rest of the way out of the river. He plastered her to him and kissed the breath out of her before she could blink.
As before, the moment their lips touched, all thought left her. Sensation swamped the corridors of her body, washing her with a need so great she wanted to do whatever he asked to realise satisfaction.
“Baby, you are so fucking sexy,” he moaned, sucking on her lower lip. His hands drew up her ribs to rest under her full breasts. “These I have to see. Now.” His voice brooked no refusal, and the sheer command in his voice forced her to obey.
With trembling fingers she parted her blouse, taken with his thickening breaths.
“That’s it. Take off that wet shirt. You can’t stay in your clothes. Don’t want to catch an illness, do you?” he asked smoothly, running hot hands over her chest. “Mother of Night, your nipples are loving my hands, aren’t they, Erin?” Erin didn’t want to talk, she wanted him to touch her. She wanted his mouth over her breasts, the way he’d done before. She wanted him to fill that aching void between her legs, to put himself inside her the way the couple had in that bar…
“Answer me,” he ordered, staring into her face as he helped her remove her blouse.
She blinked hazily up at him, completely his. “Yes, they love your touch,” she whispered, not understanding when he frowned.
“You’re pulling me in with that godly scent, aren’t you?”
“No,” she answered, lowering her gaze as she’d been taught. She surprised herself with the truth. Though her instinctive response to threat was to lure in her prey, this time with Cheltam felt different. “But you are.”
“I am?” he sounded uneasy, but his touch grew warmer as he fondled her. He stepped closer and pulled her trousers down her legs. “Tell me what I smell like.” He left her body to tug off her boots and leggings and then her trousers, leaving her completely bare.
“Like warmth, like pure areesia in bloom,” she moaned, craving his touch. “Please, Cheltam. Tell me how to please you.”
“Not Cheltam,” he rasped. “Rafe. Call me Rafe.”
She nodded. “Rafe.”
“It’s another name I go by, and we don’t want to let anyone know who I really am,” he continued, as if she needed an explanation. She would call him whatever he wanted so long as he put out this damnable fire within her. He stood and walked her backward until she leaned against a large rock. “Sit back.”