“Care to expound on that statement?” he murmured.
They had so much to learn about each other. The barrier would probably come back. It might take a long time for it to go completely. But for now, she opened her mouth to lick at his lips. “Nah,” she said, as she gave him a small grin. “I think you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
The crow’s feet lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. He bent his head and ran his lips lightly along the skin of her neck, as he whispered, “I can hardly wait.”
The warm, moist exhalation of his breath on her sensitized skin was a caress all its own. It had the same effect as touching a match to kindling. Her body flashed hot as if a sheet of flame had doused her, and the hunger she felt for him was so ravening she shook from it. Oh gods, it was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. This feeling was so huge it threatened to swallow her whole.
She’d had lovers. Only a few, but they were enough that she thought she knew what she was about. She tried to brace herself, to hold on to some kind of rational thought or expectation. The first time with a new lover was never all that great. She’d always had to urge them to slow down. They needed time to get to know each other’s likes and dislikes before their lovemaking would get really good, and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if he—if he wasn’t all that sensually gifted because he was so very fine, just so damn perfect in every other—
He took her nightgown by the neckline and tore it off her. Then he fell on her like a starving man on a feast. His entire tremendous body was ridged with all the heavy muscles held taut, and the look on his face was so desperate and raw that tears sprang to her eyes. His head arrowed down to her breasts, and he licked and suckled at her nipples until they jutted wet and distended, unbearably sensitive nubs of flesh. He moved from one to the other, as he stroked a big hand along the inside of her thighs and teased the private opening of her cleft with shaking fingers. She felt herself moisten further for him until his hand was soaked with her pleasure.
She touched him everywhere she could reach, with her mouth and her hands, arching up to rub her torso along the muscled length of his. He was breathing hard and whining low at the back of his throat, a barely discernible sound that nevertheless caught at her and pulled her outside of herself. When she groped between them to grip the heavy, hard shaft of his penis, he froze with a groan.
She looked into his pale, burning gaze as she fingered his erection, learning him by touch. His skin was flushed dark, the bones of his face clenched. Her hands were shaking, too. He felt huge to her, the length of his cock thick, ridged with veins and capped with a broad head with velvet soft skin. They both looked down the space between their bodies. Her slender legs were splayed wide for him, her delicate flesh plump, moist and inviting.
The emptiness at that juncture became a spike of need. She tugged on him gently, letting her hand stroke along the length of him. “Come inside,” she whispered. “We can go slow some other time.”
He shook his head, his breath coming in short hard pants, even as his hips pumped a slow grind that thrust his cock into her fist. “Not too fast. Not— God!”
The agonized pleasure that crossed his face as she massaged him was the most exquisite thing she’d ever seen. Her need spiked higher, hotter. She was so empty she hurt. She sucked air and struggled to articulate. “Gideon, please.”
He met her gaze quickly. “Does it ache, sweetheart?”
His desperation had not gone. He held it in check, and the tenderness and heat in his eyes made the easy swell of her tears spill over. She nodded jerkily.
He bent and nuzzled at her breast, and whispered, “I’ll make it better.”
He pulled his penis out of her hand. “No,” she said, and she twisted to try to take hold of him again.
He avoided her grasp and moved down to settle between her legs. She propped herself on one elbow and took him by the arm, trying to urge him up again. He bit the heel of her hand in a quick stinging nip. “Stop that.”
“You won’t listen,” she gasped. “Get back here already.”
He growled. “Don’t make me pin you down.”
Wait, did she hear that right?
They both froze. He looked unutterably gorgeous, unapologetic, mischievous and half feral, poised as he was with his broad shoulders between her thighs. Stunned passion pulsed and she blazed with heat all over again.
She said, “You better not.”
His eyes narrowed. He looked down her body and licked his lips. “Or what?”
It could have been a fun game to play but then her hungry clitoris throbbed so hard her knees drew up in reaction, and she lost all composure. She whimpered, “I don’t know.”
His hands snaked out, faster than sight. He gripped her by the insides of her knees and yanked her legs as wide as they could go. The shock of the movement, the sense of extreme vulnerability, was such that she emitted a shaking groan.
Then his head dove down. He put his mouth on her and she went downright nuclear. He licked and suckled at the stiff little nubbin cloaked by the folds of her private flesh. His mouth was so sure and confident, so urgent yet gentle, that her knees tried to draw up again, but those big hard hands of his encompassed her knees and held her wide open for his ravishment.
The pleasure was insane. It was too much to take. She flung out her hands in a blind search for something, anything to hold on to as he drove her body into a sharp crescendo. She felt the climax roaring toward her and then it slammed into her body with such intensity her torso arched off the floor and noise broke out of her, a high, thin, out-of-control scream of incredulity.
He held his mouth on her, steady and hot, his pale gaze drinking her in as his tongue massaged every last pulse of pleasure out of her, and the sight of him working her with such patient, sensual intent hurtled her into another one. She flew into it, hotter and harder than before, and the tendons in her neck distended as she tried to scream again but she had flown so high the air was too thin, and she couldn’t get in a breath to make any noise.
And all the time, he was whispering inside her head. Beautiful, sweetheart. You’re so beautiful. God, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to see you do it again.
I can’t! I-it’s too much—Gideon, PLEASE—
Then she lost the words for even telepathy. She held out both hands to him in mute entreaty. And his control broke.
He lunged up to her, guiding the head of his thick penis to her entrance with one hand even as he kissed her, his lips hard and urgent. His mouth was slick with her pleasure. She tasted him, tasted herself. An animal sound came out of her.
She was already climaxing again, her interior muscles rippling, as he slid into her all the way to the hilt, and it was so fucking perfect, she was so fucking perfect, he went on a hopscotch skip straight into the land of crazy.
He poured his own climax into her welcoming body, a helpless shuddering gush. But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even close to enough, it only fed his hunger. A deep growl broke from his chest. He took her by the wrists and pinned her down, and he drove into her in hard, pounding strokes, as she ate eagerly at his mouth and met every thrust of his hips with hers. He came again, and again, and each time she came with him, until at last she lay limp underneath him and he had no more to spend.
He might have slept, hands loosely clasped on her wrists. He wasn’t sure. At some point he roused to awareness enough to mutter, “Too heavy?”
His penis had softened but he was still inside her, and it was so gorgeous she didn’t want to lose the sensation. His head was pillowed in her hair. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t even open her eyes. She made a herculean effort to respond and managed, “Huh uh.”
His body moved in a big sigh. She could feel his pulse, strong and slow, against her breastbone. There was another time of formless drifting. Then he said, his voice gravelly with sleep, “Soon as the weather clears, I’m moving in.”
He didn’t ask, he stat
ed. She probably should have a problem with that. Nah, she was too tired. But she did notice he held very still, as he listened for her response.
She thought she might have rug burn, and her nose itched. She slipped one of her wrists out of his lax hold so she could scratch it as she yawned. “You’d better. But we’re going to have to have a talk about how chatty you get after sex.”
Torso to torso as they were, she felt his stomach muscles clench as he burst out laughing. The husky, low sound was as gorgeous as the rest of him. He lifted his head off her hair enough so she could turn to nuzzle at him, and he covered her mouth with his in a quick, physical response. She adored how affectionate he was with her. She adored everything about him. They were going to fight and discover each other’s less attractive traits, and the thought of him moving in was frankly rather scary, but there was simply no other alternative. There hadn’t been from the moment they both acknowledged the mating shift, so she thought she might as well just go ahead and accept the changes and enjoy the ride, because it was going to be wonderful to wake up in the mornings with him in her bed, to go to sleep at night with him in her body.
Something buzzed nearby.
What was that? She didn’t have anything in the living room that buzzed. It buzzed again and Gideon lifted himself away from her body. His expression was still heavy lidded with sensuality but his gaze had turned sharp and alert. He twisted to reach for his cell phone.
He clicked it on. “Yeah.”
She watched his face grow cold and still as he listened to the deep, growly voice on the other end. Her sleepy, wondering pleasure vanished in a clench of dread.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I can bring Alice in. She would be safe at HQ and I could help with the search.”
She concentrated on the voice on the other end. A male said, “No point in doing that, son. I got plenty of people on the hunt. Just wanted to give you an update. If he’s got ’em, all he needs is one more now.”
“What about protection on the others?” Gideon asked.
The voice said, “I dispatched the first detail soon after we last talked and told them to keep a low profile so they didn’t freak anybody out any more than they already were. We’re working as goddamn fast as we can.”
She felt sickened. Oh no. No.
She had turned cold without his body heat and she felt vulnerable without her glasses on. She put them on and reached for the tangled pile of blanket to pull it around her as Gideon set the phone aside. He turned to her, the expression in his eyes grave.
“What’s happened?”
“Bayne got confirmation from the airlines,” Gideon told her. He reached out and picked her up, blanket and all, and cradled her against his chest. “The three chameleons scheduled to fly to L.A. never made it to check-in. Their seats were given last minute to three people waiting to fly standby. I know you know them, sweetheart. They’re—”
“Stewart Rogers. His mom, Leigh. Her fiancé, Jim Welch,” she whispered. She thought of the delicately boned boy, his sweet little earnest face, those serious eyes behind Coke-bottle-thick spectacles and his shy, rare smile. He took after his mother, a gentle, kind woman. Something roared in her ears. “Stewie’s in my class, Gideon. Not Stewie. Please don’t tell me that.”
He held her with his entire big body. He threw off heat like a furnace but it still wasn’t enough to drive away the killing cold.
“Sweetheart, I would give anything in the world,” Gideon said, “to be able to not tell you that.”
Somewhere outside, she could have sworn she heard the wicked wind laugh.
Chapter Seven
Love
She got to her feet, anxious to do something, anything, to push the news away. Gideon rose to stand beside her. He rubbed her back as he asked, “Can you think of anything Stewart or his mother might have said in the last few days that might have seemed different or out of place?”
He sounded so calm she wanted to scream at him. Stewart and Leigh might have been murdered in the most horrible way even as she and Gideon had been making love. She put both hands over her mouth, shaking with the effort to find some kind of control.
“Remember, Alice, we don’t know what happened to them,” he said. Rogers and Welch were pretty far down on the alphabet. If the killer had taken them, he might hold on to them until he had his seventh sacrifice. “The only thing we know is that they’re missing. They may not be dead.”
She looked up to find Gideon watching her closely. There was pain in his eyes. Even though he didn’t know any of the people, he was hurting too, hurting for her. The sight clicked her back into balance. “Give me a minute,” she said, “I need to calm down so I can concentrate.”
He nodded. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
He walked into the kitchen, and some other time she was going to remember with relish the sight of his nude figure moving around her apartment with total confidence. For now she simply scooped up the blanket and her shredded nightgown and took them to her bedroom to dump on the bed. Even though it was still full dark outside, the illuminated clock on her bedside table read 7:08 am. She felt she was marking the time’s passing with each dark event and she would never forget the numbers. Nightmare, 3:23. Missing friends, 7:08.
She took a quick two-minute shower to sluice off the evidence of their mating, ran her toothbrush over her teeth, then she dressed in the soft, comfortable clothes she had worn the night before. By the time she had finished, she was able to think again.
She walked into the kitchen. Gideon had slipped on his jeans but remained barefoot and bare-chested. The coffee had finished brewing, and he had already poured two cups. He handed one to her with a quick kiss, the short stubble from his unshaven face scraping her chin. “I make it strong,” he warned.
“That’s okay, I need strong right now,” she said. She brought the cup to her lips and sipped. The black, pungent brew was like a kick in the teeth. That was a good thing. She cleared her throat. “I’m just going to talk, like I did last night. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said. He leaned back against the counter, drank coffee and watched her.
“Stewie was so excited to be going to see his grandma and grandpa. They can’t afford to make the trip very often, so this visit was a big deal. He had his backpack packed by Wednesday. His mom lets him carry whatever toys and books he wants in his carry-on so he has things to keep him busy on the flight. Leigh and Jim had just gotten engaged. They were going to break the news to Leigh’s parents once they got to California.”
“They’re on a tight budget?” Gideon asked. She nodded. “How does Leigh afford private schooling for Stewart? Or is that why their budget is so tight?”
“I think Leigh said once that her parents help with the tuition,” she said. She drank more of the bitter brew and kept going. Now that she had started talking, she didn’t seem able to stop. “And I’m sure they qualify for a hardship scholarship, which would reduce the fees. In the group we all help each other out as we can, you know, according to the situation and what the other person will accept. Free babysitting or whatever. Sometimes we barter. Leigh was pretty thrilled to get a ride to JFK airport instead of having to pay for a shuttle…”
Her voice trailed away. Gideon’s coffee cup came down on the counter. He asked calmly, “Do you know who was supposed to give them a ride?”
She shook her head. “I know Alex offered,” she said. “I did too. I don’t know if anybody else did or whose offer they accepted.”
“Okay,” he said. “We need to talk to Schaffer and everybody else to see if we can pinpoint who saw them last.” He spoke over his shoulder as he turned away. “I’m going to jump in the shower really quick. Sweetheart, do you mind going to the station with me for a while?”
“Not at all,” she said. She stared after him as he strode out of the room. As they had talked, his Power had spiked, sharp and sulfurous, even as his face and demeanor remained soldier-calm. She had said something that interested him
, maybe interested him a lot, but he hadn’t seen fit to share whatever it was with her.
Her feelings weren’t hurt. She was willing to wait and find out why he had shut down.
She just wanted to know what it was she had said.
Gideon scooped up his pile of stuff—gun, clothes, toiletry bag and phone. Moving fast, he hit the bathroom, shut the door and turned on the shower. Soon as the sound of the water filled the room, he hit Bayne on speed dial.
Bayne answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
Gideon asked, “Where’s Schaffer?”
“Alex Schaffer? Last I heard, his guards reported him moving around inside his townhouse, safe and sound. All the chameleons are at home, except for the three missing and the ones who we’ve confirmed have made it to Arizona. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. “He just keeps coming up in conversation. It’s piqued my interest.” He told Bayne rapidly about the conversation with Alice. “All the chameleons need to be questioned again. Alice said Schaffer offered Welch and the Rogers a ride to the airport. She did too, but we know she didn’t take them.”
Bayne swore. “We’ve been calling all the limo services to see if the Rogers had booked a trip with one of them.”
Holding his cell to his ear with one hand, Gideon unfastened his jeans with the other and jerked them off. Sixty-second shower, no shave. He and Alice could hit the door in under five minutes. He said to Bayne, “We’ve been focused on the chameleons as the victims. Thing is, one of them might also be the killer.”
Alice pushed the living room furniture back into place. She straightened the coffee table in front of the couch. Someone knocked on the front door, a quiet, tentative tap that had her nearly leaping out of her skin.
Her heart still knocking hard, she moved to flip on the outside light and peer through the keyhole.