Читать книгу Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted - Doranna Durgin - Страница 10
ОглавлениеAna closed the door behind Ian Scott and leaned against it with a sigh, still fully feeling the movement of his mouth over hers and the way it woke everything inside her. Pounding heart, warmth pooling in intimate places, the frisson of those faintly pointed canine teeth on her skin, her breath coming just a little bit fast.
Until reality hit, a blow that momentarily took her breath away altogether.
She wasn’t here to feel. She was here to plant two amulets and gather information. Tonight, when he came back with takeout and his unsuspecting, habitually wry hint of a smile.
He is snow leopard, Ana Dikau. He is beast.
She slipped a hand into her front pocket, running her fingers over the tiny listening amulet she hadn’t yet planted.
Because I’m doing well so far. Because I don’t want to risk blowing the operation if he finds it. Because he’s more sensitive to such things than his dossier indicated he would be. The amulet-tainted car along the overlook road had told her that much.
It was all true. But she didn’t know if such reasons would convince Hollender Lerche, a man with little patience for underperformance. And she did know that this was her one and only chance to prove herself to the organization that had never quite found her of value. Certainly never treated her as though she was of value.
If she could just do this one thing for them...
“Ana.”
She jerked her hand out of her pocket with a guilty start. “Mr. Lerche! What are you doing here? Ian might have come inside—”
He emerged not from the great room of this modest vacation rental, but from her bedroom—dressed in his usual suit, heavy silver flashing at his ear and wrist and fingers, his skin a darker shade than hers and his features heavier. She flushed, a furious heat on her cheeks, but the look on his face silenced her, and then so did his words. “Surely not into the bedroom, Ana. Woo him, dearest. Don’t fuck him.”
She knew better than to respond. He didn’t want her; he wanted only to claim and control her. To distress her, because it made him feel more than he was.
The problem was, knowing those things didn’t change his status with regard to hers—and it didn’t change his effect on her. The dread in her stomach, cold and hard and a little bit sick. The way she felt smaller and weaker. And the way just once, she wanted to feel as though she belonged in this society to which she’d been born.
Maybe if she tried harder. Maybe if she was stronger. Maybe if she didn’t let her sentimental tendencies get in the way, as they always had. Then again, few women rose in the ranks, preferring the anonymity and protection of an early marriage. No man in the Atrum Core would touch another’s spouse.
Now and then it occurred to Ana that it should be enough that a woman simply didn’t want to be touched. But experience proved otherwise.
Certainly Hollender Lerche felt free enough to touch her—as he did now, grasping her jaw in a hard grip and then tightening his blunt fingers even further, bringing a sting of involuntary tears to Ana’s eyes. “We need to talk, Ana.”
“He’ll be back in this evening for dinner.” Desperate words, barely intelligible. And that’s all she said, because suggesting that he not leave a mark would only invite him to hurt her in ways that wouldn’t.
His grip didn’t ease. “I’m not concerned about an hour from now. I’m concerned about now. And why you haven’t activated the second amulet. The one that should be planted on your friend Ian Scott.”
“How—” But Ana didn’t finish the question. She squeezed her eyes closed in understanding. “The car. The working Ian felt. That was someone checking up on me?”
“An entirely necessary precaution, it would seem,” he said, and gave her a little shake before releasing her with a disdainful flick of his fingers. He turned away, withdrawing a folded handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his fingers.
“But he’s an AmTech. He felt it. He knows we’re here—”
“That was always a risk.” Lerche snapped the words. The modicum of security she’d gained at his distance evaporated. “Entirely on your shoulders, Ana dear. If you were trustworthy, we wouldn’t have risked exposure. As it is, it seems we had good reason.”
“I just need a little more time!” she cried, trying and failing to soften the resentment threading her plea. She scrambled to find the right words, hoping to distract him. “He’s more sensitive about amulets than we thought—and besides, if I plant it on the wrong item of clothing, the amulet could sit in a closet for days.”
“You’re cozy enough with him,” Lerche said, tucking the handkerchief away and squaring the lapels of his suit. “Carry the activated amulet on your person until you can make that decision.”
But I—
This time she managed to keep the words to herself—a protest at her loss of privacy would not be well received. It might even make him realize that such concern had caused her to delay in the first place.
She’d wanted to talk to Ian Scott without being overheard. She’d wanted to connect with him her own way.
Although she’d never expected to connect with him at all. Or to relax behind him on the motorcycle, clasping his hips as if such closeness was a familiar thing, or to respond so strongly to his presence.
To his touch.
Snow leopard.
Surely she should have been frightened. More than just nervous and unfamiliar, but downright terrified of what he was and of what she’d seen him do.
Snow leopard.
And yet he’d been gentle with her. He’d been respectful. He’d been careful. And he’d allowed every decision to be hers.
Not that she’d truly had a choice. The Core demanded of her to do this thing—to get close to him, to plant spy amulets on him, to learn of him what she could.
You could have said no. In her heart, she knew that. No, don’t kiss me. No, don’t touch me that way.
If she’d wanted.
Lerche’s voice was a silky thing, all the more dangerous for it. “What are you thinking, my little Ana?”
“About the best way to do what you’ve asked.” As if there was any other answer.
His hand flashed out to pat her cheek—nigh on close to a slap, and enough to rock her head, jarring her vision. “You betray yourself, Ana. I haven’t asked you to do anything. I’ve told you what you’ll do.”
She covered her burning cheek. “Of course,” she said, and hated that her voice wasn’t quite steady. “I misspoke.”
He eyed her coldly enough so she knew she wouldn’t be forgiven that easily. “It’s fortunate for you that we don’t have the time to bring someone else up to speed on this operation. See that you do better this evening. Wear the amulet yourself until you have the opportunity to plant it to our advantage.”
“Yes,” she said, forcing herself to drop her hand and stand straight but not facing him directly. Not a hint of confrontational body language. “Of course I will.”
He smiled in tight satisfaction. The kind of smile that said he knew he was better than she was, that he was entitled to more respect than she was, that he was in control of his own destiny in ways she would never be. “I’ll be watching.”
Only after he’d gone did she allow herself to explore her hot cheek and tender jaw, and wonder whether he’d gone so far that bruises would bloom beyond what she could hide with casual makeup.
First step, an ice pack. She dumped ice into a zipper storage bag and wrapped it in a thin towel, curling up on the couch while she did the things that would calm her—thinking only of the cool relief of the ice and soft cushions of the couch and the quiet of this place. Reminding herself what the Sentinels were and why she did this—and of how much of that Sentinel other she could see in Ian at any given time.
Of how easily he’d killed a man the week before.
But somehow, as she dozed off, her thoughts wandered back to the forest that week earlier when Ian had heard the hiker’s peril. The way he’d bounded forward without hesitation. The way he’d flowed from one form to another, surrounded by a cloud of stunningly beautiful energies. How he’d done it for a stranger—and what would he do for one of his own?
What would it be like to be with someone who cared that much?
She didn’t heed Lerche’s voice in her head, so scornful that she’d already forgotten Ian’s true reasons for what hadn’t been a rescue at all—the excuse to turn loose his beast, a thing so fearsome that it had turned on the man he should have been saving.
She thought instead of being allowed choices, and of respect, and of how deeply he’d responded to her without the hint of a harsh touch.
She didn’t mean to fall so completely asleep with Ian on her thoughts, but she did. She woke an hour later with her jaw stiff and her body humming in memory of gentle hands and skillful mouth. She froze, making sure of herself—am I still alone?
Silence. A clock ticking. A brief flurry of birds outside.
No, Lerche hadn’t returned. Nor had anyone else made themselves at home here. Slowly, she unwound from her dreams, from the sensations.
From the fantasy of being loved.
And then she drew herself up and headed to the kitchen, dumping the bag of melted ice in the sink and heading to the bathroom to freshen up. Her cheek was no longer red, and she thought it wouldn’t bruise at all. Her jaw was a different story—pale impressions from Lerche’s fingers with the bruising coming up between them.
She pulled out her makeup bag.
* * *
Ana had an hour before Ian arrived. It was long enough to ply her skills with powder and brush, and to dim the bright reflected sunshine of a late afternoon in the fall—angling the blinds, drawing the shades. She set the table so the remaining light would fall on his face and not hers, placing a half-full glass of iced tea as a casual claim to the correct seat.
She might not have worried at all. When she opened the door to him, take-out bags in hand, she found an entirely different man than the one with whom she’d spent the morning. This one looked worn and pale and pained, and just a little bit baffled. She instantly forgot her concerns about hiding her bruises. She even forgot her mixed feelings about putting herself in the hands of a Sentinel for the evening—one who had been perfectly appropriate during their very public afternoon ride, but who might now reveal another side of himself.
“Ian!” she said. “You look—” and then stopped herself. She’d learned that mentioning someone else’s condition tended to draw scrutiny to herself, and she didn’t want that.
Besides, “You look terrible” didn’t seem like a great opening for the evening.
But Ian just laughed, low as it was. “I do look terrible,” he said. “I’m not one for headaches, but—” He shook his head, most gingerly.
She relieved him of the sandwiches. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can do lunch tomorrow, if you’d like. Or dinner tomorrow evening.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Distracted as he was, his gaze still pinned her—an intense stare peering out from beneath a civilized veneer. “I can forget about the headache if you can.”
She gestured him into the little rental house. “I’ll draw the blinds—maybe we can find an old movie.”
“Bogart?” Ian said, head tipped with interest. Even not at the top of his game, he exuded intelligent energy and restlessness—at least until he tripped over the threshold as he entered the house. “Whoa,” he said. “Smooth.”
“You’re sure—”
“I’m sure,” he told her. “Let’s eat that food while it’s fresh.”
She took the bag to the table, pulling out cartons and filling the room with the yeasty scent of fresh bread and savory herbals. He wandered in after her as she set ice water before his place and closed the blinds a bit more, feeling more secure about her ability to hide the bruises as they settled in for the meal, full of the small talk of such moments. Plain old normal small talk from a man who wasn’t quite normal at all, while Ana thought about the amulet in her pocket. The one she’d been commanded to invoke.
Ian clearly wasn’t quite focused. He fumbled his fork in the salad, nearly knocked over the salad dressing, and seemed to find his thick, layered deli sandwich as much by feel as by sight.
“Have you considered seeing a doctor?” Only in retrospect did she realize that of course he wouldn’t, because Sentinels never did go to mundane doctors—not the strong-blooded Sentinels, at any rate. They wouldn’t be able to hide enough of their true nature.
“If things don’t get better.” Ian ran a thumb up and down the ice water as if, even now, he couldn’t find a way to be still. “I don’t get sick often. I’m probably not much of a patient.”
Compared to the Core posse members who demanded that she wait on their every need even when they weren’t sick, she thought he was doing just fine. But it interested her to see how close he skirted to telling her the full truth of his nature—that, in fact, he’d not come right out and lied to her. Of course a strong-blooded Sentinel wasn’t used to being sick. Given the unnatural rate at which they healed, it would be a wonder if they ever were.
Ana herself had been blessed with a naturally quick rate of healing—or cursed with it, rather. It was one reason Lerche felt free to leave his mark on her. But she got sick as often as anyone else, with the same clusters of cold and flu and a stomach that could be touchy. She made sure she was always a very good patient, requiring as little from the Core physicians as she could. But she said merely, “If things don’t get better, you probably should.”
Ian caught himself rubbing his temple and gave a rueful laugh, if not much of one. “It’s probably something going around.” He didn’t look convinced, and she wasn’t surprised. Field Sentinels like Ian Scott didn’t catch such things, even if the light-bloods did. “Fernie wasn’t looking well this afternoon, either. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, helping her clean up after one of her bake-fests.”
Her fork hovered in midair as she tried to imagine it...and found that she could. Found that she could easily see this sharp-edged man putting aside his work to help the retreat manager on a tough afternoon.
She couldn’t say the same for Hollender Lerche.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” he said, mistaking her hesitation. “If it’s catching—”
She laughed and speared the fork into her salad. If he noticed how carefully she’d been chewing, he didn’t mention it. “If it’s catching, then I think I’ve already got it, don’t you?”
He grinned. “There’s something to that.” And then they talked quietly of favorite old movies while she pulled her laptop open and rented them a Bogart flick—Key Largo, of course—and Ian demonstrated that whatever the state of his headache, his casual mastery of tech also included hooking a laptop up to the house TV so they could watch on the larger screen. By the time they finished the last forkful of their cheesecake dessert, they shared the couch as if they’d always done so.
Only when Ana was fully nestled in under Ian’s arm, her legs curled beneath her while he stretched the length of his out on to the kitchen chair he’d appropriated for that purpose, did she realize she hadn’t yet invoked the second amulet—and that she didn’t dare do it now, for fear he would sense it, no matter its silent nature.
It didn’t matter. Surely Hollander Lerche wasn’t interested in murmured chitchat over a classic movie. Surely he couldn’t expect her to delve into a conversation of more substance until Ian was more comfortable with her—more confident with her.
Although he was, most obviously, comfortable and confident enough to fall asleep on her couch.
She realized it as the film credits began to roll. She drew back from beneath his arm to consider him in the flickering light of the television, pulling her feet up on the couch to wrap her arms around her legs and rest her chin on her knees. Knowing that she ought to be curled up on the other end of this couch, trembling in fear. And that she ought to trigger the amulet, shortening the time she was exposed to Ian and his entitled, arrogant ways.
He was, after all, a man who represented everything about a race of people who considered themselves more than and better than and quite evidently above the law altogether.
But Ian’s touch had given her choice. Brought her pleasure. Inspired her napping dreams. Protected her from a mugger.
It startled her to realize that Lerche’s man had known Ian would leap to her side when the cyclist grabbed at her—that he’d counted on it. She frowned, thinking that one through—or trying to. Instead, she found herself distracted by the way dark lashes swept a shadow across Ian’s high, strong cheek. And by the way his mouth, in repose, relaxed to show the definition of lips that pleased her—their shape, the little hint of a curve at one side that revealed his habitual dry humor. The faint cleft in his chin, the unlikely perfection of the way silvered bangs scattered across his forehead, the equally unlikely short, dark hairs that defined his hairline at sideburns, nape and even buried beneath the lighter strands.
The movie credits ended and the sudden silence alerted him; she saw the glimmer of his awakening gaze and smiled. She felt the promise of that look and of his interest in her. She felt her body warming to awareness—not of the Sentinel, but of the man.
Then again, the Core had always considered her to be weak of heart and mind, hadn’t they?
“Hey,” she said, and even her quiet voice seemed loud in the house. “Feel better?”
He stretched—an indulgent thing, right down to his fingers—and relaxed utterly again. “Hey,” he said. “Much better.” But then his eyes narrowed, and for an instant she felt pinned by his gaze—she felt all the fluttering uncertainty she’d told herself she ought to. “Ana...are those bruises?”
“Bruises?” she said, sounding as stupid as she felt. How could he...darkness had fallen, and she hadn’t turned on any lights. Only what came from the TV, where the bubbles from her laptop screen saver drifted over the surface. Between the makeup and the darkness, she should have been safe from questions about the marks Lerche had left.
“You didn’t have those this morning.” He no longer reclined, relaxed, but now sat straighter, tension filling his shoulders. He tapped a quick pattern against his leg and nodded at her jaw. “I should have seen them earlier, but that headache...”
Of course. Right. Because Sentinels had that vaunted night vision—a spillover from the beast they carried within. What had Lerche been thinking?
But Ana knew the answer to that question. He hadn’t cared.
“Are they that bad?” She touched her jaw, and a wince gave her the answer. Still, she addressed the bigger elephant in the room. “I can’t believe you can see them in this light.”
“Just one of those things,” he said, making no attempt to explain it—but not making anything up, either. “Ana, who—”
“I’m here alone,” she told him, and realized with those words that she was the one who lied to him, who had lied to him from the moment they’d crossed paths. “It was just one of those stupid things.”
He searched her face as if he might find the truth there.
Well, it was one of those stupid things. She knew better than to show disrespect to Hollender Lerche. That was on her, that she’d done so. But she also knew that sometimes Lerche’s mood meant there was no avoiding his temper. That was on him.
Ian let it pass, in a way she thought meant he wasn’t actually going to forget it. He rose to his feet, so fluidly she couldn’t believe he’d been deeply ensconced in the couch an instant earlier, and prowled to the window—looking out into the darkness and seeing who knew what.
“You are feeling better,” she said. “And I guess I have the answer to my question.”
He turned his head just enough to offer a puzzled frown. “Which question is that?”
“The one where I wondered if you ever sat still,” she said drily.
He laughed, short as it was. “No,” he said. “Not often. When I sleep. And...” He gave her a thoughtful look, and quite obviously didn’t finish the sentence.
“Oh, come on,” she said, unclasping her hands from around her legs and letting her feet slide to the floor. “Now you’ve got to tell me. Even if it’s embarrassing. Especially if.”
He padded back to the couch; somewhere along the way he’d lost his shoes, and the barefoot movement only added to the prowl in his walk.
He killed a man. I should be frightened.
But she wasn’t.
She was alive.
Her fingers tingled as he reached down to offer his hand. She took it; her body pulsed as he drew her to her feet. Warmth suffused her, instilling just a hint of weakness in her knees—a delightfully liquid sensation.
“And now,” he said, pulling her closer—not with so much strength she couldn’t hold her own, but with enough ease to demonstrate the strength still lurking. He touched her face; he skimmed his fingers along her jaw so lightly that she felt only their presence and not the pain of the bruises beneath. “Now,” he said, and kissed one eyelid, and then the next. “Now,” he added, and brought his mouth down on hers, kissing her with a gentle assertion—and kissing her, and kissing her, until she threaded her fingers through his hair and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him back, so caught up in the firm sensation of his lips, the tease of tongue and teeth, the impression of being...not taken, but worshiped.
He bent over her and she trusted. He dipped her as if they were in a dance, and she gave herself up to his strength. He settled her perfectly over the cushions of the couch, and she never stopped reaching for him.
She had no idea how much time passed before he groaned and drew back—and said, with no little wonder, “Now. I can’t explain it... I never—”
She silenced him with boldness, slipping her hand inside his shirt to caress skin and feel it flutter beneath her fingertips, a sensitive flinch that came with a grin. She suggested, “Just feel...and follow it?”
He searched her eyes. For once she didn’t feel like the vulnerable one—not with the uncertainty she saw there, or his eyes gone so dark with what she’d done to him. Or for him. Definitely not with the hard tremble of his arms and body—a tremble that in no way came from weakness. “Is that what you want?”
Yes. Because what she felt right now was safe and enclosed and accepted. As if, in that moment, she was everything she needed to be.
How could she do anything other than follow that feeling?
“Yes,” she said, surprised by the husky sound of her own voice. “Yes, please. Let’s.”
“Let’s,” he agreed, and laughed just a little—in relief, she thought. Not that she had much time to think about it. He lowered himself over her only enough so she could wrap her legs around him, ruing the impediment of clothing—and then surprised her when he slipped his hands more firmly beneath her and pivoted to sit, putting her squarely in his lap. Squarely against him and his quite obviously already straining erection.
Pleasure speared through her, startling her into a cry—one she’d not heard herself make before. And then when he moved against her, another, this one echoed by the faint snarl of Ian’s expression—just as surprised as she was, his fingers clamping down on her hips.
Such a pure, hot lightning, striking so deeply within... Her fingers dug into his shoulders, gathering the material of his shirt—but only briefly, because the more she felt, the more she wanted to touch him. Fumbling at buttons, pushing the shirt back to expose the planes of his chest—a lean man’s muscled body, layered in strength without bulk, crisp pale hair scattered to tease her fingers and fade across his abs to reappear in a narrow line above his belt.
As it had before, his skin twitched, more sensitive than she’d imagined. When she spread her fingers across his belly and went seeking beneath the belt, he made a disbelieving sort of sound, half laugh and half gasp, and rolled them over again. The soft couch cushions enveloped her just as he found her mouth. He kissed her with fiercely thorough attention, his fingers at her blouse buttons and then tangling with hers. He moved his mouth to her neck, nipping, as she reached for his belt, and he reached for her slacks button. She tugged his pants over his hips; he deftly yanked hers out from beneath her, his mouth still on her neck, on her collarbones, dipping lower to ignore her bra and find one nipple right through the soft material.
She bucked up against him and reveled in it—reveled in watching herself and her response to him. No man had evoked such response in her...no man had ever tried.
Ian laughed again, this time with a growl in the background. He lifted his head to capture her gaze, and she stilled under the impact of it—bright intensity, heated desire...
“Please,” she told him, understanding the question behind that look. “Yes. Most definitely yes.”
He drew a sharp breath—relief or fettered passion, she wasn’t sure. But then she didn’t want to wait any longer. She kicked her pants aside, shoving her panties off with them, and then went after his boxers. In a moment they were both free, both already warm and wet with the wanting, and she didn’t think twice. She wrapped her legs around his hips and reveled in his unrestrained grunt of pleasure as flesh met flesh.
And then Ian surprised her all over again, flattening himself on her, muttering—grasping for his pants while the couch all but swallowed them both. He made a sound of triumph and emerged with a condom. She shared his breathless victory with a grin, and between the two of them they got the thing unwrapped and in place, and then he was in place again, and with a single nudge of adjustment, they slipped together.
Ana stopping thinking. She stopped being able to think. She barely realized it when Ian swung her upright again, thrusting upward as her knees sank into the couch cushions. Pure hot lightning... Ana reached for more of it, finding a rhythm with him, barely aware of her own cries. She shot straight through that pleasure to sensations she’d never even imagined, and found herself with a sudden new awareness.
His response to her. His gasps and his expression, cords of muscle straining in his neck and his face flushed, his eyes widening with the same sort of startled recognition that suffused her own body. An utter vulnerability that he seemed to fight against and lose to with every thrust, with every breath.
“Ian,” she breathed, and it was a kind of plea, an understanding that she was in an unfamiliar place and didn’t know where to go from there. His hand slid from her waist to cover her pubic hair, thumb sliding downward to touch her just so.
Lightning struck. She cried out in abandon and lost herself to it, a flood of sensation that tugged at her toes and filled her from the inside out, every muscle clenched or throbbing in the best possible way. She dimly heard Ian’s shout, feeling the pulse of his release in a way that had never mattered before but now suddenly did. She opened her eyes just soon enough to see it on his face—ecstasy ripping right through him, laying him as bare as it had laid her.
That’s when she understood, even as the final throb of pleasure ebbed through her body, leaving her limp in its wake.
Being with Ian wasn’t just about seeing where things went or following along in an adventure or feeling, even pulling the most possible pleasure from it all.
It was about doing those things together.
