Читать книгу Faith- Ascension Saga Books 4-6 - Grace Goodwin - Страница 12

Faith

My entire body felt like it was on fire.

Two men were manhandling me. My wrists were locked behind me in fancy alien handcuffs. My shoulders were torqued too far, aching.

Even with that discomfort, all I could do was stare at Lord Thordis Jax. At his lips, still wet from mine. At the huge cock tenting his pants. The feel of it as it pressed against me. At the dark urgency I saw in his eyes.

He wanted me, and I wanted to let him have anything he wanted. Which made absolutely no sense.

“You should let me go.” I wasn’t addressing the guards, or Lady Jax—who stood next to her mate with her chest heaving. I had to assume it was pure rage running through her body. Rage that I’d been in her room, digging through her things? Or rage that her son had had an erection the size of Texas in his pants and couldn’t take his eyes off me?

“You’re going to tell them everything you know, who you work for, and why you are here.” Thor, as I’d come to think of him since that was what his father called him, was looking down at me like he cared, like I mattered to him in some mysterious way. Which was total bullshit. He took a step forward, raised his fingers to trace the line of my jaw. The look in his eyes was contemplative. Unsure.

“How did you learn to fight like that? You took down a guard twice your size in seconds.” His gaze dropped from my eyes to my lips, and if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that knowledge was making him hotter, not cooling him off.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.” Another truth. Seemed my pussy wanted to keep this man happy, and she was currently in charge of my mouth. Nothing was affecting the pure, needy lust pulsing through me. Not even the two guards standing on either side of me, their meaty hands on my arms, holding me in place.

Hell, maybe that’s what was turning him on? Did he like to tie up his women and have his wicked, wicked way with them?

A shudder passed through me at the thought and I licked my lips, needing to taste him again. He was so damn close. So close. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t kiss him. Couldn’t rub my body all over his. This Aleran Ardor was going to be the death of me. One stupid kiss and I had literally lost my freaking mind.

“Lies!” That was Lady Jax, and she was in a full rage. Her face was bright red and swollen, her eyes bulging from the sockets as if they would pop out of her head at any moment. Talk about needing a chill-pill. “Why are you destroying the Jax honor, a position in society we’ve had for centuries? Why?” she shouted the last, livid.

But being so harshly scolded did get my attention off her son long enough for me to regain a hint of dignity—and get my mind out of the gutter. But it was difficult.

First, that holy-hotness kiss from the only son. No heir and spare here. Thor was everything to this family, their future, and they thought I was jeopardizing it all. I’d thought him attractive in the portrait his father hung so proudly in the house. But up close and personal?

God. He smelled like heat and sex and raw manpower. I wanted to climb on top of him, under him, all over him. Peel off my clothes and just go skin on skin for hours.

Days.

He’d kissed me, his cock hard as a rock. Which meant he had to have a mate. I knew enough about Aleran males to know their cocks lay dormant until they met the right woman. Then… ping! The never-ending hard on. I’d seen it with Leo’s instantaneous reaction to Trinity, and they’d barely been able to keep their hands off each other. And since I’d met Thor all of five minutes ago, I doubted all of that alien hotness was aimed at me. More likely, he was a spoiled aristocrat’s son who thought the world owed him something—including all the women he wanted. I was a challenge, a hot piece of tail he could fuck, or fuck with, and forget. Or, in my case, send to jail.

Seemed things weren’t all that different here on Alera than they were at home on Earth.

But then, Earth wasn’t home anymore either.

I felt like I had no home. Not really. Not anymore. Especially with Trinity blatantly in the palace standing in for Mom. It wasn’t like she was heading back to Earth anytime soon. Even if Mom was found, Leo wasn’t going to relocate to suburbia. Even with Dad still there, it wasn’t going to be the same. I knew too much. Understood there was more out there than just Earth.

And that lack of foundation made me weak. Vulnerable. Especially without my sisters, without anyone to know who I really was, what I was going through, the fears, the worries about Mom. God, just Thor’s touch made me… feel, his kiss, and everything else. And that made it worse. I didn’t care how freaking hot he was, I was not this week’s plaything. Just because I was pretending to be a servant didn’t mean I wanted his hands all over me.

But I did. Fuck and damn and shit and every other curse word my sister Destiny knew and I didn’t. I did want him. Kissing me. Touching me. On top of me. Behind me. Under me. Inside me.

This stupid Ardor was ruining everything. Ever since I’d arrived on this planet, my body had decided that it was time to wake up. And not in a slow, I’m so sleepy, kind of way. No, this was a full on, zero-to-sixty, explosion. And my pussy was driving the car. Not me. Not. Me.

Still reeling from the kiss, adrenaline so thick in my bloodstream I could barely see straight, that damn cop, or security guard, or whatever the hell he was put his hands on me.

I had taken the basic self-defense class at the local Y. Mother had insisted we all could, at the very least, put up a fight. But I wasn’t Destiny, especially since I lasted all of six months and took up tennis instead. She’d studied for years, obsessed with learning multiple styles of martial arts. Mastering all of them.

I could break a hold, use someone’s weight against them, go for the soft spots. Knew to hit the groin, gouge eyes, break fingers. But that was about it. I did have an impressive back swing, but that did me no good.

What the hell had just happened? I’d gone all Kung Fu Master, Jackie Chan and even a little Jean Claude Van Damme on him. I’d actually assaulted a police officer. Shot him, as a matter of fact, with one of those fancy space guns I shouldn’t even know how to use. I’d even flicked a button on it to make sure it only stunned him. I’d never even held one of those weapons before!

But somehow, I just knew. Just like I’d known how to shift my body weight and throw a stiff-handed strike to his windpipe.

I’d hit him hard. Looking around me, I jerked my head to the side to break the sexiest male alive’s hold on my chin and found the guard staring at me like I had two heads. He was awake now, still sitting down, his back against the wall. He’d woken up from the stun mode he’d been blasted with and was rubbing his neck like it hurt.

I hated hurting things. Destiny and Trinity made fun of me, but I even let spiders go when I caught them in the house. “Sorry about that,” I said to him. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Or stun you. You just startled me.”

Was that shock on his face? The guard seemed nice enough. Just a regular guy doing his job. In his late thirties, maybe forty. He probably had a mate and two kids at home. “It’s all right, miss. I’ll be fine. Not a scratch on me.”

“Oh, good. I’m so sorry. I really am.” I smiled at him, a real smile, and he smiled back. Great. He really was going to be okay.

“Who are you?” The voice was deep and slid over my body like melted chocolate. Already, I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Good god, this Ardor stuff was for real.

For. Real.

“Faith. My name is Faith.” I told him the truth but I didn’t look into his eyes. I wasn’t falling into that trap again. And no sense not using my real name since that’s what his father knew, what I’d shared all along. None of these people knew who I was. No one was looking for Faith Jones from Earth. Other than my sisters, no one knew I was here.

Well, they knew Trinity came with two other royals because the spires had begun to glow the moment Destiny and I put our blood on the sacred stone. However, no one but Leo had seen my face.

Take that back, Leo, and the assassin who’d almost killed us.

I had no doubt if people knew who I really was, I’d be in danger, just like Trinity had been in. But Mytikas was a very big city. Millions of people. And I was quite sure whoever had kidnapped Mother and sent the assassins to kill me and my sisters would not even be looking for me here, in the Jax palace. Behind enemy lines, so to speak.

Perhaps, if I weren’t Princess Faith Herakles of Alera, I’d be a bit more worried about being arrested. But the truth was, I knew all I had to do was name drop my sister, Trinity’s identity, and I’d be free faster than I could snap my fingers.

The guards thought they held a prisoner. Lady Jax thought she’d caught a thief. A traitor.

I had no idea what Thor thought, but I really, really wanted to know.

Whatever it was, he was wrong. So wrong. And whatever this hot, kinky sex thing was between us, that wasn’t happening either. I didn’t have time for that. And my stupid pussy was just going to have to simmer down and wait.

Trinity’s Ardor had hit while she was on Earth and she’d lasted months. Months! Surely, I could last a few weeks.

Lord Jax, the elder, a man I thought of as a friendly acquaintance, if not a brother at heart for the way he treated his pets, moved away from his frigid mate and came toward me. Thor took a step back out of respect, and I noticed the small movement with approval. His mother was a real piece of work, but his father? His father reminded me of Dad back home. Solid. Warm. No pretenses and no bullshit. Lord Jax wasn’t as smart as my dad—the brilliant lawyer—but he was kind, eccentric even. I liked him. Which made this moment a lot harder than I’d imagined something like this might be.

“I’m surprised by this, Faith. I am. Even my pets liked you, and they don’t care for anyone but me.”

That brought my chin up with a snap and I realized I’d dropped it in shame, just like when my dad had come to give me a stern talking to. Usually well-deserved, but still, not fun. “They did? How could you tell?”

“They don’t normally appear for others.”

“She’s seen those precious animals of yours?” Thor’s shocked voice barely registered as Lord Jax and I were sharing a smile that felt like a secret handshake, like I’d just been granted membership to a secret club.

“They don’t?” I asked. I’d spent hours in their presence. More than once, they’d actually looked at me, nearly come close enough to pet. The only reason I hadn’t touched one was because I didn’t want to ask permission, and I was afraid to anger Lord Jax.

“They do not. They are very selective, young lady. But I trust their judgment. So, tell me, who are you really and why were you snooping around in my home?”

“My love, she refuses to talk, so let the police take her away,” Lady Jax intervened. “Lord Wyse and his team will get the truth out of her, which will certainly get the media attention off of us. The Jax family name can now be vindicated.” She was as severe and uptight as I’d thought her before. I had to respect the one thing she had in spades, absolute love and loyalty to her family. I’d fucked with them and she disliked me for it. I couldn’t really fault her for that. I’d watched her, listened to her conversations. She was like a lioness when it came to her son and her mate. No one fucked with them. No one undermined their position or their power. I respected her, for that alone.

But I’d also learned that the Jax family was more closely allied with the Wyse family, my cousins, as my mother had told me. Lord Wyse himself was the head of the Royal Guards’ Optimus unit—which, as far as I could tell, was like the head of the FBI back home. The Inspector Optimi were detectives and district attorneys all rolled into one. They investigated crimes, examined the evidence, and prosecuted the guilty in the Aleran courts.

He was old, but sharp as a tack. He’d been to the house for dinner twice already in the short time I’d been here, spending long hours holed up in either the living area or library with either Lord or Lady Jax, or both. I’d learned that Lady Jax had once been an inspector herself, and a damn good one. The other servants told me that she was brilliant and was often consulted on cases now that she was retired.

So, basically, I’d just been caught snooping around in an FBI agent’s bedroom.

Dumb. Unlike her distracted husband, she was too clever and too aware of everything going on around her. I should have waited for her to go to the market, or to a meeting. I should have waited until she was out of the house, not having a quickie with her mate just down the hall.

Oh well. Faith zero, Ardor one. I had a hard time waiting for anything the last few days. My patience was, well, non-existent.

“I’m sorry. I’m not your enemy. I promise you that.” The words were for Thor, but I spoke to Lord Jax, whose disappointment was palpable, like a heavy fog pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe.

So much like my dad. I hoped he was okay, back on Earth. Giving those stupid alien chasers a run for their money.

“We will discover the truth. Have no doubt of that.” Lady Jax stepped forward and slid her arm through her mate’s to stand in solidarity with him. In that moment, she reminded me of my mother. “Take her away and be careful with her. She’s obviously more dangerous than she lets on. Not only spying, but resisting arrest. I’ll contact Lord Wyse at once.”

The guards gripped my upper arms behind my back, pushed me toward the door and I didn’t resist. Not this time, not with handcuffs on. The wild Kung Fu moves I’d used on the other guard still upset me. It was like an alien had taken over my body and I’d just been along for the ride. It had been real sci-fi movie kind of insanity, and I wanted no part of it. Except I was all “it.”

The ride to the police station, or whatever they called it here, was shorter than I’d hoped. Less than twenty minutes later I was being led inside, scanned and scowled at and generally disliked instantly by anyone who saw the handcuffs. I was used to being adored by human and animal alike.

But they weren’t human, no matter how much this looked or felt like home. I had to remember that.

They didn’t take me to a cell. Instead, they dumped me into a room I recognized from watching one too many thriller movies. Dum-dum-dah—the interrogation room. Cold table. Stark white walls. One chair, presumably mine, bolted to the floor.

I thought they’d chain me down, but apparently, they didn’t think I was much of a threat because the cuffs were removed and I was told to sit.

Sit. And wait.