She cried out, arched when his other hand cupped her a.s.s and one long finger stroked the dark crevice there. Her head fell back and her lids drifted closed and his voice rasped out, "Don"t close your eyes, look at me, Erin." She forced her lids to open and she slid her hands down, locking her fingers behind his neck, bringing her legs up and hooking her ankles over his firm, muscled a.s.s, riding him a little, grinding her pelvis against his as he stroked her a.n.u.s beguilingly, guiding her headlong into o.r.g.a.s.m.
She screamed, short, sharp screams that fell in staccato bursts from her mouth when he started to press his finger against the tight ring of muscle, then entered her a.s.s, and she came hard and vicious. Locking down on him, she rubbed herself against him like a hungry little cat as he growled and crushed her against the wall, forcing his finger deeper inside the virgin chamber of her a.s.s and f.u.c.king her p.u.s.s.y hungrily. The rhythmic pulses of her o.r.g.a.s.m milked his c.o.c.k intensely, drawing his b.a.l.l.s tighter and tighter until he flooded her silky wet sheath with a groan. Seth slid to his knees, still holding himself inside her, still pumping his come into her taut little body, feeling the tight, clinging walls of her a.s.s holding his finger while she came around him.
When her breathing slowed, she kissed him again and whispered weakly, "I won"t ever leave you, if I can help it."
Something was dancing around in the back of his brain, keeping him from sleeping. Erin slept like the dead. She had curled into him after the final time and whispered, "I haven"t felt safe for months."
"Sleep, baby," he murmured, stroking her hair. "I won"t let anything happen to you."
Months. He would bet she hadn"t slept since the first murder had happened.
She had known. For how long, he didn"t know. But Erin had known, for a good long while, that she was the target. She had been looking tired, more drawn, more on edge for months. He had noticed it more than a year ago.
The past few months, a handful of others had noticed.
He stayed wrapped around her body as the hours pa.s.sed, holding her while she slept. How long had she known?
And what the f.u.c.k had she meant...G.o.d willing?
"You"re thinking so loudly, even somebody who isn"t psychic would hear you," Erin murmured as she roused from the soundest sleep she had slept in months. Maybe years. The arm around her waist held firm and she knew he hadn"t slept.
"How long have you known he"s after you?"
"Well, why beat around the bush?" she asked drolly, tongue in cheek.
"How long, Erin?"
She sighed, and squirmed around to face him. Staring into his dark face, reaching up and brushing the tumbled black curls from his face, she queried softly, "Truth?"
"Yeah. Truth."
"Since I was fifteen," she said, watching as his face went slack, first with failure to understand. Then with shock. Then it tightened.
"I think you need to explain," he said tightly.
"I had a dream, or a vision," she said softly. "When I was fifteen. My parents almost had to have me committed. They knew about the gifts. Mom had them as well. Dad did, too. Not as strong as Mom and I, but they were there. I was the strongest, and the clearest. The dream...I woke up screaming one morning, I had seen blood, puddles and puddles of it, and my body hurt, so badly I could hardly breathe. They called Josiah Hartman, the man who helped train me. I had such a strong gift of receiving, they needed help with teaching me to shield.
"Josiah took nearly a day to get here. He had to fly from London. By then, I was nearly catatonic. Josiah is empathic, which is why he was able to teach me shielding and Mom couldn"t. Mom could project, and she could read minds but only through contact. When he touched me, he started crying. He knew my shields, knew how to get through, and Mom didn"t.
"My dream had told me I"d die before I was thirty. A serial killer would stalk and kill me. But I"d kill him as well."
Seth felt the scream building inside him and knew he couldn"t keep it in. Erin moved closer and laid her lips against his. Just touching, not kissing. "That"s why I did what I did, and never told you, Seth. I don"t want to die, and I plan on fighting, but I thought, at the time, it would make it easier on you," she whispered. As she spoke, she projected, like she had before, her voice sweeping into his mind, along with her emotions, and he felt her love, her sorrow, her determination to live. "It was a wrong choice, maybe. But at the time, it was the one I had to make."
"I"m not walking away from you again," he rasped, rolling and pinning her under him. "And you"re not going to die."
She smiled, shifted the hands he pinned so that her fingers laced with his. "And that"s why I did what I did at the meeting. I touched your mind then, but you already know that. I need you, Seth. You"re the one person I can count on..." Her eyes widened, then closed as she felt his c.o.c.k parting, then sliding past the lips of her s.e.x. She was morning damp, but hardly wet enough to take him and she bit her lip as he pulled his c.o.c.k out, and started to work it back in.
"I"m not losing you," he groaned. He stared into her eyes, feeling the clinging of her s.e.x on his rigid shaft, seeing the discomfort on her face as he forced his c.o.c.k into the swollen sheath he hadn"t prepared and he shuddered as he pulled out and went down on her, driving his tongue inside her, lubricating her, catching her c.l.i.t and rolling it on his tongue, licking and sucking it until her fingers were locked in his hair and she was rocking her hips against his face, riding his mouth, and moaning. "Are you here with me?" he thought to her.
"Yes," she groaned, pushing herself harder against him.
"I"m not losing you, not now. Not ever. Sweet, sweet Erin, love your taste." He felt her body"s response to what he felt and thought as he slid his fingers inside her sheath, wetting them with her cream before sliding them lower to probe her a.s.s. "I wanted to take you here, before. But not cool, collected Erin. She was too much a lady, too calm, too controlled. But you"re not, are you?"
"Seth!" she shrieked, pushing up against him and sobbing as he slid one finger inside the tiny, hot little rosette, a sharp burning pain streaking through her groin and up her belly as he licked and sucked her c.l.i.t.
"Push, Erin."
She did, with a cry, and he slid his finger easily inside and started to thrust it shallowly, moving his mouth and driving his tongue inside the sweet well of her p.u.s.s.y while he finger-f.u.c.ked her a.s.s. "I can"t lose you, Erin," he thought desperately. "You"re my life, my heart, my soul."
"d.a.m.n it, Seth, please," she wailed and then her body stiffened and she shivered as the climax built and broke over her, her cream flooding from her p.u.s.s.y and he hummed with greedy pleasure, lapping it from her folds and thighs, thrusting his finger in and out, while she moved against him, riding his hand through the o.r.g.a.s.m.
He crawled back up her body, his face gleaming with her cream, his eyes wild and hungry. He grasped her thigh with one hand and lifted it high, opening her still shuddering body as he started to possess her. "I can"t lose you," he rasped. "Which means we"ll stop him."
She whimpered and pushed up, her hot, swollen folds closing over the head of his c.o.c.k hungrily. He buried his face in her neck and whispered, "Cool and collected, my a.s.s," as he started to ride her hard. Catching her hands and pinning them over her head, he lifted her up so he could stare down into her lovely, bewitching face, her pale eyes nearly silver, damp with tears, her lips swollen, a tiny drop of blood from where she had bitten them when she came.
He buried his c.o.c.k to the hilt and rolled onto his back, releasing her hands and commanding roughly, "Ride me, Erin." She planted her hands on his chest, staring down into his face. Curling her fingers into the firm wall of his pecs and smiling a cat"s smile, she started to roll her hips, slowly.
She straightened, one hand going up to cup a breast, pinching a rosy nipple that was already peaked and hard, the other going down to stroke her swollen c.l.i.t. "No," she purred in agreement. "Not cool and collected." She rocked her hips, feeling the head of his c.o.c.k b.u.mp the mouth of her womb and she groaned in pleasure, licking her lips.
Seth stared at her, at the play of her long slim fingers on her swollen red c.l.i.t, on her nipples, first one then the other, the dash of her pink tongue across her lips, her silvery hair falling around her shoulders, shifting to hide her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She"d toss her head, and the silvery-blonde strands would slither behind her shoulders briefly, then slide down so that her red nipples would peak out at him.
He"d never seen anything so f.u.c.king erotic in his life.
He reached down, caught the hand she was using to play with herself and brought it to his mouth, licking it clean as he used his thumb to circle her c.l.i.t and urge her to o.r.g.a.s.m. She pouted and said, "My way. You make me come too fast."
"You"ve never come fast in your life, Erin," he said through gritted teeth, arching his back and driving his c.o.c.k up into her. She tried to pull off and he grabbed her thighs with steely hands, holding her still as he started to drive up inside her, staring into her face. "Mine, you"re mine. No man touches you, no man hurts you. I"ll destroy him."
She fell against him, sobbing as his c.o.c.k rammed against her cervix, his hands going to her a.s.s and pulling the cheeks apart. The foreign caress of air on her made her gasp and then she whimpered as he rolled his hips against her and started to come, his come pulsing deep inside her, setting her own o.r.g.a.s.m off. "Told you," he groaned when she was still coming around him, minutes later, long after he had emptied himself into her.
"Tell me everything, all of it, and tell me now," Seth said as they sat down over pizza. He had made her dress before he agreed to cook it, knowing he couldn"t cook a d.a.m.n thing with a naked Erin in the house. And since it would appear she really wasn"t crazy and her life was really at stake, he had to figure out what they were going to do.
"There"s not much to tell," she said as she sat down. Gingerly. She hurt. After having him pound into her more than half the night, why wouldn"t she? "I know him, somehow. But I can never see his face. And I won"t recognize him until it"s too late."
She took another bite and swallowed before she grinned at Seth. "I missed your cooking almost as much as I missed you," she told him.
He smiled halfheartedly, and wished he could enjoy the playful nature she was willing to show him now, but he couldn"t. He couldn"t even think about eating and she was already scarfing down her second piece. "How can you eat?"
She arched a brow. "I open my mouth, bite and chew. Then I swallow. It "s a pretty handy talent, but not all of us can do it," she replied, straight-faced.
Then she slid out of her chair and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him. Leaning her head on his chest, she cuddled against him, listening to the steady, soothing sound of his heart for a long moment before she said, "For the past year, I"ve had headaches, bad ones. I knew what it was. I saw a doctor, just to make sure, but it was just knowing what was coming. Stress, pressure, fear. I"ve felt like a thundercloud has been hanging over my head, and there was nothing I could do about it. I"m never hungry, I rarely sleep anymore. I never want to leave the house, and I can hardly focus on anything. I don"t feel safe, no matter where I go or what I do."
"But it feels like it"s gone now. I woke up this morning wrapped in your arms, felt you pressed up against me, and I felt safe. I felt protected. And not just while you were here, with me. I"ve got this feeling, inside my heart, and inside my head, that you can keep me safe. This gut fear started lessening the minute I gave you the disc," she told him, sliding her hands under his shirt and stroking the firm muscles of his back, rubbing her cheek against the vault of his chest. "You"re it, Seth. You"re what will get me through this."
"Even if I do get grabbed, you"re there. You"ll get me through this," she murmured, stroking her hands down his neck.
"I"m not letting a f.u.c.king murderer get his hands on you," he growled. "I"m putting a transmitter of my own on you. d.a.m.n it. This isn"t enough."
"Yes, it is."
Seth stole the transmitter. Late Monday, he waited until nightfall to go to her house, and he walked around back and came in through her kitchen window, where she sat drinking a gla.s.s of wine and reading a romance. He glared at her and said, "I"ve been reduced to stealing government property, you know."
She smiled beatifically at him and fluttered her lashes. "You"ve been dying to steal something again, you reformed rogue," she said. "How come you"re haunting my back door?"
Lowering his lids, he murmured, "You"ve no idea what I want to do to your back door."
Briefly, she looked blank and then she flushed, her eyes going gla.s.sy while the nipples under her shirt went tight and hard. He chuckled roughly before he said, "Habit. Don"t wanna keep the same routine."
She had been starving and had settled for some cold pizza but she was already hungry again. "Where are we going to put it?" she asked. She had hidden her purse again, and the radio was playing loudly to drown out their voices. She wouldn"t have been surprised if her house was bugged. Doubted it, but it wouldn"t have surprised her.
He flashed the pair of simple silver studs at her with a c.o.c.ky grin. "Us guys rarely notice a woman"s jewelry until you"re making us buy it," he told her. "These were added to the inventory by a cop chick-" he threw that in just to watch her eyes narrow. After so long of watching no emotion on her face, it stunned him to realize just how much she had hidden behind that cool mask and cooler eyes. He moved up to her, brushed her hair aside and fastened the studs in the upper holes of her lobes. "The right stud is the transmitter. If-" he blew out a breath and said, "When he takes you, try to lose the left one right away, then lose the right one in the car, or swallow it if you have to." He took his time smoothing her hair down, an unusual amount of time stroking it down her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
She slid him a look from under her lashes. "You"ve a fetish for my hair, don"t you?" she asked softly.
"If you only knew," he groaned. He gently urged her to her knees, watching her closely. "I"ve had entire fantasies spun around your hair, holding you like this, while you-yeah, that"s the one," he murmured as she undid his trousers and freed his c.o.c.k, taking his steely length in hand and closing her mouth over the tip while he wrapped the long length of her hair around his hand and wrist, using it to guide her movements.
She watched him, staring up the long length of his body through the fringe of her lashes, meeting his dark, hypnotic eyes as she slid her head down slowly, stroking the taut skin of his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es with her free hand while she ma.s.saged the base slowly and firmly in time with the downward strokes of her mouth.
Seth groaned roughly, fisting his hand tighter in the pale silk of her hair and pushed his c.o.c.k deeper, rocking forward on his heels, uncaring that the kitchen light was on, that the curtains hadn"t been drawn, that any-f.u.c.king-body could see. He clamped both hands around her head, staring down at her, into her soft blue eyes, watching as he pushed his dark, thick s.e.x between the rose of her lips, shuddering at the sight of her on her knees, staring hungrily up at him.
His c.o.c.k jerked and throbbed in the embrace of her mouth as he drove fast and rough into her, until his sac tightened and he exploded into the back of her throat.
He sagged and let himself go to his knees in front of her, laughing weakly. "You know, that"s one of the few times I"ve been able to finish an o.r.g.a.s.m without you drawing it out forever. Every time I come inside you-" he cupped his hand over her wet cleft and ground his heel against her, "you milk me dry and keep on going with those infinite, forever climaxes of yours."
He jerked her loose cotton pants down and turned her onto her knees, forcing her to bend forward. It opened her wet, glistening folds, exposed the pucker of her a.s.s. Seth groaned hungrily, pressed his thumb to the rosette and swore. He would have to wait for that-they had never done anything to prepare Erin for that, and they had none of what they needed.
"I need you," he rasped in apology, driving deep inside, gripping her hips and pushing forward. He reached out, hesitantly, wanting the touch he had felt when she had sifted through his mind and he found her, almost like she waited. The blood in his body seemed to boil as they sank into each other, their skin dissolving. He rode her body to the floor, rough and hard, hungry, as their minds and souls merged.
"Sorry? For needing me like I need you?" she whispered, twining her very soul with his as he pounded his c.o.c.k deep inside, the head b.u.t.ting against her womb until she was shrieking with the painful pleasure of it.
"I love you," he growled against her neck, arching his head around until their mouths met and he could drive his tongue deep inside her sweet mouth, down her throat. His long, powerful body bucked and surged inside hers helplessly as she responded in kind, directly into his mind, "I love you, Seth."
Erin shook her head as Seth tried to tell her he would come over that night. She absently stroked the earring in her left ear. They had checked it earlier that day, coming into work separately, she in her own car, Seth returning to his house alone, creeping out at dawn, through the back way, and catching a ride with Eddie. He had watched through the tracking device, checking and double checking.
Now they just had to wait.
"What"s the point if you are with me every second? Do you think he doesn"t know? We"ve checked for listening devices, but somehow, he knows," she murmured directly into Seth"s ear as he tried to find an argument. Of course, there wasn"t one.
So he retreated to his house alone. Slept fitfully. And when Erin didn"t come in to work the next morning he wanted to howl.
Chapter Six.
She was gone. Seth walked into the condo mid-morning the next day and felt the emptiness. The rookie a.s.signed to watch her was in the hospital. One of the tenants in another condo had found him while out running in the woods, the rookie unconscious and bloodied at the back of his head. Blunt force trauma. Like the b.u.t.t of a gun.
But it had been more than the rookie not checking in that had bothered Seth. Something was off. Erin was in trouble. Somehow, since they had gotten back together over the weekend, some sort of bond had been forged between them. He had never thought he would believe in psychic skill, or in magic. And maybe it was just the love, but there was some sort of bond, and he knew in his heart, that the killer had her.
His hands were shaking as he got the transmitter out of the briefcase he had started to carry. And a sick feeling settled in the pit of his belly. The transmitter wasn"t working. He shook it. Checked it. "Son of a f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!" he snarled, as he forced himself to carefully lay it down.
Even though he wanted to hurl it. If he did that, and smashed it, then he was f.u.c.ked. If he had to, then he"d get Eddie. Eddie could fix anything. But first- "Seth."
He felt her touch his mind and thought he"d sob with relief. But right after he felt her touch, he felt her pain. He stumbled and went down onto the ivory carpet in her living room, and saw the room through her eyes, where she was. "Sorry. I can"t focus well," she said as he seemed to flood her mind.
Red rage blossomed in his mind as he took inventory. The injuries were minor, for now. "He"s gone. He doesn"t think I"ll wake up for a little while," she told him silently as he counted each bruise. So far, all of them had been acquired during her abduction. Bruises from the long ride there in the trunk, abrasions on her wrists from the rope, a slap across her face when she had turned to face him in the kitchen of her apartment that morning. She had glimpsed his face, had felt his mind.
"Who in the f.u.c.k is it?" he demanded as he continued to work his way over her body. He jerked when his lips actually moved and was startled to realize he was actually alone in the room. The link was so complete he had forgotten, for a brief moment, she wasn"t there with him.
"Colton. It"s Colton. And it"s not me he"s focused on. It"s my mother...he"s been kidnapping my mother. He was obsessed with her."
"Be quiet," he said gruffly. "Where are you?"
"I don"t know. But I think I can bring you to me. Just follow me." He felt the shadow of a smile on her face, the pain it caused to arc through her head, and he cursed furiously. "I"ll be your compa.s.s. We"re bound together. That"s why I felt so safe when you came back and I just now figured it out. You"ll find me. We don"t need the transmitter or anything else. Just each other. Find me, Seth."
His car was still in the shop. So he did the practical thing. He stole the first car he came upon. It was a knack all cops had, but he had learned it even earlier. His mama had an iron fist, but he had slipped out of it from time to time, and had run wild in the streets. Hotwiring a car was child"s play. Following that odd lingering feel in the air that was Erin was even easier. He hit the highway and headed east to the lake.
She was strapped to the floor, each wrist to a ring chained to the floor. A drain was positioned right by her side and she shuddered as she eyed it. Each ankle was strapped down as well by leather cuffs strapped to heavy metal links and locked to more rings. Such a familiar picture.
The drain was to wash her blood away.
He"d pour bleach down it. And sulphuric acid. Nothing ever truly dissolved human blood but it was enough to wash away her DNA and keep them from linking her disappearance to him. a.s.suming anybody linked him to the crimes.
He wasn"t bargaining on Seth.
Of course, he wasn"t going to leave here alive.
But he was finished, either way.
"You"re awake."
The voice wasn"t the low menacing one it had been for the others. She rolled her head to the side and said, "Decide to stop playacting, Chief?" Her arms were stretched so tightly overhead it hurt, but she refused to show she was even uncomfortable. She had managed to lose the earring in the trunk, as Seth had told her, just by rubbing her head on her shoulder. Both of them were in there now. She hadn"t been able to locate either one by feel, so had been relieved when she had been able to reach out and touch Seth"s mind so completely.