Deadly Lover (24 page)

The cool night air brushed across their skin like an erotic caress, doing nothing to cool the urgency rushing them forward.

Lily couldn’t think straight. She could only feel the heat of his body pressed against hers. She let him guide her hand. The realization that he wanted her to touch herself only inflamed her already overheated body. His hand pressed her fingers against the closed folds between her legs building a slow, undeniable need for more.

He was so careful with her. Gentle but determined. Impatient and demanding, but unwilling to risk hurting her with his sharp claws. She had been hurt so often and in so many ways, she had never even entertained any thought that he wouldn’t hurt her. She’d allowed him to touch her knowing she could be hurt.

The motion of his hand on hers changed, working hers to press between the folds, to open her body to his demands. The erotic thrill of touching herself at his urging tightened something low in her belly. The first touch of her own finger against her swollen clit flashed sharp pleasure through her, bowing her body back against him.

“Again,” he growled. “Do it again.”

His fingers urged her to slip along the moist folds and stroke repeatedly across the sensitive spot. Her hips moved of their own will and his matched her rhythm.

“Inside.” He urged her hand farther down to slip into the slick channel where she needed to be filled, but her own finger wasn’t enough.

“Please,” she begged shamelessly.

A low rumble was his answer and the sudden withdrawal of his hands. She moaned at the loss of his touch, but then he was back and she could feel the hot length of his cock against her ass. He slipped between her legs, his broad tip bumping against her fingers where they still played between her legs. His rumbling groan vibrated along her neck as he raked his teeth across her pulse point then lifted his head away.

Jolaj ached to sink his teeth into the warm sweet curve of flesh where her neck and shoulder met. Lust and instinct warred with reason. He didn’t need to bite her. She’d already been exposed to the Ormney toxin she didn’t require the antitoxin in his saliva.

Resisting the temptation, he pushed her forward urging her face and shoulders down to the bedding. She had to put her hands out to catch herself as he pushed eagerly against the opening of her channel. He thrust tentatively at first then slowly but firmly thrust inside. Pushing past her body’s defenses.

Despite the slick wetness that readied her for his cock, getting inside her wasn’t easy. His size stretched her. She moaned and gasped, breathy sounds that sometimes seemed to indicate pleasure and at others may have meant discomfort, but he couldn’t stop until he was lodged firmly inside her. She yelped and rocked forward. He eased back, but moved with her not allowing her to draw away. He needed to giver time— Then she pressed back, pressing him deep inside.

How could he hope to be worthy of such a woman? She was strong and fierce and... so very damaged. Why did she let him inside when she had been so viciously attacked by one of his kind?

He wrapped himself around her and pressed his jaw to her temple. His chest rumbled softly with the contentment as he savored being inside her. His woman. In the distraction of experiencing her velvet heat gripping his cock, he let a growl escape the back of his throat.

The inhuman sound should have frightened her, but she arched her body and pushed back against him, letting him know she wanted more. Needed more. He needed more too. More of her heart and soul, more of her flesh and body.

He pushed at her top, baring her breasts. He traced his hands over them, brushing firmly against her nipples, then pulled her to him so that they knelt together. The scarred flesh of her belly beneath his palm reminded him to go slow as he’d promised. He had to avoid triggering her fear. Had to be careful not to hurt her in his eagerness.

He blew hotly against her cheek then closed his mouth onto her shoulder. Only the SafeSkin kept him from biting into her. The undeniable power of instinct and the mating urge pushed him to make sure she could feel the firm pressure of his jaw. She clenched around his cock in response and he started thrusting. Slow, deep, and hard. Wanting to fill her up with pleasure before he filled her up with his seed.

He moved her hand back in place between her legs and changed to quick thrusts that slapped against her, driving her clit against her own fingers, driving her hard toward release. He drove her through the first wave of her orgasm, dragging out the pleasure until he joined her. He reared back still keeping their bodies locked together as they moaned their satisfaction to the stars overhead.

Somehow, he promised himself, he would find a way to hold on to this woman.

Lily lay in Jolaj’s arms. Their clothes a heap beneath them. The jungle of rooftop plants blocked her view of the city around them, creating an illusion of secluded safety. Languid satisfaction turned her muscles to jelly and urged her to stay there all night.

She rolled onto her back and Jolaj moved with her to keep her firmly in the shelter of his embrace. Lying under the vast openness of the star lit sky with him seemed surreal. He didn’t even come from any of the constellations flickering and winking overhead. He came from a different universe, a parallel dimension, or some such crap she didn’t fully understand.

The world that had created him, shaped him, was inconceivable to her. Unreal.

But he was real.

The heat of him warmed her even in the chill night air. His big palm rested on her belly, spanning across the exposed surface. She squirmed at the reminder of the scars beneath his hand and tugged her top down across her breasts. She turned in his arms to face him and found him watching her intently with those Ormney eyes. His elliptical pupils were wide and near round in the darkness.

She let her gaze travel down the length of his bared body. He was a magnificent male. The glorious length of his hair lay trapped beneath him. Heavy muscle stretched across his chest and roped down his arms and thighs. She trailed her hand along the multicolored patterns that splashed lightly across his abdomen and watched the play of muscles bunch and flex beneath her palm. A handful of silvery scars shimmered grimly in the moonlight. She traced the tips of her fingers across one scar, close to his heart.

“You told me the role of Law Keeper was more like a priest than a cop. Why the scars?”

Jolaj captured her hand. “I wasn’t always a Law Keeper.” He pressed her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles then returned her hand to the center of his chest.

The muscled expanse of his chest begged to be stroked and she did, following every contour. She traced the tattoo that seemed to verify his statement about not always being a Law Keeper. A
slip
pattern similar to the one Kiq had taught her. Like the one she’d seen on Lanyak in the autopsy halo.

“This has something to do with why you’re so good at
slipping
,” she mused.

“Yes. But nothing to do with the scars.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I was recruited as a Searcher after serving as a Defender for two years.”

Lily had suspected he might have been a Searcher, but thinking of the courage required to
slip
into nothing, hoping to find a new world, awed her. Lily didn’t recognize the term Defender beyond the literal meaning of the word. She’d never heard of it as an Ormney role or classification.

“You became a Law Keeper after The Crossing?”

“Yes.”

It made sense. They wouldn’t have needed Searchers anymore after they found Earth. “What did you do as a Defender?”

“Not all Ormney chose The Way. As conditions worsened, some areas of our planet became lawless. Outlaws and organized raiding bands regularly attacked our territory. We protected the people from those threats.”

“I didn’t realize not all Ormney followed The Way.”

“Can you imagine every nation on your planet choosing the same path?”

“No. I guess I can’t.”

He was such a gentle man it was hard to imagine him as a Defender. A soldier. But she could easily imagine his sense of duty leading him to serve in any way his people needed. Lily let her fingers drift over to where his hand lay low on his belly. She stroked her hand across his, carefully avoiding the clawed tips. Jennifer Richardson had called Lanyak her gentle giant, but he hadn’t been gentle under the influence of the drug that had been used to turn him against her. “Lanyak was a Searcher too?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of his relationship with Jennifer?”

“I thought it ill advised, but I understood his need.” Jolaj slipped his hand from under hers then pushed her hand lower toward his erection. It had never fully subsided, but now it had hardened to tempting proportions. She wrapped her hand around him and stroked slowly. “The need to be held.” His breath caught on the words. “The need to be touched. It is a very...human...need, is it not?”

“Yes.”

He deliberately deepened his breathing as if he needed to focus to control his response to her touch. She studied his face as he watched her hand slide up and down in a firm caress. Stark need etched across his features even as he held himself tightly in check. Recklessly, she wanted to crash trough his control.

Her eyes still on his face she leaned over and circled the tip of his cock with her tongue. Her heart thrilled at the sight of his head thrown back in pleasure. A rumbly moan escaped the back of his throat as she slipped down taking as much of his cock in her mouth as she could manage. The tip quickly bumped the back of her throat and she held him there, relaxing her throat and swallowing against the firm luxurious length of him.

His hand tightened in her hair and urged her up. His hands on her waist easily lifted her astride him and urged her down. His cock slid tightly, deeply inside her eager sheath. She felt full. Full of his cock, full of him. His need, his desire filled the empty achy places inside her. His hands on her hips guiding her in a shallow rocking motion that stroked his cock across her most sensitive spot kept her connected to that need and to his gentle, unyielding spirit. Together they rode from the slow currents of pleasure to the wild swells of passion until they both lay boneless and sated.

As her body cooled in the night air, Lily snuggled closer to Jolaj. His warmth seeped into her muscles like expensive brandy chasing away her worries and regret. She resisted fatigue to trace her fingertips lazily down his torso—across the rippled stretch of his ribs to the taut plains of his abdomen.

Beneath her hand, muscles that should have been relaxed or tightening with response were instead taut as stone. The discovery made her draw her hand back as a weight crushed down on her chest.

He’d broken curfew. He’d broken the Council prohibition on sex with humans, but more important to Jolaj, he’d broken his own moral code. Lily was all too aware she wasn’t a potential mate in his eyes. Cold seeped through her, making her shiver. Giving in to temptation with her was probably some kind of sin. The sure knowledge that now or later he would regret what they’d done lodged like a cancer in her belly.

Knowing his rejection would come didn’t make it any easier in the moment he began to pull away. Tugging his clothes into place, he got to his feet and moved to the edge of the roof. He crouched there on the edge, studying the alley below.

Lily pulled on her own clothes and felt better, stronger, more grounded with the weight of her pulse pistol at her ribs and the familiar safety of her father’s coat.

She moved closer to where he crouched. “I’m going in now. You should get back to The Zone.”

“No.” He stood and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Jolaj—”

“The air is tainted with the scent of death.”

Lily’s heart skipped and skittered before she managed to pull the threads of her training back into place. “A rat in the alley, maybe?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Close?”

“It is faint, but yes. I think so.”

He began to blur and his voice echoed in the alley, urging her to wait there.

Like hell.

She spun in a circle, trying to spot him on an adjacent rooftop. Nothing. She leaned over the edge of the roof line and caught a movement in the shadows below. His familiar form stalked along the alley toward the front of the building. She took the emergency glide-pole down into the alley and reached for her pistol as she caught up with him at the main entrance.

He disappeared in a tingling rush. She keyed in to open the door and slipped inside. He was already there, waiting.

“It is a little stronger inside, but still faint.” He spoke as he moved quietly along the corridor. “The scent has escaped from one of the apartments to the corridor and then outside as the door was opened.”

Lily still didn’t smell it. She knew it could be anything. People died. Sometimes naturally. But they were both very aware that a death in The Mixer could also mean the killer had struck again. Most of the attacks had been within a few blocks of Lily’s apartment and the killer had probably used Simone Rawls’ com-unit to pull Lily into his twisted little games. She looked back to the door, wondering if the killer might still be close by.

“Do you think he just left the building?”

“No.” Jolaj’s attention fixed firmly on the stairs leading up to the second level. “The scent would have taken time to disperse this widely. And I heard nothing from the rooftop. No door closing, no footfalls nearby.”

Lily followed as Jolaj took the stairs at a steady, unhurried pace. She was alert but not worried.

Not until he led her directly to her own door.

On edge, mind racing, Lily checked the security measures on her apartment door. Brian had upgraded the circuits and programming and he was the best with anything programmable. No one should have been able to get inside.

Sean could have brought in one of Metro’s e-teams, but why and how would that lead to a dead body in her apartment. Bradley? Lily didn’t think he could hack her security without trashing it in the process. Unless he’d somehow rigged a bypass routine when he’d spent the night alone in her apartment. Damn. Could he have gotten inside then opened her door to a killer?