Forged: The World of Nightwalkers (5 page)

She’d fantasized about mainlining it, hooking up an
IV to get it straight into her bloodstream like any good junkie would desire, but alas, via stomach was the only delivery method to be had, her medical expertise notwithstanding.

Speaking of medical expertise, it was nice to know she still had it. It had been five years since her tenure as a physician’s assistant in one of Manhattan’s busiest ERs. Like any skill, it was easy to lose one’s knack for it. And while she couldn’t say she was up on the latest methods of doing things, she was content to know that she knew enough to get by.

She pushed away any other ruminations about her skills and where she had last practiced them, ghosts too easily stirred up whispering mockingly in the back of her brain.

“Five years. You’re a whole new you now,” she said softly to herself, soothing herself with the mantra. Sometimes it worked. This was one of those times, but probably only because she had much bigger fish to fry.

And no sooner had she thought that thought than the naked behemoth himself came stumbling down the hallway, lurching from side to side like a drunkard, the light of a fever burning in his eyes.

“Is it night?” he croaked. When she didn’t answer fast enough he reached for her and slammed her up against the wall with a bone-jarring thud. After working in a city ER for years she had seen this a hundred times, a patient waking up disoriented and aggressive. Just the same, there were no orderlies or security guards there to bring him down. It was just her. Little ol’ her. “Answer!”

“No! It’s daylight and you need to be back in bed before you rip those stitches!” Everything about him screamed of a superhuman man. His temperament was still up in the air, but everything about him reeked of dangerous power.

Not to mention nudity. A state he didn’t seem to notice
at all. And being a former trauma nurse, she shouldn’t be noticing, either, but it was kind of the elephant in the room. Elephant meant in more ways than one. There was nothing at all small about the man. His wife, if he had one, had to be an equally big girl. Kat couldn’t begin to imagine being on the other end of someone so big in so many ways. It was one time where she was happy to admit she was way too small to even consider tackling that particular mountain.

She turned her voice soft and coaxing. “Come,” she said gently, her hand running soothingly down one of the forearms trapping her against the wall. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He scoffed. “There’s very li’le that can hurt me.”

But she could tell he was struggling to remain upright, his brawny body shaking in fine tremors at first then expanding into harder ones. “Please come lay down in bed for me and rest. It’s not like you can go anywhere with a storm closing in.”

He growled and gave her a shake. “Offer me bed one more time, wench, and I’ll be taking you with me.” He leaned in close, his nose touching her temple as he snuffled against her rather like her bear of a dog might do. “You smell very tempting, but as li’le as you are I wouldna risk it if I were you. I’ll no’ be an easy lover.” His voice dropped an octave. “I like to grab at my lass, dragging her tight again’ me, and devouring her smells and tastes before I even think about fucking her to within an inch of her life … but maybe, even as small as you are, you’re wanting to be devoured like that?”

Oh yes, please!
part of her cried suddenly.
Wait. No!
her saner thoughts prevailed. She shook off the momentary melting craving his sensual threats caused, the bold words having jump-started her brain into illicit musings.
There will be none of that
, she told herself sternly.

Right before he ran a hand up her ribs and completely embraced her breast with palm and fingers.

She yelped, grabbed his hand, and smacked it away.

He growled impatiently. “First you offer me bed, then you push me away. Quit your teasing, woman.”

“I am not teasing! I only meant—” She huffed out a breath, realizing she was trembling just as powerfully as he was, and she told herself it was from fear and not because he’d just weakened every bone in her primitive body.

“There will be n-no wenching tonight,” she stammered as firmly as she could, pushing at the massive wall of man with an ineffectual palm against his chest. There was some sort of raised burn on his chest, something long healed but purposeful in shape … as though he’d been branded. Two snakes, wrapped around a dagger in an infinite figure eight, each snake seemingly devouring the tail of the snake before it in what seemed to be a never-ending cycle. The heavily defined and branded pectoral muscle jumped, ostensibly at her touch. Like a kid seeing something fascinating and new, she wanted to repeat her action just so she could see the reaction once more. Truth be told, there was a wave of virility pounding off him, catching her in the surf of it, dragging her around like a helpless child at the beach. But there was nothing at all childlike about the heat his words sent snaking through her.

Kat worked her mouth into a harsh line and looked him dead in the eye.
Who the hell used the term wench anymore anyway?
she thought, trying to bolster her sternness. “You are going back to bed,
alone
, to rest! Doctor’s orders! You’ve lost a lot of blood and—”

And right on cue he listed dangerously forward, nearly squashing her up against the wall like a bug as all his weight pushed into her. But he recovered quickly and drew away from her, taking a moment to dust her
off and check her for signs of life. It was little things like that, little thoughtful kindnesses, that kept her thinking he was not a bad man, whatever his treatment of her thus far.

“Perhaps you are correct,” he said, still sounding as though he’d lurched out of the Middle Ages. But for all she knew he had. “I’ll be taking a rest, in spite of the insufficiency of your bed.”

In spite of what now?

Instantly she became pissed off. “Hey, my bed is just fine. It’s not its fault that you’re abnormally gigantic! Just be glad I didn’t leave you in the brush to die!”

He frowned then and suddenly there was clarity in his eyes. “Yes.” His hand went to his wounded side, his fingers running over her stitching. “I’ll be thanking you for that,” he said. “I think I’ll be requiring your help further,” he said politely, indicating his unsteadiness. Mollified, she stepped under his arm and, again, despite their disparate heights she managed to help him back into bed. But man, was she going to feel it tomorrow when her muscles began to complain about the serious heavy lifting she’d done in such a short amount of time. And without a sufficient warm-up!

After she got him in bed, she finally pulled out her phone and called her mother.

And got her voicemail. Lovely.

Beep!
“Hey Mom. It’s me. It’s really—” Crackle. Crackle. Click. “Important that you call me,” she finished with a sigh even though it was very clear the line had gone dead. “Oh crap!” she exclaimed suddenly, running to the window and, sure enough, there was the reason her cell service sucked. A heavy fall of snow was whooshing around outside. She noticed the creaking of the house for the first time and the wailing of the sudden winds. It had blown up fast and hard, but no one could blame her
for not noticing under the circumstances. “Oh crap!” she said again suddenly.

It was obvious her guest had a fever. His gaping wound had been exposed to God knows what and he could easily go septic if he didn’t get some strong antibiotics.

Kat ran to the master suite bathroom and started tearing through her medicine cabinet and the under cabinets, even though she knew she was a good girl who always took all her medication right down to the very last pill. But who knew? Maybe she’d been a rebel just once. Of course her rebel days had ended quite abruptly years ago, and any medication from back then would be expired, but it was better than nothing.

Nothing. She found absolutely nothing. A deep groan wafted into the bathroom from the bedroom, a punctuation to her failure. She hurried into the next room and up to the bed. Sure enough, her bed was creaking as he thrashed about, sweating up a storm. God, it had set in quickly. Or maybe not. Who knew how long he’d been lying out there. She hadn’t brought Karma that far down the drive in days. The only reason she’d even gotten that far today was because her mother’s dismay over a cell tower—one that wasn’t working, by the way—had distracted her.

Apparently standing there at his bedside thinking was a bad game plan. A tremendous paw of a hand suddenly swiped out for her and yanked her off her feet, her body flying over his and her back hitting the bed. Her breath left her in a hard whoosh of sound.

“You again?” he growled as he rolled atop her, his hand wrenching her legs apart to make way for himself. He was so strong and she was so taken by surprise she hadn’t had a hope of fighting him. Once again she found his face buried deep at her neck as he took a deep breath in through his nose. “God Almighty in the blue sky above you smell good enough tae eat.”

“No! No,” she cried. “No eating! There will be
no
eating!”

She wriggled under him, trying to push him off her, even though she knew it’d be like a flea bouncing against a dog to try to change his direction.

“Oh, there will be eating,” he countered, his voice lowering to an even deeper timber than his already rich tones. “And licking and sucking and quite a bit more than that, my bonny lass.”

This whole time she’d been trying to place his accent. She’d never been very good at that, but in that moment, when he called her a bonny lass, she realized he was a Scot. Ooo, she thought,
Scots are sexy. Gerard Butler is a Scot and God he is sexy
.

But Gerard Butler was half this thing’s size and she couldn’t afford to think he was sexy. Even if she kind of did. Maybe he was only part Scottish. His accent wasn’t always so thick, and sometimes, when he was truly lucid, it faded to a much lighter version of itself. Just like his civility seemed to appear in those more lucid moments.

“No,” she said more firmly this time, “you will not eat me.” Then she realized what she’d said and she colored hotly. “I don’t even know you. And I don’t want you to … to do anything to me. I want you to let me up.”

“If you dinna want me, lass, then why do you no’ stay away? Why do you keep coming tae my bedroom smelling like sweetness and sex?”

“I-I don’t … sweetness and sex?” she asked, getting distracted from her goal.

“Aye,” he rumbled, that low voice trebling into her in a stimulating vibration. “As if you’d poured sugar over your nether bits and are wanting me tae lick it up.”

Okay, now the heat coming off her face could warm the polar ice cap. It was quickly matched by the heat suddenly radiating from those aforementioned nether bits. Not to mention she’d gone decidedly wet.

“Come now,” he purred coaxingly, his golden gaze falling to her mouth. “One wee kiss. It canna hurt you.”

“One wee kiss?” she echoed, flabbergasted that he would think there could be anything “wee” about him.

“Done!” he said, taking her stunned echo as permission.

“Oh no, I—”

He swooped down and caught up her mouth with his, her protestations muffled into silence. His mouth was hot and demanding, just like the rest of him. He commanded the kiss, crushing anything she might do to resist or gainsay him. He pressed the heat of it onto her until she melted and relaxed into it.
It’s one kiss
, she thought.
What harm can one kiss do?
He felt the change come over her and pressed his advantage instantly. He thrust his tongue forward against her, licking the trembling seam of her lips. It was a blatant knock at her door and she was torn between instinctively knowing this was a bad idea and instinctively knowing it was going to be the hottest kiss of her life.
There was once a time
, she thought,
when you would have grabbed something like this with both hands and cried Woo-hoo!

She opened her lips and he dove right in, commanding and fierce. The wet stroke of his tongue in her mouth released an equally wet flood of heat bleeding into her from every which way. His hands came up to bracket her head, only his elbows holding the full press of his weight off her. But that didn’t matter to her right then. Because, right then, she was having her socks blown off by the deepest, hottest, richest kiss of her life.

When he finally pulled back a minute distance to give her time to catch her breath, she realized she was panting for it. For breath … and for another life-searing kiss. He was so hot along the length of her body, like a furnace turned up high, and he was so … hard.

Holy crap! He was naked and the sudden hardness
pressing against her between her legs was most decidedly the most enormous erection ever known to man. And that’s when reality slammed into her. She was too small and weak to fight him off if he got it in his head that he wanted more than a kiss and was going to just take that as well.

And you will not think about how much you might enjoy that
, she warned herself harshly.
You will realize just how scary the concept ought to be and act accordingly terrified
. And the other thing, the heat of his body was deepening and she wasn’t arrogant enough to think that had anything to do with her.

“Okay, let me up now,” she said. “You’ve had your kiss, now let me up.”

“Oh, but you’re no’ really wanting me tae go,” he wheedled. “Look at your wee nipples.” He rose up enough to put a hand between them, letting him cup her breast through her cotton shirt, his fingers brushing eagerly over the point of her hardened nipple. “They’re begging for a suckle, now aren’t they?”

“No!” she said, flustered. “They are begging for nothing of the kind!”

“Then what are they begging for?” he countered, a sly smile crossing his lips and feverish gold eyes.

“There’s no begging. No begging at all!”

“Liar,” he countered, brushing his fingers over her nipple again. “If this isna the prettiest of beggars, I doona know what is. Let me see the wee thing and then we’ll decide.”

He reached for the bottom hem of her shirt and she squeaked in panic. She grabbed his wrist and tried to stop him, but all she managed was to slow him down to a slow drag as he caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it upward.