The Beholder (15 page)

He moaned as if in pain; then he moved his hands up under her coat, exploring. His palms found her breasts. She arched against him as he kneaded and teased her nipples through her bra until she thought she might scream.

She ran her hands over his large chest, learning the impenetrable hardness there.

His breathing grew rapid and shallow, his body trembling from holding back his desire. He growled in a wounded, out-of-control way. Then he cupped her
bottom with his hands. Before she knew it, he lifted her up off the ground and set her against a tree trunk. He began moving his erection against the sensitive flesh between her thighs.

She felt the material of her leggings bunch up inside her thighs, rubbing her in all the right places. She moaned softly and gave herself over to him, unable to think of anything but the waves of yearning he forced inside her.

“You feel too good,” he moaned, continuing to thrust his hips against her, driving her back against the tree trunk.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to his neck, feeling the friction of his hardness, moving faster, making her sigh with her own need.

He cried out, a deep, guttural wail. She felt him pulse against her once, twice; then he was still as death, panting, his breath like a furnace on her face. In fact, he had warmed her all over.

The fury of his passion had simmered, and he rested his head against the tree trunk above her and still held her penned against the tree. She could feel his whole body trembling. Nina clung to him, aware they had just shared sex fully clothed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was rough. It’s been too long.” He set her down gently, and she saw a wet spot darkening the crotch of his jeans.

Her knees felt wobbly, and she had to lean against the tree to steady herself. “The rough part wasn’t bad. Maybe a little hurried, though.” She touched his cheek.

He pulled away from her. A coldness settled over his
features, and she knew she had lost him emotionally. Their intimacy was quickly being drained away by his wall of aloofness. In an attempt to reach him again, she tried to stand on her toes and kiss him.

“No, Nina.” He stepped back, looking at her as if he couldn’t decide whether to grab her again or get as far away as possible. “What just happened shouldn’t have. You charmed me and made me do it.”

Nina blinked up at him, his rejection stabbing her worse than a blade. “Oh, so now you’re blaming it on my power.” She heard the hurt bubbling up in her own voice.

“What else was it?”

“For your information, I’ve never had anyone or anything drawn to me sexually like that. Creatures want to be near me because they trust me. They don’t want to mate with me.” She jammed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“Then it must be only carnal lust on my part. I’ve been celibate too long.”

“Well, then you better go pull another prisoner from your harem.” She wheeled around to leave.

He caught her shoulder and stopped her. “Why’d you lie to me? You knew he’d been here.”

“I didn’t tell you for this very reason.” She waved an angry hand toward his wounds. She noticed his shoulder was bleeding again. Abruptly she felt embarrassed and guilt-ridden and hurt by his sudden coldness.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said. “You should be more worried about yourself.”

“You’re right, I should.” She knocked his hand away
and ran back down the path. “And don’t ever touch me again.”

“Nina!” His bellow echoed through the woods like a shotgun blast.

But she kept wading through the snow. She got in a parting shot and yelled over her shoulder, “And don’t speak to me again unless you shift. Your beast is so much more likable than you.” She rarely lost her temper. It felt great to yell at him—to yell at anyone.

Pig-headed man that he was. He’d just denied wanting her, but she knew he desired her; she had felt his lust. In fact, she felt the intense untamed need within him to feel stroked and desired by her. She had wanted to make him admit as much. But she had her pride, and he’d stomped on it. She hadn’t been prepared for the rejection or the sharp pain in her heart that it had caused.

When she reached the cabin, she ran to the bedroom and locked herself inside, berating herself for being so openly demonstrative and wearing her heart on her sleeve. He was a brute, a beast, not worth caring about. She buried her face in a pillow and sobbed in earnest.

Kane marched into the house, cursing his weakness around her. She had shut the bedroom door, and he paused there. With his acute hearing, he listened to muffled crying. He took a step toward the door, then froze, his fists clenching. Oh, God, he’d never wanted to hurt her. Never wanted to feel indebted to her for saving his life, to witness her caring side. He hadn’t wanted to lose control and take her like an animal, but he had. He didn’t want any of this. Yet not comforting her was
the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. But if he went to her now, he’d soothe her, and that would lead to full-blown, in-the-raw sex. After that one little taste of her, he felt frustrated, unsatisfied and still throbbing for her. He had to admit he’d never get his fill of Nina Rainwater. He had to control this lust, or it would open up a Pandora’s box.

And one thing he couldn’t understand was why she had said she preferred his beast to him. Talk about a blow. She had no idea what he could unleash on her. She’d never find out, either. No, he’d vowed never to let himself get close enough to a woman to repeat the same mistake he’d made with Daphne. Nina was his prisoner, nothing more. And damn it, she was going to stay that way.

And part of his losing control was her fault. Why hadn’t she pulled away from him like she was supposed to, like she’d done in the past? No, she’d gone running into his arms. He’d never forget her face as she’d done it, either. The concern he’d seen there was real. No way she could have faked the frantic look in her eyes, that look of concern.

He’d seen it in Daphne’s eyes. No matter how bitter and disappointed she had become at not giving him children, her gaze had always softened when she had looked at him. And that’s what still haunted him. That trusting gaze. Had she looked at him that way before he’d torn her to pieces? In his nightmares, Daphne’s expression tortured him night after night. He’d wake up right before he bit her, sweating, gasping, the image of Daphne’s trusting face burned into his psyche. And
when he’d seen that same expression on Nina’s face before he kissed her and lost all his self-control, it had driven him to the brink. That’s when Nina had tried to respond to him again. Daphne’s face had flashed in his mind, and he’d had the good sense to push Nina away. She had looked so open and hurt and betrayed, eyes glistening with tears. He thought he’d felt all the torment he could, but having seen her expression and hearing her cry now was ten thousand times worse. He couldn’t let himself go down that path again. Not with someone as sensitive and vulnerable as Nina Rainwater. He couldn’t. He had to make her loathe him. That shouldn’t be too hard.

He walked into the kitchen, his shoulder and arm burning, along with a lower body part. He could smell Nina all over him, tormenting him. He went to the Jeep, found a pair of clean jeans and a shirt he’d packed, then took a cold sponge bath. He cleaned his wounds, applied pressure to his shoulder. When the bleeding stopped, he bandaged it himself. Then he dressed.

His thoughts strayed back to her as he yanked a bottle of wine out of the rack and broke it on the counter. Chunks of glass shot out all over the kitchen. He tipped it up and drank from the jagged edge. He needed to numb his mind to her. The merlot tasted bitter and sour, but he chugged it anyway.

N
ina woke, her mouth wet with drool. She had fallen asleep with her face in the pillow and Daphne’s coat still on. Darkness covered the bedroom. What time was it? It felt like the middle of the night. And it was freezing, too, not an ounce of warmth in the room.

She pulled a quilt off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Through the small window, she stared at the moon. The glowing globe shot an eerie shimmering gray over the snow. Shadows darkened the most recent trail of footprints she and Kane had left in the snow. The humiliation of finding him burned through her all over again. But she couldn’t stay in this room. She was starving, thirsty and cold.

She grimaced and felt her way to the door. Complete silence made the cabin sound like a tomb. The generator
>had stopped running outside. She sensed Kane inside, but where was he?

Earlier she’d heard thumps or loud crashes, like glass breaking. But she refused to open her door and find out what Kane was doing and went right back to sleep. Not that a locked door would have kept him out if he had wanted to come into the bedroom. But it had established her territory, and being part feral creature that he was, he’d respected that. Thank goodness.

It had given her time to nurse her wounds and smother any delusions she might have harbored of caring about him. She also had a plan for ditching Kane and tracking his brother that she would implement in the morning—if he was asleep. She had only let him believe she was his prisoner to make sure he was okay. Well, he seemed fit enough if he could go tramping in the woods after his brother, and she was done worrying about him.

She straightened her spine, summoning her courage, then eased open the door and peeked out into the living room.

Empty, save for the hiss of the fire. He’d thrown logs on the grate some time ago, and they were slow-burning embers now, casting flickering shadows over the empty couch. She heard a chair creaking from his weight in the kitchen, the very room that held food.

She cursed her luck. She had hoped he’d be asleep. She heard the scratch of rough material sliding against material, then a thump, thump. What was he doing?

Candlelight flickered from the kitchen, so he wasn’t in total darkness. It probably wouldn’t matter if he was, with his acute sense of sight. She wished her powers
had come with some kind of superhuman physical strengths.

She inhaled deeply and grabbed a candle from the fireplace mantel, lit it as quietly as she could, then padded into the kitchen. She knew he had heard her because the thumping had stopped. Gingerly she walked into the kitchen, the candle held high. When she saw him, she stopped.

Three broken wine bottles gleamed on the table near him. They lay on their sides, empty. He sat in a chair with two hiking backpacks at his feet, stuffing a sleeping bag in one of them. His eyes glistened in the light like sharp pieces of jade, his expression menacing, deep frown wrinkles creasing his brow. An air of wary aggressiveness hovered about him, as if she were his enemy and he was contemplating her every move. He had never looked more dangerous.

For a moment she only eyed him. He seemed wired; his body had grown rigid the instant she had walked into the room. His piercing gaze stayed on her.

“You’re up.” His deep bass voice broke the frigid silence.

“Yes.”

“You’re wearing her clothes.” His eyes slowly traveled the length of her body, taking in the jeans and jacket beneath the blanket around her shoulders.

When his eyes settled on her breasts, she felt her face redden. Their last encounter became a vivid rewind, and she felt his hot mouth on hers and his large hands exploring her body. With agonizing slowness and clarity, every frame moved through her mind. She recalled what
happened afterward, how he’d hurt her. Thankfully that wiped the explicit images from her mind. She pointed to the rolled-up cuffs of the jacket to distract his roving eyes and said, “A little long.”

He merely grunted, his gaze still eating her alive.

It was so intense she felt her skin prickling and tingling. “Why are you still up?” she asked, forcing a bored tone into her words. “Can’t sleep.”

Most people looked really bad when they didn’t get any sleep, bags under the eyes, sunken cheeks, dazed sleepwalking look. Not him. His eyes were sharp green glass. His five o’clock shadow had darkened on his chin. His golden hair fell down to his shoulders in waves. And oh, boy, he looked good, even more handsome. She just wished he’d stop staring at her like she was a tasty morsel he was about to crunch down on. He had no right, after pulling away from her.

“What are you doing?” she asked tersely.

“Packing. We’re finding Ethan.”

She hadn’t expected this turn of events, and her mouth dropped open. So much for her plan. She had hoped to find him asleep and tie him up, but that wasn’t going to happen. When she could speak again, she said, “But your wounds.”

“I have found a great painkiller.” He motioned to the broken bottles.

“But the Jeep is snowed in.”

“We’re going on foot.”

“There’s fifteen inches of snow out there.” She jabbed a finger toward the window.

“He won’t expect us to be on foot, and we might have the element of surprise.”

She set down the candle on the counter and said, “This is crazy. We’ll both be sitting ducks. He could kill us at any time.”

“He won’t hurt you as long as you’re with me.”

“What if I’m not with you?” She jammed her arms on her hips.

“You will be.”

“You’re assuming an awful lot.”

He leaped up, stepping over the backpack, his height and size dwarfing her. He wasn’t favoring his wounded shoulder. The wine must have worked its magic. He didn’t even look tired, or tipsy, only arrogant and smug and willfully capable of anything. “It’s not an assumption,” he said, his voice soft with threat.

A tremor shook her. She smelled wine on his breath, mixing with his own feral musk, and she had a hard time concentrating. She couldn’t meet his eyes and not want to touch him, so she stared at his burly chest. At least he was wearing a shirt, a clean blue flannel. Golden chest hair peeked above the top two open buttons. She remembered running her hands over his chest—
get a grip, will you?

She counted the buttons on his shirt, six, and cleared her mind enough to say, “Whatever it is, I don’t appreciate being bullied. But I guess you can’t help being like that, now can you? A leopard never loses his spots.” She was surprised at the calm evenness in her voice. “And don’t think for one minute that what happened between us gives you the right to make decisions concerning
my life. I’m going because I agreed to help you—” and she needed to destroy his brother “—but it’s not because you’re ordering me to go. And you were right, our little interlude shouldn’t have happened. It was a big mistake.” She thrust out her arms wide, showing him just how large a blunder it was. She hoped that gave him something to chew on. See how he liked getting some of his own medicine back.