Tiger Bound (25 page)

He shook his head, a barely discernible motion. Not rejection—she knew it as she knew her own self.

Fear.
He threw it at her in his desperate attempt to explain—for he was beyond the words that had never come easily to him.

She understood perfectly. It shouldn’t be like this—not the fugues he had endured, not this massive swell of never-channeled energy. Not the pain of blocked channels, finally challenged.

Or maybe she hadn’t understood at all. For as Katie’s touch brought on another surge of desire, Maks dug his fingers into the chunky orange-brown bark of the pine and managed hoarsely, “Can’t...keep you...
safe.
”

She moved closer, sliding her hand around his ribs from behind; she lay her cheek against his back, feeling the tremendous struggle of will and body.

“Maybe that’s my job,” she said. “I’m the healer, Maks. I’m the one who can make this work.” Her other hand slid between them, skimming down his body, scraping nails lightly against the denim between her touch and the back of his thigh. His leg trembled; he made a sound deep in his throat. She tucked herself up closer, running her other hand over his chest, finding the smattering of pale chest hair. He sucked in a breath and the reaching power surged higher, a rushing noise in her ears. She told him, “I’m the one who
wants
to make this work, because I want you. I want you so badly it scares the hell out of me. Don’t you dare think of this as a
project.
”

The way he stiffened had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with the energies battering at him, seeking release. The sound he made then came of a different kind of desperation—and the fear she felt from him was now a different kind of fear.

And oh, she didn’t blame him at all. The power gathering inside him was nothing she’d ever felt before—nothing anyone should ever have to feel. There was a
reason
for initiation, a reason it was crucial...a reason they’d tried it for Maks, never guessing that his scrambled maturation would leave him not more settled, but less. So very vulnerable, with the unchanneled energies tangled and echoing and waiting for a chink in his formidable armor.

“Ssh, Maks. It’ll get better.”
She hoped.
“It’ll get better. Think about me. Think about what you did to me out on the porch, the way you made me feel...” She brought one hand up the back of his thigh, dipping between his legs from behind; she brought the other down straining abs to trace along the inside of his waistband. His head dropped back; bark flaked away under his fingers. The sight of him, the feel of him, the echo of his internal energies, swirling against her own...it hummed through her in a promise so strong she nearly tore the jeans open, nearly went for him right then and there.

Instead, humming, she licked his skin, warm and salty, right along his spine. “
Please,
Maks...”

She could survive the consequences if he didn’t complete his first, partial initiation to join with her now. She would ache, and she would feel bereft, and she would never be the same, but she’d survive.

But Maks wouldn’t. Not for much longer.

“Please,” she whispered. “For me.” Shameless, playing on his body...playing on his lifelong need to protect. Her hand slipped inside his jeans—and she froze when she realized there was nothing between her skin and his.

Maks jerked in response, and he snarled, and he turned so fast she didn’t see it coming. By the time her body protested the loss of his, he was fisting his hand in her hair, wrapping one arm around her to cup her bottom and
lift.
She didn’t think twice before wrapping her legs around him. He shoved her back against the tree, and by then he was kissing her—growling and kissing her, every plunge of his tongue in her mouth echoed by a jerk of his hips, energies reaching...reaching...shot through with pain that brushed against her without affecting her, all her careful intentions shot to hell as she pushed back against him. Her fingers clenched around his arms, his shoulders, his neck; her body spiraled way past control and straight to—

She cried out with the surprise of it, all hot and sweetly abrupt, and came back to herself with her heels digging into Maks’s muscled ass and her shirt pulling up under her breasts. Maks sank to the ground, taking her with him. Finally he rested on his knees—still kissing her, his face buried in the hair at her neck, his teeth nipping as often as not.

“All the way, Maks,” she said, almost too breathless for words as she groped between them, hunting the second button of his jeans.

Way too much work.
She shoved him, hard and demanding—he went sprawling, his legs awkward, and she rode him down, her knees making contact with the pine-needle carpet. The moment he landed, she rose up and went after his pants.

She threw back her head and cried out with the relief of it as they slid together—as Maks gasped, his eyes gone dark and distant and his hands clutching convulsively at her hips. But his second cry came of pain, and his distant gaze grew wild, and even as she bent over to reassure him, he cried out again. His hands left her body to clutch at the ground, and his hips rising under hers were arched in agony and no longer in pleasure.

“Maks—
Maks,
” she said, stroking back his hair, stroking along his arms and chest. “Ssh, Maks, be with
me,
Maks—” as if she said his name often enough, he might hear it.

But Maks heard nothing, twisting under her in an awful parody of the delight this moment should bring him, his eyes wild with the tiger’s primal, furious fear.

* * *

Nick Carter sliced through the brevis lap pool with a vengeance—hard, efficient strokes that pulled him through the water at speed. And though his wolf hated swimming—hated the feel of it, the buoyancy of it, the insidious invasion of nose and ears and mouth—this afternoon the water felt like silk, caressing and soft. It put him in mind of Jet’s hands—the wicked mood, where he knew he’d pay for gentleness with unpredictable ferocity and demand. Jet of the truly wild nature, untamed by the Core and untamed by her time with Nick and with brevis. Jet with her unabashedly direct sexuality, beautifully athletic body—

Nick snorted out a mistimed breath, slung his head free of water, and planted his feet at the bottom of the waist-deep lap pool.

Mercy for him that the water wasn’t any lower against his body.

What the hell—?

The pool room’s metal door clanged shut. Nick sluiced the remaining water from his eyes and found Annorah standing at the end of the lap lane with a towel in hand.

“Saddle up,” she said, and tossed the towel at him, taking for granted that he’d pluck it out of the air before it hit either the water or his face. “We got trouble. Or haven’t you caught on yet—” She interrupted herself, her head tipped a bit to the side, and a bit upward, and snapped, “I know, already! Quit tying up my head!”

Nick wiped his face dry, gave a token scrub of the towel over his hair and wrapped the soft white terry around his neck. Annorah’s fluster and flush had his attention like little else could. She’d come a long way since the spectacular failure in the field that had left Maks, Ruger and their team in critical condition and nearly resulted in Joe Ryan’s death...but she’d also always been a rock when it came to this part of her work.

Apparently, not today. She shifted uneasily—uncomfortably?—her sable hair in the kind of disarray that meant she’d been poking at her own head, and that meant plenty of action. Nick gave his cell phone—over in one of the locker-like cubbies with his keys—a quick glance.

“Don’t even bother listening to that pile-up of voice mails,” Annorah told him, hands on hips. “They all say the same thing, I can guarantee it.”

Suddenly he understood—her demeanor, his own thoughts...the reason he wouldn’t quite haul himself out of this pool to check his cell phone after all.

“Initiation,” he said dryly, his hands tightening on the towel with reason. “One hell of an initiation. There’s a reason we schedule these things. Does anyone know who—?”

“It’s Maks,” she confirmed, seeing the understanding on his face. “But it
can’t
be.”

What the hell was going on up there?
And how had he so misjudged the decision to bring Maks back into the field? He struggled with thoughts thick under the influence of heat and sex and heavy, thumping desire. “Can you reach Katie?”

Annorah shook her head. “She’s the only Sentinel up there besides Maks, so I expect she’s very, very busy.”

Nick pressed the towel against his brow with the heel of his hand.
Hell.
It made no sense. And if this impossible initiation went sideways, it was going to go sideways in a big, big way.

“Nick—” Annorah said, her tone both pleading and pushy.

“I know,” he said grimly. “But I can’t get that team up there any faster than they’re already going. Katie will have to handle this.”

Annorah’s expression said what she thought of
that
clearly enough—protective of Maks, not trusting the unfamiliar Sentinel who had most likely triggered this situation in the first place.

Because it took a trigger. Even when planned, it took a trigger.

“Meanwhile,” Nick said, somewhat darkly, “don’t open any closet doors without knocking first.”

“No kidding,” Annorah muttered, shifting uncomfortably again. “Or enter any offices, or use the elevator...”

The pool room door slammed open again, this time with somewhat more force—and there stood Jet, short ruffled black hair and golden eyes, barefooted beneath the drawstring crop pants and jersey-cut T over magnificently straight, strong shoulders. “Nick!” she said, and her frown was partly question, part demand.

No, Nick had no intention of getting out of the water. “Close that door on your way out,” he told Annorah. “And lock it.”

Chapter 18

P
ower thundered in Maks’s head, pounded through his body—a raw, scraping sensation, twisting around nerves and wrapping through his torso. Deeply, deeply, a distant pleasure lingered; just as distantly, a broken voice cried for his attention.
BE, Maks—

Oh, Maks
was.
Maks was pain and thundering hunger, spiraling energies and a dangerous, dangerous rise of uncontrollable powers. He fought it with every bit of his strength and will, the tiger rising wild and fierce—and underneath it all emerged a wrenching fear—the awareness that he couldn’t win, and he couldn’t withstand, and he wasn’t alone and he couldn’t keep Katie safe from this.

He barely felt her lips brushing his face or her reassurances brushing his ears. The pleasure of their connection—her weight centered over his hips, her body surrounding his, her legs twining back to hook behind his thighs—touched him only through the veil of battering pain.

He cried out in protest, his body arching, panting...tiring. Her hands landed at his shoulders, holding him down—or trying to.

Be with
me,
Maks.
The whisper came in through his mind, now, persistent and growing louder.
Be...with...
me!

Katie. Katie sprinting across the yard, fleet and graceful. Katie laughing beneath the pines, hair in disarray and tools in hand. Katie advancing on Roger Akins, gentle nature turned to her own special ferocity.

Katie on his lap, body trembling with pleasure, expression vulnerable and honest and just plain coming undone.

“Katie...”
he said—if just barely.

She was right there, her hair brushing his face, lips brushing his mouth, broken whisper brushing his ears. “Be with me, Maks.”

“Can’t—” he said, so tired, shards of fire jerking through his body—his body, jerking in response.

She kissed his face, his mouth, his brow. “Can,” she told him. “
Listen
to me.”

He strained to listen, to hear, but found nothing—until he started listening not with his ears, but with his inner self. There, he found her—the first, distant waves of gentle peace, lapping over the pain.

Katie, the healer.

“You see?” she said. “With
me.
Not alone.”

Katie touching him...
touching him...

Maks groaned, and this time it wasn’t pain at all. He released the ground to shove his fingers in her hair, angling her head to take her mouth—and all the while she was touching him,
touching him...

He gasped, and this time it wasn’t pain at all. He skimmed his hands over her, finding curves and soft skin and settling at her hips, and he drove into her with a sudden purpose. This time they cried out together, and the twistingly sweet spiral of tension and pleasure rising to share itself between them—Katie’s sensation of being filled mingling with the very male experience of being enclosed, hard muscle against soft skin, Katie’s breath gusting out along Maks’s neck—and the same heat, the same pull, the same liquid rush of—

Reaching...reaching...

The energy surged within Maks, took root within Katie. It pushed at his edges, filling him—the pain driven away by pleasure, the rising power churning and shoving and finding its way, spilling over to fuel the drive, the need, the physical yearning—

Two bodies gasping in accord, straining and reaching—

Climax took Katie in a sudden slam of sensation; she stiffened and trembled, her hands digging into his shoulders, her voice caught on a sob—the pleasure, the pain, the triumph of it so close—

And so very big, so very much power, such a demanding, battering rush—Maks floundered, breath caught in his throat, doubt crowding his heart, wild fear holding him back and ecstasy clawing just out of reach—

Katie looked down at him with the fierce protective gleam of a woman in love, and took matters into her own hands. A final twist of her hips, a final deep thrust, driving them utterly together.
Reaching, reaching...

THERE!

Power roared through him, driven by elusive ecstasy, and a rough, ragged and helpless cry tore from his throat—not once but over and over as he rolled her, drove into her from above, and buried his face at her neck to clamp down in a tiger’s bite—not gentle, not kind—but claiming.