Untamed Hawaiian Heat (Rift Hunters) (6 page)

“Come along, Mr. Jamison. Let’s get you settled in. I’ve got duties to attend to,” Monte said, breaking through Mateo’s thoughts.

“Why don’t you let me take him to the holding cell, Monte? I know you’re behind on your reports.” He walked over and clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “If you plan on spending your anniversary with Niki, you need to get on it.”

“Ahh, shit. That’s what today is.” Monte swiped a hand over his face. “That’s why she was acting so strange this morning.” He glanced at his watch. “Are you sure you have time to do this?”

Mateo nodded to the others as they left the room. “No problem, mi amigo. I’m not the one with a mountain of statements needing to be filed.” He smiled.

“Yeah. How the hell do you keep yours up-to-date?”

“Simple. I don’t wait until the last minute. Go. I’ve got this covered.”

Mateo turned to face Tiaki and was surprised to find Ash standing near him. “I’ve got this, Ash. I don’t need help getting him to the holding cells.”

“Are you certain of that, Mateo? Monte didn’t see what happened between you two earlier,” Ash said.

Mateo met Ash’s eyes. “I’m certain. I just want to talk with him and set the record straight.”

Ash watched him for a time as though assessing his sincerity. “Fine. I’ll let you have your say, but be forewarned that if anything happens to him before Pearce has made his decision, it’s your ass on the line.” Ash shot one last look at Tiaki and left the room.

Mateo walked over to the man and stopped in front of him, the barest space separating them. Tiaki started to back away, but Mateo grabbed his arm before he could move too far.

A jolt of energy pierced him at the contact, and Mateo released him and fell back a step as sensual awareness flashed in Tiaki’s eyes.

Mateo curled his lip. “I don’t believe anything you said,
Hunter
. I just wanted to give you a word of advice. If you value your life, stay away from Kiana,” he said. “She’s mine. Now move. I want to get as far away from you as I can.” He didn’t wait for an answer but motioned for him to move to the door.

“She didn’t seem to mind when I had my tongue in her mouth, my hands caressing her soft curves.”

Mateo took a deep breath. “I hope you do try to touch her again, Hunter. It will give me an excuse to kill you. Now move.” He rested his hand on the hilt of the laser pistol holstered at his hip, then gestured toward the door.

Tiaki smiled at him and started forward. “I won’t touch her again, but only if she tells me she doesn’t want me to.”

Mateo cursed and grabbed Tiaki’s shoulder as he reached for the door handle. The last thing he needed was for the Hunter to take off or wander into places he shouldn’t be.

Awareness exploded through him upon contact. He didn’t need this shit happening now. He had enough to deal with in overthrowing the fucking Syndicate. Now he had to figure out what this asshole was up to.

It didn’t help that some of the things he’d said echoed the vague memories he’d had of stories his
Abuelo
used to tell him before he and
Papá
had had their falling out.

Could those old fairy tales have been true after all?

He shook off the thought. There was no way the tales his Abuelo had told him could be real. He sure as hell didn’t like the reaction he had to the Hunter either. He briefly closed his eyes as the memory of hard muscles straining beneath his touch escaped from the box he’d locked it in.

No!

He shoved it back inside and forced it shut with a resounding snap that echoed through his heart. He wasn’t one to dwell on things already past. Especially painful ones.

He spun Tiaki around and shoved him back against the door. “Don’t ever walk away from me, Hunter.”

Tiaki met his eyes. “Or what, Mateo?”

A premonition vibrated inside his chest at the sound of his name on the other man’s lips. He took a deep breath and instantly wished he hadn’t as the man’s woodsy scent invaded his body, mind, and soul and caused the restless energy he’d been feeling of late to burst free.

Mateo closed the space between him and Tiaki and captured his mouth. He bit into the man’s lower lip, intending to punish Tiaki for making him feel this hunger again, but Tiaki grabbed his hips and pulled him closer.

Mateo felt the hardness of Tiaki’s cock rub against his own, and a moan escaped him. God, it had been forever since he’d done this with a man. Sensing the energy inside him reaching toward the Hunter as though seeking to join with him in some unfathomable way, he broke the kiss and pushed away from Tiaki.

What the hell was that?
Mateo fought to catch his breath, eyeing the stranger leaning against the door. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching for him again. Even though every fiber of his being yearned to pull Tiaki against his body and open the emotion link with Kiana so she could experience every nip, caress, and thrust as he took Tiaki and made him his own. “Open the door, Hunter. You’ll regret it if you disobey me.”

Tiaki held his gaze. “What are you going to do if I refuse?” He took a step closer. “You’ll have to make physical contact with me to do anything. And if I’m not mistaken, you feel that invisible pull toward me, the same one I was feeling for Kiana when I kissed her.” He paused and took another step, leaving the barest of space between them. “I know what you’re trying to hide, because I feel it too.”

Mateo thrust Tiaki out of the way and jerked the door open. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Hunter.”

Tiaki laughed as he walked through the door, the sound echoing off the stark walls of the corridor. He turned to regard Mateo. His laugh ended with a sensual smile curving his lips. He looked Mateo up and down. “If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead and try to hide it. I know the truth, though, and it’s only a matter of time before Kiana catches on too.” He turned and started down the hallway.

Mateo cursed under his breath.
Fuck. Who the hell
is
this guy?
He caught up to Tiaki in a few angry strides. Steeling his turbulent emotions, he seized Tiaki’s arm and jerked him along the rest of the way to the holding cells.

Once he’d delivered Tiaki to the guards on duty, he sighed in relief. The longer he’d been in physical contact with Tiaki, the stronger the pull toward him had been. He’d had to fight to shove the yearning away.

An image of Kiana lying halfway across Tiaki’s prone form rose to the forefront of his mind. The thought of watching the two of them do more than kiss, or even the mere thought of joining them, sent the energy inside him stirring wildly, arousing him beyond belief.

Clenching his jaw, he seized on the flash of anger that had ripped through him when he’d walked in on them earlier. He wanted…no,
needed
to make sure she knew who she belonged with.

And it damn sure wasn’t the Hunter.

* * * *

Kiana stumbled blindly toward the waterfall, desperate to cool her overheated skin. Mateo’s barely controlled anger burned its way through the haze of desire still thrumming through her senses from Tiaki’s kiss. Something dark permeated her mind, telling her this attraction to Tiaki was wrong. Something deeper seared her blood with a sensual heat. Something unknown stirred her heart, her soul.

It was the soul she worried for.
Oh God! What’s happening to me?

“I’d like to know the answer to that.”
Mateo’s voice sounded in her head.

Because of her roiling emotions for Tiaki, she’d forgotten Mateo could hear her thoughts through her link with him. Unless she blocked the pathway, he heard everything.

“Mateo, I—”
Arms wrapped around her from behind. She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t realized he’d followed her.

Mateo pulled her shirt free of her pants and slipped his hand inside, palming her breast a little more roughly than usual. “You’re mine, Kiana. Remember that if he tries to touch you again.” He bit her neck and sucked hard enough to leave his mark on her delicate skin.

Kiana gasped in surprise but let her head fall back against his shoulder, exposing her neck even more to his passionate assault. His lips skimmed the sensitive skin, alternately nipping and soothing with his teeth and tongue. She inhaled sharply when his fingers pinched her hardened nipple. Lust flooded her, sharper than ever before when she caught the scent of Tiaki mingled with Mateo’s. Through their link she felt the blood pulsing in his cock, making it throb against her ass.

“Tell me you didn’t feel this with him, Kia.”

She felt Mateo’s emotions warring inside him, the knowledge she would have to lie and deny that she had felt passion in another man’s arms—amid the possibility that he felt it too. She frowned. No, she couldn’t have understood correctly. He’d only experienced the heat suffusing her body when Tiaki had kissed her and pulled her on top of him. She’d felt something in Mateo reach out to them as though he wanted to experience Tiaki’s touch too. She stiffened.

Kiana knew some of Mateo’s anger came from the realization of his arousal at the sight of her in another man’s arms. She’d even sensed him enjoying the experience of her kissing Tiaki come back though their shared link. She gasped, struggling to breathe, when a fresh wave of anger and dark desire burned anew inside Mateo at the thought of partaking of such a forbidden fruit again.

Again? Did Mateo want to kiss Tiaki?

Mateo turned her to him and captured her lips, plunging his tongue inside her mouth. She could feel the need he had to brand her as his, felt it pulse in his blood and crash through her sensors like a tidal wave. He pulled her hard against his chest, lifting her up.

Kiana wrapped her legs around his hips and rubbed her pussy against the ridge of his cock. She moaned in his mouth as he carried her to the edge of the plunge pool at the base of the waterfall.

He pulled her shirt off and eased her down on the bank. He pushed aside her bra straps, trailing his lips over her skin as it was exposed.

Kiana skimmed her hand along his heated skin and pushed his shirt up over his head. She loved the feel of him under her hands. He was steel encased in velvet. She bit his shoulder, then traced her tongue over the lines of his tattoo up to his ear. She felt a gentle humming energy pulsing beneath her lips. Kiana opened her mouth to say something about it, but all thought fled when he pulled her bra away.

A slight breeze drifted in, bringing with it the cold spray of the waterfall. Kiana shivered. Her nipples hardened. She cried out when he drew one taut bud into the moist heat of his mouth; he twisted and pinched the other. She arched into his touch. Desire flooded her, turning her insides molten.

Mateo gently nipped her with his teeth, then soothed with his tongue, enticing mewling pleas from her.

Thrusting her hands into his hair, she pressed him closer. Wanting more. Needing more. She tried to pull him up so she could kiss him again, but he grabbed her hands and held them above her head.

He glanced up and met her eyes; his glittered with barely restrained hunger. Lust tightened in her stomach at the possessiveness she saw blazing there. As she watched, she saw something spark to life inside their depths. It looked like what she’d seen in Tiaki’s eyes when he’d used what he’d called his magic, only Mateo’s burned a brilliant sapphire. Her eyes widened in surprise when she felt the restlessness inside her respond to what she saw in his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak.

“No. I’m in control now, Kiana. I want you to know how much I want you. How much I crave you.” He punctuated each word with a heated kiss down her abdomen, stripping her of the rest of her clothes as he went. “I’m going to make you understand you’re mine. I don’t care what he may have awakened in you. You’re
mine
.” With that, he pressed a lingering kiss to her clit.

She moaned deep in her throat.

His tongue darted out, laved the sweet pearl with a long stroke. She shuddered. He licked and suckled her until she writhed beneath him. His tongue thrust deep inside her folds. The way he savored her juices almost sent her soaring to a place of euphoria only the most skilled lovers ever learned to attain.

“So sweet. I love the way you taste.”

The vibrations of his words against the lips of her pussy startled her. She tried to push closer to his mouth, but he was having none of it. He released her hands and held her still with one hand on her stomach. He used his other hand to part her labia, where he teased the entrance. “So fucking sweet,” he repeated before he plunged a finger inside. He slowly pulled it out, teasing her, tormenting her. When he pushed it back in, he added another finger. “So tight and hot.”

Kiana thrashed her head from side to side. She was dying from the pleasure he was giving her. He knew just how to touch her. What she liked. Sometimes even before she knew what she needed, he was already giving it to her.

He worked his fingers inside her as he sucked her clit ruthlessly.

“More, Mateo. Please, I need more,” she cried out, mindless with the consuming fire in her blood. Both hers and his; she could feel the ache building through the shared link. He was bent on domination. Wanted to make sure she knew who she belonged to.

When she’d touched Tiaki that first night, an angry jolt had gone through their link at her reaction. When Mateo had walked in on the soul-shattering kiss Tiaki had given her that afternoon, fury and something more had burned her senses.

Tiaki… She didn’t know what the hell was happening to her. She’d never encountered anything like what had sparked between them.

A flash of a picture of Tiaki between her thighs, giving her pleasure, savoring her taste on his tongue as Mateo kissed her, flitted through her mind, sending new tendrils of fire and something else surging through her blood. She bucked against Mateo, needing something more. Something she couldn’t name.

She wasn’t surprised when the image was ripped away and replaced with one of Mateo pulling Tiaki off her.

He grasped her hands again, binding them like a steel vise to her sides. “MINE!”

That one word couldn’t have made it more clear how he felt. Yet even as the word seeped into her mind, she also felt a hesitation shimmer through their link. In her mind’s eye, she saw Mateo turn his gaze on the man he’d just pushed away. A brief sense of longing flashed through the link before it was extinguished. It was gone so quickly she was left wondering if she had imagined it.