She jolted and immediately slapped one hand to the back of her neck where they’d found the first chip.
“It won’t be there,” he said, moving across the room to her with long, purposeful strides.
“Then where?” She swept her own hands up and down her body as if just by looking for the damn thing she would find it.
“Rune says that Terri’s second tracker was discovered under her left breast.”
Shea’s arms instinctively came up over her breasts in a protective gesture that was as futile as it was understandable. “But they didn’t give me an injection there. I would have known…”
He hated seeing that look on her face. The expression that was both furious and filled with sorrow. If he could have, Torin would have returned to that prison where Shea had been held and torn it down brick by brick until there wasn’t a single stone left standing.
“They could have knocked you out for the procedure.”
“But I’d remember-”
“Not necessarily. If it’s there, Shea, we have to find it.”
Slowly, she lowered her arms, took a breath and bit down on her bottom lip. “I know. It’s just-never mind.”
He watched as different emotions raced across her face, each one appearing and disappearing so fast he could hardly identify them. But he felt her distress. Felt the tangle of fear and anger and grief knotting inside her. Torin didn’t want to admit that he might be the cause of her misery. “Don’t dismiss it. What’s bothering you? The fact that I killed those men who attacked you?”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “No. No, Torin. I know why you did it. I just… hate all of this. I hate being hunted. I hate that I can’t remember what I need to. I hate feeling so out of control.”
Torin smiled. “I didn’t hear you say you hate me. I think we’re making progress.”
Shea laughed a little. “I never hated you, Torin. You scared the crap out of me, but I never hated you. And now…”
“Now?”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll never have to find out,” he vowed. “I promise you. I will be with you through all of this. You can depend on me.”
“I know,” she said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Shea, I have to find that tracker.”
She nodded, waved one hand in front of herself and instantly her clothes disappeared.
Hunger roared through him at the sight of her and he was pleased she had finally dispensed with her sense of modesty before him. Then he smiled, both at the view of her luscious naked body and at the display of her burgeoning control of her powers. “You’re getting better. Stronger.”
“Practice makes perfect,” she said on a choked-off laugh. “God, Torin, just find it.”
He moved in close, his gaze dropping to her left breast, where the mating tattoo was inexorably growing. The tiny red flames now formed a circle around her areola and were sweeping down in a delicate curve, following the swell of her breast and snaking toward her back, where they would eventually curve up and over her shoulder.
Pride filled him. This was his mark. The mark they had made together. And the shadow of her brand now stained his skin in the same pattern, proclaiming them a unit. Two halves of the same whole. His cock stirred, ready to claim her again. To coax more of those burning flames into life on her skin. To feel the heat of her pulling at him.
His fingertips traced the flames and he lifted his gaze to hers. He read a matching passion stirring in her emerald eyes and in response, his cock went to stone.
She reached up and held his hand to her breast, pushing herself into his touch and sighing at the cool glide of skin against skin.
“Touch me first, Torin,” she said, near breathless. “Then find the tracker. I need you. I need to feel you inside me. Wipe away the screams and the fire and the crazy people chasing us.”
His thumb and forefinger squeezed her nipple until she groaned. “I want you,” he whispered. “I always want you. I wake in a fever to touch you and sleep dreaming of you. You are the witch who holds my heart.”
She snapped her fingers and he was naked, his aching body on proud display for her. Shea smiled and reached for him, folding her fingers around his heavy thickness. Torin hissed in a breath and let his eyes close on a wave of pure pleasure.
In the midst of madness, in the turmoil of danger, all he could think about was possessing her. Laying claim to her again and again. He needed to feel the heat of the brand erupting on his skin and watch his mark on her grow. He wanted to be pounding his body into hers, feeling her slick, wet heat accepting him, taking him deep.
Her thumb caressed the very tip of him, sliding the bead of moisture she found there in tight, quick circles. He groaned and knew he was lost. He had to have her. Were the Seekers to come crashing at the door this instant, he would still have to have her.
Torin bent his head and took her left nipple into his mouth. He tasted her scent, that elemental mixture of earth and ocean and pure Shea and the cool heat of her skin. The burn of the brand filled him and increased the need already climbing to staggering heights inside him.
Shea held his head to her breast and stroked her fingertips along his cheeks, encouraging him to taste more deeply, to suckle more fiercely. As he did, she groaned, the soft sigh sliding into his very heart.
He dropped one hand to her center and found her wet and hot for him. Delving deep with two fingers, he heard her groan and pushed his fingers higher, so that he could caress her body from the inside.
She rocked into his touch, riding his hand as if everything in the world depended on the next few minutes. They were as one. Breathing shattered, bodies straining.
His tongue and teeth worked her nipple as his hands worked her core. His thumb caressed that one small nub of sensation until she let her head fall back on her neck and his name sigh from her lips.
It wasn’t enough, he thought wildly. He needed to be a part of her. Now. He tipped her back onto the bed and was only vaguely aware of the screams of the old bedsprings beneath them.
Shea continued to twist and writhe against his hand, her voice encouraging him in a hoarse whisper more compelling than a shout. “I’m so close, Torin, so close.”
“Go over for me, Shea,” he urged, breath hot against her skin as he lifted his gaze to hers.
“No, don’t push me over the edge yet.” She shook her head wildly from side to side, laughing and gasping all at once. “Need you. Need you inside me. We go together.”
“Together,” he repeated, staring into her eyes.
He covered her with his big body and pushed his hard length into her depths with one long thrust. Locked together, bodies taut with the unreleased tension claiming them both, they held perfectly still, simply relishing the soul-deep pleasure of the joining.
Then she lifted her legs to his hips, reached down to curl her fingers into his butt and smiled up at him. “Take me now, Torin. Hard and fast and deep. Don’t hold anything back.”
“Never,” he promised and kept his gaze locked with hers as his hips pumped furiously against her. The rhythm they set was blinding. White-hot cracks of lightning shot back and forth between them as power met, collided and then blended.
Again and again, he pushed himself into the only woman who had ever mattered to him. He felt his unbeating heart jerk in his chest as he watched ecstasy steal across her features.
Torin felt a stinging burn on his chest. He looked down at the tattoo on her breast and watched as the flames darkened, then flared brightly as their mating quickened, encompassing them both with the force of magic.
The incredible slide of his body into hers hastened the need already taking him over. He was relentless, pushing her higher and higher. The friction between their bodies stoked the inner fires until they lived and breathed as much as the flames that made up Torin’s being.
Everything he was, he gave her, everything she was, he took. He bent his head again, tasting her skin, licking her as a cat would a bowl of cream. He couldn’t get enough of her. Over and over, she cried out, matching his body on every thrust, urging him on, shouting his name.
He took her nipple into his mouth again and suckled her long and deep as his body laid siege to hers. And finally, he felt her reach the end of her endurance. She gave herself up to the liquid swells of her release.
As her body tightened like warm velvet around his, Torin spilled all that he was into her depths.
