Hell, he already had. He’d been out of control from the moment he stood outside Stylin’ Ink and saw her through the window.
“Maybe it’ll be simple,” his father had said after leaving Caitlyn’s gravesite, that day his involvement with her had begun.
Simple? Cathal’s silent laugh was a rough, sharp scrape over raw nerve endings.
He got on the bed next to her, the jostle enough to have thick eyelashes fluttering to reveal eyes so dark they seemed black.
“Eamon?” she murmured, and his lips pulled back, a baring of teeth because her greeting ripped away the barrier that jealousy and possessiveness had been secured behind since her seizure on the boat.
“I don’t know where the fuck he is.” He didn’t care. Eamon was probably getting an update on the events at the club.
Wouldn’t
Fuck it. He didn’t want to think about Eamon, though suspicion crawled deeper into his gut.
“He doesn’t matter. Not right now.” A growl to match the baring of teeth, his mouth slamming down on hers, his body covering hers, vibrating with the need to dominate, to drive any thought of another man out of her with the pounding thrust of his cock.
Her legs went around his waist. He surged into her.
Everything inside him demanded more.
He pulled out, experiencing a primal satisfaction at her whimpered
Wrenching himself upward, breaking the lock of her legs, he slid his arms under them, the position rendering her more vulnerable, allowing him to have what he wanted. Needed.
He pushed into her again. It didn’t matter how many times he had her, she stayed tight and hot, internal muscles clinging even as they resisted, making him work for it, making him feel like a well-hung stallion.
She’d probably call him a bull.
And still she met him thrust for thrust. His equal in this because despite how her body might soften, or the whimpers and cries he could draw from her, she wasn’t submissive at her core.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was this.
She was his.
The word reverberated with each thrust.
Again and again and again. Becoming a primal scream when her channel clamped down on him, release and demand at the same time, her orgasm triggering his own.
He came in a scorching blast only to discover when his head cleared that it wasn’t enough. Might never be enough.
Adrenaline. Elven pheromones. Nearly dying. He’d already hardened again inside her, the sultry expression on her face a claim of female victory, a challenge that had his nostrils flaring.
He pulled from her sheath, the exodus creating a flood of semen and arousal. He followed it to the tight rosette, watched smoldering eyes flash with a hint of erotic fear.
“Have you ever let a man take your ass?”
“No.”
His cock thickened in anticipation, as something primitive and dark took hold of him at being the first. He’d promised her this, though he took the time to prepare her. And then he claimed her, fingers working her clit, making sure she came before he did.
Sleepy Ruiz was too amped up to worry about being pulled over by the cops or getting caught cruising through territory that belonged to other gangs. Where the fuck was Lucky? He should have called by now, should have called a long time ago.
Something bad had gone down in that alley. Something real bad.
“We gonna keep cruising all night?” Puppy asked, passing a beer up to Drooler who was riding shotgun.
“Pull the phone out from under the seat,” Sleepy said.
Drooler did it, handing off Lucky’s cell.
“Tell me again,” Sleepy said.
“It’s like the tenth time already. The guy left his club with another dude and headed toward the parking garage. They were talking, totally into their conversation and not paying attention to what was going down around them, which was nothing, man. Nothing. I texted Lucky and split, like he told me to do. He should have let me take the guy. I could have done it no problem.”
Sleepy wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up. What mattered was Lucky. No way Lucky cut and ran. No way. This was nothing, an easy hit compared to taking someone out behind bars.
He stomped on the gas pedal, leaving rubber behind. This was personal now. He didn’t have the in with Jacko, not the same way Lucky did, but he wasn’t going to let this go, not without a direct order.
Scanning through Lucky’s phone numbers, he found Jacko’s and pulled over. He got out of the car, not wanting Puppy and Drooler to hear. A few steps away, he made the call.
Jacko gave his companion a thumbs-ups. He was the man here, getting things done.
“Yo, Lucky. Tell me something good,
“It’s Sleepy.”
His high deserted him. “Where’s Lucky?”
“We don’t know. It was all set up. He was in place, only needed the Irish
“The police involved?”
“No. We’ve been cruising. It’s like nothing went down.”
“He shows, he calls me.”
Jacko hung up. Lucky had vouched for Sleepy, but he didn’t know him well enough to trust him right away.
“Your
“Cathal Dunne must have taken him out.”
“You sure he didn’t run?”
“Positive.”
Cyco leaned over, lifting the grenade launcher. “Say the word, I’ll do you a favor.”
Etain woke, or would have said she did except for the lake in front of her and the thrum of magic against her senses, the beat of it pulsing through the soles of her feet. It took her a second to recognize the cadence, to compare it to the absence of sound that had been testament to a heart silenced.
Relief filled her. This was no post-death visitation. Though as the water rippled toward the center, green condensing and yielding to blue, solidifying in a precursor to the Dragon’s forming, she understood that if not a visitation, then this was a summoning, and she, the one summoned.
The beat against the bottom of her feet quickened. Involuntary reaction rather than panic or fear, there was no point in either. She’d be dead if the manifestation now rising from the lake wanted it so.
