The Protectors Christmas Box Set (sexy paranormal romances) (25 page)

“Hey!” she cried out in surprise, an automatic protest to losing an expensive piece of lingerie. But her attention quickly returned to how he was touching her. Horace parted her soft curls and eased his forefinger deep into her, taking what had been left of her breath away with that one bold move.

He wanted her. She could taste his desire in the way he parted her lips and kissed her so deeply that she had trouble figuring out where she ended and he began. And his heat/her heat licked at her like flames in response to the way he was using his hand and his mouth, mimicking what he planned to do with the rock-hard arousal pressed against her belly. She found herself panting with anticipation.

The snig of his pant’s zipper sent a shiver of delight down her spine. Faith never really expected to her birthday wish to come true. And not like this. Sex with her dream guy on her birthday. Sex against the brick wall…in a smelly alleyway next to a dumpster. Her panties torn and discarded on the ground. This was so, so not like her. But then again, neither was following a man around a nightclub like some besotted groupie.

With Horace, she became a different woman. Her hungers made her vulnerable in a way she’d never been vulnerable before. Every part of her throbbed with desire.

When he eased her skirt up higher on her thighs, she wrapped her legs around his waist. The tip of his wide erection caressed her moist opening. She pressed against him, letting him stretch her. He grabbed hold of her hips and held her before she could lower herself completely onto him. He held her suspended, throbbing for him and praying that he wouldn’t change his mind. With one quick thrust, he buried himself inside her all the way to the hilt.

She gasped. She’d been impaled. He’d put her in a sexual position she avoided. It made her too vulnerable. Around men, she liked to be in control. Calling all the shots. But with Horace’s strong hands on her hips, he guided her, and she rode him. He set the rhythm. He dictated the pace. An excruciatingly, frustratingly, wonderfully slow pace.

She could feel every inch of him move inside her as he raised and lowered her. Faith’s heat made him hot and wet. And he made sure every slick inch of him rubbed against her, teasing her.

But he held her release at bay. The calculating glint in his eyes told her he knew what he was doing to her. He continued to tease, taking her to the brink but not letting her fall over the edge. She cried out in frustration and wiggled against him.

He lifted her, holding her so that her gentle folds barely touched the tip of his shaft.

“You wanted to play games,” he said. The heat of his voice caressed her neck, making her tremble. She gyrated, trying to wrench control of the situation, but his hold on her kept her pinned to the wall and unable to find the release she was growing more and more desperate to have.

He kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth, mercilessly taking his time. He must have known that he was making her crazy. Her mind and body throbbed as one—an inescapable need that demanded to be sated.

“
Please
,” she whimpered into his mouth. “Please, don’t make me beg.”

“Why not?” he murmured. A wicked smile teased his lips.

“Because…because…I’m going to die…” She was barely able to get out between her short, halting breaths. “I…I’ll do anything…anything…you…want…”

One corner of his mouth kicked up a little higher. His right brow rose too. “Anything?” He lowered her slightly so his arousal pressed into her. “
Anything
?”

She nodded. Horace had done this to her. He’d made her lose her mind. The Faith Summers she knew up until a heartbeat ago would have never pledged herself so completely to a man without a wedding ring waiting for her finger.

“I want to mark you.” There was a tremor in his voice. His gaze grew dark and intense.

Faith didn’t know how he’d meant to mark her. But it didn’t matter. In the heat of her need, she didn’t even pause to wonder. She simply nodded.

“Yes. Please. Yes.”

With a look of satisfaction, Horace impaled her completely. And gave her what she wanted, what she desperately needed. He moved her hips faster and faster, pumping her. And as he’d promised, he lowered his head and sucked on her left breast.

The pressure of his lips grew stronger. He licked her nipple. And then scraped the tight nub with his teeth. Nipping her. Biting her. Teasing her with a sensation that was a confusing blend of agony and ecstasy. And it felt so intense, so real, that she struggled for a smooth breath and heightened her need for release.

Her body grew tighter and tighter, begging to be dropped over the edge of bliss. His blunt teeth tore through the sensitive skin just above her nipple as she threw her head back and cried out. He didn’t let up. He suckled her blood while pumping into her, riding her orgasm. She felt his arousal grow thicker, fuller, pulsing inside her. Stretching her. Filling her completely.

It was too much, too much. She struggled against him.

Horace released her breast and kissed her. But he wouldn’t let Faith escape as she rode on the wave of a second orgasm, one that he shared with her. The heat of his seed scorched her womb.

Faith wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him…

Forever
.

* * * * *

Forever
.

It felt as if her heart would never slow down. Horace kept Faith pressed against the hard brick wall outside his club for a little while longer before he gently lowered her onto her wobbly legs. To support her, Horace wrapped his arms around her waist and swung himself around so he could lean against the wall, and she could continue to press her head against his warm, safe chest.

He feathered kisses over her temple and down her cheek. Then, with a deep sigh, Horace gently caressed the angry red mark he’d put on her breast. The sore skin underneath his fingertips tingled. He’d marked her. She now belonged to him.

Faith had no idea what such a thing meant to him. Or to her.

It should have frightened her. She didn’t do relationships with controlling men. And she’d never been the type to let a man put his mark on her, not even a temporary mark. This was so not like her.

But when he touched her, she tightened her arms around his chest and let herself sink into his heat. For this one magical moment, she belonged to Horace. Faith had never felt so cherished, so complete.

It was as if she’d been touched by fate. Everything about this crazy night felt right—natural. Faith ran her hand down the side of Horace’s rough, stubbly chin. She pictured a lifetime of nights with Horace as crazy and wonderful as this one. Could this be what love felt like?

Even his slow, steady breath matched hers. Horace reverently kissed her neck before murmuring against her ear, “ You do know that there can never…? That we can never…?”

“
What
?” He had to be kidding.

And even if this was a joke, she planned to give him an earful. She poked her finger on his chest. “You just can’t—!”

* * * * *

“Shhh…” Horace pressed a finger to Faith’s well-loved lips.

He’d spotted a shadow in the darkness. It could be his imagination. Or perhaps one of the stray dogs he regularly fed had come around hoping to find a late-night snack. Or even an oversized rat had crawled out of the sewers in search of food. But the shadow moved again, and Horace got a better look. It unfolded from a crouched position, forming the unmistakable shape of a man.

Horace’s “this was a one-time thing” breakup speech would have to wait. The shadowy figure held a long cylinder in its hand. The object caught in the light above the club’s back door. Metal glinted in the darkness.

The shooter
.

Horace lifted his hand to stop the forces of fate from marching forward with its plan to kill him. He intended to crumple the barrel of the pistol the shadowy figure had pointed at them—but sex with Faith must have wrecked his focus. No matter how hard he concentrated, his powers refused to come to him.

The shooter had them cornered, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. They didn’t even have time to run. A flash lit the dark alleyway just as an explosion cut through the air. The sound must have bounced off the walls. It seemed as if it went on and on forever.

Horace tried again to focus his powers. A sputtering wind whooshed past him as he tried to hold back the bullet. But it was too little and too late.

Horace shoved Faith out of the way a heartbeat before a lead fist slammed into his chest.

It hurt like hell. Horace slid down the brick wall.

And suddenly, he didn’t hurt at all.

“So much for changing the future,” he grumbled as he dropped to the cold, hard ground.

He wasn’t dead, not yet, which surprised Horace. He must have passed out, though, because the next thing he knew, he woke up flat on his back on the ground with Faith on her knees beside him. Lovely, beautiful Faith. She looked like an angel. A
damned
sexy angel. An angel Horace wanted to pull into his arms and kiss with his very last breath. If not for the unmistakable lust tugging at the lower parts of his body, he might have thought he’d already died and woken up in Heaven.

With every drop of his overheated blood, he wanted Faith. He could still smell the sweet scent of sex on her, and it only made him want her more. Nope, not dead. But he might as well be dead since he sure as hell couldn’t act on any of his sexual urges.

Faith had removed her lavender shirt and had it pressed to his chest wound. Blood had already soaked through to her hands.

Damn, his chest hurt like hell. He tried to bat her hands away, but she remained an immoveable force. Stubborn. Considering how she’d doggedly pursued him despite everything he’d done to keep her away, Horace figured he already knew about that stubborn streak of hers.

“You need to get out of here.” His voice sounded harsh, raspy. He tried to push her away again. “You’re in danger, Faith. The shooter might still be out there.”

“I’m not leaving you.” She flicked her tongue over her full, pink lips, a frantic gesture. And if he hadn’t been in so much pain he would have tried to kiss her. She glanced around nervously. “I don’t see anyone.”

“And we didn’t see him the first time, either.”

She ignored that reasonable bit of information. From somewhere on her body, he couldn’t figure out where, she produced a small pearl-colored cell phone. “I’m calling 911.”

Oh no, she wasn’t. It took considerable effort to wrench the clamshell phone from her hands and close it.

“No police. No ambulance.” The first would only complicate matters, and the second might seriously screw him up…if he managed to survive.

“But-but—”

“I need to get in touch with Stone.” Horace’s head hummed with pain. Thoughts drifted helter-skelter within his head. It took all his concentration to remember and then recite Stone’s cell number while his eyesight blurred in and out of focus.

He needed to kiss Faith…to feel her sexy-as-sin lips on his one more time. Not call Stone.

Look at her. Faith could use some comforting. Her hands trembled so badly she could barely hold her cell phone, but somehow she managed to dial. Her voice sounded calm, neutral, and very out of place for this damnable situation as she introduced herself to Stone.

“Horace has been shot,” she said with great care, which made Horace wince. Hearing it said aloud somehow made the bullet wound hurt worse. “You need to come to the club. Horace wants you here.” She listened.

He wished he could hear Stone’s reply.

Faith nodded. “We’re out back in the alleyway. He won’t let me call an ambulance.”

She didn’t seem to like Stone’s reaction to that. She actually sneered at the phone.

“You can’t be serious.”

Another pause.

“Okay, I’ll try,” she said, and then turned off the tiny cell phone. Tears pooled in her eyes.

“Baby,” Horace said. He wished he could protect her from the inevitable. The bullet had caused too much damage. He could feel his soul slipping away. “I’m dying. I’m sorry…”
that you had to be here
. “I’m sorry…”
that it had to be like this
. “But-but—” He coughed on his own blood. “I-I’m not sorry that we—”

“Oh, shut up,” Faith snapped.

“
What
?” He was trying to do the right thing, to be sensitive to her feelings and to understand what his dying in her arms like this might mean to her. Didn’t she understand the mountains of effort it took for him to even talk?

“I said, shut up.” Flames flashed in her baby blue eyes. “Listen, Horace.” Rage deepened her voice. A force behind her words, one very similar to the mental push he’d used when he’d told her to go home earlier that evening, pressed against him.

“
You are not going to die
.”

“I don’t think I have a choice in the matter.” He doubted he’d be able to hold on long enough for Stone to get there.

“I won’t let you die. So you better stop scaring me with this talk about you giving up on life and leaving me alone in this alleyway.” The fire in Faith’s eyes grew hotter. Her pupils widened, swallowing her light blue irises, making the pair of eyes staring at Horace appear solid black.

And Faith’s hands felt like hot coals against his chest.

Horace tried to wiggle away from her touch, but she wouldn’t let him. She pressed against his wound.

“
You are not going to die
,” Faith repeated. Her words shuddered through his body. The fire in her hands grew hotter. A faint glow illuminated her skin and face. Even her eyes glowed. “You are not going to die.”

Faith could repeat that litany a hundred times, but Horace knew her words couldn’t save him. Nothing could.

Perhaps if a healer had been on hand, or a doctor who understood the complexities of their kind, but that wasn’t how it had happened. His eyesight darkened. The life-giving air in his lungs drifted away, leaving him empty.