Eleven
Baran had taken her before in calculation and in heat, but this desperation was new.
Jane could taste it in the way he kissed her, openmouthed and fierce, his long fingers curling around the back of her skull, angling her head just the way he wanted it.
He took her in a long, sweet stroke of tongue and lip, hot and wet and hungry. Somewhere in the endless tumble into delight, she heard the rumble of a passing car, accompanied by the short, mocking toot of its horn. A tiny measure of sanity returned. Prying her mouth away from his, she panted, “We can’t do this on the side of the road, Baran!”
“Yes, we can,” he growled, and captured her mouth again, the kiss drugging, hungry.
Jane wrestled free and threw a desperate glance around them, trying to determine if they were being watched. She realized she knew the area from her wild teenage years. “There’s a spot down by the woods. A stream. We could…”
He looked down at her. The lust in his eyes was so intense, it didn’t seem quite human—and not just because of the fiery glow.
His lips pulled back from his teeth in a slow, erotic smile. “Run. Before I take you on the hood of the truck.” His powerful hands reluctantly relaxed their hold.
It wasn’t an idle threat. Jane whirled and fled as if chased by something that would eat her. And with a little squirt of heat, she knew he intended to do just that.
She ran flat out, recklessly, plunging through the tangle of brush and trees, leaves crackling and flying around her booted feet. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she saw Baran still standing by the truck, almost crouched, anticipation hot on his face. Even from yards away she could see the erection tenting his jeans.
Then he exploded after her.
Jane sucked in a desperate breath, whipped her head back around, and ran for all she was worth.
Her heart banged in her chest as she ducked between a stand of trees and jumped a bramble bush. She could hear him gaining already.
God, he was fast.
Her nipples hardened as she imagined just what he’d do when he caught her.
Every running step Baran took chafed the massive erection throbbing behind his fly. He had to consciously drag back on the instinctive need to leap across the distance separating them and take her down. Spread her. Fuck her.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman with this much hunger.
And every deep breath he took carried the growing scent of her desire, carried on the cool April wind. She was creaming for him, as turned on by this impromptu game as he was.
Breathing hard from lust more than exertion, he watched her round little ass roll with every step, the flash of her long, jeans-clad legs, the desperate pump of her arms. She was running with everything she had.
But she wanted to be caught almost as much as he wanted to catch her.
His hunger growled, dark and feral, demanding an end to the game. He lengthened his stride and reached for her delicate shoulder, meaning to jerk her off her feet and into his arms.
But to his amazement, she twisted with the instinct of something small and delicious and shot behind a tree, eluding his lunge. He growled and spun after her. For an instant their gazes met. Hers was bright with desire and humor, until whatever she saw in his made those brown eyes widen in feminine alarm. She yelped a giggle and took off again, ducking and dodging, using the trees as barriers to slow him down. He growled and charged in her wake, ignoring the brambles that dug into his shins as he shot through a bush instead of around it.
It was time he stripped that pretty little body and got those long legs spread.
Running for everything she was worth, Jane heard the chuckle of the stream over the crackling crash of the chase. She burst into the clearing with a sense of triumph, skidding into the wide, flat area beside the snaking creek. The spot hadn’t changed from the days when she’d been a teenager and it had been the favored make-out spot.
Before she could stop, a big bandaged hand clamped over her shoulder, whirled her around, and snatched her against a hot, rock-hard body. She barely had time to register the raw lust on Baran’s face before he was kissing her so hungrily, all the strength ran out of her knees.
One hand tunneled into her hair, holding her still for his mouth. The other clamped boldly over her butt, dragging her lower body into his. His erection felt thick as a baseball bat against her belly.
Heat snaked through her as he claimed her with lips and tongue, licking, sucking at her mouth, gently biting her chin, strong fingers tugging her head back by the hair so he could rake his teeth across her banging pulse.
“Jesus, Baran,” she managed as he lifted her off her feet and took her down into the crunching leaves.
No sooner had her back touched the ground than he was dragging up her shirt, then jerking her bra over the curves of her breasts to get at her hard nipples. Before she could even gasp, he was suckling one, teeth scraping and teasing as his tongue flicked the hard, pink point.
She grabbed at his massive shoulders to steady her spinning world. He went on feasting even as one big, impatient hand plucked at the button of her jeans, got it open, worked the zipper down. Reached inside. Tested her swollen outer lips.
“Mmmm. You’re slick.”
A thick finger slid inside, tore a gasp from her mouth. “Oh, God, Baran, you make me…”
He grinned darkly. “I noticed. You liked being chased, didn’t you?” With his free hand, he pinched and rolled her nipple. “Didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” She whimpered softly.
His glowing eyes narrowed as he studied her with predatory calculation. “You do realize I can do anything I want to you?” The question was asked in a velvet purr that would have made her wet even without the stroke and slip of those possessive fingers. “You’re totally helpless.”
Jane swallowed at the jolt of desire that sliced through her at the dark promise in those words. “Not totally,” she managed, as feminist instincts rebelled.
“Totally.” It was a soft growl. The hand tormenting her sex slid away. She looked down just in time to see him reach into a jeans pocket and pull out a familiar length of gold cable. “Or you’re about to be.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Jane started to sit up.
“Oh, yes,” he purred, “I do.” Before she manage more than an outraged yelp, he grabbed her shoulder and flipped her over on her belly. She tried to push up, run, but he slung a leg over her butt to pin her. Grabbing one wrist, he whipped the cable around it.
She gasped as he captured her other hand and pulled it down to join her captured wrist, then looped it in cable. The cool, slick metal tightened its grip, binding her hands at the small of her back. As her spine arched helplessly with her position, dried leaves teased her erect nipples. “You big jerk!”
“The operative word there is big,” Baran said, a dark chuckle in his voice. He grabbed the waistband of her jeans and jerked downward. Cool air flowed over her backside as he bared her. “And getting bigger by the second.”
He pulled her jeans down to her knees, trapping her legs in denim as effectively as the cable had bound her hands. Sliding an arm around her waist, he lifted and manipulated her body until he had her arranged the way he wanted—on her knees, ass thrust out, head pillowed on the leaves. She was so wet and hot, the air felt cold on her spread labia.
He made a deep, rumbling sound of satisfaction. Leaves rustled. Jane squeaked in surprise as warm fingers spread her lower lips and his tongue slipped into the creaming seam. She quivered in pleasure as he licked her like a man enjoying something hot and melting. His tongue played over her flesh with a wicked skill that had her thigh muscles jumping.
He drew away a moment, then slid a forefinger deep inside her, testing her readiness. “Very nice,” he murmured as she writhed helplessly. The dry, papery leaves rasped over her nipples, and she moaned in need.
“You’re driving me insane!” she managed.
Baran laughed softly. “Good.”
Then his mouth sealed over her clit, and she jerked at the sudden, intense pleasure as he began to circle the wet nubbin with his tongue.
Baran angled his head slightly until he could slide two fingers deep into her core while he tongued her. The combination of those thick fingers and that wicked tongue sent pleasure whipping up her spine. Jane, wrists bound and legs trapped in her own jeans, could do nothing but shiver.
Eyes squeezed shut, she gasped, inhaling the rich, loamy scent of the leaves. Birds sang overhead, warbling background music for the tiny wet sounds Baran made as he licked and sucked.
She could feel a climax blooming just out of reach when he suddenly pulled away.
“Baran!” she wailed in protest.
“Ready to be fucked, Jane?”
The rough question in that deep, velvet voice was almost enough to make her come all by itself. “God, yes.”
His zipper rasped. She waited, suspended, for that first ruthless thrust.
It didn’t come.
“You sure?”
“Do you want to die?” she snarled in frustration.
He laughed. “Just checking.” The round, smooth head of his hot cock brushed the fine hair over her desperate sex.
Jane whimpered in need. She’d never been so turned on in her life.
“You know what happens to pretty little civilians who let themselves get chased into the woods by hungry Warlords?”
“I’ve got…AH!…a pretty good idea.” She shuddered at the incredible sensation of that slick head beginning to work its way past her lips and into her tight opening.
“Just so you’re ready for it.”
He worked in another inch. Jane gasped. “I’m…definitely ready.”
“Good.” And he rammed to his full length, all the way to the balls.
She screamed at the sensation of being filled so utterly. It was too much, too intense. She squirmed instinctively, but his strong hands held her still as he began to pump.
And she lost all interest in escape.
He rode her hard, his big shaft spearing her in long, delicious thrusts. Each jolting impact teased her nipples across the rasping leaves as he held her bent, arms bound helplessly behind her.
She shouldn’t be so damned turned on. The arrogant bastard had chased her down and tied her up. It was kinky and uncivilized and not at all the kind of treatment a modern woman should tolerate.
And she loved it. Loved every hot, wicked thrust of that powerful cock, loved the feel of his hands gripping her hips, hauling her back into his ruthless banging.
The orgasm took her by surprise, kicked her screaming into pleasure. As she cried out, it kept right on pulsing with each slap of his body against her ass.
Baran sucked in a breath as she convulsed around him, her sheathe milking him in sweet pulses. She felt so good, the skin of her behind like silk against his groin. When he swallowed, he could taste her on his tongue, salty and hot. Each inhalation carried the scent of her musk. He shuttered his eyes and drew it deep as he stroked in and out of her, savoring the essence of sex and pleasure and Jane.
Her pale, narrow torso twisted as she writhed in the leaves under him, her chest left bare when he’d pushed her shirt up to her shoulders. Her delicate wrists were bound in restraint cable at the small of her back. Dark curls cascaded around her head in a river of sable silk. She moaned his name over and over as he fucked her, the breathy gasps arousing.
His own orgasm rose as her tight inner muscles rippled along his shaft. Spurred, Baran ground against her, reaching as deep as he could, trying to pound his way that last glittering increment into the climax hanging just out of reach.
Then he was there, bursting into light.
Ramming himself to full length, he held himself deep in her creaming grip as the heat poured into him and out of him in a pulsing erotic circuit.
When the storm passed, Baran collapsed over her, bracing his bandaged palms on the leafy ground. Sweating and gasping, he tried to remember the last time he’d fucked anybody this damn good.
Long moments passed before Jane felt her IQ rise enough to manage a whimper. Slowly she lifted her head and shook the mane of her hair aside until she could see her Warlord lover.
Baran knelt braced over her on his hands and knees. She was pleased to see his muscular arms were trembling. At least she wasn’t the only one who’d gone completely out of her mind.
“We’ve got to quit doing this,” she groaned.
“Why?” Leaves rustled as he sat back on his heels and pulled out of her tenderly. She groaned at the lost connection. He started unwrapping the cable from around her wrists.
“Because anything that feels that good has to be bad for you. It’s a rule.” Released, her arms flopped limply to the ground. Whimpering at the delicious soreness between her thighs, Jane rolled over onto her side. The breeze on her bare butt reminded her that her jeans were still pulled down, but she lacked the strength to pull them up again.
“I don’t think there’s an actual rule,” Baran told her, zipping his pants.
“You must not have been raised Southern Baptist. There is. Believe me.” She considered the mechanics of dressing herself. And stiffened as a thought occurred. She was on the Pill, but…“STDs.” She stared wildly at him. “Oh, God, please tell me you don’t have some little Martian whatzits that have now migrated to my—”
“What are you talking about?” He eyed her as she sat up convulsively.
“STDs,” she told him grimly.
“What’s an…” His eyes widened, then narrowed in offense. “I do not have a sexually transmitted disease!”
“That you know of.” She scrambled around until she managed to jerk her jeans up and her shirt down. “I can’t believe we had sex three times already, and it never once occurred to me…How do you make my common sense take a lunch break?”
Baran folded his brawny arms and glowered. “Evidently, it’s a common occurrence.”
“Hey!”
“To begin with, venereal diseases are highly uncommon in my time, and if I did get one, my neuronet comp would discover it and take appropriate action. Just as it has since I arrived and started encountering all the other microbes this medically backward time seems to breed. In other words,” he concluded coolly, “I’m a lot more likely to get something from you than the other way around.”
“I,” she snarled, “do not sleep around. Which, considering the stories you’ve been telling me—”
“Perhaps it would be wise to drop this particular line of conversation.”
“Fine!” Turning on a booted foot, she stomped through the trees. Three hundred years, Jane thought, simmering, and men still haven’t evolved beyond the need to kill a mood.
When they finally made it back to the SUV, they found Freika sitting in the back, wearing a white, toothy grin.
“I caught two squirrels and told a stacked redheaded jogger I was the Big Bad Wolf. Scared the hell out of her,” he said to Baran as they slid into their respective seats. “What did you get?”
“That,” Jane said firmly, picking a leaf out of her hair, “is none of your business.”
Looking across at Baran, she caught him grinning smugly over his shoulder at his partner. He didn’t say a word.
He evidently didn’t need to. “That’s what I thought,” Freika said, jaws gaping in a silent lupine laugh.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to kiss and tell?” Jane growled, and started the SUV.
“Why is he being so stubborn?” she demanded half an hour later, staring at the entrance to the Sleep Inn Motel. Baran had gone in to question the manager twenty minutes before, leaving her under Frieka’s protection in the SUV.
“Because he’s a Warlord,” the wolf told her with a huge, toothy yawn. “That’s the way he’s programmed.”
“Well, programming or no programming, Danny Jackson isn’t gonna tell him a damn thing,” Jane growled, sitting back in her seat. “He can’t. He doesn’t know Baran from Adam, doesn’t know what he wants or why. For all he knows, Baran’s planning to cap the guy.” Which, come to think of it, he was. “If Danny gives him information about a guest, the hotel could get sued.”
“Huh,” Freika snorted. “I think it’s safe to say Druas won’t be suing anybody.”
“Danny doesn’t know that!” Her eyes narrowed. “But I’ll bet he’d talk to me. I went to school with him. Hell, I did a story on his mamma’s collection of vegetables shaped like Elvis.” The wolf poked his head between the seats and stared at her. She shrugged. “Human interest feature. You’d have to be Southern to understand. Point is, I’ll bet I could get him to give me the information, whether he’s supposed to or not. But Baran wouldn’t even let me try.”
“You’re a civilian,” Freika told her, and angled his head toward her. “My implant is itching. Would you mind?”
She reached over and dug her nails behind his ear to give it a thorough scratch. “He doesn’t trust me.” The idea stung.
“Trust is not one of Baran’s best skills,” the wolf agreed. “Over a little. Besides, where we come from, most people take one look at his tattoo and his command beads and tell him whatever the hell he wants to know.”
Intrigued, she shifted her target and scratched some more. “Why?”
“Ohhh, yeah. Right there…” The wolf produced an astonishingly human moan before continuing with the topic. “Because they either want to be helpful or don’t want to piss him off. Either way, he’s not used to refusals. That’s enough, thanks.”
She stopped scratching and began to stroke his head absently, enjoying the texture of the thick, coarse fur. “So the tatt and the beads mean something?”
“Right. The color stands for the House of Arvid, the Femmat clan that birthed, raised, and educated him before giving him into military service. The section of the design above his eye is the personal signature of his genetic creator, while the part over the cheekbone signifies he’s a Viking Class Warlord. The empty circle at the bottom means he’s an unbonded male; when he marries, the circle will be filled in.”
Jane stopped stroking to reach into her handbag and pull out her notebook.
“If you start taking notes, I’ll bite you.”
She looked up into the wolf’s hard blue-white gaze. “Oh, come on! I’m just trying to make sense of this.”
“You want to cause a paradox? TE told us not to tell you a damn thing, and if we did, not to let you write it down. You don’t know who will get his hands on those notes.”
“Oh, all right!” Disgusted, she stuffed the notebook back into her bag. “So what’s a Viking Class Warlord?”
“Warlord is a really rough translation of the actual term,” the wolf explained, hopping up front to sit comfortably in the passenger seat. “It means a genetically engineered warrior. There are different classifications based mostly on weight and specialized skills. Comanche Class Warlords are scouts, built for endurance and speed, while Samurai are mostly bodyguards, specializing in hand-to-hand. Crusaders are good with weapons and make up the bulk of the infantry…”
“All of those are historical warriors renowned for their skill,” Jane murmured to herself. “And Vikings…”
“Break things and kill people.”
She eyed him. “You’re making that up.”
“No, seriously. They’re the heavyweights of the military, the shock troops and raiders. The bitch Femmat civilian who accused him of being a human tank was pretty close to the mark.”
“Hmmm.” Jane digested that idea. “What about the beads?”
The wolf lifted a hind leg and scratched briskly at his left ear. “Rank and combat decorations. One of ’em also designates his status as a military assassin.”
Jane gapped. “He’s an assassin?”
Freika stopped scratching as though registering her instinctive revulsion. “It’s not like in your time—grassy knolls and sniper scopes. Baran and I slip into guarded military camps and take out enemy commanders during wartime.”
She frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”
The wolf angled his head in his version of a shrug. “It’s the stuff of suicide missions, sweetheart. We’re good at it, mostly because Baran doesn’t give a damn whether he lives or dies. And hasn’t for a very long time.”
“Not since the Xerans got his team,” she guessed.
“Possibly. I only joined him when he volunteered for the assassination unit six years ago.” He rested his head on her knee and looked up at her, something sad in his eyes. “My orders were to keep him from committing suicide by enemy, but he hasn’t really attempted that, despite some close calls. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that will change when he finally goes after General Jutka.”
“Who’s General Jutka?”
The wolf was silent so long, she had to prompt him. “Freika? Who’s Jutka?”
“I think you’d better ask Baran that. But I will tell you he’s the man we’re supposed to go after when we return to our own time.” Before she could interrogate him further, Freika said, “Whoops, there comes Baran. And he’s not happy.”
Jane looked up to see him striding across the parking lot toward them, his braid swinging angrily against his cheek. She’d stopped off and picked him up a pair of sunglasses before they’d gone to the motel, but she was willing to bet that behind their protection, his eyes were glowing with rage.
He walked over to her car door and pulled it open. “Okay,” he growled, his tone savage. “You try.”
Simmering, Baran watched Jane charm the doughy desk clerk who had coldly refused to tell him a damn thing a few minutes before. He’d done everything he could think of to get the information he wanted, short of hauling the little bastard over the counter and planting his fist in that smug round face. He’d considered that, too, but his computer had warned him there was a ninety-eight percent chance the clerk would call local law enforcement. And he couldn’t afford to go to jail, not with Druas after Jane.
Who, at that very moment, was leaning her elbows on the counter and hanging on to the doughy little bastard’s every word.
The man temporized. She wheedled. He wavered.
Finally the clerk sat down at the primitive computer behind the counter. “There’s only one guy that’s checked in within the last three days without family members in tow,” the man said, fingers tapping on the keys. “Tony Anderson. Atlanta address. He told me he sells farm equipment. I think he’s talking to the guy with Sanders Tractor and Farm Supply….”
“Oh, yeah. Jimmy Sanders. I interviewed him when his guard unit got called up for Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
Was there anybody she hadn’t interviewed?
“What’s his room number, Danny?”
“Now, Jane, you know I can’t tell you that.” At her pleading expression, he hesitated. “Uh, would you like a cup of coffee? I just put on a fresh pot.”
She looked at him a second before a dazzling smile spread across her face. “Sure, Danny. That’d be great.”
The clerk got up and ducked through a doorway behind the counter. Jane stood on tiptoes and craned her neck to check out the computer screen. “Our boy’s in Room 104,” she told Baran and made for the door. “Come on, let’s check it out.”
He caught her wrist as they stepped outside. “No, I’ll check it out, you wait with Freika. If it is Druas, I don’t want you in the line of fire.”
Jane frowned at him, her rich brown eyes concerned. “I don’t like that idea, Baran. “What if you need backup?”
“I won’t.” He eyed her a moment from behind the awkward sunglasses she’d given him. “Why was he willing to give that information to you when he wouldn’t tell me anything even when I all but threatened him?”
Jane shrugged. “Tayanita is a small community, Baran. Everybody knows everybody. But nobody knows you, so nobody’s going to talk to you. You’ll be seriously hampered if you try to investigate this thing by yourself. Like it or not, you need me.”
Baran frowned heavily, watching as she got back into the truck. He was beginning to see that.
And he didn’t like it. Not one bit.