Then it clicked.
Her aura was familiar.
Dumbfounded, Damon stared, his jaw dropping, as he tried to assimilate what his mental sense was telling him.
“Rory?”
The woman opened faded blue eyes at his whisper, pushed off the door, and trudged toward him. Like stop-motion photography run backward, she shed years with each step. Her irises darkened to sapphire. Thin, ash brown hair beaded with raindrops turned to damp honey gold, while pale lips bloomed cherry red. Deep lines on her face disappeared as her complexion smoothened out and her jawline firmed. Baggy clothes lost shape, hanging on a slimmer figure. A sagging bosom regained perkiness.
He shook his head in astonishment. It had to be magic. He couldn’t think of any other explanation for how she did it.
By the time she slid slender arms around his neck, a completely different woman stood in front of him. All in a matter of heartbeats. Nothing remained of the older one who’d entered the room, save for her clothes.
She
was
Rory. There was the familiar aura he’d tracked and grown accustomed to, the brilliance of her mind, the focus, the scintillating spectrum of colors, the dismay and disgust he’d sensed earlier.
Finally accepting the impossible, Damon holstered his gun, shifting his attention to the source of her upset for something he could handle. Despite her facade of calm, her emotions clawed at his mind, raw and hurting, but he couldn’t escape them. He had to help her, soothe her somehow. If he didn’t, she might not go the distance. But what had overset her ingrained self-possession?
Rory’s arms tightened suddenly, her distress spiking. “Help me forget those girls.” Tears brimmed in her eyes, threatening to spill over.
Then he understood and his heart turned over in sympathy and remorse. She’d been reconnoitering Karadzic’s territory and must have seen the sex slaves walking the streets. Her shock told him much about Rory. In her previous trip to Kosovo, she probably hadn’t been exposed to that side of the criminal underworld.
A protective reflex he’d never felt before prompted Damon to take her into his arms, offering her reassurance and support. This was his fault: if it hadn’t been for him recruiting her for this mission, she’d have remained happily ignorant of such inhumanity.
“Please?”
Caught up in her urgency and driven to assuage her distress any way he could, Damon gathered Rory up to kiss her, nipping at her lips and forcing her to concentrate on the here and now. On him and not the horrors she’d seen. There was no room for gentleness. In her current state of mind, to offer gentleness would be doing her no favors.
She responded fervently, welcoming the thrust of his tongue, meeting him stroke for stroke in a carnal duel fueled less by desire than by desperation. Her mouth clung to his as though for breath, the violence of her distress clear in how she tried to sink into him.
That had to change, if he wanted to give Rory at least one night free from the knowledge of the depths of inhumanity that could be visited on women because of their sex.
Damon divested her of her ill-fitting clothes, discovering the slender body beneath. His cock stirred automatically at the sight. Curvaceous but not voluptuous, unlike the platinum blonde who’d walked out of the surf of a Florida beach and overturned all his expectations, but still Rory.
Who needed distraction from the barbarity she’d witnessed.
Holding her attention with his kisses, he carried her to the bed and laid her down, all the while plotting his assault on her senses. As he’d suspected, her nipples were soft, puffy. He thumbed them to stiff peaks, remembering how she’d practically gone up in flames when he played with her breasts.
Rory reared back to gasp, a flicker of pleasure the first true indication of desire from her since she initiated their embrace.
Encouraged by her response, Damon took a nipple between his lips and drew strongly on the sweet bud, rolling and tweaking its partner with his fingers for added stimulus.
She bucked beneath him with a hoarse cry of delight. Her musk suddenly filled the air in definite approval of his efforts. Moaning, she clutched his head closer, her fists tight around his hair.
With the sure knowledge of her willing participation behind him, he set out to drive her wild. He worshipped her breasts, kneading and caressing and sucking, alternating between the soft mounds, and applying his teeth and tongue for variation. No way would she have thought to spare for the horrors in her memory tonight, not if he had anything to say about it.
Her breasts were more sensitive than he’d imagined. Though he used only his mouth and hands, she came suddenly, taking Damon by surprise, her orgasm crashing against his mental sense from out of the blue.
Radiating pleasure and surprise in equal parts, Rory writhed in his arms, lost in her paroxysms of ecstasy. Gasping in delight, she arched beneath him, nearly lifting him off the narrow bed.
It wasn’t enough. She’d asked him to help her forget, if only for a little while.
Feeling the tremors of her body begin to subside, he resumed his suction, intent on stretching out her orgasm.
“Oh, God!” Rory twisted, her strong legs locking around his hips as she ground her pelvis against him.
Fighting to ignore the delicious pressure on his aching cock, Damon continued his carnal assault on her nipples. Her breasts had to be getting sore, but he couldn’t tell from her impassioned response. The gasps and moans and spikes of renewed desire that replaced her distress more than confirmed the rightness of his decision. He could give her this: a night’s respite from evil memory.
Burying his face in her cleavage, he pressed his stubbled jaw into the yielding slopes of her breasts, intent on overwhelming her senses.
She gasped, her back arching. The dark perfume of her arousal filled his head, calling to the primal male in him. Yielding. Ready for the taking.
All he had to do was mount her, his libido whispered. Insidious temptation.
Unable to help himself, Damon probed her pussy, testing her welcome and finding creamy acceptance. He struggled to deny his baser instincts, a battle made more difficult when Rory’s legs clamped down on his hand, her flesh hot and slick and tight around his fingers.
“Oh, yes. Please.”
Her encouragement didn’t help, either. His cock throbbed in demand, wanting in.
Damon hissed, riding out the nerve-jangling surge of aching desire. No, this was for Rory. To take her now, when she was vulnerable, would leave a bad taste in his mouth, no matter what his libido urged. Unlike his initial pursuit, this was no game to press for advantage.
Wrapping his lust in a stranglehold, he strummed his thumb over her swollen folds, adding to his bombardment of stimuli. Brilliant flares of delight rewarded him as his master thief panted with her growing need. Pressing kisses down her torso, he sought her pleasure points with every lick and caress, focusing on her neural centers for maximum sensation.
Rory gave herself over to the pleasure, embracing impetuous delight with reckless vigor. She writhed under him, undulating against his cock with breath-stealing abandon that had him praying for control, rubbing against him with all the flexibility of her supple body.
This time the buildup to her climax was clear, the gathering of her tension so bright he couldn’t overlook it. Combing through her fine muff, he bared her clit and tongued the erect nub, lavishing playful licks on the bud.
A choked moan greeted his foray, red sparks of passion dancing across his mental sense. Immersing himself in her heady perfume, he fed the blaze, suckling on her hard clit and pumping her creaming flesh.
With a harsh cry of relief, Rory came again.
Her ecstasy and relief seared him, her orgasm blinding, its intensity such that Damon could almost feel it. His cock throbbed with need, demanding fulfillment, so swollen he was afraid he’d embarrass himself by spilling in his pants.
He kept at her, drawing out her pleasure, pulling the liquid heat from her in wave after honey-sweet wave until she was too spent even to moan. Then, ignoring his aching hard-on, he released her, leaving her to slide into sleep.
“Damon?” Rory murmured as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Shhh. It’s okay. Just rest.”
With a sigh, she did.
Clenching his teeth against the justified torment of his balls, he held her in his arms while she slept, gratified that he could bring her such respite. Her peace was a balm on his mental sense, easing the atypical remorse plaguing him.
Only gradually did his hard-on subside, but eventually his mind grew clear enough to marvel at the secret she’d shared. Her trust staggered him.
It all made sense now. The Asian woman, the brash bleached blonde and other versions of blondes, the curly haired redhead, the dusky thief—they’d all been her.
Rory was a shapeshifter. Un-fucking-believable. He’d thought himself open-minded, his imagination made flexible by his incubus abilities, but even he would never have stretched it that far. Small wonder she’d had the agents previously assigned to acquire her chasing their tails. And no wonder she’d smirked when he’d asserted her blondness.
Damon studied her sleeping form, comparing it to her previous incarnations: a darker blonde; wavy, not curly, hair falling past her shoulders; small nipples that made her breasts look larger than average; fair skin but without the redhead’s translucence and far from the darkness of the brunette who’d turned the tables on him and rocked his world. It was like making love to completely different women and yet . . . not.
He was reminded of the first time he’d touched her dreams and the multitude of women who’d surrounded him. Which one was her true form?
Did it matter?
After some thought, Damon decided it didn’t. His master thief was the same, no matter what form she took—even that middle-aged woman’s. Anything that helped them accomplish the mission was a plus.
She snuggled closer to him, wrapping an arm around his waist and twining her legs with his. Such a deep and contented sleep for such a guarded woman.
Because of him.
Damon caressed her slowly, astounded by the change he felt. It wasn’t just Rory who was different.
They
were different. By revealing herself to him this way, she’d modified their equation, established an intimate bond he couldn’t deny.
Pulling his holster off his belt, he stuck it under his pillow and settled back with his master thief cradled securely in his arms. He could only hope the bond wouldn’t prove to be a liability.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Daylight shining on her heavy eyelids tried to drag Rory back to wakefulness, a state of affairs she wanted to avoid for some reason that didn’t bear thinking of. The delicious heat protecting her languid body from the cold mountain air made it easier to drift. Her mind felt sluggish, her thoughts refusing to connect, but her muscles had that sweet, wonderfully familiar ache that said she’d had fantastic sex the night before. The steady beat beneath her cheek was a comforting sound that demanded nothing of her.
But the relentless glare eventually proved too irritating to ignore, overcoming her inertia. A blade of sunlight had penetrated the room through a gap between the curtains to assault her eyes. Grunting, she shifted her head from its line of fire.
The sight of her arm, unmarred by wrinkles or other signs of age, jarred her closer to alertness. Hadn’t she Changed to an older woman for the return to the hostel? When had she dropped that guise for this one?
She tried to clench her hand and saw the limb obey. It was definitely hers.
“You alright?” The rumbled query resonated through her limp body, striking deep notes in her responsive core.
Only then did it dawn on Rory that she was virtually plastered to a very cotton-covered male chest—Damon’s. She took a deep breath, his male scent overcoming the embarrassment that stirred at the hint of clinginess. “Um, yeah.”
How had she ended up in this position?
“Sure?” His hand glided up her back, a soothing gesture that was quite unlike him.
Puzzlement roused at his persistence. Of course she was alright. Why did he think she needed soothing?
Rory rubbed sleep sand from her eyes, rather more than usual . . . unless they were dried tears. She blinked, a heaviness of spirit returning like some half-remembered dream. Had she cried in Damon’s arms? She sniffed experimentally; her nose was clear, which, when taken with the relaxation of her body, was a vote against crying, thank goodness.
Spurred by her Adonis’s waiting silence, her memory sharpened, recalling pleasure—a rolling orgasm that had wiped away all cares. Just the flashback was enough to warm her cheeks. But why was that any different from—
Almost in tears, she’d begged him for forgetfulness.
Oh.
Slowly, the reason for her meltdown revealed itself, emerging like the image on old-fashioned photo paper immersed in a developer bath.
The memory of the brutality she’d witnessed was now like a dream, the horror held at a distance by the fatigue weighing down her limbs. Sexual hangover had its advantages, it seemed. Obviously, she had Damon to thank for her condition, though the details were hazy.
Toward the end, all she really remembered was one continuous rolling orgasm after another. He’d so overwhelmed her senses that she didn’t recall much after that. She must have passed out at some point.
Then a different memory surfaced, one of Changing in Damon’s presence, unplanned and unintended. Despite her much-debated concerns, something inside her had instinctively trusted the Fed in the midst of her crisis.
Oh, God.
Rory winced, wishing she could start the day over. She couldn’t believe she’d revealed her shapeshifting to him just like that—without any forethought or deliberate decision. While she trusted her gut, she preferred logic whenever possible. She buried her face in her unyielding pillow and made a mental note not to mention her slip to her family.