Edge of Desire (8 page)

As if he didn’t notice her trying to pull away from him, he kept his fingers locked around her arm. “Who was on the phone?”

“The phone? Oh, um, no one important,” she murmured, hoping for an interruption that would allow her to go and find someplace quiet, where she could collect herself. “And nothing I can’t handle.”

Obviously unwilling to play the game, he reached out with his other hand and pulled her chin around, forcing her to meet his heavy-lidded gaze as he said, “You’re afraid of him.”

“Of Neal?” she scoffed, shaking her head. “He’s too pathetic to be afraid of.”

He drew in a deep breath, the sexy creases at the corners of his eyes deepening as he grunted, “You’re lying.”

“And what if I am?” she snapped, just wanting to get away. Neal was not someone she discussed with anyone. Not even with Millie. She’d already hashed out the stupidity of getting involved with a man like Neal Capshaw with a whole slew of therapists, after it’d all come to a crashing end, and felt no better for it when the medical bills had finally been paid.

Of course, Riley wasn’t ready to let it go, reminding her of a dog with a bone. “What did that son of a bitch do to you? And this time, I want an answer,” he told her, a gritty, graveled edge to his words that revealed so much. His protective instincts. His honor. As well as what he thought of men who tried to bully women.

“You want an answer, huh?” she breathed out with a soft, brittle burst of laughter. “Come on, Ri. Haven’t you learned by now that we seldom, if ever, actually get what we want?”

She could tell it’d been the wrong thing to say the instant the words left her mouth. His expression tightened, as if in pain, and the next thing she knew, he was pushing her against the magnolia-colored hallway wall, trapping her there, his long fingers wrapped around her biceps, holding her in place. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, staring up into his dark, glittering eyes. Her lips quivered, throat tight, while the searing heat of his gaze pressed against her skin like a physical touch, making her melt and burn in places that had been cold for too damn long.

“Stop trying to run away from me and just answer the goddamn question,” he rasped in a low, almost silent growl, the primal sound shivering across her stunned nerve endings. Her body tingled, as if she’d placed her fingertips against a live current, the electricity arcing through her body, vibrant and piercing and warm. It made her shaky. Made her crazed for something that she didn’t understand.

She opened her mouth, ready to say God only knew what, but nothing would come out. No explanations. No denials. Just a gasping, breathless silence that somehow seemed to push him further toward the edge of some strange, gripping emotion. It was like a wild, shocking blend of lust and frustration and worry, all jumbled into one seething mass.

“Your heart is racing,” he said in a rough voice, shifting his right hand until he could press the callused pad
of his thumb against the rapid quiver of her pulse at the base of her throat. “Why are you so afraid?”

She wet her bottom lip, struggling to finally find her voice. “D-didn’t you tell me that I should be scared? On guard? Ready for catastrophe?”

“Yeah, I did. And you should be. But you weren’t upset until that phone call.” The sudden touch of his hand against the side of her face was too much for her, his thumb stroking the shivering corner of her mouth, and she panicked as she felt her grip on the tattered edges of her control begin to slip from her grasp. She made a small, breathless sound of panic, and he leaned closer, pressing the heat of his body against her, anchoring her in place.

“Jesus, Riley,” she gasped, acutely aware of the solid weight of his gun against her rib cage as she realized he was wearing a shoulder holster beneath the open flannel he’d layered over his T-shirt. “What are you doing?”

He kept his gaze on her mouth, even as he slowly shook his head. “Damned if I know,” he answered. “But it’s going to be one hell of a mistake.”

“What is?”

“This,” he groaned, lowering his head, but she ducked at the last second, and his mouth grazed her cheek.

Oh, God. Sparks of sensation skittered across her skin, and she moaned deep in her throat, the husky, provocative sound taking her by surprise. It hadn’t sounded
like her, like the woman she knew, and she had the oddest sensation that a stranger was taking over her body. One who wanted to crawl her way under Riley Buchanan’s skin and become a part of him, whether he broke her heart again or not. Who wanted to strip off her clothes and pull him into her body, losing herself in the violent, desperate hunger of his possession.

“Kiss me, Hope,” he whispered in a velvet-rough voice within the sensitive hollow of her ear, and his lower body pressed against hers, the thick, enormous ridge of his hardened cock leaving no doubt that however else he felt about her, he
wanted
her in that moment.

She swallowed, struggling to force out a shaky, tremulous “I can’t,” when what she really wanted was to scream “
Yes!”

“I know it’s stupid,” he rasped, threading his fingers through her hair, holding her head in place as he pressed his lips against the sensitive edge of her jaw, while her own hands curved greedily around the hard, powerful bulge of his biceps. “I know I don’t have any right to touch you, not after what I did to you. But I
need
it. It’s driving me crazy, wondering if you really taste as good as I remember. If your mouth can really be that hot. Your lips that soft.”

She blinked, her eyes heavy, his mouth so close now she could feel the delicious heat of his breath. Taste it. And then the sound of the kitchen door opening downstairs broke the spell, jarring them back to awareness. Riley instantly released his hold on her, taking a step
back as they heard Millie making her way up the stairs. He stared into her eyes, his throat working, looking as if he wanted to say something…but couldn’t find the words. A swarm of emotions flashed through his dark, beautiful gaze, stunning her with their intensity, and then he shook his head with a sharp, decisive motion. Grabbing the pen and small tablet for messages that sat beside the phone, he wrote down what looked like a number. Ripping off the sheet, he turned and handed it to her, then walked away, saying a gruff good-morning to Millie as he passed her on the stairs.

Hope watched as her aunt turned right down the hallway, walking away without even seeing her slumped there against the wall, then heard Kellan’s deep voice telling Millie hello. She knew she needed to pull her aunt aside and explain about the phone call. Warn her that there might be even more trouble on the way. But her legs were too shaky to support her, much less walk.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the wall, unable to think about what had almost happened with Riley. It was too dangerous, too fragile, even for the guarded privacy of her mind. She should focus on Neal instead, but she was almost too afraid to think of what kind of stunt he might try to pull, now that he was a free man. It made her blood curl to think of facing him again, but she had to be ready, in case he decided to make an appearance. That was all she needed. One more worry to hang over her head.

It sucked, but she didn’t have time to stand there and
wallow in doubts and fear. Opening her eyes, she ground her jaw, determined not to let them control her, and looked down at the note that Riley had given her. She struggled to steady her shaking hand as she read what he’d written.

It was his cell phone number, followed by two brief sentences.

As far as messages went, it wasn’t anything to fall apart over. But there was something inherently telling in the simple words that made her chest feel tight, her throat quivering with emotion. Taking a deep breath, Hope pressed the small piece of paper to her mouth for a moment, then quickly tucked it into the front pocket of her jeans and started down the hall.

Monday morning

T
WENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER
, Riley’s tension had reached the breaking point. Despite their nearly constant digging deep in the forest, he had nothing more to show for it than a grinding sense of desperation in both his mind and his gut. He knew that every minute he spent in Purity put Hope’s and Millie’s lives in danger, but that wasn’t the only thing that had him on edge. Despite his determination, the stubborn woman still hadn’t answered his questions about her ex, and Riley was ready to snap.

You could always solve the problem and just make the call. Find out on your own just what kind of prick Neal Capshaw is. Find out why Hope is so afraid of him.

It was true, damn it. But as he glared at the rich, moss-covered floor of the forest, he knew he couldn’t do it. To seek out the answer behind her back felt like a form of betrayal, and God only knew he’d already betrayed her enough. He wanted to hear the truth from Hope, and knew that in some perverse way, it was a
symbol of his pathetic need for proof that she trusted him. Not that he’d ever given her any reason to trust him with her secrets. Even now, he was
still
lying to her. Still doing his best to sugarcoat the truth. The truth being that he posed an even bigger threat to her safety than her ex, no matter how despicable the man had been.

Drawing in a deep breath of the damp, forest-scented air, Riley tried to clear his mind and focus on his search for the Marker, but he could
not
get the bad feeling out of his gut. The one that said this was all going to end in disaster, with him standing at the center, pulling everyone down with him into the churning slime, like a toxic sinkhole of destruction.

Wiping his face on his sleeve, he gritted his teeth and dug the blade of the shovel back into the rich earth, while bitterly wondering once again if this was all some kind of maniacal cosmic joke. One whose punch line was going to be nothing more than rot and blood and gore. Violence and pain and deception. The last thing in the world that he wanted was to drag Hope into the middle of it all, and yet here he was, sucking her into the nightmare that he’d always known was coming.

He couldn’t leave, and yet, when it all crashed down on him, he didn’t want to be anywhere near Purity. He could feel his control slipping a little further each day, his gut constantly knotted with fear at what he was sliding into.

Though he did his best to hide it, that cold burn of fear never left him. Not since that night when everything
he’d thought would be his had been ripped away.
Bam!
…and it was gone. Taken away from him forever. And since then, the fear had been like a cancer eating away at his insides, slowly scraping him raw. Taking him deeper, bit by bit, into a deep, dark well of loathing.

Ironic, how after all the ribbing Ian had given him over the years—all the wisecracks about that ridiculous nickname—that it was his older brother who had managed to come through all this like the
saintly
one. Ian had killed the Casus who had been hunting him, saved his woman, and was now a part of a fight that would save lives, make a difference, while Riley was the walking time bomb of destruction. He would do what he could, but the simple fact was that he wouldn’t be around long enough to truly make an impact. He only prayed that he could find a way to help Hope in the time that he had left by getting the Marker off her land. And God willing, have a chance to face the man who’d put that haunted look in her eyes.

Riley hated that she wouldn’t confide in him. Wouldn’t tell him what was wrong…what she was afraid of. He’d seen that look on enough faces to recognize it for what it was. The cold, stark burn of
fear.
When he’d seen it in Hope’s beautiful eyes yesterday morning, it’d screwed with his head, and damn near caused him to make the mother of all mistakes.

It had been madness for him to try to kiss her. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, but then that was the problem. He hadn’t. There’d been no rational
thought, his head overloaded with the savage, visceral need to get her mouth beneath his. Her body…her flesh. To feel the provocative slide of her blood down his throat, warm and thick and impossibly delicious, at the same time she pulsed around his cock in a long, wet, mind-shattering release.

If you’d try…she’d let you take what you need. You know she would. If you told her you were in pain…that you needed it, she would never tell you no. Not Hope.

The dangerous, tempting words came from a dark, seething place buried deep inside him, and Riley knew it was the Merrick. The creature was conniving, he’d give him that. Its hunger was growing stronger…wearing him down, his body aching like an addict going through the brutal symptoms of withdrawal. It wanted satisfaction. Completion. It wanted power and sustenance and the feel of a soft, womanly body beneath it as it buried its fangs into tender, succulent flesh.

And for some goddamn reason which was going to be the death of him, it seemed to have fixated on Hope.

Riley swung his hand through the air in a sharp, cutting motion, as if he could swipe away the dark, destructive images burning through his mind, of him and Hope together, her pale thighs spread wide as he powered into her, shoving deeper…and deeper. The sound of something heavy colliding with a nearby tree made him flinch. Looking up at the sound, he found himself staring at the bizarre sight of his coffee Thermos embedded in the rough trunk of a towering Garry oak.

Holy shit
. When he’d cut his hand through the air, he must have inadvertently swept up the Thermos without touching it and hurled it at the tree. The realization stunned him, and he scrubbed his hand down his face, quietly freaking out. Christ, what if Kellan had been standing there? Or Hope? He could have hurt someone. Killed them.

The power or telekinesis or whatever it was appeared to be growing stronger, but he still didn’t know why. Was it because the Merrick was coming closer to the surface? Or was it simply that his control was slipping? Ever since he’d learned that the awakenings were coming, it had been sliding through his fingers like rushing water, and that’s when the first signs of the power had started to show. Since seeing Hope, that control had slipped further from his grasp…leaving the power freer to escape.

He needed to be careful, damn it. Needed to rein in his temper. Needed to learn to control the Merrick until he found that Marker, doing everything he could to master its craving.

Hope,
it growled through his head, telling him what it wanted, and Riley choked back a snarl, slamming the shovel back into the ground, wishing that he could just find the bloody cross. Now. Before things got any worse. And yet he couldn’t deny that there was a dark, secret part of him that hoped it would take them just a little bit longer. That he could have just a little more time with her.

“Enough,” he muttered under his breath. “Get a damned grip.”

The sudden sound of someone coming through the trees caught his attention, the scent on the air telling him that it was Kellan. The awakening Merrick was altering his senses, making them sharper…more precise, so that he could now identify people by their smell alone.

“This sucks out loud,” Kellan muttered, twisting off the top of his water bottle and taking a long drink as he came into view. They’d mapped out the prime search area based on calculations Saige had given them, with Kellan starting on one end, and Riley working at the other. They would search the area in rows, until they met in the middle, and if the cross still hadn’t been found at that point, then the original square would be widened, until they finally discovered the Marker’s resting place.

Taking another drink, Kellan wiped the back of his wrist over his mouth and continued to bitch. “I mean it, man. This sucks on so many different levels, I don’t even know where to start. It’s cold. Rainy. Windy. I thought Saige said the damn Marker would be easy for us to find. That she had an even better reading on this map, after using the first one to find that Marker down in Brazil.”

Unfortunately, that Marker was now in Westmore’s possession, leaving them with only one, until they found the cross buried there in Purity.

“She said it
might
be easier,” Riley murmured, hunching his shoulders against the blistering wind. Despite the crappy weather, he still thought the area was intensely beautiful, the deep, earthy brown of the tree
trunks and branches in sharp contrast to the jeweled, mossy green of the leaves. Everything smelled moist and rich and alive, like a primeval Eden filled with blossoming life. He was sure that by the time his sister had finished deciphering the maps, the others would find themselves searching in places far worse than this. “But it’s not an exact science,” he went on to say, wiping a sheen of sea-scented mist from his face. “Saige warned us we might have to keep expanding the search area.”

Using her unusual gift of communicating with physical objects, his sister was still working out just how to understand the strange, encrypted maps that she’d found buried with the first Dark Marker in Italy. They called it the first, or original Marker, simply because it had been the first one that she’d found, and had been buried with the maps that led to the location of who knew how many others. No one knew how many crosses the original Consortium—the organization that governed the ancient clans—had made, and the maps were actually nothing more than an endless set of directions to various locations around the world. The directions bled into one another, the code evolving as it went, which meant you couldn’t look at the weathered sheets and say exactly how many Markers they would lead to. The act of deciphering the strange code was a tedious one, and so far only Saige knew how to do it. Her fiancé, Quinn, was trying to help her, but who knew how long it would take to work through all of them. Weeks? Months? Years?

Although it’d been proven that the maps were a valuable aid, when Saige used the first one to finally unearth the second Marker in Brazil, it had not been an easy process. The maps were anything but specific, and she’d had to search a substantial area of rain forest before she’d found the cross. She thought she’d gotten a more exact read on this second map, narrowing down the search area, but Riley wasn’t holding out much hope. With the way his luck had been going lately, he wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up excavating a good half-acre or more before they found what they’d come for.

Leaning his shoulders back against one of the thickest trunks, Kellan bent his right knee, braced his foot on the tree and took another drink of his water. “Do you think Westmore and his men made copies of the maps?” the Watchman asked after a moment, while a low, ominous rumble of thunder accompanied his words. Westmore had actually had possession of the maps for a few days, until they’d gotten them back with Seth McConnell’s help.

“I’m sure they did,” Riley replied, shoveling aside a layer of soil. “But who knows how long it will take for them to learn how to read them. Hell, without Saige, they might never be able to decipher that series of codes.”

Kellan grunted under his breath, jerking his chin toward Riley’s spade. “Well, if we don’t hurry up and find this thing, I’m going to start thinking they’ve already been and gone.”

Riley shook his head, working the shovel back into the moist earth. “If that was the case, we’d know. I don’t think Gregory, if he’s here, would be holding out, waiting for me to feed and fully awaken before trying to kill me. From what Quinn and Saige said, he’s more interested in revenge than he is in getting enough power to bring more Casus back from Meridian. Which means he must be waiting for us to the find the Marker, like the others will probably do, and then he’ll make his move.”

At least he hoped that was the case. It made him uneasy as hell, not knowing what the Casus were up to. What they had planned. With every minute he and Kellan spent searching that verdant patch of forest, the monsters were out there, waiting. No doubt watching them. As the sky cracked open with a thundering jolt of lightning, Riley looked toward the cloud-scarred horizon and shivered. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt as if something bad was coming in on the weather. Something ugly and dark and destructive. And when it hit, all hell was going to break loose.

God, he
needed
that damn Marker. If he didn’t find it soon, he would have to get Hope out of there, whether she was willing to go or not. It couldn’t just drag on, the danger…the not knowing when it was going to hit.

Kellan yawned again from his resting place against the tree, sounding as if he were ready to drop. Riley buried the shovel back into the ground, resting his hands on the handle as he studied the Watchman through
narrowed eyes. “Just what were you up to last night?” he asked. Kellan had headed into town, saying he needed to blow off some steam after they’d grabbed dinner in the café. He hadn’t gotten back before two, which was when Riley had finally managed to fall asleep.

“What do you think I was doing?” Kellan laughed, dropping his head back against the tree as he closed his eyes.

Knowing he sounded like a lecturing father, Riley said, “We’re in the middle of a war, Kell, and you’re still out every night getting laid. Your brother’s terrified that sooner or later you’re going to end up in bed with the wrong woman.”

“There’s no such thing,” Kellan drawled, opening his eyes. “And this one was definitely
right.
Long black hair. Big green eyes. And legs that go all the way to the floor. Amazing.”