Authors: Anna Alexander
“Which leg hurts?” she asked.
“The right one.”
With her knife she cut up the length of his denim-covered
shin. “If you shift into a wolf, won’t that heal your injuries?”
He managed a small grin. “I’m not really a werewolf,
Sheriff.”
“I know.” She winked. “Just thought you might need a
reminder.”
A giant black-and-blue bruise circled his swollen knee like
a bandana. Only an x-ray would confirm whether or not it was broken, but until
then, Brett was going to treat him with the utmost care. From her bag she
withdrew splints and straps and began to immobilize his leg. She kept him
talking, pausing every now and again to update the crew of Jason’s condition
and her progress. When his leg was wrapped to her satisfaction, she carefully
slipped the harness around his hips.
“Stacy, I’m gonna need your assistance to steady him while I
lift.”
“Okay.” She kept her left arm tucked to her side as she
helped Brett get Jason to his feet.
The slack in the rope tightened, which helped keep his
weight off his leg, but he moaned and hissed as he was raised slowly in the air
like a piñata.
Brett and Stacy ducked under the slate roof as gravel and
earth rained down in small bursts. The trickle turned into a steady stream as
Jason cleared the opening and the weight of the paramedics assisting him
further upset the unstable ground.
The harness dropped back down and Brett helped Stacy pull it
into place then stepped back to watch the next act of Cirque de Rescue. Stacy’s
squeaks and shouts as she pulled a reverse Alice up the rabbit hole made for a
grating soundtrack.
An ominous crack shot an electric current down Brett’s back,
prodding her to action. She dove deeper into the tunnel as a slab of slate
broke off from the ceiling and fell across the exit, spraying pebbles
everywhere like buckshot.
“Sheriff! Sheriff!” Collins shout crackled through her
radio. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” she croaked. She forced out a cough then tried
again. “Yeah. How about you all?”
“We’re good.”
“Great.”
She closed her eyes. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Her lungs burned as she sucked in a mouthful of dust. Tiny
streaks of daylight scattered in random patterns where it managed to find a
fissure in the rock and soil. Unable to distinguish wall from ceiling,
claustrophobia began to wrap her in its icy grip. Tiny, dark places reminded
her of coffins, and thoughts of death were never good.
She jumped to her feet and mentally kicked her rising
hysteria in the balls. Panic was going to help no one. Who knew when she’d be
freed, and her time would be better spent gathering information to help her
crew than to sit, wallowing in fear.
“Sit tight, Sheriff, we’ll get you out.”
She certainly hoped so. “Thanks, Collins,” she said into her
radio and wobbled to her feet.
Okay, first priority, ensuring breathable air. If she wasn’t
completely cut off from oxygen, she might take a crack at digging through that
blockade herself.
Deep, dark and spooky, the tunnel stretched before her,
lengthening with each step she took into the abyss. The temperature grew warmer
the farther she went, but a cool draft skimmed over her cheek, which meant the
tunnel had to have some sort of ventilation. The air was damp and tasted
metallic on the back of her tongue. At five feet two inches tall she had to
hunch over, but the floor was even and easy to traverse. As she walked, she trailed
her fingers over the stone, noting the deep gouges that looked as if the rock
had been carved out by a giant claw.
Her helmet bumped into a flat, square metal plate screwed
flush against the rock. A few feet farther in, she found another. Their wide and
irregular spacing set a wave of unease rolling in her belly. God, if those were
all that kept the ceiling from tumbling down on her, she was in deep shit.
After another couple of steps, the tunnel intersected with a second shaft that
ran perpendicular to the one she came down.
“Hey, Sheriff.” Collins’ steady voice echoed down the
tunnel. “How are you holding up?”
“All right for now. I’m definitely in a tunnel and it looks
man-made. I want someone to locate the permit for permission to dig in a
national park.”
“Dig as in mine? Ah, Sheriff, that may take some time—hey!
What are you doing?”
“Collins?” Static. “Collins, what the hell is going on?”
“A man just jumped into the hole. He’s—holy shit, did you
see that?” The incredulity in his tone kicked her heart into fifth gear.
“What?” she shouted. Curiosity ate at her insides until her
skin itched. “Collins, what’s happening?”
“Someone’s down there tossing—my God, did you see the size
of that rock? He’s tossing boulders out like they’re pebbles.”
She ran back to the blockade as fast as her stooped posture
allowed. “Who is it?”
No response. Her heart crept up her throat with the
suspense, cutting off further speech as she waited, staring at the wall.
A dirty hand reached through a thin crevasse and wrapped
around a watermelon-sized stone and pulled. As the small hole in the blockade
widened, she swung the beam of her flashlight and gasped as she caught sight of
a familiar hooded figure.
Her vigilante.
A form-fitting black cowl covered his head and neck and
continued down his arms. A tunic draped his torso and was tied at the waist
with a belt like a karate obi. The metallic fabric reflected the fading
daylight in sparkling bursts of light one second, then blended with the earth
the next. Another rock was removed, revealing a pair of pale-green eyes that
peered at her from the shadows.
Kristos.
“What do you…” Any reprimand she might have said died on her
lips as she stared in shock at the impossible speed he used to remove debris.
“Sheriff, are you all right?” he asked, not even sounding
winded.
She nodded then realized he probably couldn’t see her. “I’m
okay.”
He pushed aside a boulder that should have taken a crane to
lift. The grinding screech of rock on rock sent a shiver so cold down her spine
she felt it in her teeth.
“You amaze me, Sheriff,” he said, breaking through her
stupefaction. “How you came down here without a moment’s hesitation. That was
very brave.”
“It’s my job. What’s your excuse?”
The cowl obscured most of his face, except for his eyes and
the opening that framed his sinful smile. “My job.”
“Which is what?”
“Protecting you.”
“I never asked you to.”
“I know. That’s why I do it. I will always protect you.
Until my last dying breath.”
She shook her head in confusion. His loyalty didn’t make
sense. They’d never been on a date, she refused him at every turn, they were
practically strangers. His devotion was complete and utter madness. “Why?”
He paused, mid-crouch with muscles tense, and pinned her
with an unflinching gaze, which left her feeling as if she were on a crazy
roller coaster that was both thrilling and terrifying. “Because I think of you
as mine, Brett. That fire, that passion you try to hide is a rare and beautiful
thing. You are the sun that warms the cold loneliness of my days. You are mine,
even though you push me away and won’t let me love you, you are still mine. And
if all I am able to do is protect you, then I will.”
A tight band squeezed around her chest as she realized he
meant every word. His interference had never been an issue about her ability or
skill. He only wanted to care for her, any way he could.
Well, mother fucker. Her throat tightened as she fought to
think. This adoration was a gift she had no idea what to make of. She was the
rock, the dependable one who took care of everyone and everything. It was
never, “How can I help you, Brett?” but, “Brett, please help me.” To have
someone do for her while knowing she wouldn’t reciprocate was unexpected and
left her at a complete loss.
She couldn’t accept such an extravagant gift. His life
wasn’t worth her safety and she lived in constant danger. Could Kristos respect
her position, or would he try to make her give up all she worked for to spend
every night in his arms?
That doesn’t sound so terrible
,whispered her
heart.
“It’s time to go, Sheriff. Ready?”
She wet her lips. Was she? “Yeah.”
His jaw went rigid as he clenched his teeth and pushed with
his arms and legs. Ever so slowly the gap widened until she was able to squeeze
between his hard body and the wall.
Halfway through, she was jerked to a halt as her belt buckle
caught on the knot of fabric that circled his waist. Wedging her fingers in the
nonexistent gap, she pulled and jerked at the fabric that refused to tear away.
“Hurry,” Kristos hissed.
“I’m trying.” She tugged harder. “I’m stuck.”
“Holy Father,” he groaned.
Brett glanced up and gasped at the lines of strain around
his mouth and the amount of sweat trickling from under the cowl into his eyes
that narrowed with pain. His body vibrated against her like a V-8 engine in
need of a tune up and his arms trembled under the strain.
“I almost got it.”
The metal snapped and she stumbled free, crashing into a
pile of dirt. With a groan deep from his stomach, Kristos dropped the one-ton
stone. The sides of the tunnel rumbled and quaked and dirt fell down on them
like rain as the walls collapsed inward.
Before she could draw a breath, strong hands grasped her
waist and tossed her high into the air and out of the hole. She hit the ground
hard, rolling over and over until she came to a stop on her back. The treetops
swirled above her as her vision swam. A heavy thud landed beside her. She
turned to see Kristos flat on his stomach. Behind him paramedics raced in their
direction.
“You fine?” he gasped.
She nodded, still struggling to breathe. “You?”
He frowned and his pupils dilated and constricted as if he,
too, couldn’t focus. “I don’t know. Something’s not right.”
Now he recognized that something was unusual?
Despite whatever pain he was in, he pushed off the ground
and rose to a shaky stand.
“I’ll find you,” he promised then ran for the trees at a
speed that made his image blur.
Collins knelt next to her. “Sheriff, where are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” She batted his hands, her attention firmly fixed
on the spot in the tree line where Kristos disappeared.
Collins followed her line of sight. “Who was that masked
man?”
She turned toward him with a raised eyebrow. “Did you
seriously just ask that question?”
“Well…” His cheeks turned red. “Yeah, but really, who was
that?”
She opened her mouth to answer then looked back to the
woods. “I don’t know.”
The statement wasn’t exactly false. The “who” she knew.
“What” he was, that was altogether different.
Chapter Four
What was Kristos Kilsgaard?
All during the examination in the emergency room, and later
at the station as she completed her report, those four words played in her mind
as if stuck on repeat.
What
was Kristos Kilsgaard?
The doctor had given her a clean bill of health, so it
hadn’t been a knock to the head that made her see a lone man lift a refrigerator-size
boulder and toss her into the air as if she were a Hail Mary shot before the
buzzer in the Final Four Tournament. She could attribute the day’s experience
to stress, or lack of sleep, or it was dark and she missed her morning cup of
coffee, but no, that wasn’t true either.
So where did that leave her?
Brett rubbed the heel of her hand into her eye to try to
alleviate the throbbing headache caused by constant thinking. Not even the hot
shower and clean change of clothes she grabbed in her office gave her
perspective.
Her house keys felt as if they weighed ten pounds and it
took two tries to fit the correct one in the lock and push open the door to her
little two-bedroom rambler. Without turning on the light, she shut the door and
hung her coat on the peg on the wall.
She drew a deep breath as a thousand pinpricks of
electricity scattered across her skin. “I don’t remember giving you a key.”
“I didn’t need one.”
A lamp switched on and she slowly turned around only to rock
back on her heels. Kristos stood in her living room, freshly washed and so
devastatingly handsome that the ancient Greeks would have thought him a god and
made offerings to him daily. However it wasn’t his beauty that held her
enthralled, it was the worry and adoration in those amazing eyes that made it
impossible for her to breathe.
“You know, I think I lost ten years off my life when I heard
you were trapped.” The low timbre of his voice quivered as his accent deepened.
He kept his hands in his pockets as he took a step closer. “I could not stand
by and do nothing when I knew I could help. You mean too much to me.”
A thousand and one things gathered on the tip of her tongue,
yet she couldn’t utter the ones that logic dictated she should say. Kristos was
not normal. He was possibly even…superhuman, which was a thought so incredulous
she should be lying down with an ice pack to the head and a healthy shot of
whiskey. All of her instincts were screaming at her to demand the truth, but at
this moment,
this
moment, the barrier between thinking and knowing was
as solid as a brick wall. Once she opened the lid on Pandora’s box, the world
and everything she knew about it was going to change forever. It was as certain
as the color of her eyes. Whether she wanted it or not, her naiveté about the
universe was going to die as soon as she got her answers.
Neither of them moved as he waited for her to respond. She
licked her lips and fought back the panic that came with unavoidable change.
She didn’t want to know, not yet. It might be crazy, certifiable, but she
wanted to defy the fates and steal a moment in time because his touch, his
flavor, was what she craved. Her fingers flexed, ready to strip away the
uniform that felt scratchy against her too-hot flesh. Beneath the lace of her
bra her nipples tightened and throbbed in time to her rapidly beating heart.
Need whipped through her like a live current, liquefying her center and making
her all too aware of how empty her pussy was. Her throat constricted, trapping
the words her passion-starved body demand she say. Did she have the guts to
follow her heart?
Well, she didn’t become sheriff by being a pansy.
“Kristos, will you love me?”
He cocked his head and blinked in surprise. “What?”
She placed a hand over his heart and felt it kick. “Make
love to me. Please?”
He drew away even as he reached for her. Tilting her chin up
with his forefinger, his brow creased with wariness, as if he could sense she
wasn’t one hundred percent confident of what she asked. “Are you sure?”
He wanted her, it was a fact he never denied, and yet he
waited for her to give the command.
With that act alone, the weight of a million doubts
released, leaving her lightheaded but confident in her decision. “I’ve never
been more certain.”
She stood on tiptoe to run the edge of her tongue across his
full lower lip before brushing her mouth against his with butterfly-soft
touches. His eyelids lowered with drowsy desire. Chills ran across her arms as
his fingers skimmed down her throat and cupped behind her neck.
“Always,
mi alskata
,” he murmured, before fusing
their lips together, striking a match to her tinder that quickly caught fire
and raged into an inferno.
Dear lord, the man was hot. Not just in appearance, but his
skin burned her through the cotton of his shirt and his kisses seared away
anything close to a coherent thought. His heat sent her own temperature soaring
and made her desperate for the feel of cool air on her naked skin.
She drew in his clean scent and reveled in the taste that
was pure Kristos. He was like Irish coffee, smoky on the tongue, with a
lingering burn that called you back for more. His kiss alone was worth the fall
into madness.
He swallowed her gasp of surprise when he gripped the collar
of her shirt and split it open with a jerk. Buttons popped like confetti to
scatter over the wood floor, soon joined by bits of fabric so torn they
wouldn’t be fit for rags. Relief from being released from the coarse material
was short-lived as a new hunger consumed her. She had to have him against her,
surrounding her, pressing into her so deep she would never be free of him.
Surprise widened his eyes as he focused on her breasts. The
backs of his fingers skirted up her quivering belly and traced the jade circle
pendant that hung beneath the generous mounds. “Now this, I like.”
Smug satisfaction entered that knowing smile, which always
made her feel as exposed as an ingénue in her first
Playboy
spread. No
matter how hard she tried, there was never any hiding her feelings from
Kristos.
He claimed her mouth again, his tongue spearing between her
lips in teasing jabs to tangle with hers in a playful game of hide and seek.
Lifting her against his chest, he carried her the few steps to the dining
table. Her bare back hit the cold surface and she arched with a hiss, thrusting
her breasts into his waiting hands. His thumbs dragged down the cups of her
bra, the lace scraped the pebbled tips that he soothed with the flat of his
tongue. Pulling the nipple into his mouth, he suckled at the nub with deep
draws that pulled straight to her core, making the ache in her pussy all the
more unbearable.
“I want to touch you.” She dug her fingers into his hair,
which was just as soft as she imagined, as her other hand tugged at his
shoulders. “Kristos, I need to touch you.”
He smiled against her breast. “Hmm, decisions, decisions. Do
I stop supping on these delicious breasts or have your hands running over my
skin? That’s a hard choice to make.” He rubbed the thick ridge of his cock
against the juncture of her thighs.
“Kristos,” she growled and tore at the cotton of his shirt.
With a low chuckle, he stepped back and drew the shirt over
his head. The soft lamplight threw every contour of muscle into stark relief,
creating a road map of hills and valleys that lead to mindless pleasure. She
pressed a light kiss to the scar on his biceps as she drew a line down the
center of his abs with the tips of her fingers, then again with her palm. His
shudder traveled up her arm, making her tremble in return. Leaning forward, she
placed open-mouthed kisses against his blistering skin, drawing his salty taste
onto her tongue.
“Brett.
Alskata
,” he panted. “If you go any lower—”
He groaned as she blew hot air through his jeans over the head of his erection.
Having the ability to make this big, strong man weak in the knees left her
dizzy and eager to see how far she could push him.
She tugged down the zipper and sighed in delight when his
heavy cock fell into her hand. Her fingers barely closed around the pulsing
girth and her inner muscles clenched in anticipation of the sweet upward curve
stroking along every nerve ending.
A pearly drop of pre-cum wept from the tip, which she swept
away with her thumb. She wanted more of it, as much as he could produce,
spurting down her throat, splashing on her breasts and deep inside her pussy.
The desire triggered a quick flash of sanity. “Please tell me you have a
condom.”
From his back pocket he produced a foil packet and slapped
it on the table, leaving a hand-sized dent in the wood. His enthusiasm brought
a grin to her lips before she engulfed the head of his cock and swallowed him
down to the base. His taste quickly became one of her most favorite treats.
Against her tongue his cock flexed and pulsed as strangled
moans stuttered through his clenched teeth. Her hands never stopped caressing
him. The muscles of his stomach and thighs quivered under her palms. Each pass
gave her the strength to give her body entirely to his keeping.
She could have sucked on him for hours, but Kristos wasn’t
content to let her take the lead for long. “No, no. I won’t last.”
He pushed her back onto the table and used his
lightning-fast speed to strip her of her pants.
“By the Gods, Brett, you’re—” He shook his head. “Words
cannot describe how stunning you are.”
It wasn’t the words he used, but the light in his eyes and
the flush across his cheeks that made her feel gorgeous, sexy and purely
powerful in her femininity. Her legs fell wider apart and she skimmed her hands
down her torso, her fingertips stopping just short of the blonde hair coving
her mound. A siren’s call to hedonistic oblivion.
The sound that welled from his throat was both animalistic
growl and helpless abandonment. Open-mouthed kisses followed his calloused hand
up the inside of her thigh. His thumbs parted the swollen lips of her sex, his
tongue circling the nub of her clit before sucking it hard into his mouth.
Her entire body quaked under his ministrations and her teeth
chattered with the adrenaline. She craved his possession, ached so badly she
wanted to weep. Her pussy never felt so empty, so ravenous. Not even the thick
finger he pushed deep inside slaked the hunger that built like a rushing river
against a weak dam.
“More. Please. Please,” she begged, grinding her cunt
against his hand.
Her nails scored his back in an attempt to find purchase and
avoid flying off the edge into insanity. His name fell from her lips like a
chant one moment and a prayer the next.
“I love the way you say my name,” he moaned and the sound
vibrated against her clit. “Come for me,
alskata
. Let me taste you come.”
Two fingers thrust deep and rubbed the spot inside that
hurtled her off the precipice. The wave rolled up her body and exploded out the
top of her head. Her vision blurred, only to clear when she felt the head of
his latex-covered cock nudge her opening.
The last of her breath rushed out at the sight of the savage
expression on his face. His eyes narrowed with purpose and the skin over his
cheeks drew tight as the unrelenting grip on her hips readied her for his
possession. Gone was the playful lover and in his place was an aroused man with
only one thought on his mind. Fuck his woman.
His first thrust drew a scream, a sharp, high-pitched wail
that robbed her of her ability to think. She was incapable of doing anything
more than thrashing and whimpering under the onslaught of pleasure. The
intensity in his set jaw and compressed lips held her captivated as he rocked
the table with deep lunges.
“Put your hands over your head. Yes,” he grunted when she
complied. “Grab the edge of the table. Show your body to me.”
His pupils dilated so wide only a thin, glowing green ring
of iris remained. How wanton must she look with her legs splayed wide and his
thick cock splitting her in two? Her bouncing breasts hung out of the torn cups
of her bra, yet she didn’t feel embarrassed as his cock swelled and sweat
poured down to where their bodies joined. She was a willing vessel of
gluttonous sexual need and he was rocketing her to a high she knew would become
addictive.
His grunts and moans turned into mumbled words she didn’t
understand. The cadence was beautiful and she felt a warmth bloom in the center
of her chest, growing and spreading like warm honey down her limbs to her
tightening sheath. He placed his palm over her heart as his fingers cupped her
breast, kneading her flesh while his chant grew stronger.
It was too much. Every blood vessel was going to rupture
under the pressure, and her heart was going to pound right out of her chest and
into his hand.
His head dropped back and his face slackened as his shaft
jerked with his release, yet his hips continued with the relentless, driving
rhythm and he demanded, “Take all of me and give me all of you.”
He wasn’t talking about her orgasm or her body. He wanted
her soul.
Shock slammed into her at the same time she burst into a
million fragments of light and sparks. An invisible rope coiled around them,
binding them together as one unit, one heartbeat, one soul. As her pussy
rippled in orgasm around his shaft, a tiny shred of self-preservation kicked in
and tethered her to reality. She might have flipped a definitive middle finger
to caution, but the dream was going to come to an end. He owned her pleasure,
but her heart would remain firmly in her keeping.
With a final cry, he fell forward, blanketing her with his
heat. He nuzzled the skin under her ear and murmured, “I knew it would be like
this with you. Exactly like this.” His small chuckle made her think there was a
joke in there somewhere, but her brain was too scrambled to begin to guess what
it was.