Prey (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 2) (10 page)

“Does it have anything to do with Seth?” he asked.

Katrina just nodded.

“Does it have anything to do with my big brother’s ability to turn into a very large bird?”

Katrina’s head snapped up. Zach couldn’t help but grin. She narrowed her eyes.

“Did
he
start that rumor?” she said. “And why? Pete’s boss, the head of MutiGen, is
completely convinced
that it’s true, and I just...” she trailed off and shook her head.

“He did, kind of,” Zach said.

“Why?” she asked. “And how the hell did he get people to believe him?”

“Because he can turn into a very large bird,” Zach said.

“Zach, don’t fuck around,” Katrina said.

“I swear to God,” he said.

She just rolled her eyes.

“It’s impossible,” she said.

“If you sit on the bed with me I’ll tell you the story,” Zach said.

She did.

Zach didn’t know where to start, so he just told her everything: the family legend that Hiram Admas has struck a deal with the devil for the best land and the ability to turn into an eagle. How the town of Obsidian hated his whole family because of it. About Copper Mesa and Quarcom, who’d tried to snatch it out from underneath his family — literally.

Finally, he told her how Seth and Jules had met, how Seth had tried to climb the cliff. How he’d lived because he shifted, flown away, and found the deed in an eagle’s nest.

“And they all lived happily ever after, the mesa firmly in their possession,” he finished, his arm around Katrina’s shoulders.

“Bullshit,” she said, but without conviction.

“You still don’t believe me?”

“No,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “I believe that something happened that you can’t explain, maybe. But not that your brother turned into a bird.”

Good enough
, thought Zach.

“I probably wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it,” he said. “He kept trying to teach me to do it, but it never worked. Your boss was probably shit outta luck, anyway. I don’t think I can shift.”

He didn’t mention that Seth had also said it had something to do with a girl.

 
I don’t care if she’s the key to shifting or not,
he thought.
I just like being with her
.

“Of course Pete was wrong,” she said in that same no-nonsense tone. “The whole thing is silly.”

Looking at it from her perspective, it was hard to argue.

With Katrina next to him, Zach’s body started to hum. The smell of her hair, crisp and spicy, wafted up and he bent his head down, putting his nose on the top of her head.

He had a quick,
very
sharp flash of memory: him, back in the basement of MutiGen, telling Katrina that she could make his penis feel better.

Oh God,
he thought.

Zach cleared his throat.

“I think I was drugged earlier,” Zach said.

Katrina just laughed.

“I came to that conclusion as well,” she teased.

She put one finger on his knee and drew a slow circle with it, the motion sending sparks up Zach’s spine.

“So, if I said or did anything weird...” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Like what, for example?” Katrina asked. Her lips curved into a mischievous smile.

Zach’s heart beat even harder.

“I think I may have offered to eat you out while you were driving,” Zach said, totally embarrassed.

Katrina just nodded.

“That happened,” she said. “You remember anything else?”

“I may have grabbed your ass on the stairs,” he went on.

“Correct,” Katrina said.

Her blue eyes sparkled up at him.

She’s teasing me
, Zach thought. He felt like every muscle in his body was standing at attention, and he swallowed again.

One muscle in
particular
was beginning to stand up again, and he used every ounce of willpower he had to force it down.

“I offered to judge a wet t-shirt contest?” he asked.

“Close,” Katrina said.

Now she had a wicked grin on her face, and she slowly folded her legs underneath her.

“Actually, what you said was just, ‘Wet t-shirt contest?’”

Zach grinned.

“Sorry,” he said.

“You didn’t even offer to judge,” Katrina pointed out.
 

Now she was kneeling next to him, facing him, his arm draped loosely over her shoulder.
 

“You remember anything else?”

Zach took a deep breath.

“I said that my penis felt funny and you could fix it?” he said, rushing the words out all in one breath.

I’m not even embarrassed that I hit on her
, he thought.
I’m embarrassed I phrased it like that
.

“And?” Katrina asked.

She leaned closer, and Zach could feel the heat rolling off of her body. He could barely think, she was so close. All he wanted was to take her in his arms, kiss her, bury his face between those perfect, supple thighs...

“God, there’s more?” he asked. “I have no idea.”

“You made me promise I’d play doctor with you later,” she said.

Zach
finally
got it. He felt like a lightbulb went on over his head.

Something also went on in his pants, and he felt himself stiffen in record time.

He slid his arm around her waist and looked up at her.

“Doctor, I’ve got a condition, and I think there’s only one cure,” he said, as seriously as he could.

Katrina giggled.

“And what’s that?” she asked.

“You,” he said, and pulled her mouth down to his.

Chapter Ten

Katrina

Katrina pressed her mouth to his, and this time, she didn’t feel like she could hold back at all. Yeah, they were in a shitty motel in the absolute middle of nowhere, but she’d wanted this for
ages
.

Fuck ambience
, Katrina thought, opening her mouth against Zach’s she sought out his tongue with hers, and as she drew away, she bit his bottom lip.

He made
that
noise again, the one he’d made earlier in the lab. Katrina swung one knee over him, her skirt hiked most of the way up her thighs, and straddled Zach.

“Did you just
growl
at me?” she asked. She grabbed the front of his shirt in both her hands and pulled it
just
hard enough.

He cupped her ass, digging his fingers in. Desire rushed through Katrina.

“Just a little,” he said, grinning.

She swallowed, then ran her hands down his chest, all the way to his stomach.

Jesus,
she thought, feeling the hard ripples of muscle underneath his shirt.

Katrina leaned in until they were nose-to-nose.

“How do I get you to growl a lot?” she asked, sliding one hand under his shirt to his hard, hot flesh.

She knew that she was acting
way
more forward than she ever had before, but she couldn’t help it. Zach brought out something inside that she hadn’t even known existed, something that burned so hot that she could barely pay attention to anything else.

Hell, standing in the middle of MutiGen, running from the people who’d drugged Zach, she’d had half a mind to rip off his hospital gown and go to town, right there under the sprinklers.

“You could unbutton your blouse,” Zach said. His voice had gone low and rough, and heat surged through Katrina again. She bit her lip and lifted her hands to the top button of her shirt and undid it slowly, watching Zach’s face the whole time.

He looked mesmerized, his expression one of pure desire. His fingers dug into her ass again, and she moved to the next button, then the next.

The gap in her shirt widened over her breasts as she undid another, then another, until she was at the last button. Zach moved one hand up to caress her side as she pulled her shirt off by the sleeves, and then tossed it onto a chair.

Opposite them on the bed there was a full-length mirror.

Zach ran his fingers up her stomach and slid just his fingertips beneath the underwire on her bra and Katrina gasped as the rough pads teased the soft skin there.

I wish I’d worn a prettier bra
, she thought.
Not this very functional plain white one.

Not that it seemed to matter very much.

“What else?” she asked. “Am I close to getting another growl?”

Without waiting for an answer, she put her fingers beneath her bra straps and pulled them over her shoulders, one at a time, revealing the tops of her breasts.

Zach looked at her, his rust-colored eyes dark. Then he grabbed her hips again and pulled her forward until she was right over him, his hardness rubbing right up against her.

He kissed the side of her neck hard and
growled
, the sounds rumbling right through Katrina’s bones, and her fingers tightened around his midsection as she whimpered. There was almost nothing separating them except for the thin material of her underwear and his suit pants, and he was hard as a
rock
underneath them.

Zach bit her neck softly, the scrape of teeth against skin.

“If I didn’t know better,” he said, his lips against her skin.

There was a long pause as he moved his lips down to her collarbone.

“I might think,” he said.

Another pause. His lips moved again.

“That you liked,” he said.

Now his mouth was on her breast, just above her still-covered nipple.

“Teasing me,” he said, and tugged at her bra, pulling it down over her nipple before flicking his tongue over it quickly. Katrina gasped and tightened her hands on his chest, and she could feel him exhale as he chuckled.

Then he was pushing her bra off her other nipple, taking that one in his fingers, brushing his palm against it softly. She could feel his cock twitch against her and Katrina closed her eyes against the throbbing ache that was all she could feel.

In seconds, she’d undone her bra and Zach grabbed it off of her and tossed it away, groaning as he pressed his face into her. Then he put his hands on her thighs and slid them under her skirt, which had ceased to cover anything at all, and looked over Katrina’s shoulder.

She looked too, and realized that they were perfectly reflected in the mirror on the wall opposite the bed. Zach watched over her shoulder and squeezed her ass with both hands.

“I’ve got the perfect three-sixty view,” he said.

Katrina scrunched her nose, just a little, and looked away from the mirror, and Zach raised his eyebrows.

“What?” he asked.

She just shrugged.

“If I could mount a mirror on every surface and watch you from every angle, I’d do it,” he said, leaning forward. Even though she was straddling him, their faces were nearly even. “Do you have any idea how hot that would be, getting to watch a hundred of you at once?”

He pushed down on her hips, and Katrina could feel her clit grind against Zach’s thick erection, and it felt like something inside her reached melting temperature.

“You feel how
hard
you make me?” he whispered.

Katrina gasped and moved her hips against him, the ache inside her only building. Her brain felt fuzzy, like Zach was the only thing in focus. She ran her hands down his chest again, then unbuttoned his shirt as fast as she could and he took it off, throwing it behind him.

Then he took her by the waist again and grinned at her.

“You ready?” he asked, pushing her back onto the bed, practically tossing her off of him, almost like she was weightless.
 

Katrina yelped, landing and bouncing, but Zach was already on top of her, grabbing her underwear and pulling them off, his lips on the spot between her breasts, then her stomach, her bellybutton, and then he was shoving her skirt up around her waist and pushing her legs apart, his breath warm against her inner thighs.

At the first flick of his tongue across her clit, Katrina arched her back and in response, Zach’s fingers dug into her thighs. The pressure felt
good
and solid, like there was something anchoring her down to the bed as Zach licked at her, alternating slow circles with fast, short pulses, driving her crazy.

She fought the urge to grab his hair and simply shove his face into her, but she
wanted
to desperately, wanted to drive his tongue inside her and feel him there.

Instead, he slowed again, the fast strokes fading into slow, languorous circles that went wider and wider until he licked slowly down her slit, his tongue parting her lips and delving, just barely, into her core.

Katrina gasped, her back arching even harder, and her fists turned white on the bedspread. Zach did it again, his tongue reaching in further this time, and she moaned, Zach’s tongue exploring inside her as far as he could reach.

Then he moved again, his tongue stroking her clit once more, long and hard this time, steady building to a climax. One of his hands left her thigh, and Katrina held her breath until she felt his fingertips against her opening, sliding in bit by bit as if he was teasing her. She could feel herself nearing the edge, her toes curling in anticipation.

His fingers just inside her, he stopped. Katrina’s eyes flew open.

“Should I make you cum?” Zach asked.

“Yes!” Katrina gasped, practically shouting.

“Now?” he asked, pushing his fingers just a little further inside her. “Like this?”

“God, yes,
please
,” Katrina said.

She was so,
so
close.

At all once, Zach licked her again, hard and slow, and entered her with his fingers, their rough pads sliding against the sensitive spot inside her. He licked her again and again and bent his fingers
exactly
the right way and then Katrina couldn’t hold back any longer and she came, crying out wordlessly, the bedspread tight underneath her fists as the feeling crashed through her, unrelenting, wave after wave rocking through her.

Zach didn’t stop until she was utterly sated and barely able to move, and then he crawled over top of her, his handsome face grinning as Katrina lay there, panting.

“Holy shit, Zach,” she managed to gasp. She reached up and put her hands on his hard, muscular shoulders and brought him down to her, kissing him hard the mouth. She could taste herself but she didn’t mind, not even as Zach’s tongue plundered her mouth and he pressed his body against hers.