Authors: A. C. Arthur
She gasped when his hand went around her neck, the front of his body pressing tightly against the front of hers.
“Spying on me, guard?” he asked, his lips so close they rubbed along her earlobe as he leaned in to talk. “I’m not your assignment.”
“No,” she replied, her rich, throaty voice sending spikes of heat through his torso and downward until resting along the length of his dick. “You’re supposed to be my trainer.”
His thumb moved along her collarbone, smooth skin enticing him further, while his other hand found her waist, again skin touching skin. She wasn’t naked, wouldn’t dare leave her room and walk around a facility full of virile and virtually always aroused shifters without being fully dressed. He lowered his fingers quickly to confirm, feeling the band of her exercise pants and breathing a concealed sigh of relief.
“Then take notes because I’m about to teach you one of the first rules of spying on someone.”
Eli didn’t give her a moment to speak, but wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into a quick turn, then using his foot, clipped hers and fell to the mat on top of her without so much as a grunt. She let out a small gasp before she did what she probably thought was taking control of the situation and flipped them so that she was now on top.
“What rule is that, Mr. Preston?” she asked, looking down at him with a definite smirk of triumph on her face.
“Don’t get caught,” he said, seconds before grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her down to him. His lips took hers in a hungry connection that could have drawn blood if she hadn’t reacted fast and opened her mouth to him. His tongue thrust forward taking hers for a wicked tangle while his other hand cupped her ass, pressing her hot little pussy right up against his rock hard dick—just where she belonged.
Nivea loved Eli’s eyes. He didn’t reveal them often, wearing those infuriating shades all the time. Most likely he knew how irresistibly hot they made him look.
Now, she thought with a quick catch of breath before sinking into an absolute abyss once more, there was another part of him to love—his mouth.
It was a clever mouth too, knowing and masterful, owning hers, directing, leading, guiding, actually fucking with complete potency. That was no exaggeration. From his kiss alone her already aroused center had reacted immediately. The tender folds were plump and now damp as her essence dripped from inside, just as his fingers had splayed over her ass and were now traveling downward. His tongue should be qualified as a weapon as he speared it in and out of her mouth, tangling with hers until she felt like he was doing the same thing between her legs. Or maybe that’s just what she wanted him to do. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at this moment except that Eli was kissing her, finally.
How long had she waited for this moment?
Six long, grueling years.
She’d watched him as a new recruit, mesmerized by the sound of his voice—deep, yet smooth like fine wine. The slow and methodical way he taught every aspect of being a shifter guard. While she hadn’t been in any of his squads, ever, she’d always watched him and learned from the way he moved, the way he carried himself, how she should act as a shifter.
Whatever she’d done to warrant him being assigned to personally further her training these last few weeks, Nivea had no idea, but she would be forever grateful to whatever deity was responsible.
Her knees planted on the mat, she straddled Eli, her pussy rubbing over his engorged length, weeping with wanting. The blunt tip of his fingers rubbed against her scalp as he tore free the band she had holding her hair back. She barely registered him wrapping her hair around his hand, until he pulled, drawing her face away from his.
There were those eyes again, as green as the deepest depths of the sea, stormy and turbulent as they stared back at her.
“Your subject must never know you’re watching them. If they do you’re as good as dead,” he told her seriously.
Well, she wasn’t dead at the moment, but damn if she didn’t feel close to having a heart attack. Her body was on fire, every part of her sensitive to his touch, her skin tingling at the sound of his voice. She was trying to catch her breath as he released his grip on her hair, his other hand pausing between her legs. Her thighs shook and she wanted to close them tight, to hold his hand right there until the aching subsided.
Instead, Nivea backed away. She came to a standing position, taking deep steadying breaths, concentrating on not showing him how much his kiss and his touch had rattled her. After years of being around Eli Preston, she knew him very well. He’d kissed her passionately, touched her like he wanted her, and then reprimanded her. This was not the way she wanted him.
“First, I didn’t give my location away. You knew I would be here because we’ve been having these private training sessions every morning for the past few weeks, per your instruction,” she told him, her pulse steadying with each word, eyes narrowing as he came to his feet just a few steps away from her.
His left eyebrow arched, something she’d seen only rarely since the sunglasses were normally his protocol. Her center clenched, minutely, at the action.
“Check your watch, sir. I’m right on time,” she finished before he could speak.
He didn’t look down at his e-band. No, his gaze stayed focused on her, which was uncommon, since during the weeks they’d been assigned to work together Eli had done everything in his power to only look at her when absolutely necessary. The same went for his touching her—the kissing part had been completely out of character. Nivea decided she would contemplate these inconsistencies later. She would keep everything professional, play on his level. That’s the way she would handle Eli Preston, for now.
“Shall we begin?”
His response was to walk away, stopping in the center of the room where they usually began their sparring matches. As she walked to meet him she thought about the years she’d been obsessing over this particular shifter, all the hours she’d spent dreaming about the moment they would finally come together physically. It would be hot, no doubt, and intense, filled with all the emotion and energy they’d stored up over the years. And it would result in their mating, the beginning of all the most important goals in Nivea’s life.
This assignment was a sign that her patience was about to pay off. The quick attack Eli launched when she was close enough to him was a sign that her calm dismissal of the kiss had ticked him off. Even as she worked through the maneuvers, countering his attacks, taking the falls to the mat while gritting her teeth, landing solid punches with a measure of pride, she knew he was off this morning. Something else was going on with Eli and it no doubt involved the Shadow Shifters.
* * *
Amina Cannon lounged on the small couch across from Nivea’s bed absently flipping through a fashion magazine as Nivea changed into the newly designed guard uniforms they all had to wear—navy blue mission pants and a lighter blue button-down shirt. Her boots lay across the room on the floor, where she’d left them last night. Immediately Eli’s words echoed in her head.
“
Guards should always be in uniform, Cannon,
” he’d said in that low, laced-with-death voice of his.
During this morning’s workout she’d worn tennis shoes and exercise clothes. This had been in direct contrast to the will and the way of Eli Preston. Nivea had simply nodded in response, smiling as she walked out of the training facility because she knew he’d liked seeing her in her spandex capris and sports bra. His actions had spoken much louder than his words, in that regard. Still, she had no intention of disobeying him again, not so soon anyway. There was a meeting in the auditorium in twenty minutes. Not only did she plan to be there early, she planned to be wearing her crisp new uniform and to look damned hot doing so.
“Marriage is about love,” Amina was saying when Nivea actually decided to tune in to her sister’s conversation. “It’s about respect and commonalities. It is not about a perfect union of the two biggest advertising agencies in the country.”
Nivea shimmied into her pants, tucking her tank top in before buttoning them up and looking over at her sister.
“Shifters mate, Mina, they don’t get married. The official ceremony is called ‘joining’ and it’s far more intense than any human contract. That’s what your argument to Mom and Dad should be,” Nivea told her.
“Yes.” Amina sighed. “Because that’s exactly what the Cannons of New York want to hear. Talk about their origin in the dirty, sweaty Amazonian jungle instead of their rich and haughty new lifestyle that plants them firmly on the
Forbes’
most influential and wealthiest couples list year after year.”
Nivea knew her words were absolutely correct. Richard and Michele Cannon wanted nothing to do with their
Topètenia
heritage. On paper they looked to be model citizens, successfully building and maintaining the Cannon Group and even starting a nonprofit agency that provided aid to underprivileged children. A good portion of those children were orphaned shifters. They looked like they were doing all the right things in this world. But Nivea knew better. She knew things her sisters did not and had made a deal with the devil himself to keep them from being exposed. Walking away and keeping her mouth shut about all that she’d endured had been the deal, and she’d taken it happily.
The older Cannons had come to the States as teenagers. After witnessing how humans of different races were treated, degraded, and dismissed, they knew without a doubt that a shifter would never be accepted as a part of this society. With that thought in mind Richard and Michele knew there would never be tolerance or acceptance in this country for their kind. The humans would brand them as outcasts and either kill or humiliate them until they wished they were dead. They swore then to build something bigger and better for their family, something normal, no matter what the cost.
Serene, the middle sister, had wholeheartedly subscribed to their parents’ way of living, while Amina tried to straddle the fence as much as she could to keep the peace. Nivea, on the other hand, had always been extremely vocal about her disagreement with the way her parents chose to live. The day she’d gone to her parents with what would be her final and most disturbing complaint, the Cannons had decided to let their youngest daughter go. Forever.
“So what are you going to do? Not marry him? Walk away from the agreement, from your job at the agency, from your million-dollar penthouse, the BMW, the parties, the clothes? Are you really going to give all that up in your quest for true love?” Nivea wished daily that her sister would do exactly this.
Still, she knew without a doubt the answer to that question was no. With that in mind, she was having a hard time entertaining her sister’s mostly contrived dilemma because Amina was the most materialistic person Nivea knew. Case in point: today her sister wore a pink silk jumper—her favorite color—silver stilettoes no doubt made by some extremely overpriced designer, diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, she had her hair perfectly coiffed, and a limousine was sitting outside the front entrance to Havenway, waiting patiently for Amina to finish with her visit and leave. Amina wasn’t yelling about traveling to Havenway, which was essentially located in the center of a national park, but when she’d first come in she had scoffed at the size of Nivea’s room, calling it “a glorified jail cell,” even though she’d never seen a jail cell in her entire thirty-one years of life.
“I might,” she exclaimed.
Nivea chuckled. “You won’t.”
“Look at you,” Amina said as Nivea moved to where her boots were, leaning over to shove her foot into one and then the other. “All dressed up in your war clothes, ready to go out and fight.”
Amina waved her hand and the silver bangles at her wrist clinked.
“We fight the rogues, Mina,” Nivea said with chagrin. It still bothered her that her own family didn’t give a damn about the battle the shifters were in for their lives, for the lives of those coming after them. These were precarious times, Nivea knew that. Her family, however, refused to accept it. That fact made her sad, almost as much as the years-long crush she’d had on Lead Guard Eli Preston.
“Yeah, I know,” her sister replied. “But I don’t know why. They aren’t bothering us. Besides, there’s crime all over the world, killings and beatings, robberies, and all other sorts of evils lurking around out there. The Shadow Shifters can’t expect to defeat them all. That’s a futile mission if I’ve ever heard one.”
Pulling her hair back into her favorite black band, Nivea shook her head at her sister. The band and the ponytail were the norm, the curliness of her hair and the soft flirty way it fell down her back was not.
“It’s not that simple, not anymore. You should really tell Mom. She needs to come to the next Assembly meeting. There’s a lot going on now that all of you should know about and get prepared for,” she told her.
“That presentation came in the mail a few weeks ago. Dad didn’t bother to look at it and forbade any of us from doing so either. But I did, at least some of it anyway. The new building is nice, much better than this dungeon-like place. Why don’t you move there?” Amina suggested hopefully.
Snapping her utility belt around her waist, Nivea resisted rolling her eyes. Of course Richard wouldn’t look at anything coming from Rome’s law firm. He knew Rome was the Assembly Leader but since he hated all things to do with the shifters, he refused to respect that leadership or whatever came with it. He also knew that Nivea was working here with Rome, yet another reason Nivea was certain he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Havenway.
But Mina wasn’t referring to that situation. How could she? No one but Richard, Michele, and Nivea knew the reason for her leaving New York and never looking back. No, her sister’s remarks were much more basic. Yes, the state-of-the art facility that had just been completed in Prince George’s County, Maryland that was the official Assembly Building with offices for visiting Elders and Faction Leaders and formal meeting space, was a gorgeous glass-and-brass structure. But it was so much more. Glancing down at her e-band, Nivea saw she didn’t have the time to try and explain it completely to her sister, not that Amina really cared either way.