Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Over and over and over again.

“I like this,” Zaira said definitively before running her hands down his chest, then back up to curl one possessively over his nape.

Wanting more contact, he moved his body forward, changing position to brace his forearm above her head. It pressed his chest into her breasts; so close, he saw her pupils dilate as her nipples hardened against him, felt her pulse begin to race. “I see definite benefits to it.” Moving his hand from her thigh to one plump breast, he squeezed and molded as he dipped his head and put his mouth on her throat.

Zaira moaned and, sleek and strong, tightened her grip around his waist. Her skin was delicate under his mouth, under his teeth, tasted of the ice and steel of her. Hungry, ravenous, he kissed his way up her throat and along her jaw to her mouth. She met him kiss for kiss, hot and wild under his hands, a lover who turned his control to ashes. There was no leash when he was with Zaira, no shield, no barrier.

She wouldn’t permit it and he didn’t want those walls between them.

Caressing his hand down her side and over the dip of her waist, he stroked between her legs from below. Liquid honey on his fingertips, his lungs protesting as he fought to breathe. But the air was full of pheromones, full of the lush, erotic scent of her desire; with every inhale came another raw wave of sexual heat in his blood.

She shivered at that instant and bit him gently on the neck. He lost his rhythm, had to go still and concentrate to rediscover it . . . just as she bit him again in that exact spot. “You’re derailing my plan,” he told her, his voice rough.

“Good.” A demanding kiss. “Take off your pants and I’ll stop.”

“Liar.”

A gleam in her eyes that he thought might be inner laughter. “Take them off anyway.”

“I’ll have to let you go to get rid of my boots.”

She insinuated her hands between their bodies to undo his belt, then got busy on the button of his black cargo pants. “You’re an Arrow—figure out a way to do it without letting me go.”

Stomach clenching as her fingers brushed the ridge of his erection, he accepted the challenge and got to work. It took several minutes, especially since Zaira was determined to distract him—and since she was naked and beautiful and in a sexually playful mood, she had a distinct advantage.

Not that Aden would ever complain about being seduced by Zaira.

Finally succeeding in kicking off his boots and remaining clothing, he crushed her body to the wall, his rock-hard penis pressed against her abdomen. “I win.”

Meltingly wet under his fingers, she nibbled at his lower lip and moved her body against his, her skin rubbing over his pulsing erection. “I think I win, too.”

Aden slid his hand under her head and gripped her hair to hold her in place so he could watch her as he stroked his fingers through her honey-slick folds. Zaira made a husky sound deep in her throat, her pleasure a primal aphrodisiac that caused his penis to throb. Gritting his teeth to hold back the orgasm building inside him, he gripped her under the thighs and, shifting her higher up the wall, thrust into her in a single deep stroke after an instant of eye contact that told him what he needed to know.

She was with him, wanted this.

A short, high sound escaping her mouth, she dug her nails into his shoulders. “Aden,” she said breathlessly. “Aden.”

Slamming both hands palms down on either side of her head as the sound of his name on her lips further eroded his control, Aden used the leverage to pull back as much as he could, given her grip on him, before sinking deep into her once again in another hard thrust. She was wet, tight heat around his cock and silken, lithe warmth around his body.

“My Zaira,” he said, his voice so rough the words were almost unrecognizable.

But she understood, her eyes going soft in a way Aden knew only he would ever see. Then he moved again and again and her back arched, her body bathing him in renewed heat as her orgasm rushed over her. He held off his own pleasure long enough to watch her splinter, and then he surrendered to the roar of need.

Barely able to stand afterward, he stumbled to the bed and got them both on it.

There were whispers after that, followed later by the soft rasp of skin on skin, and the mingled breaths of two people who didn’t want to be anywhere but with one another.

Chapter 65

SHOSHANNA SCOTT HAD been all but off the grid since before the fall of Silence and of the Council, but Kaleb knew exactly where she was. He always knew the locations of all the dangerous players in the Net—Shoshanna might not be as psychically powerful as him, but she had a politically lethal mind.

Visual locked, he teleported to outside her London home the day after the attempt on Nikita’s life. The building had originally been owned by Henry Scott but he’d transferred it into his and Shoshanna’s joint ownership two years prior to his death—a subtle but telling sign of their relationship at the time. Shoshanna had been the definite alpha member of the pair until Henry’s sudden tendencies toward violence. The rest of Henry’s estate had gone to his family group, another mark of Shoshanna’s intelligence. Taking on an entire family was bad business.

Doing up the button on the jacket of his black suit jacket, the shirt below it the same shade, he walked up to the door. He could’ve as easily teleported to right beside Shoshanna, but he had political intelligence of his own. The door opened in front of him, a uniformed member of staff inviting him inside. Walking down the corridor with its marble-inlaid floor, he was shown directly to Shoshanna’s study. A slender brunette, she was standing by a table on which were spread a number of hard-copy maps of ancient London.