Unchained (Men in Chains 3)

She didn’t know how it was working, but her mind knew a good thing and blocked out everything except the warm waves. She sucked in the sensation, and with each second that passed the pain lessened.

Marius was right. It didn’t take long.

When she finally opened her eyes, his brow was furrowed heavily. Maybe it was the chain, but as soon as she looked into his eyes she could feel that he suffered in a way that hurt her own heart.

“What is it?” she asked. “I’m sensing this heaviness, a kind of weight that lives inside you, hurting you.”

He stared at her, not answering for a moment. “I’m desperate about the fate of my world.”

She felt certain there was more to the story, but she hardly knew him. It would be improper to probe further.

Shayna rubbed the chain at her neck. The pain in her head was now a dull throb that she knew would soon disappear so long as she kept her fingers on the chain and kept siphoning.

As she held Marius’s gaze, she thought how strange it was to be here with him in a world completely hidden from human earth.

Above all, she was knocked out of stride by the way she responded to him. Again, he felt like home to her, which made no sense.

And his eyes.

Her thoughts funneled down to the small gold flecks set in an exquisite hazel. In her world, he would have been a supermodel, maybe even a movie star—he was that gorgeous.

She recalled the unexpected kiss outside her apartment building. The moment had been surreal and she was still shocked by how much she’d responded to him.

Her fingertip moved over the links as she looked at him. With each slide, desire started to build, a swell of more unexpected sensation inside her body that arrived so swiftly, she had to catch her breath.

She really didn’t understand why she was responding to him like this, at the speed of light. Or why she resonated with him like she did.

Was this love at first sight? Or maybe it was more like the kind of animal attraction that generally led to a hot-and-heavy one-night stand. Whatever it was, her cheeks flamed at the thought that she could easily tumble into bed with him, even though that was something she never did. As a rule, she had to get to know a man first, feel that she could trust him, before she had sex with him.

Maybe it was a vampire thing, an enthrallment power. But even as she had this thoug

ht, she knew it wasn’t true. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt confident Marius would never do that to her.

Suddenly a wave of a scent rolled toward her, reminding her of grassy fields, very male, very worked up. Marius held her gaze, his chin lowered, gold-flecked hazel eyes dilated. Apparently, a response similar to the one that had just swamped her held him captive as well, and it was rampantly sexual.

At the same time, the scientific part of her brain lit up, adding a different kind of chemical into the mix. She felt rabidly curious about what was happening. Maybe for that reason, she didn’t try to stop it or to remove her hand from the chain. Whatever this was, this knowing that flowed back and forth between them, she wanted to understand what was happening. The dangers that she’d already experienced told her that she needed information and she needed it now. Her life might just depend on how well she gained a raw set of parameters to define his world.

“Again, Marius, what’s happening between us? Can you explain it to me? We just met, but suddenly my hormones are in overdrive.” Her gaze fell to his lips. He had full lips that had felt so warm and moist on hers. And his tongue. He’d taken possession of her mouth without apology.

He’d make love to her that way as well. A kiss said an awful lot about a man.

She resisted the temptation to touch him. He’d removed his long leather coat to reveal a short-sleeved black T-shirt outlining a whole lot of muscle beneath. Her gaze drifted across his massive shoulders and, for a moment, she almost couldn’t breathe.

She drew in a deep breath, settling back against the pillows. She continued to press her fingers against the chain to keep it in position across her throat. At least her head no longer hurt, but she sure wished her body would settle down. She wanted Marius way too much for just having met him.

* * *

Marius wasn’t sure how to explain what was going on between them. He wasn’t sure he understood the intensity of it himself. He knew that blood-chains always enhanced an experience, but the basic building blocks had to be there in the first place. When it came to having sex with Shayna, those blocks were piled sky-high.

“I’m not sure what to tell you.”

He watched her gaze shift from his face to his shoulders, to the chain at his neck, then back to his eyes. She narrowed her gaze. “So do the chains cause the desire? Or is some other factor at work? And what are these chains, anyway, that they helped me heal?”

She had an interesting mind, seeking to know. She asked a lot of questions and was amazingly composed for having arrived in his home with so much pain that he’d had a hard time bearing her suffering. The chain around his neck and his proximity to her kept him informed moment by moment just how much the swift, dangerous flight had hurt her.

He explained about the chains, adding, “If you decide to put these on, you’ll be bonded to me, sharing my power as you are now, only more of it. Blood-chains are known to enhance sexual desire, but only if there’s an attraction in the first place. Apparently, there is. Also, for reasons I can’t explain, you have a certain level of latent power, as I mentioned in Seattle, that I’m drawn to. Together we can form what’s called a tracking pair, which might account for the strong attraction we have to each other.”

“You’re talking as though you’re assuming I’ll do this chain-bonding thing with you, but Marius, I can’t possibly stay in your world. I have a very long list of things to do in order to get ready to … fly to … Malaysia.” She glanced around as though just now becoming aware of her surroundings. “Okay, we’re not in Seattle anymore, are we? But what is this place? Because it looks like a cave.”