Parallel Desire (24 page)

"Anything you ask of me." He gulped visibly, his long jaw twitching with emotion.

"Lie down on your back," she coached him. "Right there, just flat on your back. I'm gonna show you how this can work right."

Blinking his large black eyes, he nodded, unfolding his rangy body elegantly along the length of the bed. With both palms, she stroked his chest, feeling the tough skin, and smiling at the look of catlike pleasure that came over his face. Once again, the alien, rhythmic sound began in the back of his throat.

Without hesitating, she straddled him, planting her much smaller hips atop his. His long erection pushed against her belly, giving a jerk as she adjusted herself. Bending low, she kissed him gently on the lips, amazed by their satiny smoothness. On a breath, she whispered, "Your mouth's like velvet. So soft." Shockingly soft. With the tips of her fingers, she stroked his lips, and his purring sound grew much louder.

Lifting onto her knees, she reached between their hips and took his swollen erection within her palm. The moment her fingers folded about him, he arched wildly into the mattress, his full lips parting with an expression of ecstasy.

"Never," was all he could seem to moan, despite working his mouth and jaws to say more.

"Never what?" she teased, running her fingertips along his length.

"Never … this amazing," he gasped, turning his head to the side with a strangled cry of pleasure.

She slid her hand along his erection again, loving the play of brutal harshness that melded with the same softness of his lips. Again, he squirmed beneath her, helpless and gorgeous because of it.

He was hers completely, totally controlled, totally helpless, and she'd never been wetter for him.

"Take me inside of you," he half begged, thrusting his hips upward, trying to find her opening. She lifted out of reach.

"My rules, cowboy," she reminded him. "My timing."

When he opened his black eyes and stared up at her, the emotion in his expression was so leveling, so much more than she'd expected, she knew there'd be no waiting. She raised up slightly, bearing down atop him so that several inches of his hardness slipped into her.

He clutched at her hips, already almost to the edge, and wished like hell that he could get all the way inside of her. Her long blonde hair loose and wild about her shoulders, the moon filtering in from the windows beyond them … well, she was the closest thing to heaven that he'd ever hoped to find again.

"More." He panted, jutting his hips upward, trying to get in deeper. "Please take more of me. I want you to have all of me."

Hell, he didn't care that she'd reduced him to begging. He didn't care if they both died in an hour. This moment was so beautiful, so perfect, he could live off the memories of it for the rest of his natural life.

Rotating her pelvis slightly, never taking her gaze off of his eyes, she managed to come down on him more securely, several more inches sliding up inside of her.

"Yeah, baby, yeah," he moaned greedily, right as she began to rock and move against him, gyrating like the sweet, wild thing he'd come to love.

Oh, gods in heaven, he did love her, he realized with a swelling feeling inside of his chest. Somehow, this woman had taken his heart completely.

"I love you," he blurted, falling into a frenzied pace that matched her own. "Shelby Tyler, I've fallen so hard for you, so deep. I… love … you!" he shouted, not caring how loud he was. Not caring who heard … and not even caring that she didn't say the words in return.

She cradled his naked form from behind, slowly stroking her fingertips along the ridge of his scalp. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and occasionally she would press a kiss against his bare head. Their lovemaking had been off the charts, beyond anything she had experienced with him before in his human form—and that had been amazing enough. Maybe the intensity was because of their desperation, their fears at being held captive; and maybe because they were finally baring their souls to each other fully.

His ragged, thick breaths caused his chest to rise unevenly as he slept, and she dared to run her fingertips across his hairless abdomen, trailing them along his muscular, defined pectorals. One thing was certain: He possessed an absolutely mythic body, defined by planes of muscle and tanned skin. If not for the hidelike texture, she would have considered him blessed by the gods. But even the rough quality of his skin electrified her body, gave him an edge of danger that drove her wild.

Mentally she compared the contours of his musculature with those of his humanized form. And, even oddly enough, of the man he'd once been, Scott Dillon. How many faces could this lover of hers show her? It was chilling, and she began to tremble against him. With a downward glance, she studied his thick shaft, the way it saluted skyward, the soft skin that covered one side, and the much harsher hide that encased the rest of it.

All Antousian men were permanently erect—she'd learned that one the first time she'd killed one of his kind, horrified to see a tenting bulge in his uniform pants even after she'd slit his throat. A fellow soldier had whispered vile things in her ear about how depraved the Antousians were, that they were forever saluting and ready to rape. Later she'd learned the real truth of it in a textbook. She'd also read, much to her chagrin, that it was a topic of great shyness and embarrassment for many Antousian males. They put a lot of effort into concealing their members, tying them down with a leather sling so the bulge wouldn't pop through their pants and wouldn't distract them from the tasks of their everyday lives.

Only then had she remembered that the Antousian she'd killed had been stabbed along the thigh, his uniform rent. Undoubtedly she'd forced the poor fool's cock to spring free, almost as if it were begging for some last moment of pleasure. She shivered, remembering the look of him that day, and again cast a tentative glance toward Jake's prominent, jutting erection.

Pressing her lips against the top of his head, she realized he didn't even know about those kinds of clothing rituals or how to treat his own body. He had no experience whatsoever with what he truly was—hence his overwhelming stimulation at having his Antousian cock stroked for the first time in his life. Even after he'd pumped up into her, throwing his head back with animal-like cries of pleasure, filling her with his thick alien semen, he'd remained taut as a fully cocked K-12—longer, she would have sworn, than when he'd first entered her.

She kept stroking the crown of his head, rubbing her fingers across the ridges, at once fascinated and repulsed by his body. With him sleeping, she could study it freely and let her gaze roam the length of him, touching, exploring. But flashes of memories warred for dominance in her mind: She saw the Texas warehouse going up in flames, heard the high shrieking screams of the Antousians who'd been caught in the explosion. Fell to her knees again, wailing at the knowledge that Nate was inside, dead … and that he'd betrayed all of them so mercilessly.

I cared for you,
she heard Nate telling her a few hours earlier. Total
meshdki
. He'd ruined her, tapped her dry so that now, when she'd found the true love of her life, she had nothing left to give. Her heart was too damaged; Jake was too much a reminder of all the horrors she'd experienced.

If only … if only her past had been different, she thought, tears brimming in her eyes. If only her heart weren't so terribly broken.

He stirred slightly against her, and she wrapped both arms about him, closing her eyes. The thing that she couldn't admit—couldn't bear to confess, not to him or even to All—was that she'd found sex with this particular Antousian wildly arousing, even in his natural state. The form of her enemy.

Never again, she swore, reluctantly releasing her hold on him.
I can't love my enemy, even if his heart is pure. I can't want this Antousian body and the memories it brings back.

As if hearing her thoughts, Jake moved, taking hold of her arms and wrapping them low across his abdomen. The lamplight bathed his body in a golden hue, causing his tanned skin to appear radiant. She heard the smile in his voice when he mumbled, "Hey, sweetheart. You awake?"

She kept herself still, closing her eyes and feigning sleep, letting her breathing assume a quiet, even rhythm. For a long moment, he kept his hands over hers, then blew out a contented sigh, drawing first one of her hands to his mouth and then the other. "You sleep, then, sweet Shelby."

Jake believed that she loved him, and gods help her, she did. Terribly, beautifully, she was just crazy in love with the man now lying in her arms. So much so that she was terrified of him. Totally frightened beyond reason because he had the capacity to destroy her even more thoroughly than Nate once had.

Jake believed that this was the beginning of a real future together for them, not what it actually was: the heartbreaking end of what might have been. If she were a braver soldier—at least on this emotional battlefield—she would tell him everything right now. After all, he of all people deserved the truth; it was the only fair thing to give a man whose heart had been battered and destroyed like this one's had. But she didn't want to be another person who hurt him—not yet, not until she absolutely had to. Perhaps that was the reason why she said nothing, but lay with her legs still wrapped about him and let him believe for just a little while longer that their hearts had melded as one.

S
helby woke to find Jake
on the far side of the room, already dressed. He'd covered her with a blanket, tucked it up neatly beneath her chin and around her body as if she was precious to him, priceless. The loving care such treatment displayed made her chest tighten.

She blinked her eyes, watching him drop into an intense set of push-ups, unaware that she was observing his maneuvers. His Antousian forearms rippled powerfully as, over and over, he dipped toward the floor, then lifted again. Clearly he was working to keep himself primed and ready for whatever might lie ahead of them. With a slight stretch, she turned in the bed and noticed that day was breaking outside the window.

Jake popped to his feet. "You're awake."

She smiled at him, yawning. "Barely."

He started moving toward her when a thunderous noise from the steps outside interrupted him. Someone was coming, and Jake dropped into a crouch beside the door while Shelby scrambled for her discarded clothing. But she didn't have time to so much as pull on her dress before the door opened loudly and several soldiers filed in.

The leader, a mahogany-haired woman, waved the others into the room. Jake's reaction to this woman's appearance surprised her: Instead of tensing up, he relaxed slightly, almost as though he knew her.

And then the last member of the group entered. At the sight of him, Shelby literally shrank back against the wall.

Not him, not again,
she thought, beginning to tremble all over. She tugged the blanket protectively over her naked body, wishing like hell that the human Tierny wasn't back in her physical space again. A protective hand slid to her throat as she recalled the way he'd manacled her.

Why hadn't she dressed sooner? Why hadn't she been prepared, she thought, but all her fears dimmed to nothing the moment that
her
Jake laid eyes on his enemy. Before any of the gathered soldiers could stop him, Jake rushed Tierny and grabbed the bastard's neck with a strangehold.

"Why the fuck'd you do it?" Jakob snarled at the man, his Antousian biceps bulging with unrestrained power. "You tell me
why
right now!"

Tierny's human eyes bulged wide as he pried at the strong alien hands clasped about his throat. The dark-haired female barked a command, and the other soldiers began backing out of the door.

"Who … are … you?" Tierny rasped, and after a long moment, Jakob let him drop to the floor like dead weight. But he gave no quarter, squatting level with his crumpled foe.

"Who am I? I'm your enemy, that's who I am. I'm the man whose wife you murdered five years in the future." With a menacing, deadly snap of his Antousian jaws, he went on: "I am
Scott Dillon
. And now you will tell me why you were there, on that battlefield, and why you killed my mate. Otherwise"—Jakob curled back his upper lip, growling like a feral creature and eyeing Tierny's exposed neck—"I'll kill you now, you human freak."

J
ake bore down on his
prey. Years. Years he had waited for this moment of payback, but he'd be damned if he didn't find out the reason behind Hope's murder before finishing Tierny this second time. He needed answers, craved them almost as much as he did making the pathetic human before him suffer for his crimes. Like Hope had suffered, and baby Leisa had suffered.

Tierny rasped, sliding a hand over his throat as he tried to recover, his green eyes cold and menacing.

At last, the human spoke. "You're blaming me? For your wife's death?" He coughed, sputtered … and then, before Jake could anticipate it, he lunged against him, knocking him to the floor. Jake's large bald head hit with a crack, and Tierny was atop him in a flash.

Nothing could have prepared Jake for the words that the human snarled at him next. "You Antousian
nank
" he roared, slamming a fist against Jake's long jawbone. "You're the reason my wife died. You. I blame you! I've been hunting you down for three years."

Again, a fist slammed into Jakob's jaw with a cracking sound that caused bright spots to appear before his eyes. "Wh-what? I never hurt your wife. …"

"You slept with her! Just another one-night stand for you, but for me—" The human went wild, pummeling Jake's face harder and harder. From his violent outburst, Jake realized exactly how Tierny's wife had died—at the hands of her murderous, jealous husband.
Not my problem,
Jake thought, determined to regain control of his adversary. He had to protect Shelby, had to protect Hope in this time. In a roaring frenzy, Jake rose, thrusting the smaller man off of him.

The tables now turned, Jakob had his opponent pinned up beneath his massive, alien weight. "I slept with lots of women," he snarled, snapping his jaws against Tierny's face. "All over town. If your wife was one of 'em, that's your problem. But you killed my wife and my baby. In the future, you robbed me of everything." Jakob slid his rough hands about the man's throat, choking again. "Now you will pay."

"My wife … died," the human gurgled at him. Jake had to understand the truth and allowed his eyes to glow bright, soul-gazing his enemy. The waves of fury and hatred that radiated out of the man nearly caused Jake to pass out, the blackness of all the emotions were that terrible. It was true: The human had murdered his wife in a jealous rage. Not because of any particular one-night stand, but a whole string of them. The one with Scott had just been the one to finally send this killer over the edge. And he'd fixated on Scott as the cause.

"Your wife died because you killed her," Jake shot back at him, finally understanding the truth after so many years. "And so you killed mine to punish me … for your own crimes."

Jake allowed his hands to grow slack about the human's throat, shaking his head. But then his grip grew tight again as he said, "And what about my baby girl? What did she ever do to you? She was perfect, and you snuffed out her life before she even got to begin it."

With a roar from deep within his Antousian throat, Jakob closed in … and finished a killing that had begun on a battlefield five years earlier.

W
hile the two men battled
it out on the floor of the cabin, Kryn hurriedly explained to Shelby that she worked for Thea as her spy.

"You're helping us?" Shelby asked in wide-eyed surprise, sliding into her wraparound dress.

Kryn hesitated briefly, then bent her mouth to Shelby's ear. "Yes. Now, hurry. I can get you out of here." She cocked her luminator and tossed a familiar dagger onto the bed beside Shelby. "You'll want this back, I think."

Shelby took it in her hand, searching for her boots. Their stiletto heels would make another good weapon. With a glance toward Jakob, she saw that he'd accomplished his goal: Tierny lay slumped and lifeless on the floor. She barely had time to register that fact before several armed guards practically knocked the door off its hinges.

Wielding her dagger as first one, then a second, and a third Antousian soldier tried to attack her, Shelby barely had time to think. All her years of fury at Nate came roaring to the surface as she stabbed and kicked and flailed. Around her she heard grunting and panting, but there was another noise closer at hand: her own screaming.

Vengeance. She wanted her own taste of it—for all her friends who'd died, for what her enemies had done to her king, for all of it. Bodies fell about them, and she wouldn't be stopped. With a flick of her dagger, she went after the largest of her attackers, an Antousian in his natural form who was even taller than Jake. At least the other two were in their humanized forms, she thought, watching Kryn battle them single-handedly from the corner of her eye. Still, she was at least a foot and a half smaller than her attacker, and no matter how deftly she might wield her dagger, it would be no match for the looming figure coming at her.

With a flick of the alien's hand, she was on the floor, flattened. Her dagger had been kicked out of reach, too, leaving her gasping and vulnerable. She glanced toward Kryn, who had somehow—mercifully—gotten the upper hand with her two assailants, one of whom was now coldcocked and on the floor. Kryn never looked back at her, manning her K-12 expertly and focusing only on their attackers. Grabbing one of her boots, Shelby rose to her feet once more, unsteady but eager to face down her opponent. The man was massive, monumental, and he gave a brutal roar as he rushed her. Extending the stiletto heel of her boot, she catapulted against his beefy chest, closing her eyes and praying for the best.

Her attacker released an eerie exhalation, almost like a sigh, and sank to his knees. He cupped both hands over his eyes, muttering in Antousian until—after what seemed an eternity—he doubled over with a gurgling sigh.

When she was sure no one else would attack, Shelby dropped to the floor, gasping, sobbing. With a quick glance, she watched as Kryn finished off her own skirmish, holstering her weapon triumphantly. Good, she thought,
at least that's one battle we've won
. But she had no strength left inside of her, and curled against the floor.

After several moments, a large pair of hands drew up underneath Shelby's arms. "Shell, sweetheart, come on. It's done. Come on, we've got to roll."

She gave her head a stunned little shake. Jake got more urgent. "We're out of time, baby. Now or never, let's go!"

"I know where they're holding Jared," Kryn told them breathlessly, leading the way out of the door, but not before they'd armed themselves with the luminators the Antousians had dropped. Shelby kept her dagger in her hand, ignoring the blood that dripped from its sharp edge, and hoisted one of the luminators across her chest.

"Follow me," Kryn ordered. "Stay tight with me, and maybe we'll all make it out of here alive."

Shelby grabbed her hand. "Not yet. I can find out how we need to get out of here … but I need about five minutes."

Jake shook his head. "No way, Shelby. I'm not letting you try it."

"What do you have in mind?" Kryn asked, eyeing the door.

"I can time walk. It will tell us what we need to know."

Jake's large eyes slid shut. "It's too fucking dangerous for you—besides, there's not enough time."

"Time is all we have right now, Jakob," she told him softly. "Now, let me do my job."

C
onvulsing in Jake's arms
, Shelby returned to consciousness, her mind riddled with images from her time walk. She'd followed the short thread, walking its length, seeing five, ten … maybe twenty minutes of what was to come in the immediate future. With a gasp, she lifted out of her fugue, and Jake clutched her tight within his arms.

She turned to face Kryn, who was crouched beside her on the floor, and addressed her. "I saw an aircraft. Antousian, midsized fighter." She sucked at the air, still shaking all over. "You're going to pilot us out of here, but there's a problem we have to avoid along the way."

Jake stroked her hair, trying to soothe her tremors. "Tell us what to do."

"Whatever they have Jared in, it's a containment system. …" She stared up into Jake's eyes. "I saw you failing to free him. Kryn gets the craft, but we don't get Jared. Not unless we can spring him from the glass prison he's in."

Kryn glanced back and forth between the door and Shelby. "I don't have the codes for dismantling the containment grid."

Shelby nodded, trying to breathe, aware that her body seemed to be fracturing crazily because of the visions in her mind. "But I saw another way," she finally managed to get out, still gasping. "Jake, it's you. You're the only one who can get him out. There was a second time thread, an alternate one. Kryn, you go after that craft, Jake and I free Jared."

"Tell me what to do," he said.

T
hey moved slowly through
the basement of the warehouse, back down the same dank hallways where they'd been captured the night before. The memories were hideous to Shelby as she passed the torture room where Jake had pinned her to the table, but lifting her luminator shoulder high, she crept ahead, taking the lead for Jakob.

Lifting a finger, she pointed toward the end of the hallway, and at last they reached the door. There was a keypad that required a security code, and Shelby closed her eyes, trying to configure the numbers from her vision. Taking a deep breath and hoping she was remembering correctly, she input the data. A moment later, the door sprang open.

Jake entered ahead of her, sweeping the room with his weapon and his gaze, and waved her in. Dead ahead, suspended in the middle of the room, was the tall glass cell that she'd seen in her vision and, swirling in the center, his energy a dull yellow-gold, was the natural form of their leader and king. Long and narrow, the cell allowed only a few scant inches of width, not enough room to ever allow the man to change back into his physical body.

Jake turned to Shelby, black eyes swimming with painful emotion. "Now go to him," she explained in a whisper, "and soul-gaze him."

"I don't understand."

"His mental state will be devastating to you, but that's not the important thing. Be strong, battle past it … and use your gazing ability to rupture the glass shields."