Scratch Read online

  Being cold was a stark reminder that she was only human.

  She lay down, snuggling beside the too-warm big cat as the cold press of dewy night air closed around them. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Seemed self-preservation had wholly overcome her fears of the big cat. She closed her eyes that were gritty and burning from the long ride and lack of sleep. She was too damn tired to dissect every thought. She’d been operating on less than three or four hours of sleep a night since her father’s death. And now she was paying the price as wave after wave of tiredness descended.

  With a yawn, she wrapped Blake’s flannel coat even tighter around her, taking great pains not to breathe in deep of his tantalizing spiced scent. The last thing she needed was to fall asleep with his scent permeating her senses and causing erotic dreams.

  * * * * *

  She woke to the warm touch of sunlight on her face, and the hot stare of a now-human Blake, prickling her senses.

  She sat, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands before looking up at him towering above. He was dressed once again in his jeans. His sweatpants, and his bloodied and ripped shirts were rolled up into a ball and thrown a few yards away. She swallowed at the sight of his bare, hard torso that was lightly defined with muscle, a dusting of hair disappearing inside his pants as though an invitation to touch…to stroke.

  Clearing her throat, she asked huskily, “It was all real, wasn’t it?”

  Blake turned to retrieve a tray with bottled water and snacks from a hay bale nearby, placing it within her range on the warped and aged floorboards. “Yes.”

  Her stare traveled over his perfectly proportioned body that’d been cleaned of blood. Her womb tingled with warmth. “You’ve shifted to human again.” Nothing like stating the obvious, but surely she would have woken to his painful change? “I’m sorry, I…I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Don’t apologize.” He sprawled beside her, his expression intent, and she had to swallow past the instant dryness in her throat at his closeness. “You’ve done nothing wrong. And shape-shifting is only excruciating when I fight against it and leave the shift for too long.”

  Her breath caught. “You fought against it last night?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I wasn’t sure if you could handle the truth.”

  He’d gone through hell because he thought it might be she who fell apart? How could he have possibly fought against what she imagined would be a shape-shifter’s natural impulse? Something deep within melted and warmed, like ice beneath an unrelenting sun. She swiped a hand over her face, as if to clear her mind. “How is your wound?”

  He smiled satisfaction. “When I shifted, my internal muscles pushed the bullet out, making regeneration a lot simpler and faster.” Her fascination must have been obvious because he went on to explain, “Shifting shape automatically heals my body as each cell alters.” He shrugged. “Painful when one fights against the instinct, but often life saving.”

  She swallowed. She didn’t want to contemplate just how close to death he’d been before he’d shifted. “This kind of near death thing happens often?”

  He shrugged. “At least once or twice, especially when our first change comes upon us in our late teens. And as we live a very long life, four centuries or more as each shift repairs our aged cells, it’s to be expected that occasionally we have no choice but to withhold the shift and suffer the consequences.”

  Her mind froze, then rewound. Four centuries or more?

  The muscles in her belly tightened. “Wait. What? You’re the Blake Powell from the ancient journal?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes.” Holy crap. Her mind whirled as more revelations dawned. Humans would be after his kind at any cost and without mercy if they discovered shape-shifters’ existence, discovered their near immortality. Cancer. Disease. Aging. She could only imagine what scientists—anybody—would do to gain such knowledge in the fight against death.

  Her voice rose an octave. “Is that why you went into hiding? Why those people broke into your apartment and were shooting at us?”

  Except, why would they shoot at the man whose very existence might well be the cure for every human disease on the planet? A man whose ability to shift shape was the stuff of legends.

  “I went into hiding when your father confirmed our existence to a faction of people who already believed we were real. They just needed someone to do the legwork for them to find us…to find me.”

  She hugged her knees and closed her eyes. “No one else knew your name.” She blinked, focused on him once more. “I led them straight to you.”

  He nodded. “You did.” A smile curled his lips, softening the blow. “I was shocked, to say the least, when you turned up on my doorstep.” He shook his head. “Your father did amazingly well deciphering any of the journal’s old-world text.”

  Her eyes misted. “He was an academic with out equal.”

  Blake reached out, for a second or two covering her nearest hand with his own. “And an honorable man too.” Exhaling softly, he said, “But enough talk. We’ve been here too long already. We need to eat. Then we need to get moving.”

  He gestured toward the tray. “Luckily for us no one was at the farmhouse. I was able to grab some snacks.”

  Her belly gurgled. When had she last eaten?

  His laugh was deep and delicious, warm honey drizzled over brandy. “I’m glad I can at least satisfy your hunger.”

  She had no doubt he could satisfy her in every way, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. After this crazy mess was all behind them she’d never see him again. She brushed aside the sinking feeling in her belly that had nothing to do with hunger and all to do with the man…shape-shifter. “How long have I been asleep?” she muttered, somehow annoyed at her all too human frailties.

  “According to the house clock, it’s around three o’clock in the afternoon.”

  She’d slept that long? She blew out a breath. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You’ve been through hell these past few days. You needed the sleep.”

  Her heart fluttered, and she scraped her teeth over her bottom lip before saying gently, “You know, for a big bad cat, you’re really quite thoughtful.”

  His lips ghosted into a smile. “Just don’t let anyone else know, hmm?”

  He opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. She accepted it with a grateful nod. Her throat sandpaper dry, she gulped down some greedy mouthfuls before tipping some onto her hand and arm to wash Blake’s dried blood off her skin. She gave the nearly empty bottle back. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said huskily before he swigged the last of the water from the bottle.

  She sat in silence while they shared some nuts and dried fruit, watching him as he ate and wondering how any one man could be so beautiful. It wasn’t just his film-star good looks. He possessed a powerful charisma that drew the eye to his long, lean body corded with muscle. His jaw with its shadowed beginnings of dark stubble was a sharp contrast to the honey-gold skin of his face and throat.

  He looked up then, his arresting yellow-gold stare snaring hers. “I take it you approve?” he asked huskily.

  Oh, yes.

  “Are all your kind beautiful?” She couldn’t look away, and her pulse leapt as she added inanely, “Like…like you?”

  “All five of us, yes.”

  Five? Her mouth dropped open. Of course! The other four encrypted names. Jesus, had she been so distracted by Blake that nothing else had even entered her mind? Exhilaration fired through her system. Who cared? Her father had been right! Suddenly she wanted to shout out her joy, sing victory over the rooftops, grab a microphone and holler, “My father told you that shape-shifters were real!”

  Blake raised a dark brow at her ever-widening smile. “Want to share your thoughts?”

  She stood, pacing back and forth while laughter at last spilled free from her lips. “Dad’s critics were so wrong!” She gasped for breath, dropping onto her knees before him and cuppin
g his face. “That journal was only part of the proof he needed.”

  Of course he could have revealed to the world the cave’s whereabouts. But he’d been horrified at the thought of droves of people defiling the sacred place, or worse, vandalizing and destroying it. He’d felt attuned there, revered its primordial history.

  Blake covered her hands with his own and her smile hurt her face as she took in his features and said breathlessly, “You are the proof staring me in the face. You are how I’ll show those skeptics they were wrong and my dad was right.”

  His face darkened. He removed her hands and snarled, “You wish to exonerate your dad by trading me to the very people who disbelieved? You expect me to willingly be locked in a cage inside a lab, under constant observation while my blood is extracted and drugs pushed into my veins—all in the name of science?”

  Her smile died a quick death, her high diving straight to an all-time low. Shit. How could she have been so stupid and selfish? She’d only recently comprehended how dangerous it would be for humans to find out about Blake’s existence, and yet she’d allowed the comeuppance of her dad’s critics to take priority.

  “No. No, of course not. I don’t wish that. I’d never want that.” She felt her bottom lip quiver. Oh hell. She’d thought all her tears dried up. But his accusation wasn’t really an accusation. “I just…I just want my dad back.”

  His expression lost its savagery, his voice gentling. “Yeah, I know. Of course you do.” He released a long, slow breath. “I read about your father’s death in the papers. You should never have lost him how you did.”

  His empathy became her undoing. “I still can’t believe he…he took his own life.” The floodgates ripped open and the tears fell. And with them the words came. Cathartic. Cleansing. “My dad’s colleagues were the worst. They pushed his self-esteem so low he hit rock bottom. The career he loved had been turned against him. I guess the taunts in newspapers and even by his once friends were the last straw.”

  Blake rubbed a hand over his face, his voice weary. “Getting the media and your father’s colleagues to see the truth won’t bring him back.”

  She hiccupped. “I know that. But I…I promised him I’d find the shape-shifters, prove that they really exist.”

  Blake sighed a little, and then pulled her into his arms, his big hands running up and down her spine, soothing her, comforting her. Until her tears dried and her anguish grew into something else, something different entirely.

  A yearning she could no longer deny.

  He pulled back, the burning expression on his face telling her that he knew exactly how she felt—and shared it. “Your father might be dead, but you’re still alive,” he said huskily.

  She hiccupped again but it didn’t put a halt to her desire as she stared hazily up at him. “Yes. Yes, I am.” She sighed and whispered, “Kiss me.”

  He lifted one of his hands to cup beneath her chin, using his thumb to swipe away the last of her tears. “So beautiful,” he murmured. Then he bent his head low, and his mouth took hold of hers, gently at first, a slow exploration that built the fires within until their kiss was urgent and hot.

  His back and shoulders quivered and flexed with supple athleticism underneath her hands. But it was only when she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss that his head reared back and he searched her face. She licked her tingling lips and lifted her chin. He needed to know she wasn’t afraid of him…of the big cat.

  Right then he was every bit human—and she wanted him more than she’d wanted anyone in her life.

  His long black lashes swept low, concealing for one moment the fire in his eyes that thickened her blood and made her aware of her own quickened heartbeat, not to mention a shiver that started at her toes then ended in a flare of heat in her pussy. “I want you,” she whispered.

  “I know you do. And I want you too.” His lashes swept apart, his eyes piercing her with his need. “But just so you know, if we go ahead it will become more than a one-off sexual encounter.”

  Her breath stopped. “It will?”

  His nostrils flared. “Yes. I wanted you—all of you, from the first time I opened the door and saw you in the flesh. If we make love, I don’t doubt that I’ll do everything in my power to keep you from leaving me.”

  “A relationship?” she squeaked.

  He nodded, but then added a whole lot more meaning to the idea when he said softly, “Mates.”

  Odd how the idea sent pleasure spiraling through her body even as she blurted a rejection. “You don’t understand. I want nothing more from you than proof about the shape-shifters.” She shook her head. “I don’t do relationships.”

  His eyes glinted with intensity. “Then perhaps I can convince you this once to make an exception.”

  She had no response to that, not when she wondered if he too experienced the bone-deep clarity that, even without her father’s research that had led her to him, they had been destined somehow to meet.

  They moved to their feet, and Blake sucked in a breath as she kissed her way down his warm, silken skin, before she stooped to unbutton and unzip his jeans. She looked up, holding his burning stare while she worked the denim down his hips and thighs. God, she wanted him so much it hurt.

  He wore no underwear and his cock sprang free as he lifted first one leg and then the other. She pitched the jeans aside with decidedly unsteady hands.

  Lust roiled through her belly. His cock was rock hard and impossibly large. Almost reverently she traced his thick erection with her fingertips, caressing the silken head and ridged shaft. Such hardness of flesh and yet such softness of skin.

  He sucked in a breath when she leaned forward and swirled her tongue over the slit at the tip of his cock, tasting the sticky, salty-sharp bead of pre-cum that was better than any fine dining.

  “Alexia,” he groaned.

  His undoing was all the encouragement she needed. Pressing her lips to the velvety underside of his cock head, she kissed her way down along the sensitive blue vein that led to his heavy balls. With a little mewl of need, she licked the underside of his sack before sucking each distended ball into her mouth and sliding it across her tongue.

  She closed her eyes on a sigh. The hint of musk was gloriously primal and animalistic—it turned her on in ways she’d never imagined. Though Blake was a stranger to her, she felt as though she’d known him half her life. Perhaps that was why she was aroused to such a fever pitch?

  Her past one-night stands with men she had barely known had given her nothing much beyond a cheap thrill that’d kept her only half-satisfied. She’d never gone through the angst of a real relationship that her friends seemed to revel in. But maybe one had to experience passion in every facet to truly feel?

  His throaty growl caused her womb to throb and her throat to dry. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her upright, keeping her still while he made short work of the buttons on her flannel shirt before he unzipped her leather jacket and pushed it over her shoulders. Until only her top concealed her unrestrained breasts.

  His eyes blazed with an intensity that left her breathless and all-over achy, every inch of her basking in his appreciation. Heaven help her, she’d never experienced such desire, such out-of-control need.

  Her nipples jutted hard beneath her burgundy singlet. He bent to suckle the tip of one breast through the material and she shuddered with pleasure as his pulls alternated between hard and soft, then fast and slow. When he did the same to her other breast, sucking the covered flesh to the point of pleasure-pain, she inhaled sharply, before undulating against him, wanting more, wanting his all.

  The moment she thought she couldn’t take any more, he retreated and tugged her singlet up and over her head, her arms automatically lifting. With nothing short of urgency, he helped her off with her boots before thrusting down her leather pants and her lacy panties. Seconds later they were kissing again, skin-on-skin, his cock pressing hard and insistent against her belly, his hands cupping her ass cheeks.

&nb
sp; She wanted nothing more than to climb up him, wrap her legs around his hips and pierce herself on the long length of his cock. Satisfying the carnal urgency between them, if only for a short time.

  But then he was laying her down on the bed of hay, his body covering hers and his cock sliding between her thighs, a throbbing length of hard flesh.

  Her mouth flooded with moisture, as did other parts of her female anatomy. She couldn’t have talked even if she’d tried.

  “Are you ready for me?” he asked hoarsely, breaking the heated silence that thrummed between them thicker than molasses.

  She looked up at him, her mouth quickly drying and words forming. “What…what about protection?”

  His lips curled into a sensual smile. “Shape-shifters are immune to human diseases.”

  Oh thank god.

  His eyes glowed, highlighting his inner animal. “Are you on the Pill?”

  She touched her throat with a fluttering hand, though it was the ache in her cunt she wanted so desperately to relieve. “Yes,” she whispered, smiling weakly before adding on a desperate note. “Now take me, please. Before I scream.”

  His short laugh merged into a groan when he kissed her again, before he reared back long enough to announce hoarsely, “I intend that you do scream.” He took possession of her lips even as he clasped his shaft to guide it between her wet folds, and slid in deep.

  She gasped into his mouth. Her inner muscles screamed in protest as he began a slow, rocking motion that moved deeper inside her, stretching her. But it was a pleasure-pain that hit all the right spots, making her even wetter and slicker to accept him…to welcome him.

  His thrusts gained momentum and she wrapped her thighs around his hips, urging him on, so damn hot for him she wondered if she just might implode.

  They were joined not just in a physical sense. Somehow, in such a brief period of time, their connection felt real. Deep. Inexplicable. Their thoughts, their emotions weaved together as one.

  He moved his mouth from her lips and down along her jaw. She arched her throat on a sigh, allowing him access. His stubble scraped her sensitive skin, a prickling sensation that had her gasping with pleasure. His warm breath brushed her neck, then he latched his mouth on her throat and suckled while he rocked inside her faster and faster. Until shock waves of pleasure coalesced deep in her pussy and she was crying out with the sudden orgasm that flung her high, her inner muscles holding and releasing, involuntary spasms that sent Blake tumbling right over the edge with her.