Grayson's Gamble

Chapter Five

Bas had entered a kind of heaven and hell from which only one end would free him. So long as the minx kissing him let him come, he’d do anything she wanted. Anything.

He moaned under the onslaught of her lips, in charge and enslaved at the same time. He’d move his lips. She’d move with him, then take over the kiss. His tongue had invaded and swept through her mouth, licking up the sweet syrup of need that covered the unusual female. Only with Gray had he experienced such mind-blowing lust. And look at how that turned out.

And then he felt her nipples against his chest, the hard little nubs he’d been unable to look away from when she’d entered the room. Talk about a handful of soft, round woman. She made him remember why he could never commit to one sex over the other.

His ribs protested when she pressed against him, but his beast took the brunt of the hurt, turning it into an echo of need. Painful pleasure—the one vice that got him off as nothing could.

He’d broken a few ribs, but in the time since she’d brought him here and bound him to this bed, he’d healed. Slowly, but enough that only twinges of pain remained. He still didn’t know what she’d done to him. By all accounts, he should be much weaker than he felt.

Her little tongue swept over his again, and he sucked on it, loving the taste of wildness, woman, and hunger. It had to be her. Her magic, her Circ skill, whatever made her so special to the rogues hunting her. She’d healed him. She made him want.

But was it real? Was this desire normal or hormone-induced? He’d heard of a few female Circs with the ability to regulate their pheromones. It seemed Ali could do the same. Yet his beast told him there was more to her than that. She’d obviously begun mutating. But what on the other monstrous Circs looked hideous, on her only seemed vibrant.

He arched up, wanting her to feel every inch of him, needing to impress her with his size and stamina. Hell, his beast was half in love with her, the way he was with Gray. The creature wanted to keep her, to protect her, while at the same time he wanted to dominate her, to show her she belonged to him.

She moaned and angled her legs and hips so that she rode his cock. He could smell her arousal, and it fired him to use all of the assets at his disposal.

Though he couldn’t push past the reinforced restraints she’d used on his wrists and ankles, his mind had enough strength to bench press a truck. For the first time that he could remember, he willingly used his telekinesis, and it responded to his command. He yanked off his trousers and underwear while he pulled off her pants as well. He felt her smooth, wet flesh tease him before she settled down, clasping his shaft in her hot pussy.

He broke away from the kiss to look up at her. The red slits that were her pupils looked right at home surrounded by brown irises and the whites of her eyes. Like a sexy feline who needed a mate. Not a mate, a man, he tried to correct his beast, but the thing wouldn’t listen. Mate. Mine. The memory of Gray refused to fade. Ours.

She raked her claws over his chest and nipped his lower lip with dainty fangs. “Tasty.” She licked another drop of blood into her mouth. “And so big.”

As she rocked over him, he reveled in being taken. But he wanted to see more. He used his mind to rip her shirt over her head, pleased when she accepted his power as nothing to worry about and instead focused on fucking him.

He’d had women on top before, but now, watching her breasts bounce and her belly flex as she took him inside her and worked his orgasm, he couldn’t look away. She slammed on top of him, her clit meeting his pelvis with every jostle and slap of flesh.

“Yeah, come all over me,” he encouraged, wishing he had his hands free. Since he didn’t, he used his mind to help stimulate her. Not sure how he could continue to direct it when normally his power erupted at odd moments, he focused on her and used his ability to his advantage. He flicked her clit, rubbed and pulled it as she grew rougher, sucking him deeper and deeper inside her.

Then he slapped her clit and felt her seize on him like a vise.

She cried out as she came, and the feel of her pleasure induced his own. Bas’s orgasm took him to another plane altogether. The explosion sealed them tight, his seed rushing into feminine heat as it found purchase in a ripe womb. His beast sniffed and settled, releasing scent to layer over her, bringing both Bas and a faint touch of Gray into the mix.

Ali moaned and shuddered, her release long and overdue, Bas thought with satisfaction. The woman was so tight, so soft, and not as aggressive unless following his lead. He liked the thought of her not so experienced and wanted to slap himself in the head for it. Bas didn’t judge, and he didn’t care about a partner’s sexual partners, so long as they practiced safe sex.

Not at all like we just did, he reminded his beast. Though Circs couldn’t catch disease through sex, they could and did make babies. More. Yes. More Circs. His beast liked the idea. And Bas remained hard, raring to go again when she resumed her rhythm.

They made eye contact.

“Again,” they said at the same time.

Bas lost himself inside his female. He had a sudden flash of worry and frustrated male. With Gray on the periphery of his mind while Alison took him to new heights of pleasure once more, he passed on what he knew into the ether of a mind-link that shouldn’t have existed. But when she came around him again, he stopped caring about Gray finding him and focused on the pleasure swallowing him whole.

Gray nearly lost his legendary cool. Twelve hours later, and he still couldn’t find Bas anywhere. He’d spent the night searching for any trace of the female, or anyone else for that matter, only to come up empty. It made no sense. Gray could hunt better than anyone he’d ever met. He’d found dead rogues and mutants, even their vehicles and the backup truck they’d stashed.

After searching for more answers he couldn’t find, he’d destroyed the engines in the event he’d missed a rogue who returned to escape. Then Gray sought out the one person who might be able to help him.

Not inclined to meet downtown during the day feeling so out of sorts, Gray agreed to rendezvous at one of the passes still covered in snow.

He watched as a blue SUV approached and parked. Then a large man exited the vehicle. With his size and penchant for violence, Jack Keiser would have made a decent Circ. “Gray. Nice to see you.” As usual, the bastard remained closed off. Gray couldn’t read a hint of what Jack thought.

Gray nodded, hoping he looked more relaxed than he felt. “Jack. My partner has disappeared, and I’m having a hard time picking up his trail. You know anything about this person we’re looking for, other than that Al Ross isn’t the man you told us she was?”

When Jack didn’t react, Gray knew he’d been played. He moved in the blink of an eye and held Jack up by his neck. “What the fuck are you up to? Who are you working for?”

Jack said nothing. He stared down at Gray even as his face turned red and he lost the oxygen necessary for breathing. His freakish wolf-gray eyes never blinked, trained on Gray the way one predator watches another.

Gray released Jack and waited, more than annoyed for showing even that much emotion.

Jack rubbed his throat. “Two words for you. Just remember not to kill the messenger.”

“Spill it, Keiser.”

“Alicia Sharpe.”

“I knew it.” Gray fumed. “What the hell is that woman doing now? My partner might be dead. I’m after a fucking woman named Alison Ross, not Al Ross, along with armed humans and rogues turning mutant.”

Jack crossed muscular arms over his massive chest. “No idea what the old woman is up to. All I know is, I still owed her one from that mess a few years back.”

Meaning the occasion when Jack had been duped, along with the rest of them, into believing that the woman he’d gone undercover with in a Circ operation was really his wife. There was a reason mind control should only be used sparingly; Jack Keiser would certainly agree.

“So?” Gray prodded, needing to find Bas and that odd scent he’d captured yesterday for a few brief moments. The urgency to locate and identify the scent shocked him. The necessity felt off, the way he’d been desperate to fuck Bas. Too much mating shit to deal with at a time when he needed his head clear and rational.

“So I told your grandmother about the female in the mountains. I mentioned I’d heard reports of what sounded like rogues in the area. She told me to assist you when you showed, and not to mention Ross was a woman. No idea why, and I knew better than to ask.” Jack scowled. “When you go back, you tell her we’re square. I don’t mind saying that woman freaks me the hell out.”

And not much ever got to Jack, Gray knew. “Fine. But I need more to go on.”

Jack took a map out of his back pocket. “I didn’t give you this, and you don’t have it.”

“Another fucking stipulation courtesy of Alicia?”

Jack nodded. “But I don’t like being messenger boy. I’m done with Circs after this, you get me?”

“I do.” It went unsaid his grandmother would do whatever she wanted. Only she could get away with the things she did.

“That’s something I had one of my people draw up for you. My retrocog, my guy who reads the past? He saw this area the way it used to be. I have a feeling your girl is hiding in that cabin.” Jack pointed to the small circle on the map. “You can’t find it unless you know where to look or you were alive when the thing was built seventy-five years ago. She’s living off the grid, and she’s armed. Good luck.”

Gray held out a hand, shook Jack’s, and watched the man leave as if he’d never been there. A psychic like Gray, Jack and his people now resided in Bend doing God-knew-what for a living. Gray didn’t intend to ask. He wanted to find Bas, kill Ross, then disappear. Except his beast roared in protest at thoughts of harming a hair on Ross’s head. That she was a woman shouldn’t have mattered. The mission was to eliminate the threat.

But if she was being hunted by other rogues, she needed to be protected, didn’t she? Why the hell wouldn’t his grandmother send him out here to do the right thing by the female? No doubt the rogues and mutants after her would rape her as soon as look at her.

So why the order to kill her? Unless she orchestrated the rogues and mutants. Maybe she wasn’t innocent at all. So the intel was wrong, so what? Did his grandmother doubt his ability to do the right thing? Gray didn’t fail. Ever. He lived to protect, like the others in his family. He and his sister had been helping the government in one fashion or another for years. So why would Alicia suspect him of not being capable? Had his disappointment with the job shown? He was going through a down phase, so he kept telling himself. But to have shown any measure of poor performance… He cringed at the idea and turned back to the map.

After studying it, he pocketed the paper and resolved to find Bas today. No more wasting time. More rogues would come after Ross if they weren’t already working for her. If Gray weren’t careful, he’d lose his partner and fail the mission before he had the answers he needed.

He started running, intent on finding Bas and exacting some justice. He ignored his imagination—odd thoughts of Bas and Ross fucking like bunnies that didn’t belong with the danger so close—and hurried to save his obnoxious partner. God help Ross if she’d touched so much as a hair on Bas’s head.

After a full night and half the day spent playing with an insatiable Circ in bed, Ali stroked Sebastian—Bas, he’d told her to call him—with rough affection. Her beast wanted to dig her claws into him, to see his pretty blood run red. But Ali wanted to pet him in thanks for giving her peace. She felt a calmness she hadn’t felt for the past twenty years, from the time she’d first been taken to the hated labs at the tender age of six.

“That feels so good.” Bas purred under her. After an entire night of wild, bone-melting sex, he hadn’t made one plea to escape. Other than a request to relieve himself, which she’d allowed while she’d trained her gun on him, he’d been a low-maintenance guest. Prisoner. A low-maintenance prisoner.

It was too easy to think of him as a friend after sharing such intimacies. She’d never been taken with such thoroughness or tenderness. He’d let her do whatever she wanted and hadn’t been nasty or rough at all. Of course, the restraints holding him down might have had something to do with that.

“Why are you here?” she blurted, hating herself for needing to know. So much for killing him without a qualm after some fun.

“To find you.” He didn’t react except to sigh and enjoy her touch.

“You found me. Now what?”

An acceleration in his heartbeat alerted her to be wary.

“And then we figure out why there are so many rogues in the area. Not to mention the mutants.” He lifted his head, and she met his gaze. “Who is Trenton?”

“Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t.” He frowned. “I’d tell you if I did.”

“Sure you would. I admit, you’re different from the usual ones he sends. You’re prettier. You smell better. And you sure know what to do in bed.”

His smile blinded her. “Thanks. I aim to please.”

She snorted to cover a laugh, baffled at why she should find such joy with one of Trenton’s rogues. “Point is, I’m not going to breed with you. And I’m not going to let you kill me.” She studied him, curious as to what his reaction would be. Truth was, she couldn’t control her fertility the way some of the females could. But Trenton didn’t know that.

“Honey, I like you. But we just met. I’m not ready to play daddy. And I’m not going to kill you.” He said it with such finality, as if he meant it. But did he?

“Why not? You’re here to take me back, aren’t you?” She sat up next to him, uncaring of her nudity, though his gaze dipped low and stayed there. “I’m not going to volunteer to spread my legs there any more than I would here.” She held up a hand to stop his obvious rejoinder. “Yeah, I chose to fuck you. My choice. That’s the difference.”

“First off, we didn’t exactly fuck. We made love.”

Was he serious?

“Secondly, it’s funny you’re all about choice. Because seems to me I’m tied up and at your mercy, sweetheart.”

She definitely heard some zing in that sweetheart. Finally, the Circ dropped the act. He was annoyed and showing it.

“Yeah, Bas? Well, you might have been at my mercy, but you sure as hell enjoyed yourself. Don’t pretend you didn’t.” Yet she couldn’t help a flush of shame that she had forced herself on someone unwilling.

Memories flooded her. A glance at his manacles no longer made her feel safe. Instead she felt sick inside. Jesus, she’d done to him what they’d once done to her.

“I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it. But—hey, wait a minute. Where are you going?”

She darted off him and escaped down the corridor, back up the stairs into the cabin. Tears filled her eyes, and she let them spill. The beast that had taken great pleasure in having the male didn’t understand, and she couldn’t explain it. Not to a being that thrived on her id, on the basic drives that defined life. She wanted, she took. She hungered, she fed. She wanted sex, she raped a man.

Ali had turned into the monster she’d feared for so long. She hurried into the shower and scrubbed her skin raw. Then she dried off, dressed, and left the cabin in search of answers. She needed to know what to do, how to act. Never had she thought she might deserve the shit she’d been through. The constant invasions into her privacy. The examinations that left her feeling vulnerable and sick to her stomach. That one nightmare session spent with a much larger male, one who wouldn’t stop rutting until she’d been forced to kill him—with him still inside her.

The terror of that long-ago event had since faded, but the reminders of the brutal nature of the male of the species could never be erased.

And now the victim had become the abuser. How fucking clichéd.

She tried to tell herself he could have said no. That he might have refused her. He’d been with her every step of the way. All those “more” and “yes” and “harder” pleas she’d been helpless to deny. Yet she’d riled his lusts, enflamed the beast inside him. And like most rogues, he’d been lost to his hormones when she called on hers.

Not able to handle the blame and mortification snowballing on her psyche, she retreated under a wall of indifference. It wouldn’t matter what she’d done in a few more weeks. She just had to last long enough to infiltrate Trenton’s heavily guarded lab. Once she’d figured out how to get to him, she’d kill him. After that, she’d erase each and every one of the monsters still willingly working for him. A bullet for each one, then herself at the very end. Easy as pie.

Yeah, right.

Ali sighed as she trudged through melting snow. Reality wouldn’t go away just because she wanted it to. What the hell should she do with Romeo at the house? Should she kill him? Set him free? Fuck him again? Because damn if her libido would let her forget how good he’d felt inside her, even if he hadn’t exactly wanted to be there.

Shame again washed over her, and she snarled in denial. The sound of rustling to her left called on her fight-or-flight response, and like usual, she fought. Ali followed the sounds and changed without thinking. She filled out her overlarge sweatshirt and baggy pants, glad she’d thought to go barefoot, and hauled ass after what smelled like a doe. To the animal’s misfortune, it had been injured and didn’t have the speed to outrun her. Ali’s beast took her rage, lust, and confusion and funneled it into a new hunger. One for destruction.

She gave the poor creature a quick, clean kill and forced herself to ignore the urge to maul it. But all the while, her thoughts dwelled on Bas and that sweet scent that lingered over him, separate yet a part of him. She bathed in the doe’s blood to satiate the beast, and as she did, she wondered if her eyes matched the dark red of the doe’s arterial spurt.

Bas didn’t know what the hell had happened, but his beast didn’t like it at all. One minute Ali had been all over him. He’d been inside her, coming into sheer perfection. Her wildness had held him captive. Such carnal need, so much desire for him. Only with Gray had the intimacy been so close. Yet Ali needed him. All night long they’d kissed and caressed, touched and held. Her questions this morning told him more than anything that she’d been dealing with danger for far too long on her own. The urgency of their lovemaking—not fucking—told him something else. The woman was in a mating heat, whether she knew it or not.

And then he’d accused her of holding him captive. She’d bolted like her ass was on fire. He could still smell the bitter humiliation wafting from her when she’d vanished. His beast chided him for being less than sensitive. So what that she’d captured him? She’d rewarded him with that sweet pussy. She’d given him more joy than he’d had since… Well, since Gray. But that asshole was nowhere to be found. Probably out in the woods, cursing his name because Bas had disappeared, giving him more work to do.

Gray didn’t need him; Ali did. Unlike the sanctimonious prick who’d scorned Bas’s affections, he had no intention of rejecting Ali. When she’d petted him after sex, that awkward yet tender care had touched him deeply. Too bad he didn’t know what the hell to do now. She’d left him tied up and naked on the bed, the room once again bathed in silence.

Then a thought occurred to him—to use his telekinesis to search for a way to escape. For the first time that he could remember, he’d been in charge of his power with Ali. He hadn’t hurt her while making love. And when he’d mentally stroked her clit, he’d felt the pleasure all the way to his bones.

He needed to help her, to ease the hurt he’d unintentionally caused. Bas closed his eyes and felt with his mind. The woman hadn’t left a key anywhere that he’d seen, and she had two cupboards and a bookcase down here. Neither was locked. He opened his eyes and concentrated on his night vision, calling on his Circ senses for clarity. Once the room lit up, he flexed his mental muscles to open the cupboards and search through the bookcase.

No keys, no weapons of any kind, and no way to disengage the manacles. He’d have to break them. He changed, pushing against the stretching cuffs. Fuck. She had to be using some kind of Circ-proof bonds. But what had she connected them to? He grinned when he felt the metallic feet of the bed with his mind. After a silent count of three, he yanked the metal feet clean off. The bed slammed to the ground with a loud bang, but his manacles dangled free.

That no one came to investigate the noise reinforced the notion he’d been placed in a soundproofed room. The woman was smart, he’d give her that. But she hadn’t counted on a telekinetic Circ.

He rubbed his wrists and ankles, wishing he could take off the restraints. They trailed over the stone floor, announcing his presence to anyone within hearing distance. After failing to find anything he might use to clothe himself, Bas followed the same direction in which Ali had left. He walked down a short corridor and up a set of steps. After he pushed up on the trapdoor above him, he walked out into a cozy little log cabin.

Rustic yet homey, the place had braided rugs over wooden floors, a comfortable-looking couch, a bed in one corner, and across the room, a nice kitchen. To his surprise, a wood stove, sink, and functional bathroom appeared in working order. So much for a small footprint. Someone had to know this place existed when the utility bills came due. And then he spotted the wiring leading to solar panels above. Hence, her electricity, hot water, and lights.

He didn’t see a hint of Ali anywhere.

Annoyed, he looked through the house and found his trousers at least. He put them on. Then he found an overlarge jacket in the lone closet in the home. It smelled musty, as if it hadn’t been used in some time, and Bas’s beast approved. No male to contend with for the female. The jacket belonged to an old suitor or someone gone from her life.

A grunt of satisfaction he shouldn’t have felt emerged, and he licked his fangs. He needed to bite his female, something she hadn’t let happen last night. Instead, she’d kept him under her thumb, tied up. He liked the kink, being at her mercy. Bas always took charge during sex. Except when he’d been with Gray. And now apparently, Ali.

A stupid grin covered his face, and though he tried to stifle it as he went in search of the maddening woman outside, he couldn’t help being so happy about his time with her. She should have looked heinous. Instead her danger only added to her appeal. Not quite a mutant, but no normal Circ, she put him in mind of a panther about to strike. One who’d licked, sucked, and fucked her mate to rapturous exhaustion.

His hard-on returned, though he should have been too tired to want her again. His beast prodded him to seek Gray. To commence with the rest of the bonding they’d need to fully prepare their female to—

“Shit.” Bas had been trying to deny the truth since he’d been with Gray. Lust he could handle. But this love he felt, he didn’t like. Gray was an arrogant asshole at the best of times. Sure, he had a soft side, but he rarely used it with Bas. And still Bas wanted the male—his love, his affection, his trust.

Wanting Gray was bad enough. But connecting with a woman on the verge of not just going rogue but turning mutant? Did he have a secret death wish after all? Maybe those dickheads in the PWP labs had messed with his mind more than he’d thought. His fear of rejection, of not being enough, haunted him. So to make up for it, perhaps he sought to punish himself by choosing to love unavailable partners?

Bas scowled, wishing he could turn off the psychobabble inside his head. But his beast found the ideas interesting. Sebastian Decker, one of the few Circs with an intelligent animal who liked fucking with him as much as Bas liked fucking with other people. Laid-back yet firm, Bas called the shots by controlling his temper and easing others around him. All except for Gray and one sexy, blonde-haired vixen with the nicest breasts he’d ever seen. Held. Tasted.

He groaned and did his best to will away the iron bar in his pants. Instead, he opened his mouth and tried to catch her scent, tasting and smelling it now that he knew what to search for. To his shock, Ali smelled faintly like him. Otherwise, he would have had a hard time tracking her at all. The woman truly could control her scent, as well as her pheromones.

He wondered if he could apologize enough to get her to use them on him again today.

With a grin, he increased his speed. He needed to find her before anyone else did, and that thought wiped the smile from his face and the bulge from between his legs like nothing could. Now worry for the female overtook sense, and he plunged through the woods, seeking his mate.

He found her covered in blood just as another Circ readied to attack her. Bas flew between them, acting on instinct, and charged… Only to find Gray in his arms once more.