The Shadow Guard Read online

  “Kubris are conduits into the Earth’s power source and different kubris can channel it better.”

  “You’re saying kubris have different bandwidth, like the difference between an overhead power line and the wire within your house.” Now the hesitation in her eyes started to make sense.

  “Something like that. Some are like the big cross-country lines, which can power an entire region. Some are more like an old-fashioned copper line, cranky and slow, but still better than nothing. All are valuable to sahirs.”

  “Fine.” Jake kissed the inside of her wrist and privately grinned when a slow shiver ran up her arm. “You’ve got all of me to play with.”

  “Jake, a sahir can burn out any of those kubris, just like the power grid can short out!”

  “As in, kill?” He stopped in his tracks, with one foot on the stairs.

  “As in dead, burned to ashes. I can’t let that happen to you, guildie.” Astrid—Andromache, his best friend—looked back at him with both feet still firmly in the living room. But she hadn’t pulled her hand free from his grasp and a few sparks floated in her eyes.

  Anticipation heated his blood.

  “Yeah, but what a way to go, baby.” He tugged her closer. “Pity they couldn’t put it in Argos, lest they scare the kiddies. But we’ll have fun making up our own rules, right?”

  “You’re crazy.” She leaned into him, warm and soft against his wool suit and starched shirt.

  “Maybe.” He probably was loony but not for reasons he wanted to examine.

  He kissed her on the mouth and savored how she answered him. Every thrust and sweep of her tongue was so experienced and yet she was so enthusiastic in his arms. And how her hips swiveled to meet his when the first slow beats of lust pulsed between his lungs and his crotch . . .

  Shit, why the hell were they standing here when they could be in the bedroom?

  “Come on.” He tempered the words’ urgency with a kiss to her temple. Hell, her pulse was beating fast and hard there, too.

  Perfect.

  A quick glance at the second bedroom reassured him that his brother was fast asleep inside. The door was shut, in the traditional warning to all passersby. Anybody who entered did so at their own peril: Logan had never appreciated being disturbed from his slumbers, a trait the army had only exacerbated.

  But Jake’s door was open and the lights flashed on in welcome.

  Inside, Astrid turned to face him, her breasts rising and falling under her soft black-and-white dress.

  Jake gathered her close and kissed her again. Every inch of her caressed him, from her beautiful breasts swelling against his chest, to her thighs notched around his. Even how her back glided past his fingers and flexed under his palms.

  His breathing kicked up faster, like revving up for a high-speed chase. They could do what they wanted, now that he’d closed the door.

  What did she have on under this silky dress? It didn’t feel like the undies she’d worn before. Would she have to do something special to remove them?

  His cock hardened hopefully.

  “You’re wearing stockings, aren’t you?”

  “We were at church. You’re wearing a tie.” She made an urgent little noise in her throat and he dropped more kisses along her cheek. The sooner he reached her throat, the better.

  “I can take that bit of silk off faster than you can remove those stockings,” he pointed out and lightly dragged his teeth over her ear.

  She shuddered. Thinking wasn’t going very well for him when she wriggled like that.

  “And isn’t that a bra, too?” he managed. No wonder his hands were so focused on her sweet ass.

  His experience with unfastening upper-half stuff was limited. He usually followed women back to their place after picking them up in a bar, banged them to mutual satisfaction, and went home, never to see them again. With that modus operandi, the ladies wanted to get down to business as fast as he did.

  Astrid was very different.

  “As I mentioned, dude, we were at church.” She tilted her head sideways and he nibbled his way down her throat. God bless the designer for making a dress that opened like a necklace in front. There were no ugly folds of cloth to pull down from his darling’s neck, even though the design stopped short of letting him dive straight for her breasts.

  As she said, they’d been at church.

  “Your shirt and tie clasp are rubbing the hell out of my skin,” she crooned, sultrier than any late-night jazz singer. Her hands kneaded his shoulders, her fingernails digging into him like a little cat. Every prick shafted hunger straight down his spine into his cock.

  He pulled his head away and stared at his TV’s expressionless screen. Shit, he sounded like he’d just run five miles in full SWAT kit.

  “Make you a deal,” he gasped, too desperate to wait until sentences came easily. “You strip down to your underwear and I’ll strip down to mine. Then we take the next step together. Deal?”

  “Deal.” She released herself from his arms. His hands twitched and his fingers curled to hold her again.

  “Better get started, big guy.” A knowing smile teased her mouth.

  He dug a finger into the knot in his tie, as if that would assuage the pressure in his cock, then yanked the damn contraption off.

  “Good start,” she purred. She teased her dress’s skirt upward on her thighs. It was a black-and-white print, which any sane man could look at straight. But it made her slender and young and vibrant.

  He stared, his eyes almost ready to fall on the floor and crawl to her. “Don’t you have to unbutton something?”

  “Did you feel any buttons?” She dragged the cloth higher on one side, confusing his eyes until they didn’t know where the silk should end. His cock had no such doubt: It simply wanted to lunge. Now.

  “No buttons on your dress.” He dumped his jacket onto the chair and started ripping off his shirt. What idiot had put so many buttons on men’s dress clothing? Maybe next time he should think about a turtleneck in the winter.

  “Or a zipper?” he suggested, just to restore some balance. Hell, the damn things were all over his stuff, from his trousers to his police gear.

  “Sorry.” She leisurely peeled the clingy scrap of cloth up her torso. He stopped to watch, his pulse pounding in his ears.

  It stroked over her hips, wrapped her waist, embraced her breasts until it finally left her throat with the same reluctance he’d show.

  She swung it slowly around her finger, her tongue teasing her lips. All of his blood dove south in a single huge rush.

  Dear God almighty, she wore a simple black silk bra, equally simple black panties, which covered her from waist to thigh, and stockings. Garter straps disappeared under her panties and black high heeled shoes cradled her feet. She looked elegant and delectably sinful, like a box of candy ready to be unwrapped.

  Holy fucking shit, garters? He’d never undressed a woman wearing garters.

  “You’ve got plenty of buttons, though.” She licked her lips. “It’s cute. I like it.”

  “Shit.” The damn things exploded like popcorn when he yanked his shirt off.

  She blew him a kiss. Then she rested one hand on his bed and bent her leg up behind her to leisurely slide her shoe off. Her free hand caressed her foot, then intimately fingered herself in a graceful display of sensuality that stopped Jake’s breath.

  What would it be like, to have hedonism so ingrained in your blood that even the simplest things became a doorway to pleasure?

  This wasn’t the time to wonder whether dawn would shine more brightly, or whether it would simply bring another chance to do his duty.

  He stripped cell phones and gun off his belt and onto the chest of drawers.

  Astrid removed her second shoe the same way as the first, with equal grace and sensuality. Her panties gleamed damp between her legs, testifying to her hunger.

  His leather belt sang like a fast-moving hornet when he ripped it out of his pants. He didn’t bother to em
pty his pockets before unfastening his trousers and shoving them down.

  “Garters?” she asked, her voice slightly husky.

  He glanced back at her. Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly in their silky cage. Good.

  “Leave ’em. You buy them as lingerie, don’t you?”

  “True.” She sauntered toward him, green sparks flickering in her eyes.

  He reached up to remove his ear cuff but she caught his wrist.

  “Not that.”

  He looked a question at her.

  “I like it.” She kissed the inside of his forearm. “It makes you barbaric.”

  Not the full answer, but who cared when heat rippled through his veins under her kiss?

  “We’re both in underwear. But you’re still dressed from the waist up. Naughty girl.” He shook his finger at her.

  “Very bad.” She lowered her head and peeped up at him through her eyelashes. Her musk scented the room. “Perhaps I should take my earrings off—or go for my panties first?”

  “Wretch!” Her offer’s brazen effrontery tightened his chest. His nipples were hard enough to use for spikes.

  “If you’d prefer something else . . .” She rubbed herself against him like an eager cat. He slid his hand inside her panties and kissed her mouth. He took the kiss fast and deep, to hurl his own need into her.

  He kissed her until the world tasted of her. She was tight and wet inside the silken straitjacket and her hot juices drenched his hand. She moaned and shoved herself down onto him, begging for more.

  Oh yeah, honey.

  He rolled his hips against her. The pressure of his briefs teased his desperate cock.

  He needed a condom. He needed to be in her.

  She needed more magick, whatever that took.

  He managed—just this once in his life—to get a girl’s bra off without fumbling the catch. Then he lifted darling Astrid onto the bed and eased her panties off.

  All those golden curls between her legs, beaded in dew? He buried his face in her faster than any honeybee ever dived into a bank of roses. He lapped and licked and sent her hips pounding at his head. But he didn’t let her climax, not yet.

  He stripped his briefs off and knelt over her.

  Fingers and tongue, maybe? She didn’t look quite desperate enough for what he had in mind. Or maybe, if he could trust his unruly cock to be near her . . .

  He retrieved a condom, covered himself faster than ever before, and joined her.

  She whimpered and clawed at his back. Any thought of simply rubbing himself over her sped into the night faster than a racing motorcycle escaped a police cruiser.

  The tip of his cock slipped into her.

  The heat in his blood melted into musk and fired his lust higher. His balls were hotter than star shells, ready for the Fourth of July.

  Gold stardust danced behind his eyes.

  “Jake, please.” Her sheath melted around him.

  “Honey.” He wet his lips and tried for enough sanity to make a sentence. Never mind whether it made sense; just string the words together.

  “Honey, do you see those sparks?”

  “Yeah.” Her knees came up around his hips.

  His lungs seized.

  “Is that what you need?” he gasped.

  “Need you and your magick,” she groaned and locked her heels into the small of his back.

  His hips surged forward until he was completely inside her. His balls tucked up neatly against her and reveled in her hot dew.

  Jake howled, shaken by a silken whirlpool of heat and lust. It enveloped him both within and without, and ripped him into a being of pure satisfaction.

  Light came alive around them, like candlelight glimpsed through lace.

  He thrust and she locked herself around him in welcome. He pumped again, and they fell into a rhythm, older than time, beyond time. All that existed was Astrid, and pleasure, and the stars that heated in his veins to be shared with her through breath and cock.

  Until finally the tide grew too hot, too high, too fast.

  She scratched his ass—and the small bit of pain triggered something deeper. Climax blasted through him, faster than a supernova ever remade a galaxy. Joyous cloudbursts of light pinwheeled through his veins and shattered his bones, remaking his world.

  He poured himself into Astrid again and again, rejoicing in her cries of delight, her muscles milking him, the sinews binding him to a single place and time.

  He could not have said where and when that place was, only whom he was with, until his eyes opened long minutes later.

  At least his bed still looked the same.

  Astrid was a limp bundle in his arms, sweaty, and, he hoped, sated. She hadn’t said a word. Heck, she hadn’t moved a muscle, except the slightest of stretches when he eased out of her.

  Jake frowned. His best friend had never let much go past without commenting on it. Had he hurt her?

  “You okay, Astrid?”

  “Yes, of course,” she mumbled. She didn’t sound very certain of it.

  Jake snuck the used condom out from its hiding place under the covers and into the trash can. The oddest things disturbed women, and he didn’t want even the smallest trifle to fluster her.

  “Did you get enough magick?” That was more important than if he was a good fuck.

  She chuckled, music dancing through the sound, until she sounded much more like his old friend. His heart lifted into the palm of her hand.

  “I certainly did.” She eased herself a little closer and laid her head on his shoulder. Wisps tumbled around her face like a golden coronet. “You’re a very powerful kubri.”

  “Oh yeah? How did that happen?”

  “How did you get this?” She stroked her finger up the long line of his jaw to his ear.

  “Why do you ask?” He eyed her warily. He never talked about it. Hell, he almost never took it out of his dresser drawer, let alone wore it.

  “It’s the mark of a kubri. It both shows that you are one and helps sahirs link to you.” Her voice was very gentle, as if she spoke about volcanoes to a toddler.

  “Shit.” He instinctively ran his thumb over it. “I’ve always thought it was a good-luck charm. Like it helped me to get laid, or figure out a crime.”

  Something shifted behind Astrid’s eyes but her expression stayed warm and approving.

  “It’s a good focus tool,” she agreed. “What do you think of it now?”

  “It’s tighter on my ear.” He slid his nail under the edge. “It doesn’t want to come off, dammit.”

  “The bond grows stronger every time you give power to a sahir.” She hesitated for a moment before going on. “It also grows more transparent.”

  “Are you telling me I can’t take it off?”

  “Yes.”

  “They never mentioned that to me.” Jake’s head hit the pillows with a thump. “Of course, who asks questions during an orgy?”

  “Orgy?” Shit, now Astrid sounded thrilled. She braced her forearms on his chest to look down at him. “Where was it held?”

  “It was sixteen years ago, so I can’t take you back there,” he warned, more irritated than if a civilian had begged to ride along on a high-stakes SWAT raid.

  “Of course not.” She kissed the tip of his chin.

  “When I was a college junior, I went to New Orleans with some friends for Mardi Gras. We met a couple who invited us home. Things got pretty hot and heavy.” He shook his head, his eyes closed as memories rolled past. “My friends wandered back to the hotel one by one during the first night, but I stayed.”

  Astrid nibbled on his shoulder. “Like it?” she murmured.

  “I never knew there were so many ways to have sex. All legal someplace, all fun.” Fucking had been important. Food, too, a little. But not sleep. And he’d never been bruised for longer than a few minutes. Strange. But who cared when everything felt so good?

  Blood eased back into his cock and Astrid fondled it like an old friend.

 
“I went back to the hotel after three days.” Surely he’d been there longer, but that was what the clock said.

  “Just before your friends started looking for you?”

  “No.” Guilt rasped his voice once again. He closed his eyes, counted to ten as the shrink had taught him, and tried again.

  “The cops had been hunting me since midnight, almost eight hours. My parents were killed in a drive-by shooting and somebody needed to take charge.”

  “Take charge? You were in college.”

  “Old enough to identify their bodies and become my brother’s guardian.”

  Astrid opened her mouth, caught his eye, than shut it before she could let loose any pity, thank God. More than enough tears had washed his path back then.

  He stayed silent and tried to remember some good bits about those days.

  Logan had been shocked into cleaning up his act. What else? Hmm . . .

  “My condolences,” Astrid said softly. “Was it a crappy introduction to police work?”

  “Pretty much. It wouldn’t have been an easy crime to solve anywhere. But that jurisdiction and the cop working the case—they weren’t even interested in hunting for my folks’ killers. Said it was my dad’s fault because he’d been stupid enough to have a blowout on a major highway, then called for help from a bad neighborhood.”

  “Assholes!”

  “Yeah, I cheered when the Justice Department ripped those so-called cops apart. They even solved a bunch of cold cases, including my parents.”

  “I’m sorry it took so long.”

  “It’s okay. The killer’s serving time on Death Row—and yes, I am sure they got the right guy.”

  “Is that why you’re a cop? Or did you always want to be one?”

  “Oh, hell, no! I planned to be a stockbroker and make real money for my folks, instead of just letting their savings sit in the bank.”

  “You switched majors after the shooting.”

  “You know me too well.” He smiled at the blonde who saw through him so clearly. “Yeah, by the time I settled my folks’ estate and got Logan out of high school, I finished a degree in criminal justice and passed the exams for Belhaven PD. Then I worked my way onto the homicide squad as fast as possible.”