Imprisoned by Desire: a Fated Desires story Read online

  I wanted to turn and kiss him, but he wouldn’t let me move so I hung on that edge of pleasure until another wave of ecstasy hit me and I came again.

  When my knees buckled, he slowly pulled his fingers out of me and turned me around so I could lean against him. I wound my arms around his waist and held on, his cock firm against my lower belly.

  The water started to cool, and Cass twisted the taps, shutting off the shower. He grabbed one of the clean towels from the rack on the wall next to the stall and dried my hair and skin before rubbing it over his head and body.

  Then he picked me up again and walked to the bed. Pulling the quilt back, he laid me on the sheets. The steam from the shower and the warm air temperature outside made it comfortable for me to lie there without a cover—but I didn’t lie there alone for long.

  Cass lay down next to me and pushed me onto my back. Gazing into my eyes, he covered me with his body, spread my legs wide with his knees and then, in one powerful thrust, slid inside. The exquisite friction made me cry out his name and incandescent heat spread through my body.

  He took me slowly, because my pussy was still tight from climaxing, but he didn’t relent, wouldn’t let me keep him out.

  Not that I wanted to. No, I wanted him right here, over me, inside me. My legs rose to grip his waist as my arms wrapped around his shoulders.

  His mouth dropped over mine, sealing it shut. Then he parted my lips with his tongue. His cock was a burning shaft that pulled at delicate tissues, scraped along sensitive nerves and sent waves of lust through my womb, up my spine and into my chest. The feeling was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I felt as if I was burning from the inside out with a white-hot flame. The whole room seemed to glow with its intensity.

  I moaned low in my throat and Cass thrust faster, his balls slapping against my ass. Each time he moved, he seemed to push deeper inside me until I was sure he’d fused to my body.

  Time ceased to exist. I didn’t know how long he stroked the inside of me like this, making that flame burn until I was sure I couldn’t take it any longer. And when he came, he took me with him.

  The pleasure of that last climax was so great that stars burst behind my eyelids for several seconds before I let the darkness take me under.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cass

  I collapsed over Sara’s limp body, letting the last traces of magic course through me. It danced like fire across my nerves endings, making my muscles jump and quiver as if I’d just run a marathon. I was pretty sure Sara had passed out. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t followed her.

  I’d never experienced that type of release before or the force of the magic responsible for it. Hell, we could have died from the sheer pleasure. And the only thing I’d have regretted would be that I wouldn’t get to make love to her again. But that would’ve been the way to go.

  We were meant to be blood-bound, I had no doubt about that.

  Lifting my head from her shoulder, I rolled to one side, pulling her with me. Even asleep, she curled into my body and threw an arm over my chest—as if she didn’t want me to get away.

  I sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what she had said or might say. I understood her earlier breakdown. Hell, I’d expected it, had pushed her toward it. I’d wanted to tear the bandage off the wound, so to speak, as fast as possible.

  When I’d done my research on Sara’s past, I’d suspected Bonnini had killed her parents. For the pain her uncle had caused her, I’d take great pleasure in ridding the world of the bastard.

  But for that I had to come up with another plan, since the original plan to use Sara as bait was no longer an option.

  As soon as she woke, I was taking her back to my home, where she’d stay until I resolved this situation with Bonnini. If I was lucky, she wouldn’t leave. Ever.

  Sara shifted against me, her damp hair cool against my arm. I ran my fingers through it, gently working out the knots, knowing she wouldn’t want to wake with it a tangled mess. I wouldn’t care but women were funny like that.

  “Mm, that feels good,” Sara murmured.

  She obviously wasn’t as out of it as I’d thought. “Take a nap, babe. You don’t have anything to worry about. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She rolled to her side so she could look at me, her eyes still drowsy, her smile sexy. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind if anything happened to me.”

  The lust I’d thought banked for a while blazed at her innuendo but I knew she needed some sleep. Hell, I needed some sleep, but I wasn’t going to get it. Not until I had her at my place. I could translocate us both back there in a blink, but I didn’t think we needed to worry about moving just yet. Bonnini was unlikely to worry about Sara being MIA for at least a few hours yet. And I didn’t want to move her without her permission.

  “Why don’t you close your eyes and try to get some sleep?” I asked.

  Sara pouted and my gaze dropped to her lips. Surely one kiss couldn’t hurt. I dropped my mouth on hers and she immediately opened for me, curling her tongue around mine. Though I hadn’t thought it possible after that last orgasm, my cock began to harden again. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t be able to stop at one kiss.

  But since she was awake, we should probably get the preliminaries out of the way. I kissed her one more time then pulled back.

  “Sara?”

  She shimmied closer, rubbing her chest and lower body against me in a motion I couldn’t mistake. “Hmm?”

  “We need to talk.”

  She froze then sighed, the sound a husky rasp against my nerves. “I know. We need to talk about my uncle.” She paused and I swore I heard her thinking. “What if… What if I asked you to take me away? Somewhere he would never find me. Where we could live together and never have to worry about anyone else.” The last sentence came out in a rush.

  My heart stuttered, and I let myself imagine for a few seconds that she truly wanted that. But I knew better. She was still half in shock. Not a surprise considering the day she’d had. But once she was herself again, she wouldn’t want to run away and hide. That wasn’t the Sara I was coming to know. I shook my head. “If I thought you’d be happy, I’d have you out of here so fast your head wouldn’t have time to spin.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I loved her—not yet. The truth of the words would be lost in the danger and chaos of the situation. When I said the words, I wanted it to be special, to be the right time. In her state, she probably wouldn’t believe me anyway, not even if I explained about the magic they’d created that last time. I was afraid she’d run screaming. Hell, we’d known each other less than a day.

  Which didn’t mean I was unsure—not at all. Just cautious.

  “You’re kind of a bully, aren’t you?” She smiled, taking the bite out of her words, and rested her head on my chest. “That’s okay. I can live with that.”

  Live with that. His heart kicked into a fast gallop. As in live with me permanently? Gods be damned, did that mean what I hoped it did? Or was I reading too much into a few simple words?

  I’d never had a relationship with a woman that had lasted longer than one or two years. Considering I was a hundred and twenty-seven years old, that was, well, it was pretty damn pitiful. Now that I’d met Sara, I knew why I’d waited.

  “Sara.”

  She wriggled against me, nearly derailing my train of thought. “Hmm?”

  “I need to take out your uncle. I need to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone again the way he’s hurt you and my people.”

  She yawned, her hand coming to rest on my chest next to her head. “What is it you do exactly?”

  “Exactly what I told you. I’m a security specialist. I work for the occasional etera,” actually I made a decent amount of money from that, “but I work mainly for the Fata, neutralizing threats to our community.”

  “What’s an etera again?”

  Hell, I’d forgotten she didn’t have a clue about my world. “The eteri are regular humans. Those who
have no arus in their blood.”

  “And arus means magic, right?”

  “Basically, yeah.”

  “What do you plan to do to my uncle?” Her tone hardened.

  Kill him. I wanted to kill Bonnini for the pain he’d caused Sara and Tonio’s mate, Nora, and the Fata he’d terrorized. I would have no regrets at all about getting rid of Daniel Bonnini. But would Sara be able to live with me when I did?

  Still, we should take him alive. He had valuable information, information the Fata could use to protect themselves against the Mal.

  “We need to know what he knows about the Fata,” Cass said. “And why he’s tried to kidnap some of us.”

  She paused. “Do you have to do this?”

  I could lie and tell her there was no one else. The Benandante, the good counterpart to the Mal’s evil, would love to get their hands on Bonnini, even though they had bigger fish to fry.

  A secret society, the Benandante had a sacred mission to extinguish the Mal. But their numbers had been depleted in the late 1800s when the Mal had made a concerted effort to massacre them. Hundreds of Benandante had died. Some Fata, like me and my brothers, had stepped in to fill the gaps.

  So, no, I didn’t have to take down Bonnini personally. But that was the way I usually worked. I didn’t even like to have my brothers in the mix when I was working. It could be distracting.

  “Yeah, I do.” If I decided the man had to die, I had to be sure the bastard died by my hand so I could see it with my own eyes.

  “Because of me?”

  Absolutely. “Because I need to know it’s done right.”

  Sara shifted until she got an elbow under her and could look down at me. “I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to you.”

  She shook her head to move her bangs off her face and I saw her hair, baby fine and stick straight, wasn’t any worse for wear. Stupid thing to notice, really, but there wasn’t a single aspect of this woman I didn’t want to discover.

  I sank my hands into the layered lengths, let them slip through my fingers like silk ribbons. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I think you may have more trouble getting rid of me than you expect.”

  Her head tilted as if she was thinking about that. Then she smiled, a half-grin that made my cock leap and my stomach curl in on itself.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

  Goddess, her eyes were gorgeous, such a pure shade of green they mesmerized. “Stash you somewhere safe then figure out—”

  She laid a finger over my lips. “You know the easiest way to get him to come to you is to use me, right? I mean, that was your plan when we met, wasn’t it?”

  Gods be damned, she was going to be the death of me. But I refused to lie to her anymore. “Yeah, I was going to use you as bait.”

  “Then why does that have to change?”

  Because everything had changed. “I won’t put you in that kind of danger.”

  Her smile would have made a dead man hard. “That’s so sweet but completely unrealistic. All I have to do is make one phone call and he’ll come to me. Then you can—” she stopped to take a breath, “do whatever you need to do.”

  I shook my head. “No way. I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’re going back to my place—”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Did you just give me an order?”

  I sighed. And this was why my relationships never lasted long. I was a controlling son of a bitch and I liked it when people followed my orders. Made life a hell of a lot easier.

  I tried again. “Would you please stay at my place until this is over?”

  She stared at me for a second before her lips turned up slightly. “I’ll consider it. I’m not used to taking orders. Not from anyone. My uncle may be a…dangerous man but he taught me to stand on my own and not to depend on anyone. I’ve never dated a man for more than a few months, because most of them look at me and only see a thin body and blonde hair. They think I need a keeper. Or an owner. I don’t need to be kept and I sure as hell don’t want to be owned. I’m willing to put up with a fair amount of macho bullshit, because, frankly, I think it’s cute. But don’t mistake that for weakness.”

  She thought I was cute? Damn, how did I get so lucky that the one woman in the world for me was such a hard-ass?

  She was tough—and right. Even though I hated it.

  “Honey, I don’t think you have a weak bone in your body… And you’re right. I need you to get to your uncle.” There was that smile again, the one that tied me in knots. I wished I could act on the heat building between us but I needed to focus so that I could spend the rest of my life with her. “Not that I want to share you but I need to call two of my brothers in so we can get a plan in place.”

  Her hand traced lazy circles on my stomach. “Do you have to do that right now?”

  The lust in her gaze made my entire body throb. Without warning, I grabbed her, making her scream then laugh as I dragged her under me, tangling her legs with mine.

  “For you, I can spare a few minutes.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sara

  After another bout of high-intensity sex, I rifled through the dresser drawers for something to wear that wasn’t ten-year-old shorts or a threadbare t-shirt.

  Of course, Cass didn’t seem to mind, if the way his eyes followed me as he called in his brothers was any indication. I felt like the sexiest woman in the world, something with which I had no experience.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna bring you here now, Leo.” He spoke into his cell phone. “Don’t give me any shit. I told you not to make plans, ceffo.”

  He listened for a few seconds then his lips turned up in a grin. “Yeah, well, baciami il culo. Hang up.”

  Cass clicked the phone off and motioned me to his side, putting his arm around my shoulders and drawing me close to him, as if he’d been doing it for years. “Stay here a sec, babe. Leo’s been known to take a dive after he’s transported.” Then he closed his eyes.

  The hair on my arms rose as I felt him do whatever it was he did to transport people from one place to another. It felt like standing next to a huge electrical current.

  The man fascinated me on so many levels, held my attention so completely I almost missed the second his brother appeared in front of them.

  One moment, no one was there. The next, a dark-haired man in a tight black t-shirt, faded ripped jeans and worn black Chucks stood in front of me.

  If Cass was all dark brooding intensity, Leo was baby-faced innocence. The guy couldn’t be more than twenty years old, with sleepy, sexy dark eyes, high cheekbones and a mouth too pretty to be a guy’s. He was shorter than Cass and slighter, more wiry. They shared the same dark hair though Leo’s was stick straight and hung in his eyes—and of course covered his ears. If I had to pick someone out of the crowd and call him an elf, this would be the guy.

  Then he yawned, shook his head and took an unsteady step forward. Cass reached for him, grabbing him by the arms and steadying him. “Hey, kid. You’re such a wuss. Get a grip.”

  Cass’s soft tone belied his words and Leo’s mouth kicked up in a smile that surely sent teenage girls into fits of ecstasy.

  “And you’re a controlling SOB but I don’t hold that against you.” Leo put one hand on Cass’s shoulder and took a deep breath before looking over at Sara. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t think any less of me but I think I’m going to pass out now.”

  When his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp, Cass muttered something under his breath and caught his brother in his arms before he fell.

  “Here. Lay him on the bed.” I rushed over to pull the quilt up over the sheets before Cass got there with his brother.

  Cass shook his head as he set Leo down as gently as he would a sleeping baby.

  “Is he okay?”

  Cass sighed. “Yeah, he’s fine. He’s just young and he gets disoriented, because he doesn’t listen. Thinks he knows everything.”

  I sa
t on the edge of the bed and felt his forehead to make sure he wasn’t overheated or clammy then felt the pulse in his neck. “He works with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But…he’s only a kid.”

  Cass snorted. “Don’t let his looks fool you. He’s a few years older than you. The Fata…age differently than other races.”

  I raised my eyebrows as I looked over my shoulder at him. “Oh yeah? So how old are you?”

  “You really want to know?”

  Hmm. Maybe not. “Yes.”

  “One hundred and twenty-seven.”

  My mouth dropped open. “How long will you live?”

  “About three hundred years, give or take.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. Luckily, I didn’t have to, because Leo shifted on the bed and opened his eyes.

  “Dude, you know I fucking hate that shit.”

  Cass sighed. “Watch your mouth, saccente. Sara, I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but this is my youngest brother, Leone. Leo, Sara Prescott.”

  The kid smiled almost bashfully and, oh holy hell, he was a heartbreaker. “Nice to meet you. And the passing out was all his fault.” Leo pointed at Cass as he sat up.

  Cass snorted. “Yeah, then why are you the only one who passes out when I transport you?”

  “Non rompermi le palle. Where’s Tonio?”

  Cass pulled out his cell phone. “I’m not trying to break your balls, and Nino’s next.” He hit a button on the phone. “Hey, you ready? Good. Hang up.”

  “Guess you can tell he’s the oldest, huh.” Leo leaned on his hand on the bed and staring up at me. “He’s a bossy scassacazzo.”

  “Leo. Mouth.” Cass glared at his brother. “Sara, stay there.”