Light Beyond the Darkness (11 page)

“There’s no one here, except you and me,” she murmured. He felt her hand on his ass again. He froze, not moving a muscle, as she massaged the seat of his jeans. Then he felt her body, pressed against him. Her hand slipped over his hip, reached around and cupped his rock-hard dick. He sucked in a breath, tried to will his legs to move, to step out of her embrace. They weren’t listening.

“Fuck me, Reid,” she whispered. Her other hand slipped under his T-shirt; her nails raked across his chest. He closed his eyes, selfishly enjoying the sensation. He knew he was a reasonably attractive guy, but no woman had ever come on to him quite as boldly as this one was, right now.

“We can’t,” he protested, even as her hands moved to his belt buckle, tugged the leather strap out of the metal clasp.

“We can. No one has to know. I swear, I won’t tell. You know he would beat me, too, if he found out.”

He would. He would beat both of them. And Reid could lose his position as house guard. Not that he was particularly in love with the job, but Quentin paid well enough, and while it wasn’t at the level of his brother, Finn, it still afforded him a certain level of respect within the pack.

His belt was undone, and she worked at the snap on his jeans. “I’m not wearing underwear,” she said.

Holy fuck, in that skirt?
Reid opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. She looked up at him, her gaze full of promise.

She slipped her hands into his boxers, wrapped her fingers around his dick, and squeezed. He ground his teeth and clenched his fists, but lust had begun to fog his brain. His legs still would not move away from her.

“Fuck me,” she whispered again. “Fuck me hard. I want to feel a young dick in me for once. It’s been too long.” Her hand began a steady, rhythmic stroke. His hips rolled of their own accord, and she picked up the pace, while she continued to murmur naughty suggestions and grind her groin against his ass.

Somewhere, on some far away plain, he recognized it wasn’t
him
she wanted, as much as it was anyone other than Quentin. But the haze of lust was too thick for him to truly grasp that thought, use it to focus his senses, to step away from the danger and temptation she represented. Instead, he turned fully around, grabbed her by the waist, and twisted them both, so that her back pressed against the pool table, and his dick pressed against the front of that barely there skirt. She jerked up her skirt and proved her own words true. There was nothing underneath, nothing except a tiny slice of heaven.

“Oh yeah,” she said, her chest heaving, her eyes dilated. She hopped up onto the table and spread her legs. “Come on, Reid. Fuck me.”

Sleazy women weren’t normally his thing. He had always been more attracted to the quiet, reserved ones. They were the ones Quentin tended to leave alone.

But today, this moment, all he could see was her. Quentin’s sexy little paramour, laid out on his prized pool table, her body, her face, full of promise. They were alone in the house. This wouldn’t take long.

He pushed his jeans and boxers over his hips. Stepped between her legs. She lifted her hips, pressed one palm against the felt, teased herself with the other hand. Reid watched her, while she stared at his dick.

“No gray,” she said. “And so big.”

His pride swelled at the insinuation that he was bigger than his pack master. He wrapped one hand around his dick and the other around her hip, positioned himself, and thrust. Her back arched off the table and she cried out her pleasure. He grabbed her hips with both hands and began pumping. Fates, it felt so damn good. Whether it was the forbidden fruit concept or that she was just that good, he had no freaking idea. He only knew that he was probably not going to last long enough for her to come. He sucked in a breath and slowed his pace, focusing on prolonging the experience.

“Faster,” she demanded. She watched his face, but then her gaze darted to the side, her eyes widened, and suddenly, she struggled to pull away from him. Confused, he clung more tightly to her hips. What the hell?

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and jerked him away from her. His dick slid out with a wet
pop
, and his jeans fell to his knees. He turned his face right into Quentin’s fist, which smashed his nose. Blood spurted, spraying his furious pack master and the three other shifters who flanked him.

Shit
.

“Decided you wanted to know what it feels like to be pack master, Hennigan?” Quentin taunted. He punched him again. Reid stood there and took it, knowing if he did anything else at all—especially try to defend himself—it would make the experience ten times worse.

“Was she worth it?”

Reid didn’t respond.

“Get her,” Quentin commanded, pointing at the female shifter who was now crouched in a corner, her arms wrapped around her shaking body. One of his guards strode around the table and grabbed her by the arm, lifted her to her feet, and then stood there, clearly waiting for further direction.

“Get on the table,” Quentin said, and Reid realized he was speaking to him.

“Huh?” His voice sounded nasal, thanks to the broken nose.

Quentin pointed at the table. “Lay down. On your stomach.”

Reid hesitated only for a moment, before he tugged his pants up to his waist and crawled up onto the table, wondering what the hell Quentin intended to do. Blood dripped from his nose, leaving dark spots on the green felt. He wondered if he would be punished for that, too, even though Quentin had ordered him to climb onto the pool table. Unfortunately for Reid, his pack master was not exactly a rational or forgiving man.

“Hold him.”

A moment later, there was a shifter holding each wrist, while Quentin tugged Reid’s belt out of the loops of his jeans, then grabbed his shirt, tearing it down the middle of his back.
Reid suspected what was about to happen only a heartbeat before the first bite of the leather material touched his skin.

* * * *

He abruptly shut down the memory. Recalling as much as he had was bad enough. He did not want to relive the pain. So much pain. He had no idea how long Quentin had whipped him, because eventually he’d passed out from the pain and blood loss. The white, puckered scars on his back itched, as if protesting the memories. Reid resisted the urge to roll around on the rug, like a dog scratching his own back.

He knew he had woken up in his parents’ home, lying on his stomach in his childhood bed. His parents, Finn, and the pack’s midwife, who often doubled as something of a healer, all huddled nearby, fear and worry etched into their features. He’d floated in and out of consciousness for several days before he had finally healed enough to be able to shift into animal form. The shift sped along the healing process, and he had then shifted back into human form and limped from the bedroom into the kitchen to ask his mother for a drink of something stiff to dull the remaining pain.

He’d found out that the girl had been beaten, too, and Quentin had dismissed her as his paramour. The midwife had informed Reid that she too was recovering from her wounds. He had derived no comfort from the thought. At that point, he had been convinced he would derive no comfort ever again.

Clearly, he’d been wrong.

Eventually, he had swallowed his pride and went back to work as a house guard, mostly because Quentin had informed him he had no choice. He never saw the girl again, and though Quentin deliberately paraded his other paramours in front of him, Reid never once felt the urge to make eye contact, let alone do anything else.

And when the time came, when news returned to the pack that Quentin had been killed—by his own son, no less—Reid had immediately grabbed his prepacked bag, which had been full of cash, clothing, and a toiletry kit, and disappeared into the night. He had not even told his family he was leaving.

Thoughts of Carley pushed against the bad memories. Considering what he’d done, he figured he should feel as though he did not deserve her. She was such a pure, sweet, kind, and loving person. Not to mention she was a lightbearer. A small part of him actually found a strange bit of self-satisfaction in knowing he was sleeping with a lightbearer. Not that he wished to ever see his former pack master again, but he did wish Quentin could have known before he died just how wrong his obsession had been, for all those years.

Despite everything, Reid did not feel as though he did not deserve her. What he felt was a fear that he would never be able to offer himself fully and completely, which was no less than she deserved. She had obviously been hurt, clearly abused, at some point in her life. If she ever chose to take a mate, it would have to be someone who would be fully open and honest with her, always. Reid wasn’t sure he could ever do that.

He had never spoken to anyone about what happened. Even his family knew very little, and despite their cajoling, he’d steadfastly refused to tell them exactly what went down, why he’d ended up on his parents’ doorstep, his back a bloody, mangled mess. He knew they gossiped, whispered about the incident, but he never provided validation, for or against the ghastly stories they heard.

And now he’d discovered that Carley likely knew his brother; that her cousin might well be mated to him. He’d repressed his pack-like instincts for eight months now, and as though Carley’s offhand comment had turned on a faucet, those instincts hit him like a physical blow. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to see his brother, his parents, his sister and her family. To be part of a pack again.

He warred with himself. To be part of a pack was to be submissive to another pack master. While he figured no one could ever be as bad as Quentin Lyons, there was plenty of gray space between his former pack master and a
good
pack master. He wasn’t sure he could take the chance of ending up submitting to a pack master he did not respect.

Yet wandering alone in the human world left him feeling cold and empty, every single day, every single night. Even on those nights when he allowed a female to share his bed.

Except for those days and nights he shared with Carley. Since the moment he saw her in that overly bright kitchen in the restaurant where she worked, the coldness, the emptiness was gone. Until now.

Now, he felt as though he needed both. He needed Carley, and he needed his family. Finn lived within the lightbearers’ coterie, which was Carley’s rightful home. He hadn’t actually investigated, but he suspected his parents had moved to Tennessee, where his sister lived with her mate and his pack. It would be so easy for him to check to see if his suspicion was true.

But first, he needed to know if the Finn Carley knew was his brother.

Just like every night for the past month, Reid was waiting when the kitchen staff exited the restaurant through the employee entrance. He leaned against the brick wall, his hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans, his shaggy hair windblown, his pale, pale eyes almost glowing. Carley felt a little thrill as she watched his gaze seek her out in the small group of humans.

Her
.

She had never been the object of someone’s desire before. She had never been an obsession. She liked the feeling. A lot.

Reid made her feel safe. She honestly couldn’t recall if she’d ever truly felt safe in her entire life, until now. Growing up, she’d constantly struggled against her parents’ beliefs, because they had never quite felt
right
. They’d reacted to her indecision by pushing harder, attempting to convince her to come around to their way of thinking. Eventually, they’d forced her into mating with Miguel, because he represented everything they believed in, and his family had standing within the coterie, too. Everything her greedy parents had always wanted.

Once she’d become Miguel’s mate, she’d certainly never felt safe. Many nights, she had been afraid to fall asleep, for fear Miguel would force himself on her. Unfortunately, it was not an unfounded fear.

Now that she’d opened herself up to Reid, she could sleep readily, easily, because she knew he would keep her safe. He would never let anything harm her.

Of course, he had no idea that she was mated to another, that the danger was within the lightbearer coterie. That she could never, ever go back there. Ever. Again.

Good thing Reid was a shifter, and therefore, had no reason whatsoever to want to visit the coterie. If this thing they had turned into something more, well, Carley saw no reason why they could not simply live out their lives right there in Chicago, living among the humans, pretending to be like them. Why not?

They said their goodbyes and parted ways with the rest of the group. Reid hadn’t even asked if she intended to go home with him tonight, and she hadn’t wondered if he wanted her to. They had both simply known.

As usual, she was exhausted by the time they reached Reid’s apartment building. While they rode the elevator to the top floor, she leaned heavily against his side, secure in the comfort of his arm wrapped around her shoulder. When the doors parted, he swept her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to his apartment.

He laid her on the bed, and she fell into a light doze before he’d even pulled off all of her clothing. She was just awake enough to anticipate the feel of his extra-warm body, which she expected would press against her body at any moment.

When that didn’t happen in a timely fashion, Carley frowned and opened her eyes. Reid towered over her, on his hands and knees, looking down at her. The look on his face was…peculiar.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Come to think of it, he had been awfully quiet on the short walk from the restaurant to his home. Far more than usual.

“Do you think you could take some time off from your job? A few days? Maybe a week?”

“Why?”

“I want to take you somewhere.”

Relief flooded her system. There was nothing wrong, after all. “Like a vacation?” She smiled. A vacation with Reid, how fun would that be? Perhaps they could go south, somewhere warm, where the days were sunny more often than not. Somewhere, where it would be just the two of them, and they could spend their days as well as the nights making love and getting to know one another better.