He didn’t reply, simply waiting. Jaimie could go off on a tangent of moral community responsibility. She’d spent a lot of time in the homeless kitchens and shelters volunteering even as a young teen. She and her mother had spent a great deal of time in both places before Stacy had gotten her teaching credentials and a decent job.

Jaimie sighed and went back to scanning the area. “Marc isn’t far from Lucas.

One, no, two doors down. He’s just inside, standing at the window. He’s watching Lucas more than the street and he’s worried. Very worried. Something’s really caught their attention.”

Mack felt her push her energy along the street, sweeping the buildings up and down the street on either side. Her breath caught in her throat. “There. On the pier by a fishing boat. Three fishermen next to them, but those two aren’t in the least interested in fishing. They’re very interested in the warehouse on the end of the block.”

Gideon, you on this? Aloud he said to Jaimie, “Find Gideon.”

“You know I can’t find him.”

“I think you can.” His voice grew hoarse with need.

He shifted, trying to ease the pain in his groin. It only grew worse, heat radiating down his thighs and up into his belly. He had to try to ease the building tension, his hand dropping to the front of his jeans, stroking absently.

Jaimie’s energy stroked him as well, with heat and fire, causing sparks to arc off his skin. The energy was soft and feminine like her skin, cupping his c**k and balls, massaging him. He swore for a moment he could even feel her tongue licking at him.

His c**k jerked. Pulsed. Spilled droplets. His mouth filled with the taste of her. He wanted to strip off her jeans and bury his face in the fire of her sheath, devour her until she was writhing and screaming beneath him. He couldn’t stop the erotic images flooding his brain. His breath came in ragged, harsh gasps.

Jaimie’s lashes drifted down. There was a slumberous, sensual look on her face, her full lower lip in a sexy pout. Her br**sts rose and fell beneath her thin tank. Her ni**les were taut, two tight pebbles beckoning him, and her skin was flushed. Mack found his hand sliding from the front of his jeans to her thigh, where he traced soothing circles. It took several minutes of searching and he could feel her energy expanding, and with it the rushing in his veins continued.

“I think I’m picking Gideon up on the roof across the street, on the building where Ethan and the others are. It’s so faint, but his energy is different. Unfamiliar. A completely different pattern, almost camouflaged the way his skin is. He could be lying down, watching the street, very focused. He blends in with other energies around him. He’s getting uncomfortable, Mack. I think he feels mine.”

“Pull back,” Mack ordered. He didn’t want her energy, as sexual as it was, as hot and potent, blending with anyone but him.

“Do you want me to try to find Joe?”

He did, but he didn’t want Joe feeling her, not like this, not in a heightened state of hunger. Jaimie had opened her thighs so that his slow circles had climbed higher.

He could feel heat coming off her in waves. Hunger was sharp and relentless, an endless, brutal erection that seemed to be bursting his skin. His fingers fumbled with the zipper of his jeans, desperate for relief from the swelling, throbbing pain in his cock.

“Yes”—he could barely get the word out—“but pull back the moment you think he senses you.” He massaged his thick, bursting erection, his mouth watering for the taste of her, his palms itching for the feel of her soft skin. He had to touch her soon, had to fasten his mouth to the hot, sweet core of her and draw her honey into his mouth, feel her explode as he kissed her as intimately as possible.

Jaimie was faster finding Joe and he told himself it was because she knew where he was staying now, in that room directly across from her building, three stories up.

He couldn’t really think anymore, not with the roar in his head and the taste of honey in his mouth. He remembered her unique taste. The cream he loved to feed on in the morning, her breathless cries, the way she gave herself to him unashamedly, without reservation.

“He’s eating at the table and going over something”—she frowned—“a report, I think. Something in it bothers him. He’s restless. He just got up and paced to the window, but he’s standing to the side of it so no one can see him. His energy is as low as Gideon’s and has that same strange blending quality.”

Was there a caressing note in her voice? One of affection? Or was it just his sensitive state? He only knew he felt a vicious punch in his gut and something dangerous moved inside of him, something he didn’t much like. He took a steadying breath and let it out. She was doing what he asked, and he’d been the one to let her go.

If she found someone else . . . He drew in another breath and looked at his hands. He was shaking. This wasn’t normal, not any of it, but his body said differently.

The energy enfolded him, lapped at his skin like a thousand sensual tongues, teasing and dancing so that he could barely think with need. The intensity shook him.

“His energy nearly matches Gideon’s, Mack. The threads are woven differently than anyone else’s, almost like the waves react differently. I don’t know how I’m picking either of them up, and in a combat situation, without knowing what I was looking for, it would be nearly impossible. I had an idea where to look.”

He couldn’t answer her, his voice was too gruff, his body consumed, burning, so desperate for her he could no longer sort out actual words, but he knew the moment Joe felt her. Something masculine and challenging brushed against her energy. He caught the nape of her neck and jerked her into him. “Break away.” His mouth came down on hers. Hungry. Demanding. Giving her no choice.

She was lost in him instantly, just as he knew she would be. Her breath caught, a sound that shook him. He curled his fingers around the nape of her neck and kissed her, over and over, his tongue sliding over the seam of her lips to demand entrance.

There was no thought of her refusal. The need was too strong, too urgent, far too intense. He needed her the way he needed air to breathe. He devoured her mouth, the silken heat and honeyed taste, but it wasn’t enough to sate the fire leaping through him, and the feel of her only inflamed him further.

CHAPTER 10

Jaimie’s mouth was heaven, the taste and scent of her filling him, the silken heat of her wrapping him up in desire. Mack didn’t think he could survive without being skin to skin, without having her soft body wrapped around his. He couldn’t breathe with wanting her. His head was a dull roar, his body on fire. He didn’t think, couldn’t think. There was only his body, edgy with need for her heat and soft skin.

His mouth left hers so he could trail kisses over her chin and nibble his way down the side of her neck to her sensitive earlobe. His teeth nipped and scraped, his tongue swirling along the soft, tempting skin. Her breathless moans nearly drove him crazy.

He kissed his way along the slope of creamy skin, one hand sliding her strap from her shoulder and shoving the material from the swell of her soft, enticing br**sts. His other hand pulled her into him, his mouth closing over soft flesh. She gasped and arched her body, pressing into him, her soft cry one of pleasure.

Every secret hollow and shadow of her body was memorized, imprinted in his mind forever, but it had never been like this—a terrible, almost brutal hunger that had him skating along the edge of his control. He felt like a man starving, a terrible addiction that pounded through his heart and soul and settled deep into his body, demanding to be sated. Lust was sharp, consuming him. The roar of his blood thundering in his ears. He could feel her response to him. The heat rising, the tremors running from breast to belly, arousal teasing along her thighs. It was a heady, erotic phenomenon like nothing he’d ever experienced.

He slid her shirt below her br**sts so they spilled out, rising and falling, ni**les taut with desire. She looked so beautiful, her breathing ragged, her eyes glazed, her needy moans driving him wild. He slowly lowered her to the floor, watching her all the while, unable to take his eyes from the rise and fall of her br**sts as her breathing grew more and more agitated in anticipation.

He slid his hand over her stomach, pushing the drawstring pants out of his way.

He wanted to see every inch of her soft feminine curves. He wanted her open to him, give herself to him. Belong to him. As needy and edgy as he felt. Her stomach muscles bunched and her body shuddered as he leaned forward and licked her nipple, all the while holding her gaze to his.

Jaimie cried out softly and arched her back, pushing her br**sts toward him, her hands coming up to cradle his head, holding him to her. He couldn’t resist the offering and suckled, pulling the soft, tender flesh into his mouth, using tongue and teeth to lave and nip, sending little darts of fire streaking to her most feminine core. Her body shuddered, her h*ps bucked, and he kept up the assault, feeling every licking flame as if her body were his own.

His hand made the journey up the smooth silk of her thigh. She gasped, the sensation almost more than she could stand, her eyes wide and dazed with pleasure.

He had put that look there, whether she wanted to admit she was his or not. He switched his attention to her other breast, eliciting more gasps and shudders, her legs moving restlessly while his palm stroked higher, close to the sizzling heat at the core of her body.

He licked and nuzzled at her nipple, then caught it with the edge of his teeth. Her eyes went dark and wide. Her mouth opened and she moaned his name, the sound moving through him like music. Keeping her gaze locked with his, he slipped his finger into the damp heat of her silken sheath. She nearly came off the floor, her body every bit as sensitive as his. Her muscles clamped down and he felt the ripple spreading through her belly and down her thighs. Her reaction made him ravenous for more.

There was no controlling his desire, his body one brutal ache that was relentless beyond anything he’d ever known. His heart hammering, he kissed his way back to her slightly swollen mouth, devouring her, taking her sweetness and drowning in it.

His free hand worked at his jeans, pushing them from his hips, freeing his engorged cock, so that it sprang forward eagerly, thick and hot, pulsing with hunger. The relief was tremendous. He’d never hurt so bad, felt so full, his blood pounding.

“Mack.”

Her voice grew needy, broken, as his hand slipped over her mound, cupping her heat, his thumb sliding through soft velvet folds to find hidden treasure. Her entire body shuddered in answer.

He kissed his way down to her br**sts, lingering for a moment, suckling, teeth scraping while she cried out and thrashed. His mouth licked and kissed, sipping her skin down her belly, pausing only to pay attention to her intriguing belly button before moving on. She sucked in her breath as he nuzzled her legs apart, giving him better access to the feast. Again, he could already taste her in his mouth and down his throat, as if he’d already spent hours devouring her.

He was afraid he was going insane, the need to take her so strong there was nothing else in his mind, only the terrible lust rising like a tidal wave, the love swamping him until he shook with it. He lowered his mouth, his tongue stabbing deep. Jaimie’s fingernails dug into the floor, her body nearly lifting, heels digging deep for purchase as he began suckling like a starving man. His tongue found her little nub and stroked over and over until she was sobbing with pleasure, her head thrashing and her fists clenching in his hair.

Mack spread her thighs wider. How many nights had he driven himself insane dreaming of the taste of her? Of her open and giving herself to him again and again?

There was a part of him that was still hurt and angry that she had left him so devastated, that she had so much power over him—that she could leave him. He would never have left her and yet she managed to stay away for two years and still refused to admit or acknowledge that she belonged to him.

He had thought to let her go, to let her find out there was no one else for her, that there never would be, but he never imagined she might find another man. He never imagined her letting anyone touch what belonged exclusively to him.