Victor's consciousness exploded. His hands came up to tangle in her hair, then rush over her curves and planes, then slid back up to cup her face. Their tongues sparred recklessly. Jaran loomed over him, her hands on his cheeks, then his chest, pushing at the jacket he wore so that she could feel the sudden pounding of his heart. And Victor took it. Because as much as he would deny it to himself, something in him wanted this woman to feel free with him.
Jaran straddled his thighs, her long hair falling like a veil around them. He could taste the salt from the sea spray on her and it made him want her more. She heard the harshness in his breath and wanted to breathe the same air as him. Her heart pounded in her ears as his pounded beneath her hands. His groan shook the night air and tightened the ache low in her belly.
And when words would have flowed from her mouth she checked them and kissed him harder.
Which was why he was shocked as all hell when she reached down, popped open the car door, and slid across him to the gravel roadway.
"What the-"
"Shush. Come on. Come with me," she answered. Her hand trailed down his arm to take his. And, in what he would later decide was some witchcraft induced haze, he just stepped out of the car and stood beside her. Fucking well left the keys in the ignition and the top down and just quietly shut the door behind him.
"Where are we going?"
"I don't know yet," she told him. "But not here. Your car doesn't call to me."
He arched his brow and let a half smile quirk his lip. "What calls to you?"
"The woods. Will you come with me?"
She'd pulled away from him so that they stood an arm's span apart, fingers linked loosely.
"Yeah, baby, I'll come with you."
She grinned. In that flash of smile he saw something feral. Something vicious and sweet and unapologetically selfish. He knew why her code name was Magnetism. He knew why her contemporaries, her inferiors and superiors both, had come to a place where they termed her Animal Magnetism. Right before they decided she was a cold-hearted bitch. He was actually looking forward to that part, too.
Jaran tugged and he answered, looking both ways before he ducked his head and jogged after her across the highway.
"What are we looking for?" he asked
Jaran shrugged one shoulder, her form loose and light. "I don't know yet. I will when I find it."
Victor wasn't sure about that answer. He pulled her backward and let the momentum of his body crash them together. His hands grasped her hips and he leaned close, brushing his lips down her neck. "I don't know how long I can wait," he growled into the skin beneath her ear.
Jaran let her head loll backward for the space of a second, then blinked her eyes clear and stepped forward, her hands wrapped around his fingertips. "Just trust me."
She led him at a brisk pace, then upped it. Victor could see the fingers of moonlight snaking down between tree branches when he looked behind them. The woman in front of him monopolized the opposite view. She let her fingers slide from his and held her arms close to her body, slipping between tree trunks-weaving in and out of the saplings and ancient oaks and pine trees without seeming to trip on underbrush. Without seeming to feel any loose limbs scratching at her clothes. Faster and faster she led him away from what he knew.
Victor followed her. His own loose-limbed gait felt an echoing desire to get down and lunge through the forest like a beast after prey. He kept that in check as he paced her.
"Jaran!" he called quietly when she paused in a small opening. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths. She was otherworldly, standing before him in her black blouse and trousers, low boots covered by the mist's damp tendrils. Her hair was starting to curl at the ends from the moisture in the air. Her eyes were wide-seeking and lost and still confident and certain.
"Which way?" she asked him.
Victor's grizzled face changed with the easy smile. His hands came up to question what the hell they were doing in the first place.
"Does it matter? What's wrong with right here?"
Jaran wrinkled her nose and shook her head. He reached out, clutching at her so that she was plastered up against him. His eyes bore hotly into hers, even in the near darkness.
"Yes," he whispered. "Right here."
Jaran let him kiss her. Let him hold her tightly, his arms strong and capable and insistent. Then she pulled back and shook her head.
"It'll be better. We're close. I can feel it."
Victor let his hands slide down to pull her hard up against him. "I'll tell you what I can feel-"
Jaran caught his wrists and laughed, leading him the first few steps again. "Come on, Victor!" she chided, taking his hand. He let her lead, following agilely as she skipped over fallen logs and skirted tangles of stalky shrubs.
"What are we looking for?" he asked behind her.
"I want glitter bugs and flutter-bys," she told him.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered. Then he nearly knocked her down as she turned around.
The clearing wasn't much of a clearing. The ground was soft beneath his shoes. Her hands were warm as they took his again and pulled him toward her.
Except that she didn't stop. She let herself sink to the ground until her butt hit the earth, tugging him along. Victor nearly stumbled in his hurry to follow her. In the end they wanted the tangle anyway and his body covered hers.
Jaran felt even the earth beneath her tremble at that first solid contact. The man above her was so much larger than he sometimes seemed. And so frail in his humanity. The way he braced himself on one elbow to keep from crushing her touched her. But Jaran wanted the crush tonight. She wanted to be of the earth, not held to some higher standard. So she pulled harder, palms brushing up beneath the heavy wool coat he wore to find the muscle beneath thin cotton.
Victor growled, sliding the jacket away, rolling with her so that his fingers could manipulate the tiny buttons of her blouse. Which actually became more difficult since it brought her fully against his arousal and made her breasts such easy prey. In the end it seemed easier just to tug the damned thing over her head.
"Jesus, you're going to be cold," he objected as the air hit her skin. A thousand nerve endings screamed at the transfer of heat and she shivered above him. Which just further slowed his though processes.
Luckily instinct was strong in him. He rolled again, his hands reaching for the coat he'd lost, and he centered her on it, keeping her thighs firmly wrapped around his waist. Jaran's hands wandered lower, admiring the trim fit of the jeans he wore over his carefully honed body. When she tugged at his t shirt she found the smooth, firm skin that covered the hard muscles a sharp contrast to the coarse bristles that covered his cheeks.
The rest of their clothes seemed to burn away as each fought for control. They rolled again and again, torturing bodies that had played this game before. When Victor's palms brushed over both of Jaran's he felt his whole body jerk with an extra punch of need and want and desire and enjoyment. The third time it happened he lost patience and gave in to the desire to mate-mindlessly and carelessly and selfishly. His head tipped back and he roared what he couldn't find words for.
The moon was flickering on the other side of its orbit when Victor rolled to his side, tucking one hand beneath his head so that Jaran could pillow hers on his elbow. Not speaking they lay there, face to face, for a long time as their bodies calmed and their hearts slowed.
Victor's smile came back before their breathing had quieted back to normal
"Wasn't this much better than your car?" Jaran asked him.
Victor shrugged and bent his face, drawing her bottom lip between his. "I don't really give a damn."
Jaran laughed. He ignored her, searching her face. "Your eyelashes are about fifteen inches long," he observed.
This time he'd have seen her blush if there'd been any more light. Even his acute vision couldn't pick up what he felt as he rubbed his temple against her cheek.
"I still haven't seen any flutter-bys," he murmured against her hair.
"You have to be quiet," Jaran told him, licking her lips nervously. "Quiet and still."
"I can do quiet and still," he promised. He was surprised when she turned away from him. Then she glanced over her shoulder to check on him as she extended one arm along the ground.
"I've got it," he told her, inching closer. "Quiet and still. Just pretend I'm not here." He fitted his body to her round bottom, tucking himself as close and he could get. His mouth moved over her bare shoulder and one arm shadowed hers, stroking softly up and down the long, smooth muscles.
His trail had taken him up the back of her neck, his face buried thoroughly in her beautiful thick hair, when her words stirred the air around them.
"I've got one."
Victor eased up, his hand cupping her arm, resting above her wrist. The moon had found a path, lighting her flesh like blue neon. There, crawling lightly from one fingertip to the other, was the smallest bat he'd ever seen. It's wings were huge comparatively. And like a cross between bird's feathers and a butterfly in beauty and texture.
"Jesus Christ," he hissed, his fingertips slipping slowly toward her palm. The little mammal sensed nothing to fear from him and came closer to investigate.
"England's tiny vampire bat," Jaran told him, glancing back at him with dancing eyes.
"It's all in the teeth, huh? Will he bite me?"
Jaran shook her head. "His fangs are too small. He's only a danger to bees and mosquitos and lightening bugs."
The beastie dragged itself onto the first of Victor's claws. Jaran heard his lips part in surprise. "Why isn't he afraid of me?" he asked. "I've got blood on my hands that animals all over the world sense and run from."
"Because you're not a danger to him. You're a brother. A sympathetic soul to his plight of searching for prey. And doing it in a larger world that keeps changing."
"You're too romantic to be a doctor."
"I'm too inured in helping to be anything else."
Jaran turned a bit more, watching Victor's face as he watched the smaller creature.
"Why aren't we colder?" he asked without shifting his attention. "Why isn't the ground harder beneath us? I've walked these woods for miles around and never come across this place before. Never seen these trees or heard these night sounds. Where is all this going?"
Jaran shrugged beneath him. "It wasn't there for you to see. Even in these modern times there remain a few secrets the elder race holds for their own. You just have to listen to the wood and the earth to find them."
"Can he hear them?" Victor asked.
"He's a commonplace thief to this land. Some insect population control. Some hazard for the unwary."
"He's beautiful," the man objected.
The bat's miniscule head cocked, then it held its upper body alert, beginning the cumbersome trial of bringing its unwieldy body cross-country to launch from the high vantage of Victor's wrist.
"You offended him when you called him pretty," Jaran teased.
"Brothers should be able to tell each other everything," he played along. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and made love to her again. The glitter bugs and fireflies would have to wait. Dawn was threatening to grey the sky when they dragged on their damp, wrinkled clothes and started picking their way through the trees.
