Jump Zone: Cleo Falls Read online

So why the last-minute change in his mission directive? If Jaegar already made it to Gomeda and Achan knew that, why send Libra to get Cleo? Why not just cancel the mission and send Libra back to the penal colony? What could Achan possibly want with them both?

  Though he was barely old enough to remember his father, the story of how Lewin Rush killed Bronson Cade, Libra’s father, in cold blood, was dinner-table conversation. It was a given that Achan hated the tribers for taking his only son away from him, but he never once spoke of vengeance. He only used his anger and loathing to enforce his convictions about the savages of the northern wild.

  No. His grandfather was a single-minded bastard whose purpose often shadowed his motivations, but Libra never knew him to be violent. The old man didn’t even like dirt under his nails. Achan was a brains-over-brawn kind of director. If he couldn’t use logic to get his way, he used manipulation. But violence? Never.

  Was he being manipulated? Of course, but only in the sense he was performing an unsavory task for money.

  Libra still felt as though he was missing critical information, but what? Cleo was holding back, he could feel it, but he didn’t dare poke too hard lest she pulled a quid pro quo. So far, the less either of them asked, the less they had to answer. Like a silent game with unspoken rules…but they were both definitely playing.

  Tonight, after she fell asleep, he’d sneak out of camp with his satcom and call off Trevayne. That much, he could do.

  His attention returned to Cleo, who busied herself turning over the wet cloths that were drying on a rock. He was completely unprepared for that rush of light-headedness he got whenever he looked at her.

  Did she have any conception of how gorgeous she was? How sexy? How his entire body hummed to life when she spoke? Just watching her luscious lips form words made him ache.

  Like an addict, he needed to hear her speak. “I don’t know anything about your politics, Cleo, but do you think he took off because he doesn’t want to be the leader? I mean, that’s a lot of pressure for someone to face, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It is. Too much. But he has no choice. It’s tribe law.” Her movements were jerky, repetitive, and unsettled. “It’s…complicated.”

  He hadn’t seen her agitated like this since she woke up naked and bound. Not even after she killed the alphacat. Another thought nagged him. Why was Cleo sent after Jaegar, alone? If her brother was that important, why wouldn’t they send a delegation or an army? “Why don’t you try to explain?”

  She threw more wood on the fire, which was already flaring too bright and using up what they’d need to stoke it during the night.

  “Cleo?”

  “Because I drove him away, okay?” She dropped a heavy chunk of rotten tree stump in the center of the flames. “I’m the stupid reason he took off, and I’m the one who must get him back.” She stared at the flames, her face shiny with sweat, her breast heaving.

  Libra circled the fire, kicking the embers that had bounced out back into the shallow pit. “Okay, darlin’. Whatever you did isn’t worth burning down the Taiga for.” He made his way around to her and slid an arm around her shoulders. “Just… Take a deep breath and…”

  She turned and threw herself into his arms. He rubbed her back and thought he felt her shoulders tremble. Crying? No, she couldn’t be. Cleo Rush was the strongest woman he’d ever met. He looked down, but her face was buried in his shirt.

  “Don’t worry, Cleo. I’ll find him. I promise. Everything will be fine.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled.

  He smoothed her hair, tangling his fingers in its silky length, until he felt her muscles relax. Until he felt his own muscles relax. Holding her like this felt so right, so damn perfect, he didn’t think he could let her go.

  “Will your friends mind?” she asked, peeking up.

  “My friends?” Shit, his cover story! He stepped back.

  “My camping buddies? Hell no. And if they do, we’ll just head out alone, right? We can double on my solar scooter. It’s a biggie, and brand new…” he babbled, telling her they’d go east and shoot over the St. Mary’s Dam, avoiding the longer but safer Dead Zone route. He prattled about their journey while his mind worked out other things, like how to communicate all this to Trevayne, and how he could pull this charade off without her catching on. How could he have forgotten his camping buddies?

  “I’m going to wash up,” she said, taking the lantern and heading toward the bank of the stream. “Coming?”

  He nodded and went to untie the lantern from the back of his pack.

  “Leave it,” she said. “It’ll only attract bugs.”

  Libra shrugged and followed her into the blackness of the forest. “Why didn’t we just make camp on the bank?” He asked as he blindly followed.

  “Because animals come during the night to drink and we don’t want to disturb them, nor do we want to be disturbed.”

  “Good point—ouch!” He walked straight into copse of pines. Turning to backtrack, he got another face full of branches. “It’s like they’re attacking me!”

  “Watch where you’re going,” she laughed.

  “How can I watch where I’m going when I can’t see for shit?”

  As if to illustrate his point, he ran straight into Cleo, who had stopped, turned, and put her hand out, anticipating that he’d find it with his chest. “Close your eyes,” she instructed.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. Or I’ll go Banger on your ass.”

  Libra chuckled and complied. “Now what?”

  “Just wait a sec.”

  “What am I waiting for?”

  “For your eyes to adjust. You’ve been staring into that fire, so your pupils are dilated. Now open.”

  He could see. Not much, but he could make out silhouettes and solid objects, like the few trees that stood between him and the river. And Cleo, who put her hand in the air to wave. On impulse, he caught her by the wrist and brought her palm to his lips.

  “Thanks,” he whispered, the word laced with more meaning than she could ever understand. “Shall I wait here? Give you some privacy,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, tugging her hand from his grasp and disappearing into the night.

  A fresh ache grew in his gut at the thought of lying next to her all night. If she let him. She did last night, so he hoped… But things had changed since then. A whole zhang-load of complicated happened since then.

  It would be wiser to make a bed clear on the other side of the fire so he could mull over the new information he’d learned, but his need to lay next to her, touch her, smell her overwhelmed his cogitation chip. Like an all-out battle between his mind and body.

  How would she react if he pounced on her, ravished her like he wanted to?

  What would he do about Trevayne? Could he convince the old soldier to playact?

  Just do it. Ravage her senseless.

  Could Trevayne be relied upon to play pretend? Probably not. He practically screamed Gomeda Guard.

  By the time she’d returned, Libra’s imagination had taken him so far as to wonder if she’d moan his name when she came, or if he could he make her scream until he could hear his name echoing back off the rocks.

  Twenty-One

  Cleo stifled a giggle when Libra bent over to tidy the mess she’d made of the fire during her tantrum. “You got some…uh…bits on you.”

  “Huh?”

  “From your tangle with those aggressive pines. Stand still,” she said, picking the tiny green needles from the tops of his shoulders.

  The whole world felt lighter now that he’d agreed to take her to Gomeda. She had every confidence Libra would fulfill his promise, and having an ally in a strange and scary urban center made her want to weep with relief. She almost had, earlier, but ma
naged to stop any real tears from spilling. Warriors did not cry, even when overjoyed.

  She picked and plucked the detritus from his back, most real, some imaginary, following the contours of his spine until she came to the narrows of his waist. There wasn’t a speck of foliage, but she couldn’t resist. Without hesitation, without a thought to the consequences, she pinched his butt.

  “Are you trying to start something?” he said, peering over his shoulder.

  “Me? Never. Pine needle stuck right here,” she said, pinching again, “and here—”

  “Fine, have your fun, but keep in mind, I get to do you next,” he said with a sexy chuckle.

  “But I didn’t get attacked by nature.”

  For a trained warrior, third class, she didn’t anticipate his lightning speed turn, so when her legs were swept out from under her and she landed on the ground, his hand cradling her head, she squealed.

  “No, but you were attacked by the rare and dangerous Gomedan He-Man, which were previously thought to be extinct, and now you have dirt on your ass.” He hoisted her up with the same speed and strength he used to drop her. His palm slid down the center of her back and over the curve of her ass. “Which I will obligingly brush off.”

  Cleo stayed perfectly still, letting the arm that encircled her waist take her weight. She could feel the tension of the last week pour out of her like water from a draining tub. Libra’s eyes were shadowed, but she could feel their heat. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “I consider it my duty.” He dipped his head and, with feather lightness, brushed his lips against the corner of her mouth. “Wouldn’t want you to make your city debut with a smudge.”

  “I meant, are you sure you don’t mind taking me to Gomeda?” she clarified.

  He tipped her chin up with his thumb so their faces were aligned, eye-to-eye, mouth-to-mouth. “Darlin’, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” he said, his breath mingling with her own. “I’ll take you places so high, you’ll think you’re flying.”

  Libra brushed against her lips again. His kisses were soft, not as demanding as earlier. She liked it, liked it just fine, but they made her feel vulnerable, left more room for thought. She preferred the other way, when there wasn’t thinking involved, just moving, filling each other’s senses. She angled her head and parted her mouth slightly.

  He took the bait, dipping into her, teasing her with his taste.

  But she wanted more.

  She wanted him to lay her down, to touch her, everywhere, without modesty, without caution. She wanted to feel his bare flesh against hers, his lips on her shoulder, her breast, her thighs. Such primal need; it felt as if every human aspect about her disappeared and she was reduced to a rutting animal, as if he were essential to her very survival and if she didn’t get it, get him, she would die. She wanted to taste his neck, to run her teeth along the corded flesh, lick a line down the centre of his chest. Perhaps there was a kernel of truth to his misconceptions because she felt every bit the savage when it came to him.

  She wanted to fly.

  The next time his tongue breached the border of her lips, she grabbed it between her teeth and sucked the tip until she felt a groan rumble deep in his chest. When she released it, he plunged into her, thrusting and winding his way into her like before.

  Her fingers curled into his shirt, gripping the material tightly to keep herself from touching him in places she so badly wanted to touch.

  Fear mingled with desire, muddying the experience.

  She’d never done this before. She knew the technical aspects, obviously, but what if they did things differently in Gomeda? What if there were rituals she was unaware of? What if she did something that offended him, turned him off?

  He grabbed her ass and pulled her into him, hard, so that her abdomen crashed into his erection. She wiggled against it and felt his stomach go taut. So she did it again, this time rolling her pelvis against him. His groan vibrated through him and into her.

  He ripped his mouth away from hers and tugged the strap of her tank down with his teeth, nibbling the cap of her shoulder as he went.

  Knuckles skimmed her ribs, pushing her shirt up. It had to go. Their hands tangled as they both tried to pull it over her head.

  Libra placed his palms on the sides of her face, and gently tilted her chin up so he could look into her face. He placed a tender kiss on her forehead, the act so gentle, she had to blink away the sting trapped in the corner of her eyes.

  Sliding his hands from her shoulders down her arms until his fingers entwined with hers, he stopped. He was giving her a moment, or perhaps he was taking one for himself. Cleo’s lids, heavy, languid, dropped to half mast as she watched him, watched his face as his gaze drifted to her bared breasts, heard his ragged breath hitch.

  Somehow, through the lump in her throat, she managed to whisper, “Touch me.”

  Okay, Studly, that was your cue—move! Kiss, pounce, ravage.

  But Libra couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. The only thing he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears, rushing through his veins like a freaking buzz train.

  He felt like he’d been given the biggest, shiniest box under the Christmas tree—the one present that everyone admired and hoped would be theirs. That moment of wonder, of awe that you should be so lucky, and that everyone around you was waiting, expectantly, to see how you’d react to whatever was inside.

  Her exquisiteness overwhelmed him, froze him in time between breaths. She was a goddess and he a mere mortal. He didn’t want to simply grab those luscious globes. Well, he did, badly, but he wanted to worship, not grope, so he steadied himself before moving his hands to the flare of her hips. He wanted to pull her into him, but then he couldn’t look at her, so he moved her back.

  He skimmed his fingers across the satin-soft skin of her torso and felt her muscles quiver under his touch. She squeaked as he grazed the underside of her breasts, trembled for him. It pleased him that she was as tightly strung as he was. As close to losing control as he was.

  He brushed the pad of his thumb across her nipple, heard her broken sigh, just for him. He dropped to his knee and wrapped his hands around her waist, encircling her, holding her steady while he dragged his nose across her skin and inhaled her. He was transported right back to Mount Olympus, and his Goddess of Light smelled like heaven.

  He captured her breast with his mouth, feeling the peak harden into a little pearl between his lips. He flicked it with his tongue, suckled it, let her fill his mouth. He felt her chest rise and fall with each breath, its rhythm quickening the harder he pulled her in. He backed off and blew on the wet skin before leaving it for the other. She tasted like she had in his dream, like the clouds, like the heavens. He couldn’t get enough.

  Cleo knit her fingers into his hair and muttered his name over and over, her husky chorus making his blood boil, making his cock so hard, it was painful. She moved to his shoulders, kneading and grasping, moaning low and deep so he could feel the vibrations under his mouth. If only his heart would stop pounding so hard in his ears because he wanted to hear every catch of her breath.

  While his mouth drifted back and forth across her ribcage, devouring every inch of exposed flesh, he tried to tug her pants down, but they caught on her hip bones and the luscious curve of her ass. Her fingers pressed into his muscles with urgency, as anxious as he was to get to the next step.

  As he mapped her torso with kisses, laved the silken skin around her belly button, he searched for the drawstring, but she’d rolled the waistband over and over and he couldn’t find the zhanging ties and he was losing his patience, and he wanted more of her, immediately, this instant, now. Off, he needed them off. He needed her, needed to be inside her, thrusting into her. Now.

  Gripping the banded material, he tried to snap the ties, but they wouldn’t give. He
wanted to squeeze the bare flesh of her ass, he wanted to feel the slick wetness of her pussy and if he had to tear the ridiculous pants off her, he damn well would.

  Abruptly, she knocked his hands away.

  He looked up between the valley of her breasts, past her swollen lips, her dewy-skinned cheeks, and met her half-closed eyes.

  God, no. Don’t make me stop, not now, I can’t do it…

  His heart pounded, on the verge of implosion, and the pain in his groin was practically unbearable.

  “Too slow,” she mumbled, pulling the leggings off herself.

  Libra hadn’t thought it possible to get any harder, but those two little words made his cock swell so big, he feared he’d split his own skin. Cleo had no idea what she did to him, had no idea that he hadn’t been with a woman since before his incarceration, had no zhanging clue how much effort he was spending trying to maintain control.

  Libra pulled his shirt off in a swift, one-handed move while she stepped out of her clothes. He didn’t even stop to admire the view, just pounced on her, swept her legs out from under her, and lowered her to the air cushion. She didn’t protest.

  Nor did she when he pushed her legs open and nestled in the cradle of her hips. She wrapped her body around him and kissed him with a frantic urgency that matched his own.

  Brushing her hair aside, he ran the flat of his tongue down and across the blade of her collarbone as she undulated beneath him. It took great willpower not to bite her, sink his teeth into her flesh, taste her, all of her, her essence, her blood, her muscle. Who was the savage now?

  He rolled them onto their sides, his touch roaming freely down her back and over her ass. He trailed his finger up the smooth flesh of her inner thigh. She responded to his every touch with a mew or a quiver, propelling his need like no one had ever done, but he didn’t want to take her higher yet. As close to the edge of control he was, he wanted to tease her, drag out the pleasure. This might be his only chance with her, and he wanted this to last.