Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
WALKER
I’d heard the yelling. Her scream. The way it changed from anger to terror. The door was before me. She was behind it. With him. Why was I waiting?
Last time I barged in. Didn’t I?
Now I was frozen like a fucking deer in headlights.
Throw the damn door open! I roared at myself.
You’re going to be too late.
Open the fucking door!
I brought my knee up and leg out, putting all my force into it.
The door swung open, crashing into the wall.
She lay there on the floor, eyes glassy and unseeing. Blood saturated her torso, pouring from the wounds at her neck.
Despair and grief like I’d never experienced brought me to my knees beside her. “Iona,” I whispered, my hands reaching for her.
They were already drenched in blood.
What?
Confused, I turned them over, watching the blood, her blood, drip from my fingertips.
A snarl cut through the room, and my gaze jerked up to find him, feral and teeth bared, coated in blood and gore, glaring at me as he kneeled over her. “You did this too. This is your fault too.”
Then he lunged at me with a mouth filled with sharp teeth.
I jolted awake, blood rushing in my ears.
The nightmare faded as I took in the ceiling of my bedroom in the dim light of the dark night. I sat up, scrubbing a shaky hand down my face.
My body was damp with sweat.
Fuck, it had been years since I’d had that nightmare. Others from my time in war haunted me whenever I was stressed. But that dream … I’d thought I’d seen the last of it.
Groaning, I willed myself to shake it off, but I felt sick. Getting out of bed, I glanced at the clock—just past one in the morning. I’d only been asleep for a few hours.
“Bugger,” I muttered as I wandered into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
As I drank it, I stared at the clock on the kitchen wall. My mind discarded the last remnants of the dream as I returned to reality and immediately remembered Sloane and Callie.
I’d hated leaving them at Aria’s. I’d stayed as long as I could while I called Lachlan, Brodan, Thane, and the security team.
We knew for certain Andros was in the area, so Lachlan had offered a generous bonus to anyone on the team who brought him in.
That meant we had men out there right now, searching for Andros.
I’d hoped it would make Sloane feel better, but I knew when I left her and Callie that they were both shaken. I could kill the bastard for putting them through this. For putting his own daughter through this. She was only ten years old.
Throwing back the last of the water, I dumped the glass and headed into the shower. After a quick one, I dressed and got in my car.
Ten minutes later, I was outside the Howards’ home on the estate. I pushed my seat back and settled in for the night. I knew no one could breach the security at Ardnoch. We had state-of-the-art drone perimeters, silent trip alarms, CCTV, and highly trained guards. But I needed this.
I stared up at the house. There were no lights on, so I assumed everyone was asleep.
Restless, I got out of the SUV and leaned against it, eyes to the house.
It was hard to hear anything over the crash of the waves against the beach below the dunes.
The sea air was freezing, but it felt good on my fevered skin.
The weather had changed. We were deep into Autumn.
I’d barely noticed the passing of the season, my mind elsewhere these past few weeks.
On the woman behind the door in front of me.
As if I conjured her, the door opened and Sloane appeared beneath the moonlight. I pushed off the SUV and took the porch steps in two giant strides. She stepped out, closing the door behind her, shivering in her nightdress and oversized cardigan.
“You should go back to bed,” I said quietly.
She stared up at me, her eyes like the black of night in the darkness. “I saw you pull up.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. Just couldn’t sleep.”
“You didn’t wake me. I couldn’t sleep either.”
Without thinking about it, I gave in to the urge to touch her, caressing her cheek with my thumb.
Sloane studied me, and I couldn’t read her expression. I didn’t like it. Usually she was an open book.
I didn’t have to wait long to understand what was going on inside her, though.
She reached for my hand, wrapping hers around it.
Then she turned and walked along the porch, pulling me around the corner onto the side of the house that had no neighbors.
Only woodland stretched along the coast beyond toward the castle.
She shrugged out of her cardigan and braced her back against the house, before drawing my hand up to her breast. Heat and hunger and a desire to fuck every good and bad feeling into her destroyed any rational thinking.
Control went out the window.
I covered her mouth with mine, needing to taste her, groaning at the way she kissed me like she was starving.
Her tits were perfect in my hands, and I squeezed them, my dick straining against my zipper as I captured her excited gasps in my kiss.
I tugged down the loose neckline of her nightie as I released her mouth to kiss my way down her neck to her right nipple.
Her skin was hot despite the cold, her perfume light, summery. Like Sloane.
I needed inside her more than I needed anything.
Her nipples pebbled hard in the cool air, and I took turns pulling them into my mouth, sucking and laving the sweet buds until Sloane was writhing and clawing at me.
Sliding my hand between her thighs, I slipped my fingers beneath her knickers and found her wet and ready.
Just the touch of her heat sent me off the edge.
I tore down her underwear and she stepped out of them before reaching frantically for my jeans, unbuckling my belt and unzipping me. When she wrapped her hand around my dick and tugged, I fell into her, kissing her as I ground into her hand.
The edge was too close, though, and I wanted to come inside her. I almost dropped my wallet, trying to get a condom out, fumbling like a fucking teenager.
Shoving my jeans and boxers to my ankles, I wrapped up and lifted Sloane into my arms, sliding her back up the wall of the house as her thighs clung to me.
I prodded until I found her and then I surged up into her. She whimpered to bite back her cry as I gritted my teeth against the groan of pleasure. Fuck, nothing felt better than this woman. So tight and hot, her pussy gripping my dick like she never wanted to let go.
I pulled almost all the way out, bent my knees, and thrust back in.
She clung to me, fingers biting into my shoulders as I fucked her against the side of the house, staring into her gorgeous face, watching her struggle to contain the sounds of her pleasure. There was a part of me that wanted to bury my head in her throat and fuck her as hard and as fast as I could.
But I wanted to watch her more.
Wanted to watch the way all the fear and trauma of the last few weeks disappeared and the only thing that mattered was this. Lust. Need.
I could hear her breath quickening, her grip on me becoming fiercer, and I knew she was about to come. She choked on a cry, her mouth wide, eyes bright in the moonlight as her hips tensed against mine seconds before I felt the hard tugs of her pussy around my dick.
There was barely a chance to watch her face before the sensation was too much and I came in a long, throbbing release that shuddered through every fucking inch of me.
I buried my face in Sloane’s neck as I ground my hips into her, my dick still pulsing inside her even after I’d emptied myself into the condom.
Fuck, it felt never-ending. And yet not enough.
Finally, our breathing calmed, and I felt her body go pliant against mine, her thighs slipping as she struggled to stay up.
Reluctantly, I pulled back and out of her as I lowered her gently to the ground. Need for her still tightened in my gut as I watched her tug her nightdress up.
I wanted her in my mouth again.
I wanted to make her come so many times tonight so she’d have nothing to fear or worry over for hours.
But I knew I couldn’t. Not here.
She knew it too.
Sloane reached up and tenderly stroked my face, her fingers rasping over my beard. “Go home and sleep, Walker. We’re all good here.”
I nodded.
We walked in silence back to the front door, and I waited as she disappeared inside with a wave and a soft, satisfied smile.
When I got back in the car and drove away, I tried not to think about my disappointment that I couldn’t stay with her. That she hadn’t asked me to stay. If I let myself think about it, it would scare the shit out of me.