Echoes of Fire (The Mercury Pack #4)(12)

Needing to get his cock in her more than he needed to breathe, Bracken tore open his fly and—

His cell phone rang, acting like a bucket of ice-cold water and jerking them both out of the moment.

Flushing, Madisyn silently cursed herself and cleared her dry throat. She expected to see regret in his eyes. Instead, there was a savage need that made her breath catch. “You can have your hand back now.” The fingers inside her scissored, setting off a quake in her pussy, and then he ever so slowly withdrew them—holding her gaze the entire time.

When he backed up, Madisyn quickly righted her clothes as he buttoned his fly. The cramps had stopped, the edginess had gone, and her skin no longer burned. But her neck was stinging and—

Her eyes flew to his . . . just in time for her to watch him suck his fingers clean. Her stomach clenched. “You drew blood,” she accused.

“So did you.”

She inwardly winced. She hadn’t meant to mark him. She’d just been frustrated that he was taking his sweet time, and she’d pricked him with her claws in punishment. She’d just pricked him much too hard. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t return the apology, just stared at her. She almost snorted—the guy was a law unto himself.

Peering around him, Madisyn glanced in the hallway mirror. And her mouth fell open. The bite was deep, distinctive. It would heal, of course, since it wasn’t a claiming mark, but . . . “That’s gonna scar.”

“I know.”

She gaped at him. “That’s all you have to say? What the hell were you thinking?” Had he been thinking? She hadn’t. She’d been too busy drowning in sensation. And now she was drowning in sheer embarrassment. She’d been all over him. She’d clawed him. She’d come apart around his fingers. And he’d only made her come as a favor.

Her cheeks flamed. She’d known he didn’t really want her, but she hadn’t stopped it. Hadn’t even thought of objecting. No, she’d ignored the little voice in her head and had taken everything he could give her. Would have let him do whatever the hell he wanted. Dumb, Drake, real dumb.

Bracken’s cell rang again, but he didn’t answer it. He ate up the short distance between them with one stride. “I can sense that your body has settled down now. When the touch-hunger flares up again, you come to me.”

Shocked, words failed her for a moment. “To you? You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly fucking serious.”

“I have my pride, Bracken. I don’t want to be finger-fucked again as a favor.”

Looming over her, he frowned. “You think I made you come as a favor?”

“You would never have touched me that way if it hadn’t been for the touch-hunger,” she insisted. “Never. In light of that, you’re not the person I’ll be calling if I need—”

Eyes flashing quicksilver, he gripped her jaw. “Hear me, Madisyn. If you let another guy touch you while my mark is on you, I’ll snap his fucking neck. I will, and I won’t even care. So I repeat: when the touch-hunger flares up again, you come to me.”

Madisyn hissed. “You’re not being rational.”

“That’s not a rarity these days.” Softening his hold on her jaw, he breezed his thumb over her plump lower lip, regretting that he hadn’t left an imprint of his teeth there. “Me, Madisyn, you come to me.” With that, he released her and headed to the front door. Just as he opened it, she spoke.

“And if I don’t?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Be prepared to live with the consequences.” Stepping outside, he said, “Lock up behind me.”

Crossing to the door, she watched as he headed to his SUV and skirted around it to reach the driver’s side. Then he looked up. Met her eyes. And she saw the warning there not to ignore his—

Tires screeched as a vehicle slammed into Bracken, sending him sailing into the air. Heart leaping, she raced down the path and onto the road, where he was sprawled on his back, eyes closed, head bleeding. “Oh God.” Part of her wanted to chase the offending car hightailing it out of there—especially when she saw Leanna leaning out the passenger window, smirking—but Madisyn instead dropped to her knees at his side. “Bracken? Bracken!”

Even through the ringing in his ears, Bracken heard the female voice. It dragged him partially out of the fog, and he forced his eyes open. Everything was a blur. Fuck, his head hurt. The pain was blinding. All he wanted was to sleep. But that voice kept him where he was . . . like an anchor.

“Ally, you have to come to my—Oh, thank God! Please hurry.” Madisyn pocketed her phone. “Bracken, you keep those fucking eyes open! I called Ally. She’s already on her way—she had a premonition or some shit.”

He double-blinked to clear his vision, and stormy blue eyes locked with his. Sucked him right in like a Hoover until they were all he could see. Everything else around him just faded away. There was a wrenching sensation in his mind just as raw sexual need slammed into his system, rushed through his veins, and sent his thoughts spinning. The urge to take and possess and claim beat at him mentally, physically, and emotionally.

His head, already pounding, hammered even harder, making his skull feel like it would explode. And then, as if his brain just couldn’t take the intensity of the bond’s tug right then, the pull disappeared—like it was snapped back on an elastic. He blinked, vision darkening around the edges as sleep began to drag him under.