Page 33

Chapter Four

T he whisper of her lover’s breath had always been enough to send Hallie into fits of desire.

She responded especially well, when still fuzzy from sleep, to the light touch of him caressing her skin, tracing the curve of her body from shoulder to hip and down over her thigh while his hot breath tickled her nape.

A soft sigh escaped her lips as those very sensations roused her just enough for her body to respond, yet not quite waking her fully. A large, warm hand slipped beneath the fabric of her tank top and fingertips teased at the underside of one breast, barely grazing the edge of her nipple.

“Yes,” she whispered, pressing back against his hot arousal by reflex.

A deep, appreciative rumble vibrated against her back. His lips grazed her nape, sending a vivid tingle down her spine and between her legs.

His light caresses continued, inching down her stomach, past her navel, and beneath the waistband of her panties. Her hips twitched at the slide of gentle, probing fingertips exploring the eager folds of her pussy. She moaned and quivered, pressing harder back against his rigid, naked length.

He gripped the crotch of her panties and tugged them hard to the side. She cried out with harsh joy when he pressed two fingers into her, then slid them out again. He teased her with a few soft strokes against her throbbing clit before he plunged his fingers deep into her wet cunt.

The dreamlike state Hallie had been in during the whole experience began to fall away with each deep plunge of his fingers into her needy pussy, her ecstasy so pure and present it could only be real and not a figment of her unconscious mind.

Confusion gripped her, wrenching her stomach into a quick, tight knot. Her eyes flew open. But what she thought was a dream didn’t dissipate, nor did the pleasure of it, in spite of her mild panic.

In the span of a second her mind and body warred with each other, the urge to fling herself away from the unexpected attention at odds with the incredible, mind-blowing pleasure of it.

Her desire won out and she surrendered, closing her eyes and pushing back against him with more fervent thrusts of her own, clenching her muscles tighter around the weight of the fingers plunging into her.

It could be any of the four men, she thought. And would she care if it were? But Jesus fucking Christ, whoever it was, he was giving her the best finger-fuck of her life.

His lips pressed against her shoulder, grazing up along the curve of her neck until they brushed against her ear. Hot breath gusted out, carrying with it a word she didn’t understand.

Is it Kris? It must be Kris.

She had heard Kris speak in Thai a few times and remembered the look he’d given her when he picked up her empty bowl after dinner.

The thought made her smile. She was sure he’d followed Erika to have a quick tryst in one of the dragon temple’s dark corridors, but clearly he’d come back frustrated enough to crawl into her sleeping bag and have his way with her.

It was even better than the fantasy she’d had of him during dinner.

It made her even more eager to fuck him back as enthusiastically as she could.

Not even caring if she might wake the others, she cried out, “Oh, yes! Fuck me. Make me come!”

The fingertips between her thighs rubbed in even more delicious tormenting circles against her clit. God, she was close.

He murmured something else in her ear she didn’t understand, but if she didn’t know better, the tone of his voice seemed to hold regret. Then without another sound or breath, the sensations dissipated entirely, leaving her abruptly untouched and frustrated as hell with a sopping wet pussy.

She rolled over and yelled, “Hey! Where the fuck did you go? Come back! You asshole, I wasn’t even … I was so close! ”

The sound of a thump and a curse carried across from the other side of the campsite and she twisted back around to see where it had come from.

“Corey?”

“Yeah, sorry. I … uh … didn’t mean to bother you.” He glanced at her and quickly averted his eyes, resuming whatever work he was doing.

She blinked at him in surprise, completely and utterly confused by his presence now. He was fully clothed. Maybe a little flushed but mostly he looked irritated. There was no way it could’ve been him.

“Did you see Kris just now?” she asked.

Without looking at her, he nodded. “A little bit ago, back in the corridor behind the throne. He’s still there as far as I know. Why?”

“No, right here … ah … with me, I mean. Like not more than a minute ago.”

He finally looked up and stared point blank at her as if she had gone completely mad. His jaw clenched and his lips folded into a harsh line.

“Not you too. Shit, Hallie. But I guess from that little performance you just put on, I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

“Me too, what? Corey, someone was just about to fuck my brains out. Not two minutes ago. If it wasn’t you, I’d really like to know who it was.”

“Well, aside from the obvious, um … evidence that you nearly had your brains fucked out, considering you’ve lost your goddamn mind, there was nobody here.

Everyone’s off on the other side of the temple being crazy over there.

And would you mind putting yourself back together just a little bit?

Your … ah …” He gestured vaguely at her torso.

“Your stuff’s all kind of on display. Makes it a little tough to get any work done. ”

She glanced down at herself and realized for the first time that her top was still pushed up above her breasts and her panties weren’t on quite straight, still shoved aside to offer a plain view of her glistening labia.

Yet Corey seemed so utterly nonchalant about it.

He just turned back to his task. His thick forearm flexed and his knuckles whitened around the hammer he held in his hand, banging it on an oblong shape with an unexpected level of ferocity.

She found her clothes draped over her gear where she’d left them and dressed.

“What the hell are you beating on?” she asked, padding barefoot over to him.

“This fucking … light bulb. Or whatever it is. I need to know how it works.”

“It looks like a rock now,” she said. “Let me see.”

She reached for it. After another ineffectual bang that made his hammer bounce off, he cursed and handed it to her.

“This is the weird rock Erika saved from the entrance. You think she wants you to beat on it like that?”

“It’s not just a rock. Look at this.” He took it from her and leaned over to jab it down into the glowing fire pit beside him.

The pale embers inside the pit had surprised them all when they’d found it.

They behaved like coal, but never disintegrated into ash, retaining their integrity after being lit multiple times with no apparent change.

Erika had just brushed it off. The rest of them seemed to shrug and go on with their business.

If Erika was fine with it, they should be too, right?

Hallie watched the small oblong shape as it began to glow after being plunged into the gravel of the fire pit.

A level layer of small stones lay inside it that constantly glowed and emitted heat.

They’d discovered the night before that the temperature grew hotter closer to the center, and Kris had gauged his cooking by proximity to the middle of the fire pit.

The thought of Kris made her doubt her sanity after the weirdly vivid dream, if what Corey said was true.

It had been so real. Jesus, her pussy was still pulsing and wet from it even now.

She should have changed her panties, but with Corey right there, it might have been a little too conspicuous.

Why she felt the need to hide from him, she didn’t know.

He just seemed so willfully oblivious of everything that went on around him, but she was pretty sure it all sunk in.

No, he wasn’t oblivious. He was just very good at hiding his reactions.

But tonight Corey seemed agitated, leaning against the edge of the fire pit Kris had cooked their dinner over. He braced one hand on the edge and reached with the other to the stone he’d shoved tapered end first into the coals.

“See this?” he said, yanking the small stone bulb out of the fire pit.

“It’s glowing now. After what, thirty seconds in there?

It only took a second for it to light up when we opened the door at the surface.

I want to know how the fuck these things work.

What powers them? What the hell are they made out of? ”

“So take it with us back to a lab and look at it under a microscope. We’re coming back here, you know.

We just need artifacts. We don’t need to prove anything while we’re here.

Corey …” She rested a tentative hand on his shoulder and was gratified that he didn’t flinch away.

“This is the find of a lifetime. Just go with it. Don’t overthink it yet. ”