Golden Anidae (A Blushing Death Novel) by Suzanne M. Sabol Page A

his arms wrapped around me, squeezing tight like a python. I slid my hands up his back and hooked my hands over his shoulders, clutching him to me. His broad, firm chest rubbed against mine, a wonderful weight pressing down on me.
    “I didn’t think I would miss you as much as I did,” I whispered as another tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” his husky voice rumbled, curling my toes as he brushed a strand of hair from my face. “You’re here now.” He cupped my face in his large hands, the warmth of his body engulfed me, seeping into my core.
    My mind spiraled into a frenzy of desire and lust, growing warm with the heat of hunger. Leaning into me, his full lips brushed against mine in a soft kiss that left me weak-kneed and panting. The soft delicacy of his kiss, the smell of his body filling my nose, and the familiar warmth of his skin were just as I remembered.
    His fingers stretched into my hair as his mouth forced my lips apart. He slid his tongue between my teeth, consuming me, devouring me. He kissed me as if he’d eat me whole, growling deep in his chest. I knew then that I loved him no matter if it was right or wrong. Being in love with Patrick should have stopped me from loving Dean but it didn’t. Dean was the warmth of life to Patrick’s chill of the grave. I needed him. I needed them both.
    His heated hands caressed down my back, kneading my ass and digging into the soft flesh as he tugged me against the hard line of his erection. I wrapped my legs around his waist, sliding my arms around his neck as I stroked his delicious bald head. Deepening the kiss, I let him know how much I’d missed him. He knelt down, setting me on his comfortable leather club sofa and blocking out all the light from the soft bulbs in the overhead chandelier.
    “Ummmm,” I groaned as his fingers slipped in-between me and my jeans, finding me wet and ready for him.
    “Ma’am,” he growled deliciously in my ear.
    I stared up into eyes that shone a bright Caribbean blue.
    “Tre?” I whispered into Dean’s ear, using the name that drove him over the edge.
    “Ma’am, we’re here.”
    Dean’s lips moved with a voice that wasn’t his.
    “Ma’am?”
    Snapping my eyes open, fear and disorientation bubbled in my gut. I was in the cab of a truck with a man. A man in dirty jeans and jet-black hair. He had blue eyes the color of sapphires that pierced the darkness like a knife. He smiled at me in a bashful grin that made his eyes dance in the low lights of the dash. I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding out a marching band’s cadence in my chest.
    Raiden. I was on my way to the Moapa Indian Reservation.
    Raiden. Not Dean. Raiden.
    “I thought I told you not to call me Ma’am,” I snapped, feeling the loss of Dean’s warm hands from my body and hating it. God, it had felt so real. So good.
    Clearing his throat, Raiden opened his door. “I thought it would be less jarring when you woke up,” he grumbled in a gruff of suppressed laughter.
    Oh my God. What had I said? I stepped out of the cab and focused everywhere but at Raiden.
    “Where are we?” I asked.
    Several houses littered the desert, darkness hanging over the horizon like a weight. The single-story houses didn’t seem very big, bordering on adobe shacks with very few windows. The home in front of us seemed almost claustrophobic with a tin roof over the front door and a rickety aluminum screen door that was almost rusted through. A few outdated strings of lights were strung around the roof of the front porch, acting like a porch light with only three left on the string still lit.
    Raiden strolled up to the door and knocked.
    “Raiden? Where are we?” I asked again with a little more urgency in my voice.
    “My house,” a man muttered from the darkness behind me.
    Jumping almost through my skin, I landed several feet to the left of where I’d started, crouching low and ready to pounce.
    “Jumpy,” he said, striding