“Because you were always meant to be mine. We were made for each other.” I lifted her shirt and lavished attention on her perky breasts while my hands ran up her thighs toward her sex teasingly.
“You shouldn’t say things like that.”
I looked up and saw her eyes were closed, and her lips parted from the pleasure I inflicted on her body.
“Give me one good reason why?” I nipped at her flesh. Her abs tensed, and her hips flexed toward my touch. She didn’t answer me, and I chuckled against her skin. Slowly, I released her shirt and my assault on her breasts to walk back to my seat.
“What? Why’d you stop?” She looked fiery, like I committed a crime not worshipping her body more than I did. It very well could be but I liked her needy, and she’d already come on my face earlier. I’d let her marinate in her desire for me before hearing her scream again. She huffed sexual frustration, but by the time I buckled back up we were nearing the ground. I smiled at her, enjoying her case of blue pussy. I needed patience, and possibly to stop pushing her to face her feelings for me. That wouldn’t help either of us and she might not trust her own emotions right now. She needed space, and a distraction to sort through her issues.
“Brute.”
I stuck out my tongue in a playful manner I hadn’t felt in ages. She brought the kid out in me.
“Brat,” I said, and we landed.
The rest of the night flew by as we got our bags and her driver took us to her apartment in the city.
Shortly after we set our stuff down in the hotel, she walked toward me with a heated gaze and greedy fingers. Her communicator went off and then she walked into her room to put on her Black Lily attire.
“Want help?” I hadn’t been paged so this particular work didn’t need me, but I offered anyway.
“No, I’ve got this.” She walked into the room, and my dick jumped up for her immediately. With the Collector gunning for it, every male instinct in me said to go with her and keep her safe. However this was Hazel, and earning her trust again meant I couldn’t cage her or step in front of her passions. She needed this time, and I had to trust she’d be OK. If anything happened, I’d turn this world into a tornado war zone until I had her in my arms again.
“Don’t stay up too late, dear,” she called to me as she opened the balcony door and leaped off the side to land on a branch lifting her up.
“Go get ‘em, babe.” I grinned, knowing she didn’t hear me, but pride in the woman she’d become consumed me.
My body ached for some physical activity, so I changed into sweats and a shirt, then grabbed my jacket and running shoes. I didn’t want Hazel to worry if I wasn’t home when she got here so I sent her a message that I’d be back after a workout at the Hero Society headquarters.
Chapter Twenty- Two
Hazel
I used the trees to travel, which wasn’t as quick as a car or Maddox’s air power, but I got to the forest quickly. There were a group of men who butchered an acre of the national park four miles outside Seahill metropolitan area. Not only was their act illegal as fuck, but they were after priceless blue wood trees only found in our area of the continent in this particular park. They were a national treasure, and this group of asshats gunned for them.
Police, and probably the FBI, were on their way but our intel said they had guns and would hold off until they got what they needed. The wood of the trees sold for billions and these people deemed that money worth the potential jail visit.
I heard the brutal cracking of the trees echo around the forest before I saw the lights of the large equipment. The sounds ripped through my heart like a bullet. We needed trees to live, and the men were slowly suffocating us on purpose.
I stood on the edge of their battleground and kneeled to the ground. My fingers dug into the dirt, assimilating my power into the vast root systems of all the trees in the forest. I figured people only brutalized the forests because the trees didn’t fight back, but what would happen if they did?
My power rippled over the ground, and the large tractors trembled. One of the men operating the chainsaw stopped to look around for the cause. Even though my body was hidden in the shadows, I smiled at them mischievously. Time for some payback.
The half-cut tree swayed, its branches stretched up, then in a whooshing movement hit the man with the chainsaw. He flew back ten feet and stood with wide eyes at the tree, his hands clutching his stomach.
Every limb in reach of someone swung at them, fighting back for their lives. Roots lifted from the dirt, then grabbed the saws and weapons from their scared hands. The men shouted and ran away, their screams about evil trees were music to my ears as sirens neared.
I pushed more of my power into the ground, and roots shot into the sky, surrounding the men from their escape. I’d be damned if they ran away before being arrested for their horrid crimes. Many people tore down precious trees illegally and got away with it, but not these men.
I waited in the shadows until the police arrived, then released the assholes through a small opening in the root-holding cell. The park became a crime scene with lights and tape covering the now-empty acre of land. I wished I had the power to seal the broken trees back together. Some of them might have new growth from the stumps, but many wouldn’t.
On the way back to Seahill, I phoned headquarters to let them know the blue woods were saved. People were out enjoying their life as I passed by quietly through the trees to my apartment. A high from using my powers to stop those men and save the national forest hummed beneath my skin. The need to do something to expel the energy consumed my thoughts as I climbed onto my balcony.
“Maddox?” I called into the empty living room.
“Uh, Maddox?” A eerie sensation crawled up my spine. Fear rolled in my stomach at the familiar déjà vu occurring.
He left me again. He had a taste of me and made all those vows of never leaving yet he was gone. I frantically searched the apartment in case he had been bludgeoned and lay on the floor unconscious. I’d looked frantically for a note or something that said he just stepped out and would be back. My mind bled memories into the present and I collapsed to the ground. I’d wanted him to leave when he first showed up, but now his absence ripped at the scab of the wound he’d inflicted years before.
