In the Company of Witches (22 page)

“Barbarian.”

He squeezed her thighs where he held them secure on his hips. Her calves were crossed low over his abdomen.

“Let’s go to town tomorrow morning,” he said.

“What?” She could think of a couple reasons that was a bad idea, neither of which she was going to share with him. “What about our prisoner?”

“He’s not leaving the property with our tracers on him,” he said, revealing that he was fully aware she’d marked Isaac as well. “Town’s less than six miles away. Demons almost always strike at night, so if she doesn’t show tonight, there won’t be much to do tomorrow. And I get bored easily. I’m sure you have errands you could do in town.”

At the kitchen entrance, he let her down but didn’t let her go just yet. Instead, he lifted her hand, brushed his lips across her knuckles, giving her a tantalizing sense of moist heat, then pushed her gently ahead of him into the kitchen. As she’d expected, no one was there this time of day. Matilda had already left for the day. Mikhael pulled a container of bacon out of the fridge with a satisfied grunt. He also brought out the container of chocolate-covered strawberries along with some whipped cream and a half bottle of white wine.

“That whipped cream is the real thing,” she said, appreciating his consideration of her own appetites.

“Who says you’re getting any?”

She punched him in the side and he ignored her, reaching over her to put the containers on the counter with the wine bottle. Then he put his hands to her waist and boosted her onto the cool marble surface, inserting his body between her thighs as he opened the strawberries. Dipping one into the whipped cream, he offered it, but held the treat out of reach, waiting until she put her hands down, parted his lips so he could feed her from his hand.

When he offered the wine, pulling the cork, she took it straight from the bottle. Holding it to the side, she slid her hand up to his neck and brought him down to share. She flirted with his tongue, giving him the taste of strawberries, wine and cream, and his palm curved around her ass to bring her up against his lower abdomen where he was pressed against the counter.

She drew back, giving him a speculative look. “Where are the kitchen knives?”

His gaze didn’t leave her face. “Three feet to the left, behind you, just beyond the range of your reach.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven. One’s missing.”

“Probably in the dishwasher from cutting the fruit for brunch. You never let your guard down.”

“Sounds like you don’t, either, if you’re interrogating me when you should be letting me make you incoherent with lust.”

“You blew out my brain cells a little while ago. I’m recuperating.”

He passed his fingers over her mouth. “Maintaining the protections on this place. On your staff. It takes a lot from you. That’s why you don’t leave the property.”

She stiffened.
Damn it, Li.
The handsome Asian prick bastard.

“I have everything I need here. My protections help them make me a lot of money.”

“Money is a means to an end. It’s not the end for you. This house, this property, it’s top-notch, graceful, beautiful. Much like its mistress. Quality’s important to you, but not the price tag. This place represents safety, a haven, a place you’ve constructed that belongs to you, a world you’ve made to control all the variables.”

She set aside the wine. When he touched her face, trying to draw it back up to him, she resisted. But he insisted, so she glared up at him.

“This place is your law, your morality,” he continued, “because whatever it needs for protection, you provide. Its enemy is your enemy.”

Lifting her hand to his lips, he pressed his mouth to her palm, and then to her wrist. “That much is true,” she said, mollified a bit. She didn’t want him to be an enemy, though she was afraid it was eventually going to end up that way.

“Go to town with me tomorrow,” he said, making those distracting nips against her flesh. “I’ll reinforce your shielding and power here so you don’t have to worry about them.”

“I can do that part, if you…shield me.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it, but then his head lifted, eyes studying her.

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “That’s why I don’t go to town…often. Even without releasing the energy, males…get aggressive, distracted. I can’t be in public venues, random gatherings of people, because I can’t control every impact. I can protect one or two of my staff when they go into town for supplies, but that’s because I do it from here, where my magic is strongest.”

He nodded. “All right. You handle the shielding here; I’ll protect you, give you a glamour. Or an antiglamour as the case may be.” Amusement flitted through his features as he bent to brush her lips.

She kept her eyes open, staring at him. Just like that.
I’ll protect you.
“You weren’t like this with Ruby.”

Bracing his hands on either side of her hips, he put his mouth to her throat. Raina’s pulse tripped, but she gripped his shoulders, pushed at him. He held where he was but spoke against her skin. “No, I wasn’t. Because that was different. There was a purpose to what I was doing with Ruby.”

“And there’s no purpose to this?” Her nails curled into his firm skin.

Lifting his head, he gave her his no-bullshit stare. “Is there a reason you want to talk about your best friend, the one I’ve fucked? What are you fishing for, Raina?”

“Nothing.” She told herself to shut up. When he departed, he would be one more link on a chain, the same way she was for him. To make it more than that was the act of a woman with an unguarded heart, demonstrating the naïveté of a moonstruck teenager. Him affecting her that way, responding the way he did now, as if she’d lost her mind, made her pissed off at herself. But also at him.

Sliding from the counter, she tossed her hair back and caressed his chest, teasing a nipple as her fingers came to rest on his rib cage. “As lovely as this has been, I need to start getting ready for tonight. I’ll see you after.”

He caught her wrist, held her there. “I told you not to play that shit with me.”

Then stop playing with me as if I’m something special.
She only thought it, though, wasn’t stupid enough to say it, to expose herself that much. She didn’t blame others for her own shortcomings, and he wasn’t at fault for this. That magnetism, the attentiveness that made a woman feel as if she were the center of his world, of course raised long-dead wistful yearnings. She merely needed to detach herself to manage those feelings, but he wasn’t willing to let her do that.

Tough.
He wasn’t calling all the shots here. “I’m not pulling anything on you. If you change your mind and don’t want to take me to town, fine. You can go slither under a rock somewhere.”

Yanking her hand away, she made it three steps before he caught her, his hands closing on her shoulders. That coldness unfurled within her. “Please, don’t,” she said. “Give me room to breathe.”

“No.” His fingers flexed on her, and even that simple touch made her body react. She’d never responded to a male the way she responded to him. No, she couldn’t trust that thought. Unleashing her nature during sex was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for her. It was no wonder her emotions were getting involved. He’d be gone in a day or two, and that would be that. Until then, he wanted her stripped bare, laid out to him with no shields. That was his price. He demanded a woman’s soul, and she wondered how many he’d collected. She’d no doubt every one of them had handed it over without a fight.

When he turned her around, she struck at him, an arc of power that sizzled between them, close enough to burn them both. She felt the pain of it; then it was gone with a breath of frost across her skin, the same frost he brought to her lips, the cool kiss of snowflakes that became moisture from the heat of their mouths. She made a noise of violent protest, but her fingers clutched his arms, his holding her hard around the waist.

“If you need to breathe, Raina,” he said against her mouth, “I’ll give you breath.”

She closed her eyes as he cradled her face in his hands. She’d met him a blink ago. No one could become the breath in your lungs in that short a time. She would figure out how to handle this. After he’d gone away, never to come back.

He didn’t kiss her. He just stayed that close to her mouth, teasing them both. She muttered an oath and closed the distance. When she would have made the kiss rough, insistent, his hands on her face gentled it. His lips eased onto hers, stroking and caressing instead of plundering, until the embrace offered the dreamy delight of the rare Southern snowstorm, the cocooning of the world in hushed winter stillness.

When they finally drew back, she wasn’t sure who’d broken the kiss. She opened her eyes, stared into his.

“Let me take you to town tomorrow, Raina. We can go shopping. Get ice cream. See a movie.”

She blinked, not sure if he was teasing her or not. But the man dressed well, so he obviously could shop. A Dark Guardian…shopping. Eating ice cream.

“When a Southern gentleman was courting a lady, he used to bring his horse and carriage around to take her to town,” she said, buying time.

“Actually, the carriage was more for family outings. He brought a two-seater if there was no chaperone. More intimate. Like a Ferrari versus a minivan.”

“I’d like to see someone your size get intimate in a Ferrari.” Then she brightened. “Can we fly there? Using your wings?”

“No.” He gave her an amused look. “I don’t reveal my wings to humans. They react badly.”

“Oh, all right, then. I suppose we could take the fabulous sports car. Though that seems kind of boring.”

His eyes warmed. “Let me see if I can impress you with some other means of transportation, then.”

She lifted a shoulder, turned away. This time he let her go, and she took a deep breath as she moved into the hallway, headed for the staircase. Time to face the reality of her day. Reality, period. But she found herself pausing on the steps, looking back at him. He was leaning in the dining room entranceway, watching her, thoughtfully chewing on a strip of bacon. Shirtless, in jeans and bare feet, hair tousled. Her libido didn’t have a prayer.

She shoved it down with a ramrod. “A horse and carriage probably wouldn’t have worked out, anyway,” she said casually. “Horses get too nervous around those with demon blood. Which is a shame. I’ve always wanted to try riding a horse.”

“I expect the broom does get a little uncomfortable. Though you have some nice padding on your ass to protect you.”

“You—”

He was gone, retreating back to the kitchen before she could inflict boils on him. Or oozing sores. Instead, he left her standing on the stairs with a smile struggling on her face. But the laughter didn’t dispel the worry in her heart. He kept her spinning, unable to find a sure footing. She’d never been in that position with a man, and it was unsettling, exhilarating…terrifying. She kept telling herself he was a roller coaster, one that would come back full circle, leaving her with some pleasant memories. But these feelings, this intensity, this fast? It was also possible she might get launched off an unfinished track, leaving her tumbling through empty space, with the promise of only a hard crash and pain.

What she needed was a safety net. But with every touch, every kiss, he kept taking it away.

11

B
EING
M
ONDAY, SHE WAS ABLE TO HEAD TO BED CLOSE
to two thirty
A.M
., an early night. The evening lineup had been regulars for her staff, and she’d played hostess in the parlor as she usually did. She never saw Mikhael, though she thought she felt his regard once or twice as she flirted and reassured, making sure tonight’s all-male guest list had their needs met. She supposed he was checking the perimeter, keeping an eye on Isaac, or doing whatever Dark Guardians did. Watching the latest
Real Housewives of Orange County
, for all she knew.

As she shed her clothes, she noticed his shirt still hanging on her dresser where she’d left it. After a pause and a frisson of amusement with herself, she put it on over bare skin. She liked the way it felt, brushing against her that way. Cathair was gone, probably in the boys’ rooms, because they fed him Cheetos while they rehashed their evening and fell asleep in front of the TV. She’d find the dust on his feathers in the morning, or shaken on her curtains when he preened, despite her scolding.