Key of Solomon: Relic Defender, Book 1 (30 page)

A door clicked. Mikos turned around. He met the startled cinnamon-shaded gaze of Lexi. Her wide eyes appeared huge in a pale face. She had a bath towel clutched around her midsection, the two ends clenched in a tight-fisted hold at her chest.

Despite her slenderness, the towel didn’t cover as much as it tantalized Mikos with hints and flashes of olive skin and deep crevasses that beckoned his gaze.

Lexi sucked in a startled breath as Mikos closed the distance, and pulled her roughly, almost violently, to him. His mouth covered hers hungrily, his lips hard and searching. Asking a question. The touch of his full lips was a delicious torment. Part warmth, part softness, all demanding.

She must have made some kind of sound for he released her mouth, lifted his head slightly and met her eyes, his gaze searching. Asking. Hoping.

Lexi answered by wrapping her arms around his neck and yanking his head down, pressing her open lips to his. In the back of her mind, she questioned her sanity in what she was about to let happen. For she wanted it as much as Mikos did. And really, why not?

She almost started when she felt his warm hands sliding down her stomach to the swell of her hips and back up again, leaving a fiery trail behind. The towel lay discarded in a puddle of terry at her feet.

His searing kiss trailed a path down the side of her neck, pressing against the hollow of her throat. Could he feel the rapid thud of her pulse under the thin skin?

She slid her hands up under his shirt, splaying her fingers over the warm, no hot, skin. Taking the shirt with her, she moved her hands over his bare skin, her fingertips tingling over each rippling muscle, each hard outline. In a smooth motion, she pulled his shirt up over his head.

Pulling away from his hold, she stood naked beneath his silver gaze. Her nipples pebbled, and she felt her chest flush with heat. Their gazes clashed. Some small part of her recognized he was giving her a final out. What was happening didn’t have to happen if she changed her mind.

Lexi lifted her chin and smiled. When he took her in his arms again, she gasped as bare chest met bare chest. Her hands caressed the planes of his back. Oh, God, her fingertips tingled as they danced across his warm skin. She threw back her head as he pressed hot kisses against her neck trailing down to the hollow of her throat.

Her body arched closer. Forget personal zone, she wanted him, every inch of him, against her heated flesh. A moan slipped through her lips. Mikos responded by cupping her breasts in his hands, his thumbs teasing the hardened tips.

She felt her legs give way. The only thing keeping her from puddling to the floor was his hold. One arm swept behind her, and in one smooth, dizzying motion, lifted her into his arms. Two long-ass strides took them to the bed. No gentle deposit, he dumped her on the bed, his body following, pressing her into the pillow top.

Her mind fragmented as he continued his hungry exploration, his hands and lips touching and caressing. Urgency beat a rapid tempo, throbbing in time with the need pulsing between her legs. Lexi reached out, grabbed Mikos’s head, pulling him back to her lips. Their gazes met and held, his a molten silver that only increased the urgency she felt to have him inside her. Before she changed her mind. Before the memories banging at the doors to their prison escaped.

He seemed to recognize her emotional state. Shifting himself dead center over her, she felt the tip of his penis touch her lightly. If she hadn’t already been lying down, this would have done her in. She thrust upward, bringing him fully inside her with a smooth motion. She couldn’t help herself and cried out.

Mikos buried his face in her neck, his hot breath adding to the sizzling currents moving from their joining outward. She gripped his shoulders, feeling her fingernails pierce his skin as she urged an increase in his tempo. He groaned against her skin, the rumble adding to her desire.

Deep inside, she felt a twitch. At the same time, she arched her hips closer, her release matching his, liquid heat pooling from between her legs, spreading into her abdomen and chest. The sweet agony of her orgasm wiped out the real world, just leaving her and Mikos. At the last moment, his gaze slammed into hers again, pulling into the silver depths as her world shattered about her.

His body quivering from the Heaven-reaching height of ecstasy he’d found with Lexi, Mikos stared down at her. At her passion flushed cheeks, her dilated pupils, and the hint of moisture at her temples. She hadn’t come back yet. Her expression said she still floated in the clouds. Where Mikos longed to be with her right now.

What had he done?

His shoulder blades twitched with anticipation as he half expected a lightning bolt to shoot from Heaven striking him for his transgression. Nothing. No earth-shattering consequences.

No smiting.

Just him and Lexi.

Peace. Comfort. A sense of home.

Mikos rolled to the side, but pulled her with him holding her cupped in his arms. Her head sank into his chest, the top curling under his chin. Inhaling, he took in her exotic scent, body heat mixed with a spicy aftertaste that left him wanting more.

How should he feel? After all, he’d just forfeited his right to return to Heaven by sleeping with a mortal. Despite what he felt, however undefined, for this particular mortal, the interaction was forbidden. He didn’t have the luxury of not knowing the consequences. There was nothing left for him. No return home. After all these years, he’d just given up his goal.

Yet, as he held her in his embrace, he didn’t feel loss. He should be reeling with pain, shouldn’t he? But he didn’t. He felt whole. Complete. Something he hadn’t felt before he Fell and not after he Fell when he had his choice of women. One he couldn’t imagine ever feeling in Heaven or suspected ever would.

All because of the woman who was stirring in his arms. Lexi pulled her head back. Dreamy eyes met his. He could easily drown in the liquid amber. Offering her a smile, he smoothed back an errant wisp of hair from her damp cheek. Once she came back to herself, how would she react?

With her, her reaction could range from acceptance to rage. Not much in the way of a middle ground with this exasperating human.

“Well, that was…uh…unexpected.”

The comment was made in such a dry, matter-of-fact tone, Mikos couldn’t tell what she was feeling. Or thinking. Unexpected indeed.

“Do I apologize?” He tried to keep his tone as cool and noncommittal as she did. How successful he was remained to be seen.

“Only if you want to make me mad,” she retorted, a wry grin twisting her still swollen lips.

This time she pulled back and away from him. Mikos suddenly felt cold, as if she’d taken all her warmth, and his, with her. He curled his into the pillow as he fought the urge to reach up and pull her back. To feel her warmth again. To feel the peace she gave him.

“No,” he finally shook his head. “I’m well acquainted with you when you are angry.”

“Well, then, don’t say a word. What happened, happened.” She shrugged, her slender shoulders rising above the edge of the sheet.

Mikos raised an eyebrow. “Yes, it did.”

He said nothing more. What could he tell her about what had happened? For her, it had obviously just been a pleasant interlude. For him, it had been a revelation. A revelation he wasn’t sure how he felt about.

He gave her another smile as he left her side completely, swinging his legs over the bed’s edge and standing. Space. That’s what he needed. Space to consider the ramifications both of his lovemaking with Lexi and his reaction to it.

“I know where the Key is.”

In the process of zipping his pants, Mikos froze, his fingers poised over the zipper. His shocked gaze met hers.

Lexi curled her fingers into the sheets, bunching the Egyptian cotton under her hands. She fought with the urge to go to him and drag him back to the bed.

To feel the heat emanating from his body, chasing away the
loneliness she hadn’t realized she felt so deeply. It wasn’t so much the lovemaking, okay, not just the lovemaking.

It was the bottomless peace and satisfaction. The feeling as if she’d never be alone again. Never have to worry about an empty apartment, an empty life.

For once, she hadn’t even thought about her foster father from all those years ago. Just like her loneliness, Mikos had banished that ghost as well.

“Lexi?”

“Huh?” Until he said her name she hadn’t heard him speak. She took a deep breath, forcing back the emotions that felt so raw right now.

“Did your memories return?” he asked.

“No, no, they didn’t.” She tripped over the admission.

It was true, she didn’t remember. The fact she didn’t seemed to bother her now more than it ever had. Was it because of being intimate? Or something else? She didn’t like the uncertainty.

“You see, after we got back I, uh…” Lexi darted a quick glance at the shards of glass and wood still lying on the floor below the wall she’d thrown the picture. She didn’t want to admit her anger had gotten the best of her.

But on the flip side… “I threw my parents’ picture against the wall.” She saw his head bob once as if he’d known about her fit of temper. Ignoring the possibility, she walked over to the small side table and picked up the crumbled bit of paper and continued, “I found this with the photograph.”

“What is it?”

Lexi sighed. “A letter from my father.” Even now, she had a hard time saying the words. A letter. From her dead father. Spouting odd information that she would have chalked up to the ramblings of a crazy man if she hadn’t already experienced so much weirdness the last several weeks.

“What did he say?”

Mikos’s question didn’t feel like it took hold. “Huh, what?”

“What did your father say?” Mikos dutifully repeated, not seeming to mind having to sound like a parrot. Much.

“Oh, sorry.” For Pete’s sake, Lexi, get it together. “Beyond apologizing for not being with me, he told me how to get the Key.” She grabbed his gaze. “And to destroy it.”

Why she said it in such a manner, as if she was accusing him of something when he’d been clear all along the Key needed to be destroyed was something she didn’t want to think about.

Mikos nodded, his gray eyes alight with satisfaction and excitement. But with nefarious plans? She didn’t see that.

“Good. Where is it?”

“At the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka. In some kind of safe with a combination.”

Mikos nodded again, then yanked up the zipper of his jeans and tugged on a black T-shirt, covering all his glorious male skin and rippling muscles. Damn.

“Get dressed. We need to leave immediately. There isn’t much time left.” He paused and tilted his head. “I’m assuming your father gave you the combination as well.”

Lexi nodded. “Yes, it was on the photograph. I’d never seen it before.” She shrugged. “Or, if I had, it was just a unimportant series of numbers.”

Mikos grinned, the dimples in his cheeks, oh boy, deepening. “May I see it?”

“No.”

At first, it appeared her response didn’t register. Then as his grin slowly faded, confusion replaced excitement. “No?”

“I don’t have it any more. I destroyed the picture.” A lump the size of Texas felt as if it had just formed in her throat as she replied. Crap, she really had destroyed the last evidence of her parents, hadn’t she?

Not exactly a smart thing, not really. In the concept of protecting the information, a good idea. In the concept of remembering her parents, not such a good idea.

“Lexi, tell me you memorized the combination?”

She scowled at Mikos. “Of course I did, you idiot. I’m not stupid,” she said ignoring the fact she’d just slept with an angel. And that maybe that hadn’t been the smartest idea she’d ever had.

Relief flooded his expression. “Come on, get dressed.”

Lexi lifted her chin. “Not until you leave.” Even though she had just let Mikos explore her body from the tips of her toes to the top of her head and beyond, she wasn’t ready to stand in all her nakedness in front of him. How ridiculous was that?

Maybe it was because as earth-shattering as the experience had been for her, other than the tender way he’d held her in his arms in the aftermath, he’d done nothing else to indicate it had been more than just a release of tension and frustration. For her, damn it, it had been so much more. That realization left her feeling vulnerable. Uncertain.

Mikos’s eyebrows shot up, nearly disappearing into his hairline. Lexi simply tugged the sheets up tighter under her chin and met his confused gaze with a defiant one of her own.

“You want me to leave?”

“Score one for the angel.” A little heavy on the sarcasm, much? She took a deep breath. “Mikos, please?”

There, she’d done it. She’d begged. When was the last time she’d said please? Try never. But with Mikos, it felt okay to use the word.

Understanding entered his gaze and he nodded. “I’ll see you downstairs. Don’t be long.” He turned and walked to the bedroom door.

When the door closed behind him, Lexi shoved herself from the bed and padded over to the dresser. As she slipped into a pair of dark jeans, brown cowboy boots and deep navy long sleeved T-shirt, she kept up a constant litany of the combination from her parent’s photograph.

She headed for the door and took a final glance at her bed where she’d just spent a mind-blowing time with Mikos. Her attention was caught by something else that made her forget Mikos for an instant. The letter from her father lay on the nightstand.

Walking over to the stand, she picked up the letter and held it gingerly. Fragile in the way old paper can be, she thought about destroying it along with the photograph. Scanning through the words again, she saw nothing that would give any secret away. And, with the picture destroyed, this small square of paper was truly the last thing she possessed of her history.

At her dresser, she opened the drawer and slid the letter underneath her socks. There. She’d still have something. It would have to be enough.

Chapter Eighteen

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.” Eleanor Roosevelt