by Amelia Elias
And her mind was apparently checking out of the conversation, leaving her hands in charge.
Her hands were not shy at all. They wanted to explore his incredible chest and did so, reveling in the breadth of his muscles, their solid strength beneath her palms. One fingertip circled his nipple and she bit her lip as it hardened, unable—or unwilling—to bring her wayward hands back under control. Sian watched them glide down toward his hips and over his thighs through the sheet. She felt the heat of his body even through the cloth and it awoke an answering heat in her, especially when she saw that while the rest of his body was apparently sleeping like the dead, one certain part of him was entirely awake. Her cheeks heated but she couldn’t make herself glance away, a wicked urge to cup him through the sheet making her hands tremble.
She shook her head sharply and tried again to focus on what she was supposed to be doing. If she was looking for wounds, how was she going to find them through a sheet and his pajamas? Her shameless hands went at once to the top of the sheet, but she stopped herself before she could rip it away.
Was she really going to undress him in his sleep?
Sian glanced back up at his face and the sight of him was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Those incredible emerald eyes were closed, his full lips slightly parted in sleep, his black goatee lending him the look of a devil in repose. He still showed no signs of waking.
“Diego?” she murmured. “Are you awake?”
Nothing. Not even a snore.
She leaned closer, close enough to feel his faint breath caress her lips when he exhaled. She closed her eyes and fought the urge to kiss those sleeping lips.
“Diego?” she whispered again, and somehow despite her resolve not to do it, her lips were brushing his. She forced herself to pull away before she gave in to the desire to part his lips and taste him. The memory of his hot kisses was more than enough.
She started to call louder but her voice didn’t seem to want to work anymore. Her fingers curled around the top of the sheet and started to slide it away. Sian bit her lip and rationalized like mad, still carefully watching his face for signs of waking. Just because she was taking off his sheet didn’t mean she was going to take off his pajamas. She was only doing this because of his unnaturally deep sleep. She had to make sure he was all right so she could give him hell for locking her in here when he finally woke up.
Only when she had the sheet down to his knees and dared at last to look away from his face did Sian realize he wasn’t wearing pajamas.
She gasped, every moral and respectable bone in her body screaming in her mother’s voice for her to stop staring and pull the sheet back up right now, but her arms weren’t listening and her eyes didn’t seem to want to hear it either. Her gaze stayed glued to his body as her fingers splayed on his bare thighs. She’d never had a great deal of experience with men, but she knew magnificence when she saw it.
And she was looking at it right now.
Her traitorous fingers tried to head in that direction again and Sian finally got control of them and jerked the sheet back up, breathing as though she’d just run a marathon. Good God, he was incredible all over. She tried to muster up some outrage that Diego had come into her room, nude, and collapsed on her couch, but all she could find was a lot of heat and a totally unwelcome urge to try to wake him up in an entirely different way.
Sian stood and backed away from the couch, pressing her hands to her cheeks as if the gesture could cool their burning. Outrage wasn’t saving her. It’d be a little too hypocritical to be outraged at his nakedness when she’d spent the last ten minutes with her hands all over him.
Not to mention that she was shaking with the desire to toss her gown aside and feel all his hard male glory pressed against her, skin to skin, from her head to her toes.
She shuddered at the mental image and made herself turn away. This wasn’t like her at all. She enjoyed sex as much as the next woman but she never lusted over men, and never in her life would she have imagined she would actually do what she’d just done to Diego while he slept. She walked resolutely to the bathroom, determined to put some distance between them and regain her composure.
A cold shower might help, too. She’d never tried it, had never been in a situation where she thought she needed to try it, but now definitely seemed like the time to find out if icy water truly did quench burning lust.
Almost twenty minutes later, Sian was soaking wet, shivering, and every bit as turned on as she’d been before. Every time she thought back to what was waiting in the bedroom, any progress she’d been making toward cooling off evaporated. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam rising from her skin. She sighed in resignation as she turned off the shower and reached for a towel. There was no need to freeze herself to death. If the shower hadn’t worked yet, it wasn’t going to.
She looked at the clothes she’d had on last night and couldn’t make herself put them back on. The back of the T-shirt was sticky with some sort of unidentifiable slime from when she’d pressed against the dumpster and her skirt was smudged with dirt. Both still seemed to hold the scent of fear. She dropped them and instead pulled her gown back on, cinching her robe tight around her. The satin on her skin was incredibly sensual, reminding her of the feel of Diego’s lips against hers, but she wasn’t about to take it off. She needed all the clothes she could get.
Sian forced the thought away and left the bathroom, wondering belatedly what time it was. She had no idea how long she’d slept but she was still tired. Diego was right, this nocturnal schedule combined with the terrifying events of last night had worn her out. She went back to bed, resolutely avoiding looking at the couch, and snuggled down beneath the covers again. She didn’t expect to sleep again after what had just happened, but there wasn’t anything else to do until Diego woke up and unlocked the door.
She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the erotic dreams were back. Sian arched with a breathy sigh, her body already hot and aching for satisfaction. Gentle fingers trailed across her cheek before threading through her hair, rubbing her scalp in a sensual massage. The heat blossomed, building until Sian wanted to throw off the comforter. She was burning up. She pushed at the bedding and it was suddenly gone, replaced by a lean body pressing against her side from knee to chest.
Lips found her ear and nibbled for a moment. The soft rasp of whiskers on her sensitive skin sent shivers down her spine. Warm breath caressed her throat as those fingers trailed down the back of her neck and Sian moaned.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” a deep voice murmured in her ear. “I want you awake so you can enjoy me touching you as much as I enjoyed you touching me.”
Sian’s eyes flew open with a gasp, wakefulness crashing down on her. The realization that Diego was no longer unconscious across the room on the couch but was now pressed against her, every hard inch of his body molded to hers, was enough to start a minor earthquake in her limbs. “Diego! What are you doing?”
“What were you doing, wildcat?” he murmured, his tongue tracing the curve of her ear. His hand slid down her arm and back up again.
If it was possible, her cheeks grew hotter as she realized he knew what she’d done. “You were unconscious,” she said, her voice trembling as much as her body. How could he know? Had he been faking that deep sleep? She would have sworn it’d been genuine. “I—I was worried, I thought you were hurt or something. I was looking for injuries!”
“Were you, now?” His deep chuckle was a seduction all by itself. “And a very thorough search it was, querida. Did you find anything that interested you?”
The memory of pulling aside the sheet and seeing him in all his glory burst through her mind and Sian almost moaned again. She brought herself back to reality with an effort and tried to find the comforter to pull it back over her. “It wasn’t like that!” she protested.
He chuckled again and kept nibbling and nuzzling at her e
ar. That minor earthquake was rapidly shooting off the Richter scale. “If it was all completely innocent, surely you won’t mind me doing the same thing to you,” he murmured in a voice like molten chocolate. “After all, I didn’t examine you for injuries last night after the fight with the Outcasts. Are you hiding any wounds from me?”
His hand trailed down her ribs and Sian quivered from head to toe. “I’m fine, thanks,” she squeaked in panic. “No wounds. I promise!”
He nipped her earlobe and a moan escaped despite her efforts to stifle it. Diego pulled her closer, his thigh sliding over hers. “I should have told you how a vampire sleeps,” he whispered in her ear as his hand trailed back up her ribs and over her collarbone. “I sleep deeply, querida, and I don’t wake during the day unless I feel danger. But I promise you, I am always aware of what is going on around me while I sleep.” His fingertips traced a scalding line down the valley between her breasts and over her stomach. “Very aware,” he breathed.
His hand was recreating the same path hers had taken over his body. Sian’s breath caught in anticipation. “I didn’t know,” she whispered, remembering everything she’d done to him. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have—”
He left her ear and brushed his mouth against hers, the imitation of the ghost-kiss she’d given him silencing her completely. “Then I’m very glad you didn’t know,” he said, his lips caressing hers with feather-light touches with every word. Every nerve seemed to be focused on the movement of his hand as it slid slowly up her abdomen and over her ribs. When he traced a fingertip around her nipple it was already stiff and aching and he let out a shuddering breath. “Were you as turned on as I am right now?” he breathed against her lips. “Did you like touching me, wildcat? Looking at me? Did you ache to taste me as I ache to taste you?” His thumb brushed her nipple, shooting hot desire through her entire body.
Sian didn’t have the breath to answer. She didn’t know how turned on he was, but she was in serious danger of spontaneous combustion. His hand went back to her waist, trailed down her thigh, and she knew he felt her muscles quiver beneath his palm. She didn’t dare let herself move. If she put her hands out and felt bare skin, it would all be over. No way could she trust herself to push him away instead of pulling him closer. He paused there for a moment, his body pressed against hers, his mouth not quite touching hers, his hand very high on her thigh, and Sian was on the verge of begging him to do something when he spoke again.
“You looked,” he said, and her cheeks went so hot she thought they must be glowing. His mouth moved to her throat, skimming down to rest over her pulse. “But you didn’t touch. I wanted you to touch me, Sian. Didn’t you want to?”
“I—” It was all she could get out. She seemed to have forgotten the English language.
Well, every word but yes, and she had just enough sense of self-preservation left to know she absolutely could not say that to him.
“I want to look at you,” he whispered, pulling away from her throat to bury his face in her hair. “But if I look, I will touch, and if I touch you again I won’t stop until I’m inside you.” She shuddered at the vivid image his words painted. His lips brushed hers once more before he spoke again. “You can’t touch me like that in my sleep again unless you want me as much as I want you. There’s only so much any man can stand. Do you understand, querida?”
His low voice only stoked the fires burning her to the core and all Sian could do was close her eyes and nod. The thought of Diego inside her was enough to sear away every last shred of her reason. She knew if he kissed her now or touched her again, if he so much as breathed across her lips, she would throw herself at him. The strength of her desire shocked her.
And suddenly he was gone. She opened her eyes in time to see the bathroom door close. She sat up, shaking from head to toe, but only when she heard the shower start did she regain the ability to think again.
She hoped Diego got more out of his cold shower than she had out of hers.
* * *
Chapter Ten
Sian pulled her robe back on with trembling hands and tested the bedroom door again, praying Diego had unlocked it before he’d slipped into her bed. She really, really needed to get out of here before she gave in to the temptation to join him in the shower. When the door opened, she bolted for the stairs, not stopping until she found herself in the kitchen where she leaned against the sink, breathless and shaken. What insanity had made her touch him? What madness had possessed her to let him touch her back?
She closed her eyes, gripping the counter tightly and fighting to get herself back under control. The impact of his touch still reverberated through her. If he could do this to her without even kissing her, what would it be like if he—
“Feeling all right?”
Sian yelped in surprise and spun around at the deep voice, clutching her robe closed as she faced the intruder. Her gaze collided with the most intimidating man she'd ever seen in her life and her heart skipped a beat.
Well over six and a half feet tall with white-blond hair and midnight eyes, the man leaning in the doorway was like no one she’d ever encountered before. He reminded her of a raptor, elegant and gorgeous to a terrifying degree, but the coldness in his eyes made her feel about as brave as a mouse cowering on the ground when the owl’s shadow fell over it. There was something about him that screamed power and danger. Intimidating as Diego was, this man made him look like a Boy Scout.
“You're a vampire, aren't you?” Sian asked, forgetting she didn’t believe in vampires and blurting the first thing that came to mind.
He smiled at her, a gorgeous sexy grin that in no way softened his dangerous face. “Of course,” he agreed. He straightened and walked toward her. “Eli, at your service.”
Sian gaped at him, trying to back away only to find the sink at her back. She knew that name. She remembered Diego saying Eli’s will had overrode both theirs when it came to this bonding thing, remembered him blaming Eli for this mess they were both in. “You—you're the one who—”
He laughed at her stuttering. “I'm the one who,” he agreed. “How's it working out, by the way?”
His cavalier attitude toward the trouble he’d caused made her blood boil and she embraced the anger. It was so much better than fear. She took a breath to scream at him, but she could find no words vile enough to describe him.
“How dare you?” she finally spluttered, outraged.
“Hmm.” One eyebrow rose, but apart from that he might not have noticed her anger at all from all the note he took of it. “Not good, I take it.”
“How would you like it if someone did this to you? No, you bastard, it's not good. Take this thing off my arm right now!” She knew it wasn’t a rational demand, but she wasn’t feeling particularly rational. Besides, this man looked more than capable of doing the impossible.
He laughed again. “There's no undoing a bonding, little mortal, and I wouldn’t if I could,” he said calmly, further infuriating her. As she drew in a breath to yell at him again, he held up a hand. “Here,” he said, and a bottle of wine materialized in his open palm. “A peace offering. Share it with Diego and talk things out. It might look better come morning.”
She snatched the wine from him, intending to smash the bottle over his meddling head, but he was too fast for her and was out of reach before she could even lift the bottle in preparation of her strike. His laughter echoed around the room as he vanished through the kitchen door.
Sian set the bottle down on the counter hard, shaking with rage. Well, at least Eli's visit had accomplished one thing—fear and fury had a way of killing even the most potent desire. She found herself going through drawers as she fumed, searching for a corkscrew.
So what if she’d only woken up a few minutes ago. The clock on the stove said it was after eight in the evening, and right now a glass of wine sounded like exactly what she needed to soothe her shattered nerves.
She’d just found a corkscrew when Diego burst into the kitchen. “Who�
��s here?” he demanded, scanning the kitchen. Not finding anyone but Sian, he turned those piercing green eyes on her. “I heard a voice. Who’s here?”
Her own voice had deserted her. Diego had apparently come straight from his shower when he’d heard the intruder and hadn’t bothered to get dressed. Water dripped down his chest from his wet hair and apart from a towel around his waist, he was completely nude. Her heart kicked hard and she wondered if he heard it.
He finished searching the kitchen and came back to rest on her with an intensity she felt like a touch. She turned back to the counter, refusing to look at him standing there wearing only that entirely inadequate towel, and started attacking the foil around the neck of the bottle with the corkscrew. It just wasn’t fair for him to be this sexy. No man should be this divine.
“Your friend, Eli, was here,” she said, managing to keep the aggravation out of her voice, “but he left.”
Diego growled. The vicious sound sent a chill down her spine. Sian managed to peel the foil away at last and jabbed the corkscrew down. How in the world had she enjoyed touching someone who could make such a wolfish, untamed noise?
How could she be standing here wanting to touch him again?
She wrenched the cork out and dropped it, still attached to the corkscrew, on the counter before searching for a glass.
“What are you doing?” Diego asked, and she jumped at the sound of his voice coming from right behind her shoulder. The man could move as silently as a cat when he chose and it never failed to unnerve her.
“Having a drink of this lovely wine your buddy brought,” she said, scooting away from him at top speed. Maybe distance would help her kill the persistent voice urging her to throw herself back into his arms. “Want some?”
His hand covered the top of her glass. “Shouldn’t you eat something first?”
He’d followed her, negating her retreat. The concern in his voice warmed her but the heat coming off his bare body behind hers made her burn. Sian fought the desire to lean back against him and snatched the glass from under his hand instead. “Probably,” she agreed, pouring a little wine anyway before turning to him, bottle in hand. “Now do you want some or not?”