And it revealed that she had been a bitch.
She had hurt him.
He was convinced his brothers despised him, and she had the feeling that it went beyond just his family. He thought everyone hated him. Even her.
The things she had said to him had wounded him. She had denied sleeping with him and had told him in no uncertain terms it would never happen with him, that she didn’t want him. She had rejected him, just as his brothers did, but just like his brothers the things she said to his face and how she felt inside were two very different things.
And just like his brothers, she was a damned bitch for behaving that way, showing him only coldness and none of the warmth he made her feel.
Making him feel as if no one could love him.
“Ares took care of you. Marek too,” she whispered, afraid to say it any louder in case he turned on her and lashed out.
He was hurting, and delivering the truth to him gently would be more of a balm to his heart than hurling it at him. He might listen to her rather than rejecting her words outright. She remembered the way his mother had handled him, how gentle she had been.
Valen needed that sort of touch.
He was used to receiving the opposite though.
He frowned, his nostrils flared and he sighed. Was she getting through to him?
Or was he about to explode and lash out at her?
“They care about you.”
He tensed and she decided to back off, to let it go and not press him any more. Small steps. It was better to deliver it gently and slowly than make him take it all in at once. Maybe he would believe her then.
I care about you.
She kept that one to herself.
He definitely wasn’t ready to hear that. She didn’t need to see his eyes to know his mood was degenerating, turning dark and vicious again.
Before he could snap at her that he wanted information and that was all, she decided to give it to him.
“Benares is the man who hired me,” she said and Valen opened his eyes and looked back at her, a steadiness in his gaze that soothed her nerves. Small steps. He had taken in what she had said to him about his brothers, and he believed her even if he wouldn’t admit it. The hurt that had been in his beautiful eyes was gone now, but he hadn’t killed it or hidden it from her. She had eased it. “Jin is… apparently his sister, which if you saw how she acted around him, you would find as stomach-turningly disgusting as I do.”
He almost smiled. The corners of his lips twitched, as if he wanted to do it, but his mouth remained flat and unyielding. Holding on to his anger towards her? A childish thing to do, but he was a man. Her years as an assassin had taught her that no one could hold a grudge like a man.
“I’m listening.” He walked away from her, his bare feet leaving marks on her floor as their damp soles hit the warm wood.
“I have trousers,” she said and he frowned over his shoulder at her. She pointed towards the end of the kitchen island and he looked there. “I borrowed those too.”
“Stole.” He glanced at her and she didn’t deny it.
Her gaze tracked him as he crossed the room and picked up the black combat trousers.
“The bathroom is—” Her words died on her lips as he shoved his wet jeans down right in front of her, giving her a glorious view of long, lean legs and damp black trunks that clung wonderfully to his crotch.
Her eyes widened as those trunks followed his jeans, revealing all of him to her.
He paused and frowned at her. “Stop staring.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “This from the man with no modesty?”
He shrugged, stepped into the combat trousers and tugged them up.
His eyes locked with hers as he buttoned them.
His wicked smile set her heart on fire.
“I figured it was nothing you haven’t seen before.”
That heart pounded erratically against her chest and she cleared her throat and convinced her eyes to escape the hold his had on them. She hurried into the kitchen, to the refrigerator, and yanked the door open. She shoved her head inside and almost moaned as the cold air cooled her burning cheeks. Damn him. She had to stop letting him affect her so easily.
“Drink?” She poked her head out of the refrigerator.
He wasn’t at the end of the island anymore.
“No thanks. Last time you offered me a drink… it didn’t end well.” His voice came from behind her and she looked over her shoulder.
He slumped onto her worn cream couch, stretched his arms along the back of it and kicked his bare feet up onto the glass coffee table.
“I’m still not entirely sure what happened,” she said and the light left his expression again, turning his handsome face dark.
“I’m not entirely sure you want to know. Let’s leave it at that.” He was closing up again, shutting her out.
Protecting himself.
She was entirely sure she wanted to know. She wanted to know the answers to the thousand questions causing a riot in her mind, a thousand questions that were all centred around him.
The stuff of dreams and nightmares.
More nightmare than dream.
But she still wanted to know.
She wanted to know him.
He didn’t want her to know though. That much was clear to her, together with his reasons. He thought that if she knew about him, about all the craziness that surrounded him, it would drive her away.
Eva grabbed a bottle of water, closed the refrigerator and crossed the room to him. His gaze tracked her, head tipping back as she came to stand over him.
“I’ll leave it at that… for now,” she said, letting him know in no uncertain terms that they weren’t done on that subject.
She would know about him.
She would complete the picture.
“This Benares bloke,” he said, and she wanted to smile at the way he had let her know that he was fine with her proposition, changing the subject rather than shutting her down, “and his sister… what did they hire you to do?”
Eva sat on the coffee table near his legs. “Tail you and give them all the information I could get on you. Habits, movements, people you knew and anything personal I could find out.”
“You’re really going to tell me all this?” His frown spoke volumes, and she sighed.
“You’re only just trusting me?”
He rolled his right shoulder. “Is this another thing they want you to do?”
Eva shook her head. “No. They want me to sleep with you again.”
His eyes widened slightly and then narrowed as he smiled, and she realised what she had said.
Again.
She had just admitted that she remembered sleeping with him the first time. Not only that, but she had said sleep with, not fuck.
He looked as if he might prod a little into that but then relaxed into the back of the couch, slumping further in the seat, looking altogether too at home in her apartment.
As if he belonged here with her.
Ridiculous.
Yet it warmed the colder parts of her heart.
“So you’re telling me this why?” He looked her over again, scrutinising every inch of her, as if he could spot an ulterior motive in her body.
Or maybe he just wanted to look.
She shirked her leather jacket and tossed it onto the couch next to him.
His eyes darkened, desire flaring in them together with something else as he dropped his gaze to her chest.
Anger.
“You show too much flesh all the time.”
Eva laughed at that and pointed at him. “You’re one to talk. I wasn’t the one parading around Rome topless.”
“I’m male. It’s allowed.”
Meaning wherever he came from, women showing a little skin was frowned upon. He had awfully outdated sensibilities for a man who looked little more than thirty years old.
She looked down at her black low-cut t-shirt. She wasn’t even showing tha
t much cleavage.
She glanced at Valen and caught him staring again. The look in his eyes, the hunger that echoed in them, made her feel as if she had her breasts out and bare, completely exposed to him.
She cleared her throat and he looked away from her, gazing off to his left again.
A touch of colour climbed onto his cheeks.
She had figured him for a player, liable to use and discard women, always on the hunt for pleasure, because of his tongue stud. Had she been wrong?
Was he more like her than she had ever imagined possible?
Someone who fell deep and fell hard, and found it impossible to do anything without feeling and therefore remained at a distance from everyone to protect themselves?
“Why am I here?” he whispered.
Because he wanted information from her.
Because he wanted to be with her.
Her heart tore her between those two answers.
Fear made her choose the safe option.
“I promised you information, and got you into trouble… and my reason for giving you this information is to get you into trouble again.”
He slowly turned his head towards her, and she didn’t look away when his eyes locked with hers, because she wanted him to see the truth in them and she needed to see the truth in his when he responded.
“I want you to kill Benares.”
A frown flickered on his brow and he sat up, bringing his feet down onto the wooden floor and resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned towards her, his eyes searching hers.
“Why?”
She fought the urge to glance away, to lie and make up some other reason to cover her weakness.
His eyes softened. “Why, Evangelina?”
God, no one had called her that in a long time.
Not since her mother had passed away.
Fear hit her hard, her strength stripped away by the gentle look in his eyes and the concern in his deep voice.
“Because I’m not strong enough… and his security is too tight for me to do it alone… and because… he’s going to kill me if I don’t kill him first.” She closed her eyes when Valen growled, a sound that was more beast than man, a feral animal both vicious and wild, out for blood. “I know it. He called me to his villa to do it the other night, after our fight outside the Pantheon, but he gave me a second chance.”
She tensed when warmth pressed against her cheek, steady and strong, flowing into her, and opened her eyes and looked into his. They were dark, colder than they had ever been, but in their depths there was more heat and light than ever too.
“I won’t let him kill you,” he whispered and smoothed his palm across her cheek, and she almost surrendered to the need to lean into that touch and steal more comfort from it. “Have you heard from them since?”
She nodded. “When I came back here after leaving you the other morning, Jin tailed me. She gave me an order to seduce you again. I saw in her eyes that once they have what they want, it’s game over for me. I’ve worked for powerful people, dangerous people, but they’ve always respected me. They’ve never…”
“They’re not going to kill you,” he murmured again and she wished she could believe that. The conviction in his eyes and in his voice this time told her to do just that, but it was still difficult. “I’ll kill them first.”
She pulled away from him, pushed onto her feet and paced across the room, hating the way she felt as her legs trembled beneath her with each step and her heart pounded. Pathetic. She was an assassin. She knew the game she played was dangerous and that one day it would come to a bloody end.
She had always been fine with that. She had never feared death.
Until she had met Valen.
Now all she could think about was how badly she wanted to live.
It was ruining her.
She shoved her hands through her hair and pressed them against the sides of her head.
“Eva,” he whispered and she shook her head, warning him not to come to her, not right now.
Not when she was weak.
She was liable to fall into his arms again and it would only chase away this nightmare for a short time, until her head cleared and the questions started again, tearing her apart.
Had she slept with him because she wanted him?
Or because she wanted to live and hoped Benares would allow that if she did as he ordered?
“Do you think they follow you everywhere?” Valen’s deep voice curled around her, a gentle embrace that kept her grounded and drove some of the panic away.
She nodded. “Jin watches me and reports to Benares.”
“Even now?” He was closer.
She nodded and turned to look at him.
His lips claimed hers, strong arms banding around her like steel and pinning her to his chest. She pressed her hands to his pecs, shivered as she felt hard muscles beneath her palms and the thunderous beat of his heart. She didn’t have the strength to push him away. She needed him too much.
He skimmed his hands down her back to her bottom and clutched it as he kissed her, his tongue teasing hers, the pleasure that rolled through her in response chasing away her fear, filling the world with only him. She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, and clung to him, kissing him back with every drop of desire that burned in her veins, all of the need that hummed in her bones and blazed in her heart.
Valen groaned against her lips, slanted his head and deepened the kiss, leaving no part of her untouched.
His shoulders shook beneath her hands as she caressed them, and she felt humbled by his reaction, by how fiercely she affected him as she kissed and touched him.
As deeply as he affected her.
He broke away from her lips, pressed his forehead against hers and breathed hard against her lips, his hands trembling against her backside.
“Seduce me.”
CHAPTER 13
Eva moaned at that proposition, shook with the force of the need to do exactly as he wanted and seduce him.
Fear clawed its way back into her heart though.
If she did this, would it be because she wanted him, or because she wanted to live?
Would it be real, or a moment of make-believe designed to fool anyone who might be watching from the rooftops beyond the windows?
One look into his eyes answered those questions for her.
It would be because she wanted him as fiercely as he wanted her.
It would be real for them both.
She pulled herself up his body and captured his lips, and he moaned as she delved her tongue between them. An electric sizzle chased over her backside where he gripped her and he broke away from her lips and released her. She frowned and tried to get close to him again, but he held his hands up between them.
“One second. Just one.” He breathed hard, sucking in each breath before expelling it on a sigh. “Maybe two.”
He looked at his hands and she looked there too. Blinked. She had to be imagining those tiny sparks chasing along his fingers.
He shook his hands, and when he stopped, the sparks she had imagined were gone.
“All good now.” He grabbed her, hauled her up against him and kissed her hard.
She wanted to ask what all that had been about but the power of speech left her as he kissed her and she felt his stud teasing her tongue, and imagined it elsewhere again. She had never been with a man with a piercing before.
She clutched his shoulders, pulled him down to her and kissed him harder, losing herself in the fantasy for a moment, shivering as she pictured him between her bare thighs, driving her wild.
He groaned. “Gods, you smell good.”
She frowned at that and wanted to ask where it had come from, but he seized her mouth again, silencing her with another kiss.
He turned with her and kissed along her jaw, down her neck, laving it with his tongue and turning her thoughts wicked again. She glanced off to her right, towards the window. Was someone watching?
Her gaze ro
amed to the bed beyond the low wall behind the couch.
Could she do this while she thought someone was?
She wasn’t shy. She worked hard on her body after all. But the idea of being with Valen while someone might be watching everything they did had her cheeks burning up.
He chuckled against her throat. “Trying to set me on fire?”
She eased her cheek away from him so he couldn’t feel her embarrassment but he didn’t let her get far. He swept his lips up and kissed it, feathered his mouth along her jaw and nibbled her earlobe.
Teased it between his teeth and tugged on it.
She couldn’t hold back the moan that rumbled up her throat in response to that wicked, teasing touch, or the reaction it pulled from her.
She caught his cheek, shifted him to face her and kissed him hard, ending it by sucking his lower lip and teasing him with her teeth. He groaned and gripped her harder, pinned her against his chest so the wild beat of his heart reverberated through her.
Seduce him.
He wanted it. She wanted it too.
If this was a seduction, what would she do?
She squeezed her thighs together as it came to her and trembled as pleasure rolled through her, brief but sweet.
Valen glared at her when she moved back a step, breaking contact with him, and reached for her.
She stopped him in his tracks by taking hold of his lower lip, squeezing it tightly between her finger and thumb, and pulling him towards her. He tried to kiss her and she evaded him, earning herself a wicked growl of displeasure that sent another fierce bolt of heat shooting through her and made her want to squeeze her thighs again.
She ignored that need and led him towards the bed, tugging on his lip.
His golden eyes darkened as they leaped to the double bed and then back to her, screaming at her that he wanted to pick her up and carry her to it. She shook her head, silently chastising him, and kept leading him, pulling him along with her.
When she reached the bed, she released him, pressed one hand against his chest and made him take a step back. She took one too, placing some distance between them, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it off over her head. Another growl echoed through the room, causing more heat to pool between her thighs.
Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Page 16