Lure of the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  She reached for the doorknob as the walls trembled around her. The echoes of a powerful blast of thunder shimmered into another. The door eased open—unlocked again, for God’s sake—and creaked in the sudden, pitch-black silence of lost electricity.

  Shit.

  Naomi stilled, holding her breath as she waited to hear movement. Breathing. Footsteps, cursing, anything. Here and there, clips of activity filtered through the walls, the ceiling, but inside the black apartment, nothing so much as stirred.

  If she said hello first, would it earn her a bullet for her trouble? Or a knife in the dark?

  Grimly she slid through the half-open door, her eyes too wide, aching as she tried to see something, anything.

  The faintest traces of light slipped through the windows between electrical flares. As it streaked through the room in shattered increments, Naomi picked out a single, open room. Furniture was sparse enough to afford her a clear path from wall to wall, only a single rickety table and one chair beside it.

  Opposite, one corner boasted a mattress on the floor heaped with blankets. The kitchen was a tiny affair of peeling tiled floor and two cabinets, most of the space taken up by a small refrigerator and a two-burner stove.

  She crossed the apartment in a few short strides, her grin a deep curl of memory, rueful annoyance. She’d spent more than her fair share of days in places like this.

  Wordlessly she picked up the cracked mug on the table and tucked it under her nose. She grimaced when the dark, earthy fragrance of plain black tea filled her senses.

  Its warmth seeped into her gloves, and she stilled.

  Wood creaked behind her.

  The mug fell from her fingers as she whirled. It shattered at her feet, sprayed cheap pottery and tea as she reached for the gun she no longer carried.

  That she lunged away from the table, away from the figure looming out of the dark was more a credit to her reflexes than it was to her brain. That had stalled when she’d found no gun to hold on to.

  Fuck.

  A flashlight clicked on, ripped through the dark and her night vision. She flinched, threw up a hand as the beam caught her squarely in the face. “Jesus bastard Christ, what are you trying to do? Scare me to death?”

  “I like the lip ring.”

  Her heart slammed in her chest.

  Oh, God. Oh, no; oh, shit.

  His voice came at her like a knife, like a whip that cracked over her skin and left her bleeding. Again. That voice. So easy, so casual, so . . . fucking Phin.

  She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.

  And lunged at him.

  The flashlight clattered to the floor.

  Naomi ignored it. Ignored the cold, the thunder, the lightning that painted everything in a pearlescent tableau. All she cared about was Phin, his shirt in her hands, his lips on hers, his skin, his fingers. He caught her, his fingers wrenching at her coat as she panted for the breath she didn’t have enough of.

  Somehow he managed to get her coat unzipped. Managed to tear open the laces of her fake corset, peel off the long-sleeved shirt seconds behind. Somehow she wrestled him out of his sweater, feeling as if they waltzed across the empty floor.

  She fused her lips to his, kissed him with everything she’d thought she’d forgotten in a month. Everything she never could have admitted. Struggling, straining to reach the mattress, he seized her head in his large, warm hands, swept his tongue past her lips, and claimed the warm cavern of her mouth as his own. Demanded her gasps and her broken breath.

  He swallowed her low, ragged sounds of fury, of need; so many emotions, she couldn’t acknowledge them all.

  And then they were skin to skin. Naked, straining in the sporadic staccato of lightning and rolling thunder. The hard planes of his chest flattened against her breasts as they fell to the mattress, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and helped him guide himself into her wet, welcoming body, inch by staggering, gasping inch.

  He kissed her bottom lip, tongue swirling over the metal ring curved around the center of it, kissed her chin, her neck. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her throat as he thrust deep inside her body; lips, tongue, hands, and body stroking every velvet inch of her in that perfect way only he knew how.

  In that perfect way that she only craved from him.

  It was always him.

  Naomi arched, sweat blooming over her skin as she cried out, again and again, moving in time with his thrusts, threading her fingers through his curly hair and holding his head to her breast. Urging him on. Urging him for more.

  Needing everything he had.

  The mattress creaked, old springs musical accompaniment to the slow, coiling tide rising in her chest. In her belly. It filled her body, welling up beneath her skin until her ears rang with it and she couldn’t breathe. He slid in and out of her, long powerful strokes, filled his hands with her body and his lips with the fragrance of her skin, and she trembled on that verge.

  He caught her hips, tilted her just so, and hesitated. Shaking, his voice raw, Phin whispered, “I still love you.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  He plunged deep, held her hips, locked her to him as she shattered, wave after wave of pulsing, liquid heat roiling inside her skin. It bent everything she knew until there was only wicked, torturous pleasure, a release so wound up it caught her breath in a wild cry.

  He shuddered with her, fingers tense at her waist, eyes dark and glittering in the faint glow of the forgotten flashlight. Watching her. Drinking her in.

  She panted for breath as he sank to the mattress, forearms braced on either side of her shoulders. She struggled to think through the miasma of confusion, of warm, liquid aftershocks and fear.

  Naomi closed her eyes as she tried to even her breathing.

  It just made her that much more aware of his weight pinning her to the bed, heavy and sure. So warm. Of his heartbeat slamming against his chest.

  Of his breath, a caress against her shoulder and neck.

  And his finger, broad and firm against her bottom lip. “Stop it.”

  Despite herself, her mouth curved up. “Stop what?”

  “Thinking.” He traced her mouth, her nose and the completely healed skin there. Her cheek. He brushed aside her hair, tendrils of searing violet woven through the much shorter black edges. “If you keep at it, you’ll talk yourself out of this.”

  Her smile faded. “This.”

  “Don’t make me do it all over again. I will, you know,” he warned. “If I have to take one for the team, I’m up for that challenge.”

  Naomi’s eyes snapped open, narrowed just as fast. “What the hell.” Anger snapped a live wire from the struggling part of her brain to her nerves. She shoved at his chest until he leaned away, sliding over to brace an elbow on the mattress.

  She sat up, averting her eyes from his body, gloriously naked and painted in muted gold and shattered washes of white.

  He was too much. Too gorgeous, too naked, too . . . sure.

  Swearing under her breath, Naomi climbed from the bed and padded across the floor. She made it halfway to the flashlight before she rounded on him, fury all but spewing fire from her tongue. “You have a lot of nerve.”

  Propping his head up on one hand, Phin lazily trailed his gaze across her exposed flesh. Throat to breasts, which pebbled into tight buds under his hot gaze. Over her ribs, heaving with the effort of maintaining at least some semblance of cool.

  To her hips, and the dark tattoo just over the dark thatch of hair between her legs.

  Her fists clenched. “A lot of nerve,” she repeated flatly. “Phin, what are you doing here?”

  “I love you.” His gaze snapped back to hers, steady and too damn certain. “And yes, I’m going to keep saying that until it gets through your thick head. I love you, Naomi.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know me from—”

  “You look great in a dress,” Phin broke in, every word a conversational dart. He shifted, eased to his knees on the m
attress, as beautiful as a god kneeling on a pedestal. Naomi’s throat went tight.

  “That was—”

  He grinned, a flash of even teeth in the dark. “You looked pretty good in the cinched-in getup you wore when you got here, but you look absolutely incredible now.”

  She folded her arms over her chest, knowing how ridiculous the gesture was. She was naked.

  So was he.

  That long, liquid pull of awareness coiled deep in her belly. Again. Still.

  “You hate massages,” he continued evenly, steadily. “But you love my massages.”

  She flushed. Heat swept into her cheeks, her ears, Jesus, her chest.

  He braced his hands on his thighs, his smile widening. Dimples winked at his mouth, shadowed points of pure lust. Naomi swallowed hard. “You hate to be fussed over, but you love fussing with clothes. You hate tea—”

  Her eyes widened. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “You never drank the tea we sent up with your meals,” Phin said, his eyes twinkling, “but you love coffee. Black, no cream or sugar.”

  Naomi threw out her hands, a wild effort to swing his words right back at him. His observations, his neat little deductions. “All right, so what? How does that—”

  “Thinking.” Phin sighed and held out a hand. One simple gesture. A hand, steady. Waiting, palm-up. “Come here.”

  Naomi stared at it.

  “I’m not— No, wait,” he amended. “I will probably bite. That’s not a problem, is it?”

  “You’re naked.”

  Laughter washed over his features. Turned her beautiful, dimly lit god into something so very male. Approachable. So very real.

  So very Phin.

  “So are you,” he said, and waited. Just . . . waited.

  For her.

  Naomi’s fingers clenched, unclenched. Clenched again. Her heart pounded in her throat, roared in her ears, too loud, too crystal clear to ignore, but fear closed her throat.

  Regret filled her eyes with tears.

  His hand wavered. “Naomi—”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Every muscle in his body struggled to go to her. To climb off the bed and cross the room, pick her up, and carry her back to the bed with him. To make the decision for her.

  Phin couldn’t do it.

  If he did, if he obeyed the impulse to make it easy for her, to remove the terrible conflict he read in her eyes, on her face, then he could never know for sure.

  Never know if she really had made the choice.

  Or if he’d just made it for her.

  I’m so sorry.

  Fear ate a terrible hole in his chest.

  “For?” It took effort to keep his voice steady. To keep his hand outstretched, waiting. All she had to do was reach.

  Please, God, let her reach.

  She was so beautiful. Lightning painted her body with shades of white and shadow, as if the sky had dipped her in silver. Metal glittered at her lower lip, at her eyebrow. At her navel and one pebbled nipple.

  Different, but Naomi through and through.

  Her eyes shimmered, huge pools of regret and uncertainty. Of the same fear that ate at him.

  He knew what she felt.

  She shook her head. “I never—” His heart sank. “When I said the things I did,” she said huskily, meeting his eyes with effort. With so much pain. “I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to see your mother—” Her voice broke.

  “Hey.” He shot off the bed, ready to damn his pride and the uncertainty of the future to ease the shadows from her eyes, her memory now. But she threw out a hand, froze him in place with a single, hard look.

  “Stop. Let me say this.”

  Phin nodded slowly. Oh, his poor Naomi.

  “The things I said, I said because I wanted you to hate me. I wanted you to think you were better off.” She laughed, a wan, humorless sound. “I wanted to believe what I said so that I could walk away. No strings. A pretty dream during a bad time.”

  Silver spilled from her eyes, a single trail of tears. Phin took a slow, deep breath, fighting every urge to go to her. Soothe her.

  “I never wanted your family to get hurt,” she said, throaty regret. “I never wanted to see you hurt, Phin, not by anyone else. Not by me.”

  “You broke my heart.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Phin mentally kicked himself into traction. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t mean to share that. To make it worse.

  She flinched. “It was supposed to save you.”

  “Maybe it did.” Slowly, hoping against hope, Phin offered his hand again. Palm up. “Maybe that anger got me through this past month. But it was a bandage. I need more than that.”

  She shoved her fingers roughly into her hair, lopsided from their lovemaking. Tangled and so perfectly Naomi, purple streaks and all.

  Phin held his breath.

  “I don’t have any guarantees,” she began, but he shook his head. She frowned. “Don’t you want—?”

  “All I want,” he said quietly, “all I need is you.”

  He watched the battle rage behind her eyes. Fierce independence, fear, uncertainty; and there, slowly, like a warm spring rain, he saw it. Love.

  She loved him.

  Phin’s heart swelled. Blossomed inside his chest like something thriving after a cold winter. He took in a slow, deep breath, threw his pride to the wind, and crossed the floor anyway.

  She met him halfway.

  Later, as the storm rolled away into silence, Phin studied the faint golden circle on the far wall and traced Naomi’s spine with a feather-light touch. She shivered over him, her legs entangled with his, her head under his chin.

  One finger tapped a beat against his chest in time with his heart. Her heart.

  As rain trickled from the quiet night sky, the air crackled. Hummed. Lights flickered on, bathed the outside street in typical dim illumination.

  The lights inside stayed off.

  Naomi shifted, planted an elbow in his chest to look down into his face. He grunted. “You didn’t have the lights on.”

  “So?” Phin winced, edged her elbow off his solar plexus. “Is that a crime, ma’am?”

  “You were trying to trap me.”

  He grinned, wolfishly pleased, into her blue-violet eyes. So beautiful. “So?”

  “You son of a—”

  He raised his head, stole her words with a kiss that stole his breath in turn. Her lip ring was warm against his mouth, her breath suddenly a ragged sound.

  Reluctantly he let her pull away. “You’re a dirty fighter, Miss West,” he said, watching as she slid from the bed. The light gleamed over her naked skin, outlined every curve, every muscle. He whistled when she bent to retrieve her clothes.

  He grinned unrepentantly when she shot him a quelling look over her shoulder. “Yeah?” she shot back. “Well, you learn fast.”

  “That’s a fact.” Still, he threw back the covers, retrieved his own clothes. He dressed quickly, already shivering in the frigid winter air.

  “So why you?”

  “Why me, what?”

  She shook her head as she eased past him to the kitchen. “Why was I supposed to meet you? Don’t tell me this was some sort of elaborate booty call—”

  “Whoa.” Phin caught her arm, pulled her right back to frown fiercely into her surprised gaze. Her eyes flicked to his hand on her arm. Back to his face, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t ever,” he warned, “ever think of this, right here between us, as some sort of troll for sex.”

  Her lashes flared. “Easy, slick,” she murmured.

  “No, I’m serious.” He caught her chin, held her gaze as he feathered his lips over hers. “This is serious.”

  She hummed something that sounded like capitulation, like simple enjoyment of his mouth on hers, but her mind wasn’t on them. Obviously.

  He let her go, unable to fight the grin that tugged at his mouth. His heart. Naomi West, the most infuriating, thorough, stubborn woman he�
��d ever met.

  “To answer your question,” he said, sitting on the mattress to pull on his socks and shoes, “I’m extending an offer to you and your group to help with a project.”

  “A project?” Naomi shot him a curious frown as she filled the old kettle on the stove.

  “When Timeless was still operational—” Even saying it was a twist of anger, of pain in his chest. The kettle clattered to the stove.

  It was a pain they both carried, he realized.

  Phin stood, crossed the small room to slide his arms around her waist as she turned on the stove. “When Timeless was still operational,” he repeated, “we ran an underground railroad of sorts.”

  Her body stiffened. “You were a smuggler?” It wasn’t surprise that raised her voice. It was anger. Self-directed, he realized as she turned in his arms. “Why the fuck didn’t I know?”

  He laughed, struggled to smother it as she shot him a glare, murder in her eye. “Because we’ve been doing it for a long time, Naomi,” he managed, with somewhat of a straight face. “And we didn’t smuggle things, we smuggled people. Witches, or at least those accused as such by the Church.”

  The conflict in her face made him tuck her hair behind her ears. Made him want to touch her, reassure her.

  “We always checked, as much as we could. The people we ran through Timeless were innocent of wrongdoing. Maybe some were witches,” he added, “I’m not disputing that. But they weren’t like—you know, like Agatha.”

  Her mouth opened. Closed. Shaking her head, she sighed and draped her arms around his shoulders. “I just don’t even know enough about the difference,” she admitted, annoyed and rueful and so gorgeous, it hurt to look at her smile.

  “They were like you,” Phin explained. “Like my mother. A witch”—her eyes flinched—“but not bad. Not evil. And definitely undeserving of the Church’s attentions.”

  “I’m only a witch because . . .” She hesitated. “Well, I guess I’m a witch now.”

  “She chose well.” He dipped his head, kissed her forehead. “I never, ever once doubted it.”

  Her lips curved up into that half smile. “Says you. I wonder, though,” she mused, her smile fading. “Given I wasn’t born with witchcraft—hell, I don’t even know how to use this damn thing. I should run some blood work on myself. If I can get the equipment— Shit.” She turned as the kettle whistled shrilly.