by Zoe Forward
He sipped orange juice and then buttered. Waffles? No one had cooked for him since…maybe ever. No one had done anything remotely caring for him since his mother died when he was thirteen, not that she’d cooked much. Making toast had been a miracle for her. Technically, Serenity hadn’t cooked for him. But she was sharing.
“If you’re doing this, then you must experience the full package.” She reached across and dribbled a bit of syrup on his waffle. Her secret smile sent a spike of lust through his gut. Was she weaving some sort of magic spell?
He cut off a small piece of waffle. When it touched his tongue, his taste buds exploded. A groan of bliss escaped. His cheeks heated. “These are good. Thank you.”
Silence rested between them while they ate and watched the sun set across a seascape he’d only seen on postcards. Given the rocky coastline, he guessed this to be Scotland or Ireland. Hues of orange and yellow reflected off the ocean and rocks. While he sipped juice, birds skimmed the water in the waning light. The place might be beautiful and relaxing, but his mind churned.
“Did you plant bogus information on me about mental instability that led to my decommission from MI6? Someone did…” She sipped her orange juice without meeting his gaze.
She wasn’t ready for that answer. Or maybe he didn’t want to ruin the moment by throwing gasoline on the embers of her itch to fight. “What did you do to me? Everything is…healed.”
“You’re alive. That’s what matters.” She darted a narrowed-eye, irritated glare his way. “Why can’t you ever answer one goddamned question I ask?”
“Are you a healer?”
“No. I have no healing skills. You had an issue. I fixed it. I saved your ass. Again.”
“What do you mean by again?”
“Israel? Two years ago. Three Spaniards. Rooftop. Ringing any bells?”
He grumbled, “You distracted me.”
She slid a second waffle onto his plate and started buttering a new one herself. “What? A big boy like you couldn’t handle a little distraction?”
“Little distraction? You had your hand on my cock and your tongue down my throat. I call that a pretty big distraction.”
“I shot the two that would’ve put one between your eyes.”
“Then I had to chase that third bastard for twenty minutes.”
She smiled and shrugged. “At least it was memorable.”
“You could say that,” he said softly.
“Did you call for me today?”
“I theorized you might be able to hear, if I signaled. Now we know the answer to that theory.” He’d wondered many times over the years about this. Until now, he hadn’t the balls to test an improbable concept.
“You set yourself up for potential death today just to test a theory? Can you tell me how it’s possible I picked up on your need for help?”
He frowned, not used to answering questions from anyone. Evasion was his mantra. Finally, he shook his head. “Tell me what and who threatens you.”
“I’m handling it.”
Someone did threaten her. A ferocious protectiveness swept through his mind, inciting the need to annihilate whoever terrorized her. He hadn’t realized how much he hoped her behavior was over a private job, but such random carelessness wasn’t her method. The woman he’d protected in the shadows for over a decade didn’t do hasty. Meticulous and cautious, yes. “You are not handling it very well.” She needed his help. Her denial of her need for his assistance meant he’d still be ignoring Hades’s dictates to follow her.
“It’s none of your business.” She glared his way. “Stop stalking me. Tell me how you got yourself in that situation.”
“You do realize I took out three snipers at Belauger’s before any put a bullet through your skull. I also hacked into his camera feeds to erase the few that caught you.”
Her cheeks paled. “I had it under control.”
“You would’ve been dead.” He leaned forward and uttered low. “If they’d caught you, you know what he’d have had his men do to you, don’t you? You’d have been painfully dead.”
“But I’m not.”
“Because I was there.”
She pushed up from the table and gathered dishes, disregarding the uneaten waffles. Her breasts heaved with the extent of her anger and frustration.
His mouth went dry as he stared at those peaks that threatened to spill from her skimpy top. He stood. How he wanted—needed—to touch her, to taste her. He dragged his gaze upward, finding an outrage in her eyes that made him even harder.
The flush racing across her cheeks and down her neck told him she recognized his hunger, even if she didn’t want to acknowledge the answering desire within her.
He grabbed his plate before she took it away. “I can get mine.”
“Give me the bloody plate.” She yanked it out of his grasp.
He blocked her exit. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts distracted him. An image of them naked, peaked, and begging for him tortured his mind. His accent thickened as he said, “You are not running away from me on this. You almost died because you were sloppy. What threatens you?”
“Move.”
He didn’t budge.
Her pale blue eyes smoked when they met his gaze. “Get out of my way.”
He crossed his arms.
“I don’t need your help,” she gritted out.
“Wrong. And you know it.”
Her foot swiped his shin. He grimaced when his leg caved, giving her enough space to slide past. He trailed her to the kitchen, where she rinsed dishes and loaded the dishwasher. She shoved the machine closed so hard it shook the glassware in the cabinets above. “I want you out of this house and out of my life. I’m going to get us back to the other dimension, then you are going to leave me alone—”
He caught her arm as she attempted to pass and pressed her up against the floor-to-ceiling support column with enough speed it stopped her condescending speech. His palm supported her chin while his fingers bracketed her jaw. Was her anger just about him following her and saving her ass? Or was this was about Bulgaria?
“The trouble with you is you don’t know when to admit you’re in trouble.” His gaze fell to her lips. Her mouth parted. Frustration and concern for her safety fled in the wake of his blazing need to remind her of the power of their attraction.
He kissed her.
Her body stiffened, but she didn’t knee him in the balls as he expected. His first kiss was barely a touch on her lips, a tease. It was nowhere near enough to assuage months of hunger for her. His lips swept over hers once more. A tiny bite on her lower lip caused her to gasp. He delved inside, slowly probing the recesses of her mouth. Damn. He’d forgotten how sweet she tasted. He deepened the kiss, and instead of pushing him away, her hands fisted the open edges of his shirt, holding him in place. Her tongue flicked against his, kissing him back. An answering growl emerged from deep in his chest. He released her jaw and pulled her tight against his body.
When he finally lifted his head, they were both panting. “You taste exactly as I remember. So sweet.”
“Why?” Her gaze was unfocused.
He shook his head, confused. “Why what?”
“Why did you leave me in Bulgaria?”
He pulled back slightly but didn’t release her. A knee-jerk reaction to avoid and deflect when interrogated had him saying, “Admit it, ragana. You need help.”
“You kissed me to distract me? God, you’re such an asshole. Let me go.” She struggled in his arms to get free.
Shit. Wrong thing to say. “Not a chance.”
“I hate you.”
“But you want me, and you need my help.”
“Only in your dreams.”
Damn it, he wasn’t handling this well. At all. “You want me. That is why everything about this makes you mad.” He kissed her again. Within seconds her whimpers of outrage changed to moans he interpreted as hell yes.
She tore her mouth from his and ran her tongue slowly over her
swollen lips. One deep breath and the drugged haze of desire fled her eyes. She flashed stubbornness. This wasn’t a woman to give in to easy compliance. That drove his depth of need for her higher. He wanted her to remember how hot they could burn together. Selfishly, he wanted to burn inside her passion again. To feel alive and connected, even if only for a short time.
She rolled her head away from him, denying further access. “Stop.”
He kissed the open column of her throat. Her convulsive swallow registered against his mouth. “You want this as much as I do. You missed this. Admit it.”
“Please…” She hung her head. She swallowed. “Don’t force me to hurt you in order to get away. We’re not doing this again. I can’t…Alexi.”
The husky way she uttered his name in that proper English dialect lit a firestorm of want in his body.
She glanced away from him. “Let me go. Don’t push this.”
The pain in her eyes when they darted his way burned a hole in his stomach. She was right. This had to stop. He wanted these fleeting moments with her like a dehydrated man in a desert, but she’d misinterpret them as games. All he could offer her was short-term, even though that was far from what he wanted and not what she deserved. He’d had his one time, not that it came close to satisfying the need coiling in his balls and infecting his brain. A need that burned only for this witch.
What a mess. He had to step away from her. Right now.
Her eyes closed and didn’t reopen. The urge to kiss her again burned in his gut, but he held back. He released her and forced himself to take that backward step. “Take us home.”
She didn’t immediately move. Emotion he couldn’t interpret skittered through her gaze. “I need to shower and change. I think some of my father’s old clothes might fit you well enough and get you out of that bloodied-up stuff. I’ll look in a few minutes. Shower first.” She slipped around him and disappeared. He heard a shower start.
With a frustrated sigh he leaned against the support column and gazed at the cracks in the plaster ceiling. His brain conjured images of both of them in that shower. He was so fucking hard he couldn’t move without triggering pain. He cursed.
Serenity.
No getting around wanting her. His body raged for her whenever he thought about her, which turned out to be pretty damned often. Hell, he’d been walking around with a hard-on for months. She brought out dangerous things in him. Tenderness. Possessiveness. And emotions he’d never experienced. She replaced his despair with hope.
All of it was forbidden.
He remembered that bitter cold December day when he’d first met her, when she’d first voiced her name to him. He’d thought her name perfect, and ironic. Nothing about this woman was serene. Maybe as an innocent child, before he’d met her, she’d been tranquil. Bloody hell, it’d been almost eleven years ago. That younger version of her had been filled with spitfire and anger. A survivor. For him, though, she was his serenity and salvation. His soul had been dying when she appeared that day. He’d become an assassin automaton who waited for Hades’s dictates and then performed the kill. He’d stopped trying to find brightness in life or optimism in the world. All he’d experienced was the depraved, the corrupt, and the truly evil. Then she’d blazed into his world. A bright star. A reason to care.
He’d been cleaning his sniper rifle while he mulled over postponement of his hit when she appeared. The blizzard that paralyzed New York City made an outdoor hit unpredictable. He’d grown up in miserable cold conditions, but that day had been worse. Then she’d materialized out of thin air in that rented staging apartment, shivering and hurt. He’d detected her energy and recognized a kindred human with preternatural ability. And that she was a pasirinktas—a Chosen. She’d become mother to a next-generation death reaper. That meant she couldn’t belong to him. Now or in the future. But he was obligated to protect her until she found her mate.
That almost twenty-year-old woman had sagged against the wall and demanded he identify himself. Weaponless and weak from blood loss, she’d glared challenge at him. No one did that, especially not a slip of a girl. Most humans moved out of his way or cowered out of instinct when they detected the death he delivered. But from that first moment, she’d never hinted that she cared about the darkness within him. Out of shock, all he’d managed was to deflect and demand she tell him who beat her face into a mess of bruises and left the bleeding strike lines across her frail body. Even now, renewed rage surged at the memory of those hemorrhaging streaks.
Serenity had uttered, “OLM.” That was long before he knew what the abbreviation meant, but he’d sworn to himself he’d destroy them. Now that he’d discovered the details of what they’d done to her, he’d initiated his plan for the destruction of the Order Lutomaleficum and every single one of their witch hunters. Actually, more like witch murderers.
No other person before or since her incited such a powerful protective instinct and the urge to seek revenge on her behalf. There was no other for whom he’d throw caution to the wind, sometimes ignoring the god voice in his head.
For years he’d been angry he couldn’t claim her. He’d wanted her even when she’d been months from turning twenty, but not as an easy lay. Never. That Hades would’ve allowed. He wanted so much more from her. The depth of his need not just to protect her but also to keep her both terrified and infuriated him. His uncle theorized a bonded relationship was forbidden, since it’d distract from their duty and create a weakness enemies would exploit. Alexi wished his need to protect Serenity only had to do with her pasirinktas status.
He couldn’t make this long-term. Not then. And not now. She deserved the whole package. Too bad it couldn’t come from him.
Serenity let the shower run until steam filled the small bathroom. With her back against the recently patched plaster wall and her butt on the floor, she stared at the sliding water droplets on the inside of the glass shower stall.
Liz. She’d forgotten about Liz during the past few hours. How selfish of her. She still needed to call the kidnappers. It’d been so long since she’d retrieved the laptop. Would they have hurt Liz because of the delay?
She forced herself to stand and get in the shower. Get through this. Think of Liz. But her mind circled nonstop around the conundrum of Alexi.
How could she have been so stupid and let him kiss her? She could’ve easily fought him off. One well-placed throat jab or properly timed twist and she would’ve been free. Allowing him to kiss her had been a serious error in judgment. Now her active imagination tortured her with the feel of his hands on her, his lips, his powerful thighs pressing into her, and his addictive scent. She imagined his body over hers and in hers. Naked, fierce, and beautiful with his corded lean muscle and many scars. She wanted to lick her way across the sexy lettering on his chest just to hear his breath catch and feel the pounding of his heart beneath her tongue.
Alexi’s mantra in life seemed to be discipline, order, and precision. He rarely smiled and lived off the radar with a rigorous intensity that had well earned him the nickname Shadow. She’d watched him in action with awe. No assassin was as lethal, as focused. He fought with a detached concentration, as if he already knew what was going to happen, and perhaps he did. Then, how he killed his prey, especially the truly evil.
She’d only witnessed that once. He inhaled their life. A normal person would be horrified. It intrigued her. God, she was mentally disturbed to even think that.
The memory of their one night together remained more potent than anything she’d experienced with any other man she’d forayed into bed with. There hadn’t been many men, certainly none since Alexi. He’d been wild and totally lacking restraint and predictability. But always dominant and powerful. She’d never felt so right as when they’d been together.
Then it was over, and he was gone.
Alone and betrayed, she hadn’t cried. Hadn’t allowed a single tear to spill for him, but she’d wanted to. And not just back then. She had a weak moment at least once a w
eek over him. Eight months ago she’d wanted to crawl into a hole and rock back and forth for about a decade. But a single tear would’ve signaled her complete humiliation and his victory, proving he could best her. Instead, she’d pieced together her dignity and tried to leave him in memoryville.
That failed. Forgetting him was impossible. He’d fought to win that night. She would’ve taken her defeat better if he’d uttered a single tender word. But then, that wasn’t Alexi. He was hard, even when she discovered the passion he hid. What happened in that bed had been a different kind of battle. One he’d won, even though she’d wanted to be there. She’d let him win and taken every moment of what he’d given her with eagerness.
He’d branded her soul in that encounter. She hadn’t realized how deeply he’d wedged himself in there until he kissed her today. She’d wanted to surrender to him again.
Uh-oh. Her reaction today wasn’t about great one-time sex. This had everything to do with the accidental bond. Whether bonding happened today or that night long ago didn’t matter. The bonded couples she’d seen couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The link between the two guaranteed he’d be irresistible to her. Not good.
She’d die if she gave everything again only to be so thoroughly rejected.
Chapter Five
“Where are we?” Alexi asked.
“Long Island. Near my place.” She held up her hand in a silence-please gesture just in case he didn’t experience shift blindness this time. In silence she counted until her vision worked.
“Cold,” he mumbled. “You didn’t wear enough for this wind.”
She bit back a retort to his critical tone. The light seared her eyes, but she squinted and caught a flash of concern in his dark gaze. Her stomach clenched. He cared.
Alexi unbuttoned the borrowed black twill coat, a remnant from her long-deceased father’s wardrobe.
She hugged her light jacket tight to her body. “I’m fine.”
“What’s this?” He waved the wallet she’d shoved into the coat pocket.
Serenity’s cheeks burned. “Something to help you make your own way from here. Get a cab or plane. Or whatever.” She shrugged. He probably didn’t need her help, but she didn’t know how to hop them back and land somewhere convenient for him.