His cock twitched. She was all heat and fiery temperament—an opposite to his coolly calm Francesca in every way.
“How many years do you have, girl?”
“What’s it to you, boy?”
Heavy emphasis on the boy. Apparently she believed two could play that game. His lips twitched. “Humor me. Or are you one of those annoying young females who coyly dissemble about their age while seeking to entrap men?”
“You’re insinuating I’m jail-bait? Heck, you really know how to flatter a girl, don’t you? I’m twenty, if you must know—twenty-one in a few weeks.”
He cocked his head as he considered her surprising answer. “You appear at most no more than one teh and a half, though I’d wager you must be older.”
She blinked at him. “Huh?”
“A teh has this many years.” He held up the fingers of both hands.
“A decade. Huh. Why didn’t you just say a decade? Hang on—you think I look fifteen? Sheesh! Just because I’m short, doesn’t mean I’m a kid. Don’t they have short women where you come from?” She glared at him, and then muttered something about retracting that comment as it seemed conceivable his ancestors might well be descended from Amazons.
“Look, I’m an adult, okay? I might look younger than I truly am, but I’m fully capable of looking after myself. Got that, Mal?” She thrust back her shoulders and, just for good measure, stuck out her lower lip.
Malach sized her up. Based on her reaction, all her adult life people had treated her like a child, deducting years off her age and not taking her seriously because of her height and her delicate looks. Just as he had done. He could see it rankled and made her very angry indeed. Like now.
Woman of dubious virtue or no, she’d been chosen for him and if he had any chance at all of escaping his cursed crystal, he must finish the bonding process that Pieter had set in motion. It would hardly be a chore to bed her. He’d be lying if he claimed he didn’t want her. Right now, however, he’d riled her so much that sex was apparently the last thing on her mind. But he could change that. Easily.
“Hmmm.” His gaze raked her from head to toe. “Yes. I have ‘got that’. I see you are most definitely not a child.”
His hands snaked out, grabbing her waist and hauling her flush against his body. His head bent toward her and the instant he touched his lips to hers, Malach forgot all about holding himself apart and separate, taking what he needed and not allowing himself to be vulnerable. The heat between them flared. He lost himself in her. And for a few seconds, she lost herself in him, too.
“Mmmph!” She jerked her head back, but he clamped the back of her neck with a hand and held her immobile. She kicked at him but only succeeded in stubbing her bare toes against his thighs. When she pummeled his chest with her fists, he backed her against the wall, pinning her. She was helpless. But he was helpless, too. Helpless to resist the allure of her.
When her lips softened, he licked the seam of her lips and coaxed them to open, to let him in. He stroked his tongue against hers and when she responded, dizzy with want and need he groaned.
His lips left hers. She stared at him, dazed. They were forehead to forehead, nose to nose, so close her eyes almost crossed when she tried to focus on him.
“Wh-what the h-hell do you think you’re d-doing?”
“Proving you will have more fun with me than with Pieter.”
“Let me go… you big… idiot!” Her breath came in pants.
“I intend to—once you let go of me.” He allowed smug amusement to infuse his words.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
He smirked and backed up a few steps, away from the wall, his arms held out from his sides.
She glanced down. “What the—? How come I’m—? Ohhh!” She unlaced her hands from the back of his neck. And when she finally became aware that her thighs were still wrapped around his waist, her cheeks turned the shade of a ripe berry. She unclamped her legs and slid a little way down his body, stifling a gasp and reddening still more when his leather-clad erection made itself at home against the juncture of her thighs.
“Omigod. Omigod. Oh. My. God. I’m clinging to you like a randy monkey. One kiss you’ve turned me into a raging slut. This is so not good.” She wriggled and slid awkwardly to the floor. Yet again, she yanked down her dress, depriving him of another glimpse of those smooth thighs that he’d very much like to have wrapped around him again in the very near future. Her blush deepened.
He frowned. She did not act like a whore.
She speared trembling fingers through her hair and backed away, her gaze hunted. “Sure wish we could ring for—”
The panic rippling in her eyes receded, replaced by a triumphant grin that lit up her face and confused Malach still more. “Sorry to disappoint you, Mal,” she said. “But I’m about to spring us from our cozy little prison. And once we’re out of here, you can just bugger off back to wherever and maul some other girl.”
He brushed past her, heading for the bed. “I believe I will take a nap until you get it through your pretty head that Pieter will not be so easily thwarted by a mere—” What was the device called again? Ah, yes. “Phone.” He stretched out full-length on the mattress, linking his hands beneath his head and closing his eyes.
“Could have at least taken off your boots,” he heard her mutter. And then, “The old guy’s got some truly superb supernatural woo-woo going on, I’ll give him that. But he can’t keep us locked away in here against our wills. Not when we have a line to the outside world.”
He slit his eyelids to watch the fun as she snatched the phone from the side table and pressed it to her ear. “Huh. No dial tone.” She replaced the phone in its cradle and picked it up again. She held it to her ear. And scowled. And then jabbed at a few buttons anyway.
“Crap. Wonder if it could be the jack-point?” She sank to all fours, and fiddled with a small white box fixed to the wall. She picked up the receiver again and waited.
He closed his eyes again.
“I’m trying an outside line.” A pause while she jabbed at buttons again. “Double crap. No sound. No connection. No nothing. Okay. Last try. Just to be totally sure, I’m going to ring the national emergency number.” Three jabs. And then a hiss as she hung up.
“Okay, okay. You were right. He’s jinxed the phone lines, too. Can’t even call emergency services, so I sure hope we don’t end up actually having one—an emergency, I mean. And so much for phoning room service for food. We’ll just have to hope the mini-bar will see us through until we find a way to get out of here.”
“If I know Pieter, he will have arranged for sustenance to be provided whenever we are hungry.”
“Well, I’m hungry right now. So where’s the food?”
Malach snorted.
“All right, all right. I guess I’m not really hungry at the moment. All this BS has put a damper on my appetite.” He watched while she prowled up and down the rug beside the bed until another possibility occurred to her.
“Well, maybe it’s not so bad. One of us is bound to get hungry soon, right?” She paused expectantly until he muttered an agreement.
“And then all we have to do is stay alert until we hear room service knocking.” She grinned, warming to her theme. “And as soon as the hapless room-service attendant opens our door, we make a run for it. Easy-peasy, huh?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. Though I am certain Pieter will have thought of that possibility, also.”
“You think so?”
“I do indeed.”
“Damn. I suspect you might be right.”
“I do know one method of escaping this trap Pieter has devised for us,” he said.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“To do exactly what he wants.”
“Which is?”
“For me to bed you.”
~~~
Chapter Three
Malach reminded her of some large predator debating whether to chase something down for dinner. She backed a
way from him. And the bed. The farther away, the better, she reckoned. Because when he’d kissed her, she’d been powerless to prevent her body responding and feeling things she’d only read about in books, or giggled about with her best friend. He’d reduced her to a fiery ball of pure sensation that had pulsed through her, throbbing between her legs and dampening her panties. The thought of those lips on hers again made her want to run and hide… and beg him to chase her and kiss her again. And even now, remembering the smell of him, of oiled leather and exotic spices and something irresistibly male, made her head swim.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Malach only yawned and thankfully shuttered his “come hither, little girl” gaze. “I am not making a joke.”
Ulp. “Sex? With you? Peter wants me to… to….” Her face heated and she had to concentrate on breathing before she could form actual words again. “He wants us to have sex before we can get out of here?”
Sex with Peter might have been manageable—maybe, though that point was now obviously moot since Peter had made himself scarce. But with Malach? He was altogether another story, one rife with scary but oh-so-seductive consequences.
“Yes, that is correct. Three times to be precise, and then the bonding process will be complete.”
She gaped at him. “Three times? You expect me to do you not once, but three times? I’m not even prepared to do you once, Buster. And I’m damn sure not interested in being bound to you, so you can put that little BDSM fantasy right out of your head.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sheesh. I figured Peter was slightly off his rocker but this really takes the cake.”
Malach yawned. “Pieter. His name is Pieter. But you could refer to him as the Crystal Guardian if you prefer.”
“Well, I know him as Peter Stone.”
“Peter Stone.” He laughed but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. It trailed chills up and down her spine. “Ironic indeed,” he said, “considering Pieter’s power over stones, and that we were once christened ‘Stone Warriors’ by your people. I’ve long suspected the old man of having a warped sense of humor.”
Hang on. Jade caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Peter Stone. She’d read somewhere that Peter was a name derived from Latin meaning rock or stone. Hah. Now there was a contrived alias-and-a-half. What parent in their right mind would call their kid Rock Stone? What a sucker she’d been.
“What the hell is going on? Who exactly is this Crystal Guardian?”
Malach’s eyelids snapped open, sparking with white-hot fury. “Who is he? He is the man who cursed my tehun—my entire troupe—to suffer an eternity in the very crystals that bear our true-names. He is Pietersite, the Crystal Guardian, the man who holds our fate in his hands.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed, until commonsense reasserted itself and full-blown relieved laughter spilled from her. “Good one, Mal!”
Stony-faced, he regarded her until her laughter awkwardly trailed off into even more awkward silence. “All righty then. Guess you’re not joking.”
“No.”
“Oookay. Whatever.” Surely Malach didn’t truly believe Pieter was some sort of supernatural guardian who’d trapped him in some hellish crystalline prison…. Could he?
How about what she’d sensed, though? That frightening abyss of emptiness, Malach’s terror and the suffering—that was real.
She full-body shuddered, banishing the horror of that vivid memory to the deepest recesses of her mind where her worst nightmares lurked. A waking nightmare. That’s all it had been—all it could have been. A bad dream to add to all the rest. Nothing more. She refused to believe in it.
If only there was another way to get this money she needed for… for….
She dug her fingertips into her temples, unable to remember why she needed money. It was important, though, crucial—that much she knew. And it niggled the back of her mind despite the compelling vision of the man lying stretched out on the bed, his hot gaze licking her from head to toe making her knees feel like limp spaghetti.
A mental image formed in her mind. Both of them buck naked. Malach plunging himself into her willing flesh. Jade kneading the hard planes of his muscular back and thrusting her hips upward, needy and wanting, urging him toward climax even as she teetered on the edge of her own.
The pure ecstasy, the sensual pleasure that consumed her vision-self’s face, shocked her to the core. She clenched her jaw until it ached, willing the vision to fade. It was so not going to happen. Despite the heat pooling in her pelvis, the arousal dampening her panties, the throbbing ache of wanting more—of yearning to be filled and used by Malach’s hard warrior’s body—it was not going to happen.
She locked her traitorously weak knees and sought refuge in tight-lipped, clipped denial. “I’m not going to have sex with you. Not if you were the last man on earth and our lives depended upon it. So if that’s what it takes to get us out of here, then we’re out of luck.”
Malach’s nostrils flared as though her arousal had perfumed the air and her lie was glaringly obvious to him. He narrowed his eyes and observed her minutely.
Jade fidgeted beneath that all-seeing gaze. His eyes reminded her of an Arctic wolf’s, pale but still so intensely blue that they shouldn’t rightly belong to any creature of this world. Alien and fey enough to pierce her skin and see right through to her soul. She caught herself twisting the skirt of her dress in her hands and shoved both hands behind her back.
“What were you planning on doing with Pieter in this room?” he asked. “Why did he bring you here?”
“Um, we… we had stuff to discuss. A-and we were going to order in some food. All very innocent.” She felt the warmth of a blush painting her cheeks and silently cursed her inability to lie convincingly.
“Nothing Pieter has a hand in is ever innocent. How did he find you?”
“Cripes, you sound like a father reaming his teenage daughter about a potential date.” Exhaustion descended in a heavy, smothering wave. She flopped into an armchair. It’d been one helluva day and she hurt all over. Well, except for her ache-free head, which had ceased pounding the moment Peter had touched it. A coincidence? Or was he really that good a spell-caster?
Spells. Curses. Supernatural woo-woo of the worst kind. Good God. What had she gotten herself into?
Right now, more than anything except getting the heck out of this room and as far away from Malach as possible, she craved a warm bath, a glass of wine, and a good book. Oh, and some privacy. At a pinch, a nap would do. But no way was she going near the bed when Malach was draped all over it. That’d be asking for trouble. She shifted sideways in the chair and dangled her legs over its amply padded arm.
“How did he find you?” Malach demanded again.
“Peter—Pieter—rang me.” After she’d placed a tasteful ad in the local newspaper describing herself and subtly alluding to what she was offering. At least, she’d hoped it was a subtle allusion. “We talked for a bit and he asked me to meet him.” Insisted actually. Wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. “Satisfied?”
“Why did he ring you?”
“My relationship with Pieter is none of your concern.” She sniffed and folded her arms, laying on the snotty bitch routine as thick as she dared.
Malach pushed himself up on his elbows until he could comfortably rest his head and shoulders against the bed’s padded headboard. His gaze bored into hers, stripping her bare.
Her stomach squirmed with unease and, dammit, anticipation.
“Anything Pieter does, and any female he chooses to spend time with, is of great concern to me.”
“So he was lonely and thought spending the day with me might make him feel better. So what? Is that so wrong?” Please don’t blush. Please!
“Interesting that he chose you to slake his desires.”
Jade didn’t appreciate his sneer. Nothing had been slaked. Not yet, anyway. And probably never would be, since it seemed rather unlikely that Peter—or Pieter, or whatever the heck his name was
—would be returning to this room any time soon. “We had a business relationship, Mal. Nothing more. I needed money and Pieter needed—”
Actually, just what the heck had Pieter needed? Obviously something more than just an expensive whore. Jade had the sneaking suspicion that she’d been used all right, just not at all in the way she’d been expecting.
“And Pieter needed?” Malach prompted.
“I don’t know.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. How to put this delicately? “Companionship?”
“Companionship.”
Funny how the word didn’t seem quite so innocuous on Malach’s lips.
His eyebrow quirked upward and his lip curled. “Companions. Is that what you call prostitutes in this age?”
Jerk. He didn’t have to be so mean about it. “Bloody rude, obnoxious pricks. Is that what men of your age prefer to be called?”
He opened his mouth—doubtless to make some pithy retort that’d flay another layer off her dwindling self-esteem—but she rushed on before he could speak. “What’s with all the leather, Mal? You look like you’re dressed for a male strip revue. Hmmm. I reckon you’d do pretty well prancing ’round on stage, bumping and grinding for the ladies—even if you are getting a bit long in the tooth.”
A pause while he processed her insults. And if she’d expected outrage she was sorely disappointed. “I am not some entertainer who removes his clothes in public for the pleasure of gawking women,” was all he said.
“And I’m not a whore,” she countered, swinging her dangling foot back and forth over the arm of the chair, her gaze fixed on her wiggling toes rather than the man before her.
Her swinging foot abruptly stilled. At least she wasn’t a whore yet.
“Really,” Malach muttered to the ceiling.
Jade’s stomach squirmed in an oh-my-God-he’s-so-hot way. Despite his needling remarks, she was close to giving in and letting him have his wicked way with her. Too close. Best to maintain the pretense of being in control. If he even suspected how much he was affecting her physically, she’d be lost. She smiled sweetly at him, batting her eyelashes for good measure. “Frankly, Mal, I don’t give a flying fuck about making things easy for you. Life’s not easy. It’s a bitch. And then you die.”
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