The heat radiating off him had increased. Victoria tasted perspiration when she moistened her lips. Her body hummed to his Brimstone call, but his anger had an edge of scorch to it very similar to the daemon king’s. In the tiny confines of the ATV, her nerves returned. This time she wasn’t afraid of the unknown darkness in the garden. Her fear was clearly defined. Adam Turov’s darkness was bubbling closer to the surface than she’d ever seen.
And she’d seen him behead an evil monk in his garden. She’d seen him bathed in daemon’s blood. She’d seen the scars from violence he’d endured that had given him dark angel’s wings.
“I was a poor Russian peasant boy. I worried about food in my belly and chores that had to be done. I wanted a better horse than the swaybacked mare we used behind the plow. I slept beneath a sweet thatched roof that still smelled of grass when it rained,” Adam said. His hands were clenched on the wheel. She could always sense his emotions by his heat, but if it wasn’t for the Brimstone in his blood, she could have read him by the set of his hard jaw and his hands. He always held on to something when he was beset by strong emotion. Tonight she could see white knuckles plainly even in the dim light of the dashboard.
“The Order stole my innocence. They’ve paid for it in blood, but they haven’t paid for all the other innocent lives they interrupted without permission. They lie. They steal. They hurt, maim and kill. Your son is in good company. So many children that deserved a better life.”
Victoria fingered a piece of shredded crimson tulle in her lap. She twisted it around her finger and unwound it again and again. She ached for Adam Turov. For the boy he’d been. For the man he was now.
She also wanted to make love to him until he forgot every lash he’d ever received. It was a sudden desperate desire that had to be ignored.
“The only way Michael and my nephew, Sam, and others will be spared is to defeat the Order once and for all. They can’t be held off with deals and favors. There’ll always be another request. And they’ll always be lurking in the shadows to take what we don’t give willingly,” Victoria said.
“A hundred years of experience with them tells me this is true,” Adam said.
He pulled the ATV to a sudden stop in the drive near her cottage, pebbles crunching beneath its wheels. Clouds now filled the sky so that the moonlight was mostly kept from the garden. They both exited the vehicle and walked the lantern-lit path. It wasn’t companionable. She couldn’t deny the logic of his staying with her. She had no means to fight if monks or Rogue daemons decided to strike. And what if Loyalists came to call? There was some concern that Ezekiel would decide that he wanted to continue their chat, in hell, before dawn.
But needing protection and feeling safe in close quarters with a man who emitted waves of Brimstone heat so that her affinity throbbed with need that couldn’t be indulged were two very different things.
Adam was angry. If Malachi had showed his face in the dark garden, the warrior at her side would have done more than behead him. She thought he might tear him limb from limb with his bare hands. Tuxedo or not. And it made her want to soothe him, to take away his anger and pain.
She wasn’t sure where his jacket had gone. He now wore his white shirt open and tieless down to the top of his vest. His cuff links had been removed and his cuffs rolled back to reveal his muscled arms. When they arrived at the cottage, he allowed her to dig out her key and unlock the door even though she knew he must have a key on his iron ring that would undo the latch as well. She lifted her heavy skirts over the threshold and stepped into the living room, illuminated by a lamp she’d left glowing in the corner.
Adam followed her inside and she heard him close and lock the door behind them.
She hadn’t expected company. She’d left a cup of cold tea on the table beside her favorite chair. There was a sweater on the floor, discarded shoes wherever she’d kicked them off and crumbs on the kitchen counter. It was his cottage, but he stood in the French country-style living room looking like a warrior in a lady’s parlor.
For some reason, the effect made her heart rate increase.
His hair was mussed. His perfectly tailored clothes were in disarray. His color was heightened by his emotions and that blush of Brimstone made the rest of his skin look pale. He’d stopped several feet from the door. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. And then another. Victoria watched, captivated by his battle for control. Was it Malachi or Ezekiel that had stirred him so greatly? Which one infuriated him the most?
When he opened his eyes and looked at her, his chest now rising and falling at a more regular pace, she edged away toward the teacup on its pretty saucer. Tidying up seemed pointless in the face of his fury, but it gave her something to do. Maybe it wasn’t Malachi or the daemon king who had him so riled. The intensity of his eyes as he looked at her said that it might just be a former opera singer with an affinity for Brimstone that drove him wild.
The teacup rattled against the saucer in her hands.
“I’m here to protect you. Not to threaten you in any way. I can’t change the fact that I’m a damned man, but I’m not here to corrupt or despoil,” Adam said.
“You are aware that this is the twenty-first century, right?” Victoria said. The cup and saucer in her hands were now silent and still. Her earlier thoughts of making love to him returned. “And that you’re in as much danger of ‘despoilment’ from me as I am from you?”
“You’re drawn to me because of the Brimstone and I’m captivated by your song even when you aren’t singing. It’s as if I hear the potential for song every time you speak. I see it in the way you move,” Adam said. “But the Brimstone doesn’t rule my actions. I don’t allow it to.”
“Protect me from Malachi and Ezekiel, by all means. But don’t try to protect me from myself. I’m a big girl. I’ve lived with the affinity for a long time. It draws me toward beings with Brimstone blood, but I’m fairly certain I’d be drawn to you if you didn’t have one speck of an ember in your heart,” Victoria confessed.
If she’d taken one of his swords and stabbed it through his chest, he couldn’t have looked more gutted standing there in the lamplight. He bled because of her words, but she couldn’t unsay them. He’d been alone for a long time. He saw himself as damaged and damned.
Now he knew she wanted him anyway.
If he’d never sold his soul for freedom and the chance to bring his evil captors to their knees, if her grandmother D’Arcy had never experienced Samuel’s Kiss...she would still want Adam Turov. His magnetism burned with natural chemistry that even Brimstone couldn’t enhance.
Victoria carefully carried the cup to the kitchen and poured the old tea down the drain. Then she washed the teacup and saucer and put them on the drain board to dry. All the while she tried to ignore what Adam might be up to. He didn’t stay standing in the living room. He moved around. She thought maybe he was checking all the rooms in the tiny house to be sure they had no unwanted guests. Or maybe he checked all the windows to be sure they were latched. As if you could latch a glass window against a warrior monk or a daemon.
She was fairly certain he was avoiding her.
She was also fairly certain he wouldn’t refuse her if she decided to ignore damnation and affinity to come to him as a woman hungry to taste and touch.
Victoria made her way to the main bedroom. The poor firebird ball gown was ruined. She peeled it from her body and let it fall to the ground. She stepped out of what now seemed a pool of tulle flames on the floor. The bathroom became a heaven of soap and steam and water hot enough to soothe her bruises and sore muscles as she washed the dirt of the tunnel and the wine cave away.
Not once did she put Adam from her mind. In fact, she luxuriated in thoughts of what she would do to him if her conscience allowed. He had pleasured her with his mouth. She dwelled on that memory too. The heat and roughness of his tongue had taken her to a
n edge she’d never been to before then pushed her over into a free fall that made her forget everything else for long, lava flow moments.
He had taken nothing for himself. He’d remained on the cold, hard earth unsatisfied and alone. They weren’t free to be lovers, but Adam needed to be touched and she wanted to touch him.
There might be no future for them. She was tangled in a political mess of biblical proportions and he had bartered his soul to a daemon king. Her top priority was protecting her son and ensuring his happiness without thought to her own. Adam’s top priority was defeating the Order of Samuel and paying his debt to Ezekiel to free his soul. Those goals clashed at shadowy intersections Malachi controlled.
But the night had eased into a Neverland of possibilities because they were alone together. The cottage was a refuge they shared.
Victoria draped herself in a robe after her bath. She didn’t bother with anything else. She’d heard the old water pipes in the walls protest as another bathroom was utilized. The sound called to her like a siren’s song.
She padded out of her room and down the hall to the second bedroom. The door had been left open. She stepped over the threshold. Adam’s clothes had been stripped off and lay in a path like breadcrumbs showing her the way. She followed. Past vest and shirt and pants. Past boxers and socks to the bathroom door. It, too, wasn’t closed against her. He’d left it open. In invitation? Or just to be sure he heard if there was any danger?
Victoria stepped into the second bathroom cloaked in roiling steam. She walked over to the shower and leaned against the wall. The glass door of the shower stall in this smaller second bathroom wasn’t opaque. It was clear and easily allowed him to see her approach. It also allowed her to see when the hot water from the tap began to bubble and evaporate off his skin.
“I couldn’t knock. The door wasn’t closed,” Victoria said.
Adam Turov had the hard, toned muscles of a man who used his body like a war machine. Veins popped on his arms as he smoothed soap from his chest and down his stomach. Steam swirled, but she could see the evidence that he didn’t mind her intrusion. Still, she needed the words. She hadn’t been this bold in a long time. She’d almost forgotten how to follow where her passions led her when she was offstage.
The man in the shower reached for the glass door and slid it slowly open. She closed her eyes in response. Only for a second. Only because the glass had slightly shielded the effect he had on her. Not his Brimstone. That was throbbing and burning and making her feel faint on the spot. But him. He might be damned, but he was also beautiful. Tragically beautiful. Every scar. Every hot flushed inch of him. But especially the way he held himself back even though she could see he was fully aroused.
“I would never close a door against you, solovey. I have no soul, but my heart is yours,” Adam said.
He stepped from the shower with rivulets of water running over his skin before they turned to steam and rose into the air to envelop her. She wasn’t afraid to touch him. Her affinity would protect her. Still, she hissed when she did reach her hand to slide her open palm and spread fingers up and over his muscled chest to the side of his neck. She pulled him down to her mouth and he didn’t resist. He tasted of minty toothpaste and wood smoke. She delved deeply with her tongue, showing him how hungry she was for him. For the rough and slick textures of his tongue and mouth.
He groaned. She hummed. His hands came up to pull her—hard—against his even harder body. She was crushed. She didn’t care. Her robe slipped and Adam helped it along. She felt him tug on the belt. She heard the soft thump as it fell to the ground. And then his hands were burrowing beneath the soft material to find the even softer skin beneath.
His hands gentled. He kneaded her bottom and used the movement to press her against him. She gasped in response to the urgency of his erection against her bare stomach.
But she hadn’t forgotten why she’d come to find him in the first place. He’d pleasured her while asking for nothing in return. She was inspired to do the same.
“Victoria,” he said, in protest or surprise when she knelt in front of him. A plush wine-colored rug cushioned her knees.
She tilted her chin to look up at him while she took the length of him in her hands.
“There’s no bargain between us. No deal. No devil. I’m a woman who wants to taste and touch you. Because you’re beautiful,” Victoria said. She opened her mouth and bathed the head of his penis with her tongue as she lightly suckled just the tip between her lips. “Because you’re delicious.”
“Solovey,” Adam breathed out. He reached to thread his fingers in her hair, but he didn’t direct her movements. He only touched her as if he couldn’t believe she was real.
“You are my song tonight,” she responded.
She took him in her mouth again and he made no coherent words for a while.
* * *
Adam had lifted her into his arms when he was finally able to move again. He lifted her and carried her into the bedroom and placed her on the bed he’d turned back in preparation for sleeping alone. He had been determined not to obey the Brimstone urging him to take her. But she’d thwarted his control. She might regret it in the morning. Although it was already morning and she didn’t regret anything she’d done. She’d discovered another Adam in those moments. One very like the warrior, but he’d surrendered to her mouth. Shouting out the conquest of his control like a man willing to enjoy defeat, but only if it was a sweet one with her kneeling at his feet.
She tingled with pleasure at the memory, but Adam joined her on the bed and suckled her breast and she was suddenly swept up in the here and now. She buried her hands in his wet black hair and he rose up to meet her gaze, the intensity of his blue irises almost enough to steal her breath.
“You have unleashed me. Tell me to stop now or you will get no sleep this night,” he warned.
“I would never close a door against you,” Victoria teased.
Adam continued to gaze at her face as his warm hand slid up to the juncture of her thighs. She opened for him and he leaned down to lick her lips in approval while sliding his hand between her legs. She jerked. She couldn’t help it. Pleasuring him had already made her more than wet and ready for his touch. He chuckled against her mouth and kissed her deeper just as he claimed her gently and firmly with his finger.
She cried out. She rocked against his thrusting hand. The pad of his thumb teased her clitoris. And once again he brought her to an edge she hadn’t known she’d craved before she’d met him.
“Victoria,” he urged and she opened her eyes to meet his gaze.
She reached to hold on to his broad shoulders while she thrust her hips to meet his stroking finger. This time his vivid blue irises held her as she fell and helped her float back to Earth in his arms.
But there was something besides Adam Turov waiting when she caught her breath and her heartbeat slowed down. The naked man beside her tensed because he heard it too. A loud whine came from the living room and then the tick-tick-tick of hard hellhound nails pacing to and fro.
“No,” Victoria said. “Please no.”
She rose with a blanket draped around her and ran into the next room before Adam could stop her or urge caution.
She collapsed to her knees when she saw Grim. The hellhound was a shadow in the form of a giant dog. The tips of his fur blurred as if he’d brought smoke with him from wherever he’d been as he traveled in between. Hellhounds weren’t limited to earthly pathways. They were amorphous beasts, only flesh and bone when they had reason to be.
Grim bared his teeth at the man behind her as Adam hurried into the room, fastening his pants.
“Not now, Grim. He’s...it’s complicated,” Victoria ordered.
The hellhound was fully materialized now and as solid as he would need to be to pounce on the stranger if the situation went in that direction
. His teeth were larger than she remembered, but they’d never been displayed against a man she’d been in bed with seconds before.
“If he’s here, then Michael is in danger,” Victoria said. Tears she’d fought for weeks filled her eyes so that she could hardly see. She kept them from falling. Barely. She rose and went for her phone that she’d left in the charger beside her laptop.
Neither flashed messages or voice mails.
“Where’s Sybil, Grim? Where is Michael?” Victoria asked.
The hellhound growled and whined at the same time. The sound sent shivers of revulsion down her spine. Such an ugly sound couldn’t indicate anything good at all.
When the phone rang in her hand, she tabbed the answer icon beside her sister’s photograph, but she was almost afraid to put it up to her ear. Grim came to her. He pressed his hulking German shepherd–like body against her legs. His head came up to her chin. She’d seen him cushion her baby’s head on his furry side.
“Sybil called us, but we got here too late. The Order has Michael. We were traveling with Cinder in response to Sybil’s call and didn’t get your text. They’d already taken Michael hours before you warned us that they might,” Kat said.
Cinder was Sam’s hellhound puppy. Much too young to safely ferry himself and his humans through the in between. It had been a dangerous and desperate action to try to save her son. Too late. Too late. Too late. Katherine’s words echoed in her ears.
“I thought he’d be safe with Sybil and Grim,” Victoria said.
A single hot tear had escaped her control. It trickled hotly down her cheek, scorching as it went.
“Malachi must have lied. He intended to take Michael all along. Whether I freed his men or not,” Victoria said.
“There’s a lot you haven’t told us, but Cinder is going to need too much recovery time for us to come to you and I’m guessing you have no time for a long telephone conversation,” Katherine said. It was unthinkable to consider sending Grim for them. He would need to return to Michael’s side as soon as possible. It was miraculous that he’d managed to come to her to seek help so far from his master. The strain on the poor hellhound was obvious in the smoking fur that swirled around him as he paced.
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