Born of Fire (31 page)

Hours later, Shahara came awake to the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. Floating through the heavens, she could hear a soft melody that whispered around her, cajoling her, soothing her.

Then she realized it wasn’t a dream. Opening her eyes, she tilted her head to catch all the strains of the haunting melody. Played with such passion and skill, it brought a lump to her throat.

Curious, she rose from the bed and went to investigate. The outer room was dark except for two electric candles that flickered next to the piano. Syn sat on the bench, his hands flying over the keys as he played with his eyes closed. The shadows played against his dark skin, making him look even more dangerous than normal.

He’d taken off his tight black shirt and wore a loose-fitting cream one very similar to the one she’d chosen to sleep in. With the candlelight around him, he cut a dazzling picture.

She stared in amazement. Wherever had he learned how to play like that?

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and jumped. The music instantly stopped. “Ah, jeez,” he gasped. “You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were asleep.”

“I was.”

He closed the cover over the keys. “I’m sorry. I thought I had the volume turned down to where it wouldn’t disturb you.”

“It didn’t disturb me,” she assured him. “I just wanted to hear more. It was incredible.”

He offered her a shy smile. “Not really, but thanks.”

Without thinking, Shahara moved to sit next to him. “I always wanted to play one of these. My uncle had one in his house, and whenever we’d go to visit when we were kids, I’d fiddle with it.” Back then she’d have given anything to be able to play like he did.

“Why didn’t you take lessons?”

She looked at him drily.

“Sorry, stupid question.”

“How did
you
learn to play?”

Shrugging, he reached for a glass of wine and took a sip. “Too much time on my hands. I taught myself.”

She shook her head. “It seems like a strange thing for . . .”

“A street rat, filch, trash—”

She cut him off with a growl. “No. I was going to say a man like you to want to do. What made you want to play?”

He paused as if thinking about something in his past before he answered. “There was a woman who lived across the street from us when I was a kid. She gave lessons each afternoon and I’d sit out on the stoop and just listen to them play. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Like a piece of heaven. My father hated music, so to me it made it all the sweeter. After I’d started working for Kip, I was walking past a store one day and saw the one I have at my apartment in the window.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as if he were savoring the memory. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. So I bought it without a second thought and then sat there until I’d learned to play it.”

“So Mara didn’t get everything then?”

Pain flickered deep in his eyes and she hated that she’d inadvertently caused it. “No, I walked out on it and left it with her. But Kip . . . he bought it off her and returned it to me. He said he knew how much it meant to me and he wasn’t about to let the whore sell it to someone else.” The ragged emotion in his voice brought an ache to her throat.

“You love him?”

“Like a brother. He’s the only person I can fully trust at my back.”

And that was why he was willing to die rather than take Kiara home to her father and clear his name. It made sense to her now. He wouldn’t hurt his friend for anything.

Better he should die . . .

The candlelight flickered against the burgundy liquid of his wine and flashed in his entrancing eyes. He cleared his throat and Shahara became aware of where she sat.

What had made her stray so close to him?

Still, it didn’t seem wrong or frightening to her. Somehow it felt only natural to be beside him.

“Do you mind?” she asked, touching the cover.

“No, go ahead.”

She flipped it back and stared at the black keys.

“Here,” he said, turning the volume up. “Pound to your heart’s content.”

Syn watched as she played with the keys and set a disjointed melody. Maybe it was the wine—and he’d drunk a lot of it—or the scent of lilac that drifted from her hair, or maybe his earlier thoughts, but something sent wave after wave of heat to his groin. And every minute she sat next to him wearing nothing but one of his shirts, the more uncomfortable it became to just sit and not touch.

He shifted slightly, his pants suddenly way too tight.

She frowned as she struck an ugly chord.

He took another drink of wine and set the glass to the side. “Here,” he said, marking the spot on the keyboard. “This is C.” He showed her how to arch her fingers and alternate them down a simple scale.

She duplicated his movements and finally produced something that was harmonious. “I did it!”

When she looked up at him, her gaze sparkling, his breath caught in his throat.

Candlelight flickered in the golden depths of her eyes, catching the raw spark of vitality that glowed from deep within her soul. The thin shirt she wore was drawn taut over her hardened nipples and her unbound breasts shook with her excitement. Gods, she was beautiful.

Her smile slowly faded. Her breathing sped up and she licked her lips.

Syn tensed, his control slipping as he watched her tongue moisten the very thing he wanted desperately to taste.

Was it an invitation? The last time he’d kissed her, she’d been so afraid that he hesitated to try again.

But as he watched her, a fierce hunger gripped him and he knew he’d die if he walked away unsatisfied.

Shahara opened her mouth slightly. She wanted to beg for a kiss, but the words were lodged in her throat. And just when she was sure he’d never comply, he dipped his head down and took possession of her lips.

This time there was no panic. Instead, he teased her lips lightly with his own while his right hand came up to cup the back of her head. Shahara moaned at the sensation. How she wanted this man.

For the first time since Gaelin, she wanted to know what pleasure could be had between a man and a woman.

Even though the thought almost overwhelmed her with fear, she knew that Syn was the only one she could trust. He would never hurt her. And she knew she would never feel this way again about any other man.

He alone made her feel safe.

Protected.

I’ll never have this chance again.

Pulling back, she stared deep into those dark eyes that hid an unfathomable pain. “Teach me, Syn,” she whispered against his lips. “Show me that it doesn’t have to hurt.”

His eyes mirrored shock. “What?”

“I want you to make love to me.”

Syn stared in total stupor at her request. Did she mean it? One look into her eyes and he saw the sincerity.

No . . . I’m dreaming. Or high.

Brain damaged.

Something’s happening ’cause I definitely didn’t hear what I think I did.

There was no way Shahara Dagan would ask a piece of shit like him to make love to her. That would only happen in a drunken hallucinatory fog.

You
are
drunk
.

Yeah, but not
that
drunk.

“I trust you to take away my fear.” She fingered a piece of hair by his ear. “Show me, Syn. Show me what it’s like to be unafraid.”

That was enough to actually sober him. His body sang in response. And before he could argue or have his conscience rear its ugly head, he stood and swept her up in his arms. He claimed her lips once more.

Taking her to the bedroom in record time, he placed her gently on the bed. As he looked down at her, he was awed by her beauty.

He’d never been with a woman like her before. All
of his previous lovers had known many men before him. But Shahara was still technically a virgin.

She’d been taken, but never loved.

His mouth went dry at the thought. Who was he to be with her like this?

“Syn?” Shahara asked hesitantly as she watched him. Sadness darkened his eyes and he looked as if he, the man who feared nothing, was scared of her. She reached out and took his hand, then pulled him to sit next to her. “Are you all right?”

“I need a drink.”

She laughed at his ragged whisper. “I need you.”

He looked up at her words an instant before he reclaimed her lips with a hungry kiss that told her how much he needed her as well.

Shahara trembled at his touch and the knowledge that this man who needed no one at all wanted her. Her body was alight with a thousand flickering sensations. She touched his loose hair, his face, and marveled at the raw masculine strength of him.

Of everything he’d been through . . .

And still he was whole and here. A survivor like her.

Not a rat, but a wolf who fought to protect his den and those he cared for.

Tonight, she wanted to care for him.

Hating the barrier of his shirt, she pulled the tail of it out of his pants and ran her hands up under it and over the corded muscles of his chest, careful not to hurt his wrapped ribs. Chills spread over his flesh and she felt his nipples harden beneath her questing palms.

He trailed kisses down the column of her throat and in that instant she thought she’d pass out from the sheer pleasure of it. He laid her back against the soft mattress. Her senses whirling, she delighted in his touch.

Until he shifted and she felt his bulge against her thigh as he trapped her against the bed.

Syn felt her stiffen beneath him. Pulling back, he saw panic flickering in her eyes. It was his weight, he realized. She must feel trapped beneath him like she’d no doubt been by her attacker.

Moving to her side, he tried to imagine how hard it must have been for a woman with her strength and self-esteem to find herself weak and ineffectual against someone so much larger. He knew from his own experience how awful it was. To this day, he hated to feel pinned, and if anyone held him down by his throat . . .

It was on in the worst sort of way.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, wishing he could tear the bastard’s heart out for hurting her so.

She looked embarrassed until he returned to kiss her. When he pulled away again, he saw her desire burning deep in her golden eyes.

That look mystified him. Why did she want to be with something as foul as he was? Of all the men in the universe, why would a woman like her want to sleep with a no-account filch who had no real future and the bloodiest of pasts?

It defied his comprehension.

Suddenly, her fingers began stroking his chest and all logical thoughts vanished. All he could focus on was the heated desire that swept through every fiber of his being.

Rolling to his side, he pulled her on top of him, buried his hands in her hair, and kissed her lips.

Shahara smiled at her new position, delighting in the feel of his narrow hips between her legs. It was wicked and sweet. Just like him.

The thought made her smile. Sweet . . . a word that
really didn’t fit with the predator she knew he could be and yet there was no other word to describe what he was toward her. And it made her treasure him all the more.

She pulled his shirt over his head and feasted on the sight of him beneath her. His eyes liquid, he stared up at her with such a tender expression that it took her breath.

A smile curled his lips, showing her his dimple as he reached up and fished his medallion out of her shirt. His warm hand rested between her breasts while he studied it. “Do you want it back?”

He shook his head. “It looks much better hanging between your breasts.”

Syn let go, then cupped her buttocks. Pulling himself up, he nibbled at her neck. Shahara squealed in delight. Never before had she felt anything so wonderful.

“Ah, wait,” he growled, lying back against the mattress with a fierce grimace. “I forgot to take off my boots.”

Poking her lips out, she slid to the side of him. He sat up and quickly snatched his boots off, then threw them to the floor.

Shahara moved behind him. Leaning against his muscular back, she wrapped her arms around his waist and inhaled the scent of his skin. Gah, he felt incredible. All she wanted to do was hold on to him.

Syn moaned at the intimate contact of her breasts against his spine, her hands splayed across his pectorals. Gods, to be held like this forever . . .

“You can do that all night.”

For the rest of my life
. . .

Shahara brushed his hair back from his neck and
placed a tender kiss right at his hairline as she fingered the bandage she’d wrapped around his ribs earlier. Then his jaw. And his dimple. “I just might do that,” she whispered, nipping one earlobe between her teeth.

He sucked his breath in sharply.

She delighted in her power over him. Drunk with it, she found the courage to move her hands over the smooth planes of his bare skin, over the bandage and down to the patch of hair that ran from his belly button and disappeared into his pants. Unlacing the stays, she dipped her hand lower, into the thicker patch of curls until she found what she’d been seeking.

As soon as she touched him, Syn threw his head back so hard it collided with her brow.

“Ow!” she snapped, jumping away.

Rubbing the back of his own head, he turned to face her. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to do that. I mean, I’m glad you did it . . . was hoping you would . . . but I wasn’t expecting it.”

His nervousness made her smile. So, he
could
lose his composure. Who knew?

But it wasn’t when he was under attack or being confronted. It was a tender hand that knocked him off-kilter. She filed that knowledge away for later examination.

“It’s all right.” She smiled even though she was still seeing a few stars. “I think I’ll live.”

With an evil grin, Syn pulled her close and began kissing her forehead where he’d accidentally hit her.

She moaned in pleasure. “I’m definitely feeling better.”

He unbuttoned her shirt and trailed a path of kisses to her breasts. She bit her lip as his tongue flicked across the taut peak of her nipple. “I think I just bypassed the
whole better thing and have gone straight into the great category.”