Burning Skies (12 page)

Again she approved and she didn’t want to.

She reminded herself that despite his accomplishments and his excellent wardrobe, whatever he was in this world had cost lives on Second Earth. He should have been battling; instead he had made a lot of money and bought suits and hired security personnel. She knew without having to be told that he owned the whole damn building.

Even though she was drawn to him like cream to strawberries, and wanted to get a fold straight back to Second Earth … like now … she moved forward and extended her hand. “Hello, Marcus.” How strange it felt not to address him more formally as
Warrior
Marcus.

She watched his shoulders rise as he drew in a breath and took her hand in his. His clasp was warm and strong, the pads of his fingers fleshy, but she already knew that since she’d felt him in her dreams.

The reminder of what they had shared brought a warm flush to her cheeks. She drew her hand out of his. “I’ve come on behalf of … certain parties of interest to you.” She could hardly say
Madame Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth
in front of a dozen inquisitive sets of Mortal Earth ears.

He nodded. “Won’t you come up?”

“Yes, of course.”

He guided her to the elevators, his hand never far from the small of her back. She had a strong sense that if an attack came, he would pull her against him with one hand and with the other draw a weapon.

That she was the object of such protective instincts sent ripples of pleasure through her abdomen. Again, her body clenched even when she didn’t want it to. She wished just this once, while in his presence, she could
calm the hell down.

As the elevator doors closed and they were the only ones in it, she heard him grunt strangely, a sound followed by a very faint grinding. Teeth upon teeth?

A moment later the small space flooded with a cloud of fennel. She listed sideways, falling against the wall of the elevator. Worse followed when he clamped his arm around her waist to support her.

She gave a squeak and pushed his hand away. She took a step forward trying to create distance, a hopeless venture inside the stainless-steel box.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low, husky, one resonant seductive thrall.

“Please don’t touch me again, Warrior.”

He backed away. In the shiny metal that surrounded the elevator buttons, she saw that he had moved into the far corner and stared at her from beneath hooded eyes. More fennel wafted around her.

Oh, God. Coming to Seattle was a serious mistake.

The wheel came from the land of Sumer as did the first vampire, Luchianne.

—From
Treatise on Ascension,
by Philippe Reynard

CHAPTER 5

Marcus had never suffered in quite this way before. When he knew, when he had sensed that Havily was in the building, his building, the building he owned, he had experienced desire, confusion, urgency. He had not thought much beyond his need to make sure she was safe and that his building remained secure.

However, the moment he saw her, the moment he
smelled
her, the molecules in his body had realigned and sent every instinct in the direction of his groin and his need to bond with her. That absurd imperative had swamped him, screaming at him to get inside her, to release his seed into her, to take her blood, to penetrate her mind, all at the same time, to make her his, now and forever.

He knew she watched him from the reflection of the chrome plate around the elevator buttons, but did she have any idea how her honeysuckle scent now filled the shared space and worked his cock into a state of hard readiness?

He had a couch in his office. Hell, he had two. Fuck that. He had a glass desk the size of a small barge. He’d clear it with a sweep of his arm and throw her on her back. He’d …

He closed his eyes, flared his nostrils, and dragged her scent into his nose. One stroke, he’d come. Fucking
breh-hedden.

“Why the hell are you here?” left his throat in a hoarse mess.

“We … we have matters to discuss. You know we do and I want this …
thing
between us settled once and for all.”

And exactly how did she plan to do that? The image of her on her back and him on top made the only kind of sense.

When the doors opened he moved up behind her. He knew he crowded her but he couldn’t help it. His protective instinct was firing off missiles. He had his arm around her waist as he moved to the door to his suite.

He opened the door for her. He barely saw Jane as he ushered Havily into his office. He barked over his shoulder to his assistant, “We’re not to be disturbed. For any reason.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” returned in a sharp stunned whisper.

He shut the door and wasn’t surprised when Havily hurried past his desk to the opposite corner of the office near the windows. He watched her shoulders rise and fall rapidly.

Goddamn the
breh-hedden.
They were both held in a tight grip. Worse, the dreams had revealed exactly what she looked like naked, and that’s all he saw as he looked her up and down. He’d cupped her ass in his hands. She may be wearing a tailored navy wool suit, but he knew what her breasts looked like, felt like.

His scrutiny stopped at
tailored
and
wool.
She’d come from Phoenix in late June where it was hotter than Hades right now. So she must have dressed for … Seattle.

Something about that made him smile, a little smugly perhaps. “Did you have a nice trip?” he asked, shocked again at the hoarse quality of his voice.

“Would you stop that,” she cried as she turned back to him.

“Stop what?”

“This whole room smells like a licorice factory.”

Ah, yes, the one defining quality of the
breh-hedden,
the giving of specific scents, male and female, meant only for the other, detected only by the other. She was, for him,
the other.

“All I’m smelling is honeysuckle, Havily. When I’m around you, that’s all I smell. Fucking honeysuckle. Clouds of honeysuckle. A rain forest of honeysuckle.”

She shook her head and frowned. “You mean you don’t smell this sharp fennel scent?” She waved an arm about to encompass the room.

“No, not at all. Just
you.
”

He crossed the room to stand near the window. He looked down at the view below, as he often did, but drew no closer to her than six feet. Less separation and he’d take her in his arms, he’d kiss her, he’d force himself on her as he’d tried to do that last night at Endelle’s palace. Given her scent, she’d probably succumb, so shit.

He turned slowly to watch her. She faced the window now as well and was beautiful in profile, her nose a lovely curve, her lips parted. Her hair was an exquisite auburn; her complexion, a delicate cream enhanced with peach blush over her cheekbones. Her eyes were a light green like translucent jade. So beautiful. Once more, his groin responded. Okay, so maybe looking at her wasn’t a good idea, either. “So, again, why have you come?”

“I need you to stop the dreaming,” she blurted, her gaze skating to him then returning to look well beyond downtown, far out into Puget Sound.

Of all the things he had expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them. How the hell had she construed their nocturnal engagements as something
he
instigated? “You’re kidding, right?”

Her porcelain cheeks developed bright spots of color as she once more turned toward him, her shoulders pulled back, her chin high. “What does that mean?”

“I think you know what it means.
You
come to
me
in
my
dreams, vampire, not the other way around.”

Confusion once more flitted over her eyes, her beautiful light green eyes, the same color … yeah … as the banding on his wings, just as Medichi had once observed. She shook her head back and forth. “That’s not the way it is.
You
summon
me
and I can’t seem to resist. I’m here to beg you to stop calling me to your bed.”

His jaw shifted back and forth. He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I awake and
you
are riding
me
 … every damn time. Think about it, Havily. Isn’t that the way it always happens?”

She took a step back and dropped her purse as her hand flew to her chest. Her cheeks now flooded with color. “Warrior, please. The whole thing is distasteful and very
wrong.
I came to ask you to stop, not to have you throw the experience in my face. You have no idea how hard this is for me, to come to you, to ask this of you. I never wanted to see you again.”

“Of course not,” he muttered. “Not for perfect Havily Morgan to engage with a hedonistic captain of industry. You do know that my corporations provide millions of jobs around the world, don’t you?” Why the hell had he gone down this road, as though he needed to defend his choices? What did he care what she thought of him?

Her nostrils flared and her chin rose higher still. “You deserted your brothers-in-arms. I will never forgive you for that! How many ascenders
,
how many
mortals
have died because you couldn’t bear the war any longer? How many, Warrior Marcus? I swear I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I haven’t been sleeping very much lately, now have I, not when I’m awakened by a dream-nymph making use of my body.” He was such a bastard.

“A dream-nymph?” she cried. “Oh, how I hate you for saying that.”

Well, at least she’d started showing some sense.

“I don’t
summon
you, Havily. When I wake up, you’re with me, in my bed … sort of. You come to me, though I have no idea how you do it, or even where we are when we’re together.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re putting this on me. But it really doesn’t matter how it’s happening, I just know it has to end and I’ve come here to ask you to stop doing what you’re doing.”

“All I’m doing is responding to you.”

“But why have you done it all this time? That’s what I don’t understand.”

Because I loved having you in my bed, on top of me, your scent flooding my nostrils.
“I could ask the same of you.”

“I thought it was some kind of weird dream state, a kind of fantasy. I thought my subconscious was living out what I refused to do in my conscious life.”

At that he smiled, but not kindly. “So this was your fantasy? You on top?”

She covered her face with her hands. More pink showed between her splayed fingers and crept toward her chin. He was pushing her, but that’s what a man did when a woman held up a mirror and the man saw his reflection but disliked what he saw. And yes, it made him a bastard.

His conscience kicked in. He hadn’t always been such a prick.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk this through. We’ll figure this out together. And I’ll … try not to be so abrasive. This whole thing has kicked me out of stride.” He gestured to the black leather sofa flanking the long wall to the left of the door.

She nodded. “Fine.” She picked up her purse and crossed in front of him.

He noticed her immaculate makeup, the careful striation of eye shadow, eyeliner, the tweezed, arched brows. She carried Marc Jacobs. She looked sleek, fit, stylish. He would have gone for her in any dimension.

She set her purse beside the sofa and sat down at the end nearest the windows, her gaze once more settled outside. “You have a lovely view of the sound.”

“I have a house on Bainbridge. It’s kind of rustic over there. Most of the island is very wooded but my house is on a spur of beachfront.” So why was he telling her this? He didn’t sit down but stood very still in front of her, watching her, savoring her beauty.

Her brow wrinkled. “Is that the place … where I come to you? In your bedroom on Bainbridge?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

*   *   *

Havily watched him. She felt exhausted, and she’d only been in his presence a few minutes. Her emotions were all over the place, as though she’d been dumped in a washing machine and set on the agitation cycle.

She was embarrassed and humiliated by the conversation. It had never occurred to her, not once, that she might be responsible for what had been happening between them, which in turn meant that he had every right to gloat and punish.

She wanted to disappear and for a moment thought about dematerializing … anywhere. Instead she murmured, “I used to live in this part of the world, on Mortal Earth.”

He glanced out the window then back. “You did? Here in Seattle?”

She shook her head. “North. Vancouver Island. My husband and I had a farm outside Victoria, a few miles from present-day Butchart Gardens.”