Collector's Item (10 page)

She’s alpha
, Max said.

She’s a princess, and I’m not interested
, Peyton said.

Yes, you are.

Ham’s last comment penetrated and Peyton sat up. “What?”

Outside, a man asked KT for identification.

Ham frowned. “Torne’s a nasty customer. I don’t want any surprises.”

KT stepped through the doorway and stopped when she saw Peyton wasn’t alone. “Oh. I’m sorry.” She looked from Peyton to Ham. “Am I interrupting something?”

Peyton could practically hear the defenses slamming into place around her as the KT he knew disappeared into a poised politico. Her smile cooled to take on a high-profile gloss while her dark gaze measured the stranger in front of her. Her shoulders tightened, her balance shifted, settled. En garde.

Ham swept his hat off his head and under one arm as he stepped around the bed to hold out his hand. “I’m Colonel Brilling of the Protectorate and, no, Ms. Marant, you’re not interrupting anything.”

KT shook Ham’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Colonel. My father speaks highly of your leadership of this investigation.”

She dropped his hand and crossed her arms over her chest, the motion speaking volumes of her private insecurity. “Have you heard anything about Torne or my Aunt Patricia?”

Ham shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Marant, I have nothing new, but we’re working on it.” He turned back to Peyton. “I’ll speak to you later. I’ve got a few more visits to make before I head back to headquarters.”

Peyton winced inwardly at the additional gleam in Ham’s gaze. Instead, he returned to Ham’s earlier comment and glared at his friend. “I don’t think a guard is necessary, Ham.”

“Well, I do, and I outrank you.” Ham turned enough that KT wouldn’t see him as he waggled his eyebrows at Peyton. “I’ll check back later.”

Unwilling to respond to Ham’s obvious goading, Peyton’s fingers clenched in his sheets, and Ham’s smile broadened. He turned to give a short bow to KT. “Again, a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Marant.”

“Thank you, Colonel Brilling.”

KT watched Ham leave before turning back to Peyton. “He seems nice, for an officer. A friend of yours?”

Peyton wondered about the first part of her comment, but stuck with the question. “My superior.”

“And a friend. He’s worried about you.” KT pushed the door slightly closed before she crossed the room and pulled off her coat to drape it over the back of the chair. “Father said they’re sending teams to search Torne’s properties.” She sat on the edge of the seat. “He’s going to call me as soon as he hears something.”

“Your father is well-informed.”

“He’s Anton Marant.” KT said it as if that explained everything, and Peyton had to admit that perhaps it did. She slid her hands down the fabric of her jeans, the nervous movement removing the last traces of the professional image she’d presented to Ham. Her smile relaxed along more natural lines and her shoulders loosened.

She looked at him. “Did you rest well? You look better, sharper.”

“Amazing what a good night’s rest and a shave can do.”
A man could lose himself in eyes that dark and that open.
“Doc said just one more day and I’m out of here.”

KT’s gaze flickered before she looked away. “That’s good. I’m sure you’re raring to get back into the hunt.”

Peyton grunted. “Damn fool doctors. I should have been out of here today.”

“Well, I suspected confinement would be getting to you, so I have a proposition for you.” She turned and dug through the pockets of her coat. The fabric of her shirt pulled tight across her torso, emphasizing the lines of her body.

Don’t!
Peyton caught Max before he could respond, though the jag’s reaction only echoed his own.

KT straightened and held up an unopened pack of cards and two rolls of pennies. “I thought we’d wait together. I can’t stand sitting in the penthouse all day wondering, and I’m sure you’re not a daytime soaps fan. So, do you play?”

She bent her head and ran one fingernail along the seam to split the cellophane. A lock of blue-black hair fell forward to mask her face, the dark mass of waves accented the ivory curve of her cheek.

He fought off a desire to reach out and push the hair aside. He settled for a quick laugh. “I’m a soldier. Of course, I play cards. Question is, do you play blackjack?”

She looked up and smiled, a flash of white that shot straight to his groin. “Not yet.”

Chapter Ten

Morning stretched into afternoon, nurses bustled in and out of Peyton’s room doing annoying nurse things, and still, no word.

KT resisted the urge to glance at her phone, again. What was taking so long? She compared her cards, an ace and a deuce “in the hole” with four and ten showing, to Peyton’s seven showing and then tapped the rolling tray table once.

Peyton flipped a card over. “Nine of spades. Busted.”

He set the deck aside to slide the pile of pennies to his side of the table. “You’re about the worst blackjack player I’ve ever had the pleasure of fleecing.”

“Whatever happened to beginner’s luck?” KT muttered. She gathered up the cards and began to shuffle. She hated losing, but she knew it was due more to being distracted than to bad luck. How could she hope to master the game when she was torn between her concern about her aunt and the battle to ignore her irrational attraction for the man in front of her?

She tried to keep her gaze focused on the cards as she shuffled them instead on the man on the bed beside her. Nothing could be less sexy than a man wearing a ridiculous hospital gown, right? But the fabric stretched tight across his shoulders only accented their width, and the short sleeves barely contained his upper arms, the muscles sliding beneath his tanned skin with every move. Even the drape of the sheet outlined the length of his legs. She snapped her attention back to the cards. Thankfully the rolling table was positioned across his lap, saving her from making a total fool of herself.

Watching his fingers putting the pennies in neat stacks on his side of the table only made her remember the feel of those fingers, warm and strong, wrapped in her hair outside the hanger the other night. She had wanted so badly to rub her cheek against his palm to inhale his scent, but now, just as then, the thought was ridiculous. He wasn’t interested in any high-blood princess as he’d told her in the apartment. The scorn in his voice still burned.

And yet, thanks to her hormones, and Andi’s insistence, she kept wondering. She muffled a sigh and once more focused on the cards in her hands.

The tinny imitation of a jaguar’s coughing roar erupted from her cell phone, the special ringtone she had assigned to her father’s number. She slapped the deck down on the top of the rolling tray table and snatched up her phone. “Finally!”

She slid the cover open and clicked on the text message from her father.
Ranch searched. Patricia not found. Torne still out there. Come home.

Andi’s snort of vindication scraped along KT’s nerves as she slid the cover back and picked up the cards. She felt the weight of Peyton’s gaze through a sudden mental fog. It couldn’t be true! She wanted to deny it, but she knew it, had known it since the night at the hangar. Still, the sense of betrayal pierced like ice and splintered all her memories of her aunt into something unrecognizable.

“So?”

She took a careful breath before she met Peyton’s stare and shook her head. “She wasn’t there. She’s gotta be in it with him.” KT started to shuffle the cards, but they shot out of her hands to fly all over Peyton’s bed and onto the floor. “Shit!”

Before she could bend over to collect the cards, Peyton pushed the table aside and grabbed her arms. Startled, she looked up and her throat tightened at the expression in his eyes. It almost looked like he was worried for her.

She wasn’t going to embarrass herself like that. She sat up and shook her head. A lifetime of training kept a calm expression on her face and steadied her voice. “I’m fine, Peyton.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, pulling her closer.

She resisted, but only for a moment. She wanted the comfort he offered. “You’ll hurt yourself,” she said though she let him pull her up onto the side of his bed.

“I think not.” He released her hands and wiped away a tear she hadn’t realized she’d shed. “I know you hoped, but you never really doubted what you saw, did you?”

She swiped at the betraying moisture. “No, but, damn it! I don’t understand it.”

Peyton grunted as he pushed himself away from his pillows to lean closer. “You never will, even if she tried to explain it to you.” His voice carried all his anger, his disgust. “She gave, probably sold, paranormals, her own people, to Torne for sport. You’ll never truly understand it, because you’d never do that. You’re a Marant. Marants are born leaders and protectors of their people.”

KT tried not to hear the shift in his voice when he spoke of her family, the unconscious distance that opened in the fragile connection they had begun to build over her lessons in cards. She wanted to hear the friendly banter they had developed ease into something deeper, warmer.

“As are the Protectors,” she said. Without conscious thought, her gaze dropped to his mouth, his lips so strong and firm, the clean edge of his chin. He had shaved off two days of stubble before she arrived and, she snuck a tiny sniff, he still smelled of shaving cream.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would deal with the pain of her aunt’s betrayal.

Today, her desire for this man rose up to overwhelm her caution. She had to leave tomorrow morning, and she suspected that if she left without posing the question, she would always wonder.

She took another breath, a long deep breath. The scent of him rushed through her, the warm scent of clean skin with the hint of fur—Peyton. She leaned forward to put her hands on the mattress on either side of his hips to support her weight and brought herself closer still, forcing him back against the pillows. Her gaze traveled from his chin, along the lean planes of his cheeks, the aggressive hook of his nose, and was caught by the flare in the depths of his light brown eyes.

“And aren’t you my own personal Protector?” Her lips touched his on the last word. She pressed a tentative kiss against his lips. He lay still beneath her, his mouth accepting her kiss, his lips warm against hers before his hands gently pushed her back.

Frightened she may have overstepped, her eyes flew open and she searched his face, his eyes. The kiss, short as it had been, felt so right, his lips had tasted so good. Would he rebuff her again; call her a “princess” again?

Passion, hot and molten, turned his eyes golden and her doubts to ashes. His hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her to him until his mouth captured hers. Like the man, Peyton’s kiss didn’t compromise; his lips demanded a response. She surrendered with a guttural purr as his tongue pressed past her lips to tangle with hers.

His hands moved from her shoulders, down and around her back. His fingers clutched at the fabric of her shirt at the base of her spine, his desire heating her skin like a bonfire. His lips moved from her mouth to her neck, then up to where he explored the sensitive whorls of her ear, his breath loud and hot on her skin.

“I knew it,” he murmured. “You taste as good as you look.”

Her pulse pounded through her veins, her skin growing almost transformation-hot beneath his kisses. She threw back her head, as his mouth travelled along the length of her neck. Arching her back, she bit her lip to muffle the moans rumbling in her throat, her hands bunching the bed sheet beneath them. Peyton growled against her skin at the opening of her shirt, the sound skittered along her nerve-endings like the glitter of sparklers.

His hands roamed her back to slide into her hair, his fingers splayed across the back of her head just as she had imagined. His touch on her scalp soothed and excited her at the same time, warm and warmer still.

One of his hands slid down and around to cup her breast, bringing another moan to her throat. His fingers danced over the fabric, teasing her sensitive nipple before sliding toward the buttons of her shirt. She had a moment’s concern, but his fingers deftly freed the buttons and slipped into her bra, seeking her nipple, erect and aching for his touch.

She bent forward, to nuzzle his head as his mouth sought to follow his hand. When his lips closed around her nipple, she gasped and sighed. Leaning aslant on one hand, she lifted the other to run through the length of his hair, marveling at the softness of a man she had thought so hard.

As if he sensed something of her thoughts, Peyton’s kisses shifted to teasing nips that somehow managed to combine pain with pleasure. Her hand slid down to his shoulder and tightened in an involuntary paroxysm of pleasure.

His grunt of pain yanked her upright with a gasp of shock and concern. “Oh my god, Peyton. I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head and tried to pull her close again, but she held him off, careful to brace her hand where she knew he was unharmed.

“We have to stop.”

“Like hell,” he growled and pressed against her hand, but she locked her elbow.

“No.” She drew a shaky breath and stared at him, putting all her determination in her gaze. “You were shot three times and have just been through hours of surgery. You should be resting.”

He pulled her hand away from his chest and leaned forward. “I don’t need rest. I need you.” No sooner were the words out his mouth than they both froze. He drew back, his golden gaze brilliant as sunlight.