Dark Embers (24 page)

“I think I’m going to call it a day,” she said, shoving the files into her bag so she could look at them further at home.

Quinn barely glanced up from what he was doing. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Don’t you think you should do the same?”

There was no answer.

“Quinn?”

“What?” He snapped out the word, clearly impatient.

“You look like hell. Why don’t you head home, too?”

Once again, no answer.

Frustrated with his lack of response, she stormed across the lab and turned off his monitor. He shot out of his chair with what could only be called a growl. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You need to take a break or you’re going to make yourself sick.”

“That’s not your business.”

“Sure it is. I’m your partner now, and what you do affects both of us.”

“You’ve been here almost as long as I have.”

“But I’ve grabbed a few hours of sleep here and there. My guess is you haven’t even done that. It’s been at least four days since you slept. Probably more.”

He didn’t respond, but the tightening of his mouth told her she was right on. “You’re not doing anyone any good, especially not yourself. Your brain needs time to recharge.”

“My brain needs to figure out what the hell is going on. People are dying.”

“I know that, Quinn.” She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But—”

“Jesus Christ, Phoebe, why the fuck can’t I figure this thing out?” He slammed his hands down on the granite countertop that made up his workstation. “Marta’s dead. Lana. My best friend died six weeks ago. My lover three weeks before that. And I can’t do a goddamn thing about it.”

He held up his hands like he’d never seen them before. “What the hell good is it to be a healer if I can’t fix this? What the hell good am I?”

As Phoebe watched, electric shocks seemed to zip from one of his fingers to the next, until fire shimmered in a ball between his cupped hands. She blinked, told herself she was hallucinating from lack of sleep, and looked again. Nope, the fire was still there—at least until Quinn caught her looking. Then it disappeared so quickly, she couldn’t help wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing.

Except she wasn’t the imaginative type. Facts and figures were much more her cup of tea.

She started to ask how he’d done that—after all, it wasn’t every day you saw a man conjure fire without a match—but he looked away, obviously uncomfortable with his lapse in control.

Mind racing, heart pumping, she watched the clan’s healer closely, waiting to see what else he would do. But except for the occasional foot shuffle, nothing happened that was out of the ordinary.

Silence stretched between them. “Sorry. I don’t mean to take my anger out on you.”

“You aren’t.” She moved closer to him. Though she should probably be running away after Quinn’s little display, she was much more intrigued than she was frightened. How did people do that? How had Quinn done it?

“Yeah, I am. But I wasn’t yelling at you—I’m just so damned frustrated.”

Her heart went out to him, it really did. With the exception of his little fire trick, he reminded her a lot of herself. He had a towering intellect used to solving any problem that came his way, and yet now—when it mattered most—he was clueless. It was the world she’d lived in for years as she struggled to cure her sister, to no avail.

“We will figure it out. I promise you, we will. But not if you run yourself into the ground. You’ll just end up making yourself too sick to work. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

Filled with empathy, inspired by an odd connection to this man she knew almost nothing about, Phoebe reached for one of Quinn’s hands. Held it between both of hers. “I’ve been where you are. Hell, I’m still there. I’ve worked six years to find a cure for radical strains of lupus, and I haven’t been able to do it. At some point you have to take a step back and realize you can only do what you can do.”

“Is that what you’ve done?”

She laughed. “I’m good at giving advice, not necessarily taking it.”

His hand tightened on hers. “This is killing me—watching them suffer and not being able to do anything about it. It’s like I’m being ripped apart from the inside out.”

“I know.”

He started to look away again, but she moved closer. Maintained eye contact. “I know,” she whispered.

“Maybe you do.”

That was how Dylan found them. Hands entwined, eyes locked, bodies so close they were almost resting against each other. The dragon went insane and the man didn’t fare much better.

He’d spent four days by himself when he could have been inside her, four days letting her work around the clock when she should have been spending her nights with him. And then to realize she’d been spending those nights—one way or another—with . . . Quinn?

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Quinn took one look at him and then stepped back so quickly he nearly knocked his computer off his desk, but Dylan wasn’t appeased. The man had had his hands on
his
woman. Even worse, Phoebe had been touching him back. At that moment, it didn’t matter that Quinn was one of his closest friends, one of his sentries or the best healer the clan had ever seen. All that mattered was that he had touched the woman Dylan wanted above all others.

Fire blazed to life within him, igniting so quickly that it was all he could do to keep it inside. Talons punched through his fingertips and toes, and for a moment all he could think about was blood. Quinn’s blood.

With a roar, he launched himself across the room, landing between the two of them. One shove had Quinn halfway across the room and Phoebe ensconced safely behind him.

Quinn came up off the floor like lightning, eyes narrowed and fists clenched. But he didn’t make a move. Dylan knew Quinn’s restraint had much more to do with their friendship than it did his title, but a part of him longed for the fight. Wanted it. Needed it.

Goddamnit, he would show them what happened to a man who dared lay a hand on what was his.

“Dylan!”

He growled low in his throat, advanced toward Quinn, who held his ground, after what looked like a brief debate with himself. That was fine with him—the chase was highly overrated, anyway.

“Dylan!”

His hands clenched into fists and he could feel the magic humming just below his skin, ripping through him, filling him with power.

“Damn it, Dylan! Stop acting like an idiot!” When she yanked on his T-shirt hard, Phoebe’s voice finally penetrated the rage that had narrowed the world to Quinn and him.

“I’m the idiot?” His voice was low, dark; the dragon was in full control. “What the hell have the two of you been doing here for the last few days?”

“Playing pinochle,” came the smart-ass retort. “What the hell do you think we’ve been doing?”

“Phoebe, stop.” Quinn’s voice was cautious, cautionary, and it only made the red haze worse. Who the hell was he to warn Dylan’s woman away from him? Dragon or no dragon, he would never hurt her.

“Don’t talk to her.”

“Excuse me?” Phoebe pushed out from behind him, faced him head-on. “Now you’re deciding who I can talk to? I though we settled this the other morning. I don’t take orders from anyone.”

He opened his mouth to tell her exactly whom she would take orders from, but all that came out was a feral roar. He expected her to cower, but she didn’t so much as flinch. Just glared at him with those fierce blue eyes until everything faded but his need for her.

“Come on,” he growled, fastening a hand around her wrist and yanking her toward the door. He shot a look at Quinn that told him in no uncertain terms that there would be a reckoning for touching Phoebe like he had.

She tried to dig in her heels, but the tile didn’t provide any traction. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re behaving like a wild man.”

“You’re going.” He pulled her straight through the lab and out the back door.

“No, I’m not.” She pulled her arm away, shoved at his chest, and the last choke chain he had on his control gave way with an angry, thunderous cry.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
hirling, he slammed her back against the side of the building—not with enough force to hurt, but definitely hard enough to let her know he meant business.

“This caveman thing doesn’t work for me,” she snarled.

He yanked the top of her shirt down, cupped one soft, full breast in his hand as his thumb ran over her pebbled nipple. “Liar. You want this as much as I do.”

Her hands covered his, tried to pry it away from her flesh. But the second her nails dug into his skin, Dylan roared and crashed his body against hers, his cock rock-hard and ready to explode at the next provocation.

Before he could think better of it, before he could even attempt to calm himself down, he tangled his hands in her hair and yanked. Her head hit the wall, but neither of them noticed as he ground his mouth to hers and plundered.

She tasted bittersweet—like pain and pleasure and every craving he’d ever had. Breaking away from her lips, he ran his tongue down her throat. Tore at her clothes with his hands and teeth until her shirt hung from her in shreds.

He was desperate, devastated, completely enthralled by the heat pouring off her in waves. He had to taste her, touch her, pour himself inside her until—

With a growl, he ripped the delicate pink lace bra in half and took as much of her breast in his mouth as he could manage.

“Dylan!” It was a high-pitched plea for help, for relief, but there was no relief in him. He wanted her every way he could have her, wanted to fuck her against this wall. Wanted to turn her over a chair and come at her from behind. Wanted to pound himself into her again and again, until there was no end and no beginning. Just him and Phoebe and this conflagration of need that would never burn itself out.

He released her breast, pulled back a little so that he could see her gorgeous nipples. They were the sexiest red he’d ever seen, like the rubies that gleamed at him from the floor of his cave. Tight and peaked, they begged for his attention, and he trembled with the need to devour her.

Control it
, he warned himself.
Control the need
.
Control the burn
.
Don’t hurt her
. He’d never worried about hurting another woman, but Phoebe wasn’t dragon, with his dense bones and thick skin.

He could damage her so easily.

Pulling in a deep, shaky breath, he tried to calm himself down a little. Tried to get a better hold on his beast. But everything about her was a temptation—the soft, sweet moans that came from her mouth, the way she squirmed against him, the fingernails that were even now clawing his back.

Praying his control was as good as he hoped it was, Dylan closed his teeth over her nipple. He bit her softly, then nearly came with his first taste of her sweetness. Nearly came again as her cries of pleasure echoed in his ears.

He switched to the other nipple, drew it into his mouth and rolled it between his teeth. Phoebe was moaning uncontrollably, her lithe, powerful body bucking against him with each pull of his mouth on her breast.

“Now, now, now,” she repeated the word like a litany, her back bowed, her hands tangled in his hair. He raised his head and looked at her, then stood transfixed for a moment by her incredible beauty.

“Dylan, please! Please,” she chanted, sobs racking her chest until her entire body shuddered against his.

She was close—so close that it was cruel to keep her hanging, no matter how much he wanted to take his time. Lifting her up with one hand, he shot a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching him.

Then muttered a quick spell that winked out the two parking lot lights closest to them. There was no way he could make it back to the house with her, but he’d be damned if any of his clan mates would get the chance to see Phoebe nude and lost to passion. He’d kill them first.

He snarled at the thought, then yanked her pants down and off before sinking to his knees in front of her. Putting a hand on each thigh, he spread her open so he could see her.

She opened her legs willingly, and his cock jerked at his first sight of her, red and glistening and incredibly hot. Though it nearly killed him to drag his eyes away from her beautiful core—the very heart of her—he did so, because he wanted to see her eyes when he took her.

Lifting his head, he grabbed her chin in his hand. Tilted her head down until their eyes locked. Hers were hot with desire, blazing with need, bluer than he had ever seen them. Keeping his gaze level with hers, he used his thumbs to spread her wide open. Then he leaned forward and took her with his mouth.

Phoebe came with the first touch of Dylan’s tongue to her clit, waves of sensation rocketing through her. A part of her wanted to fight, to tell him that he couldn’t settle every disagreement they had with sex. But he felt so good, she couldn’t make herself say the words. Hell, with the condition she was in, she probably wouldn’t even be able to form them.

Her head fell back against the wall, her eyelids fluttering closed as pleasure overwhelmed her.

He wrenched his mouth away from her core. “No!” he barked, and it was an order she didn’t dare disobey. “Look at me while I take you. I want to see your eyes when I make you come.”