Dead of Eve (47 page)

We left the steep mountains of Corsica and sailed around Capraia. I stood opposite Michio on the yacht’s port quarter and narrowed my eyes at him. The combination of the open sea and the perspiration beading on his hulking frame made me dizzy and restless.

Two days on the boat, rife with sexual tension. All three of us felt it. I didn’t have a clue how to approach it. So, I did what I always did and escaped to the bathroom. The loss of my bullet only fueled my frustration.

“Evie. It’s important that you press your free hand into your opponent’s throat when you’re locking the arm. Try again.”

I’d asked Michio to teach me the arm bar he used against my flower technique. The one that put my hand so temptingly close to his groin and my submission to the head. After forty-five minutes, however, I regretted the request. I couldn’t drag my thoughts away from the ache between my legs or the brooding priest polishing his sword a few feet away.

His honey curls glinted red in the sun and lifted in the breeze. Each time I stole a glance, the corner of his mouth pinched, but his eyes remained on his sword. Damn, damn, damn the stubborn bastard.

I lunged. My forearm slid over Michio’s chest. I swept my leg behind his. The mountain didn’t move. The momentum sent me hurtling past and head first over the side.

His arm stopped my legs from following and hauled me to his chest. I slumped in his embrace and squeezed my thighs together. Time for that bathroom break.

“Evie.” Michio’s rasp tickled my ear. “Go talk to him.”

I cocked my hip and tilted my head. “You go talk to him.”

His lips twitched. “I’m the problem, Evie. And as long as I’m in his face, this standoff isn’t going anywhere. And you need to work it out while on the boat, safe from danger. Rekindle whatever you had, do whatever you do with a celibate priest, down in the stateroom where I don’t have to watch.”

I leaned back, brows arched.

He brushed his lips over my gaping mouth. His heady, exotic taste overrode the salty air. “That’s a heavy emphasis on celibate, Evie. Bold, italicized, and underlined.”

“Michio—”

“Go before I pound my chest.”

I would’ve kissed him again if I wasn’t already moving. I skidded past Roark and met his eyes. Then I ran to the stateroom.

The door crashed behind me. Roark leaned against it and dragged in a breath that shuddered the naked muscles in his chest, his neck drawn in an iron sinew.

He uncurled his massive body, jade eyes blazing through fallen curls, and stalked toward me. “I’m sorry”—his palms captured my face—“for this.”

His tongue pushed into my mouth. I caught it between my lips and sucked.

Fingers stabbed through my hair, tilting my head the angle he wanted. My feet arched on tiptoes as I stretched to meet him.

“I missed ye so much,” he said at my lips, “I can’t stop this.”

Oh no.
Stop
was on my tongue, but his swept it away. Oak and chocolate filled my mouth. Desire pooled between my thighs. Didn’t I learn last time?

I shoved his chest. “Talk, Roark. That’s why we’re here.”

Strong fingers yanked my waist toward the bed. He fell with me, pinned me with his hips.

“We’ll talk like this.” His brogue was deep and very male.

I groaned. “No way.”

His thumb bit into my bottom lip, parted it. His mouth opened over mine, hovered. “Talk.”

“What is this?” I rocked against his erection.

A rumble vibrated low in his throat. “Ye know what that is.”

“No. You doing
this
.” I punctuated
this
with a snap of my hips.

He ground me into the bed, his belt buckle digging into my pelvis. “This is me loving ye the only way I can.”

Oh, my fickle priest. What did I do with that answer? I crunched the muscles in my core and lifted to meet him. “Then this is me loving you back.” Knowing it would only end in more pain.

Our hips rolled together, found the right spot, the right pace. I gave myself over to the sensations, the solace of his touch, the pull of our bodies rubbing and climbing together.

“There. Right there.” I clung to his shoulders, consumed by his mouth.

His grinding hips slowed. One twist. Two. His body shook and he threw back his head, eyes squeezed shut. “Unghhh.”

Seeing him like that, losing himself to something as simple as dry humping, it pushed me over. I screamed out my release.

He clamped a hand over my mouth and laughter bellowed from his chest. “I hate to quiet ye, love, but knowing wha’ those cries do to me, it’d be a bugger to stir up the same reaction from the wankers on deck.”

“Kiss me then,” I murmured through his fingers. And damn, he did in a frantic feasting. Open-mouthed and urgent, his chin scratched against mine. Then he tilted his head, deepened the feeding. His hands moved over my neck, my breasts, down my thighs, always returning to knead my ass.

He raised his head, looked down at me. “Ye den’ know how bad I’ve been gummin’ to do this.” His nose traced the length of mine. “I’ve been a right perv thinking about us a’ it.”

I licked his swollen lips. “I missed you, too. This shit with your vow, with Michio”—I hugged him, poured my heart in it—“it fucking hurts.”

“I promise ye, I’ll bind me soul to Satan for a thousand years in a bottomless pit if it means you’ll never hurt again.”

Those jade eyes bored into me with such stark focus that my mouth went dry and my bones softened. “Then stop fucking me around. You chose your vow. Yet here you are. Again.”

He dropped his forehead to mine. “There’s a balance between reason and faith. I’m going arseways about it, but I’ll find it. Ye wait in that balance. I need ye, Evie.”

“I don’t know about the balance, but you can have me without the orgasm.”

He groaned. “Right ye are. I survived thirty-three years without one. One buck with ye and I’m banjaxed beyond all help.”

“Voodoo vagina.”

He burst out laughing. I could get high off that sound. “Lay this out for me. Tell me how you see us going forward.”

“I see ye leaving me with me head hanging like Beelzebub’s ball sac.”

I gasped. “Never that.”

Our lips collided in more laughter.

“This.” He held my face between his hands. “This is how I see us, Evie.”

My smile filled my face and tingled through my body. “Okay.”

“Hold that thought.” He rolled off me and jogged to the bathroom. The water turned on, turned off. Then he returned with a scrap of paper and a pen in hand. “We’re going to define our physical relationship. Our limits in regards to me relationship with God and your…other relationships.”

My brow wrinkled. “My other relationships? Michio?”

“And the Lakota.”

“Oh. We’re not like that.”

A laugh cascaded from his perfect lips. “Your arse and parsley. I spent a rake of time with that mentaller. He’s lost the rag over ye.”

Another Jesse puzzle to sort out. I wanted him with a heart already divided between two others. It felt wrong to love three men. But it felt more wrong not too. “Let’s focus on us. You want to negotiate our relationship?”

“Our physical relationship.” He joined me on the bed, facing me. “I wen’ hurt ye again. I can make this work if we’re on the same page.” He nodded to the paper.

The desperation in his eyes and the plea in his expression would make me do just about anything. “Why are we writing this down? Just tell me what you want.”

“So one answer wen’ sway the other.”

We sat cross-legged, knees to knees, heads down. I scrawled my only requirement and passed it to him, face down.

When he finished writing his on the other side, he pulled me into his lap and leaned against the headboard. The paper quivered in his hand.

I kissed his bottom lip. “You’re nervous?”

He kissed me back. “Bloody terrified.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

The paper floated to my lap. “Read them aloud.”

I flipped to his elegant penmanship. “You want to maintain your relationship with God by refraining from intercourse.” I looked up. “I already know this. This is what you were fretting over?”

A swallow bobbed his throat. “It’s what’s not on there. I want everything else, love. The holding, the touching, the kissing—”

“The ejaculating in your boxers.”

A quirk touched his lips.

“I’m pretty sure just thinking about any of those things breaks your vow.”

His thumb meandered over my knee. “I’m redefining me relationship with God. By refraining from the temptation of intercourse, by touching your fit body everyday knowing I’ll never fully have ye, I’m still holding back a part of me self for Him. He understands me need to be physically comforted by ye amidst this devastating world. And He understands I’m still making a huge sacrifice. You’re me biggest temptation, Evie. I promise, this will be a continual test of me faith.”

“Fair enough.”

“And your limit?”

I turned the paper over and held it up. “Accept my sexual relationship with Michio. My open affection with him. I won’t be sneaking off to make out in dark corners.”

His thumb jerked on my leg. “Nor will I. And all you’re other relationships?”

“I told you—”

“You’re the only woman in the world, love. There will be others.” His arms went around me and he pressed a kiss into my hair. “We have our terms.”

“That’s it? After your possessive display yesterday?”

He pulled me closer. “I thought your relationship with Michio meant the end of ours. It scared me.”

“He hasn’t barged in yet. Admit you misjudged him and behaved like a belligerent child.”

“Right.” His smile was back. Maybe it would stay put. But as he rolled me over and buried his face in my neck, I wondered if Michio would sympathize with Roark’s new definition of celibacy.

That night, a hum tingled low in my belly. I opened my eyes. Michio’s steady breath brushed the top of my head. Roark’s chest rose and fell against my back.

The buzz increased, spiraled up my spine. I raised my head and rubbed my eyes. A black figure blotted out the middle of the room. The shape expanded, stretched sideways.

My heart thundered in my ears. I blinked, adjusted my eyes to the dark. My throat closed up.

Transparent wings spread from wall to wall. Onyx eyes drank in the shadows. Lips curled back and fangs extended. “Now we finish where we left off, Eveline.”

I am not afraid… I was born to do this.

Joan of Arc

All at once, I was alone in the bed. The clash of steel on wood rang out. Shadows writhed in the doorway and moved out of the room.

I jolted up and barreled into the cabinet that housed the carbine.

Empty clip. Next clip. Empty. Shit. I grabbed the USP, ejected the mag. A strip of brass peeked out. Adrenaline surged. I chambered a round, pivoted, elbows locked, and lined up the sights.

Roark leaned over his sword, chest heaving. And the Drone….

“Where is he?” He couldn’t be far. I ran through the door and crashed into Michio.

His arms enfolded me, his staff nudging my back. “He’s gone.”

“His wings. Did you see—”

“Yes.” He tucked my head under his arm. “He flew away.”

“I didn’t dream that? He can fly?” My voice pitched on the last word.

His other arm hooked around my waist, pulled me closer. “Yes,” rattled from his chest, against my face.

I jerked from his hold, heart racing, and skin crawling. Slivers of wood jabbed my feet as I darted back to the cabinet. “We’re surrounded by water. No messenger bugs. How did he find us?” If he could find me on a boat in the Ligurian Sea, he could find me anywhere.

The Drone’s right hand man, member of the Shard, doctor with a hypothesis for everything, stared at me, eyes blank.

Not good. “Obviously, he learned our route. But how—” No, no, no. The hungry guards, the dungeon, meat hooks, torture. My hand went to my breast, to the turquoise stone there. “Oh God…Jesse.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Evie.” Michio’s knuckles blanched around his staff. Steel spikes protruded from the end. No blood.

The tip of Roark’s sword dug into the teak floor, its sharp edge clean as well.