Demon's Hunger (16 page)

That expression was growing on him. Just like everything else about Vivien.

Raking his fingers through his hair, he decided to tackle one thing at a time. With his gaze locked on the window of his loft, he dialed his number, waited for Vivien to answer. She grabbed it on the tenth ring.

"Vivien? We're going for a ride. Come down. I'll be waiting for you at the front doors."

Frigid silence. Not a good sign. Maybe he should have phrased that as a request.

"Vivien?"

"I'll be down when I'm down. My clothes are in the dryer." She cut the connection.

Dain was left holding a dead line. He blew out a breath, conjured his keys, and headed for the closest of his three parking slots.

With a grim smile, he slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans and did a quick rearrange, wondering why the sound of Vivien's voice, even curt and angry, had jacked him up and made him harder than stone.

A half hour later, Vivien arrived in the lobby, showered and dressed in her freshly washed and dried jeans and T-shirt. The choice had been that or the toga. She spotted the gleaming yellow Ferrari Testarossa parked right out front and didn't have a second's doubt that it belonged to Dain.

The car suited him. Expensive. Showy. Sexy as all hell, if you were into that sort of thing. She'd never thought she was; guess she'd thought wrong.

Wasn't she just the shallow creature?

The Ferrari was fifteen feet away, she figured, give or take. A quick mental pep talk primed her to face the hammer of the winter wind in nothing but her T-shirt. Shoving open the glass door of Dain's building, she sprinted the distance and threw herself into the passenger seat.

"N-nice wheels," she said through chattering teeth, looking out the front windshield rather than at Dain. She was a coward, true, and she didn't care. "Can you crank the heat?"

"You're cold," he said tersely. "Why didn't you wear a coat?"

She shot him her
duh
look.

He'd showered. Shaved. Dressed in different clothes. A blue-gray shirt that made his eyes light from within, picking up the variegated shades of pewter and silver; black jeans; and a shearling coat. He looked good all cleaned up, but she missed the dark stubble, the beat-up jeans. The hint of danger.

He turned to fully face her then, his gray eyes narrowed against the morning sun, the color startlingly bright against his dark lashes, and pinned her with a look that was a little savage, a lot sexy.

In that instant, she realized that the danger was very much there, no matter how nice he cleaned up. She shivered.

"I didn't wear a coat, because I don't
have
a coat. Or shoes." She wiggled her green-slippered feet. "Or a change of clothes. My house burned down, along with everything I owned. Remember?"

He looked like she'd slapped him. Guess he hadn't thought of that.

"Sorry, my oversight," he murmured with a tight smile. "I figured you would have grabbed one of my coats out of the closet."

Grab one of his coats. The thought of being wrapped in his clothing, the scent of him surrounding her, was incredibly intimate.

Her gaze dropped to his lips. Oh, she should not have looked at him. She definitely should not have looked at him. But the damage was done, and now she couldn't make herself look away.

"Yeah," he said, though she hadn't asked a question.

He stared at her for a moment, then gave that same grandiose gesture with his hand that she'd seen him do when he'd retrieved her missing slipper out of thin air. In an instant, her jeans and T-shirt were gone, and she was clothed in black wool slacks, stiletto boots that felt like they'd been made for her feet, and a dark green cashmere sweater under an even darker green cashmere coat.

With a gasp, she ran her hands along her arms, her waist, her thighs.

A low hiss caught her attention, and she jerked her head up to find Dain watching her, his eyes heavy-lidded, hungry. His expression made her think of the way he'd touched her on the terrace, the way he'd made her come.

It made her want him with a fevered ache, despite all the upheaval in her life, despite her frustration and anger at the way he'd abandoned her last night. And that frightened her, because her reactions to him were so overblown, so intense.
Why
?

She felt like there were two Viviens inside of her, the one she knew and someone else, someone wicked and sensual and wild. Someone she didn't know at all. And both Viviens ached for Dain, wanted him on so many levels.

With her gaze locked on his, she stroked her hand slowly up the curve of her waist, the swell of her breast. She wanted him to look at her just like that, like he was going to drag her into his lap and take her right here, right now.

She knew she was acting outrageously, felt like she was watching herself on a video, but she couldn't make herself stop. Truth be told, she didn't want to make herself stop. The interlude on the terrace last night had been like a tiny little appetizer, and she wanted the main course. Wanted to
devour
the main course.

"That color…" Dain tapped out a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel. "Yeah… that color looks good on you. It, uh, goes nicely with your hair."

She pressed her lips together against a smile, disarmed.

"Thank you." She could hear the husky quality to her voice. "These clothes are gorgeous." Classy, simple lines. High quality. Beautiful. Things she would have picked for herself—except for the high-heeled boots. Rats were more her style.

But the boots
were
stunning.

She studied him for a moment. "How do you
do
that? Can all sorcerers just… I don't know…
create
stuff out of thin air?"

"Everything comes from something, Vivien. I am a conjurer."

Well, wasn't that response just chock-full of useful information?

"Where does the magic come from? What exactly is it? How did you bring the clothes to me?" Her questions rushed together. She turned in her seat to face him. "Explain some of this to me. And while you're at it, tell me something more about demons and
hybrids
and sorcerers."

"The explanation would take far longer than the questions, but I'll give you the short version." He took a deep breath, blew it out in a quick, hard huff. "The realm of man is connected to a multitude of dimensions by an eternal river of elemental energy and its tributaries. Sorcerers call it the
continuum
, or the
dragon current
, light and dark in perfect balance. Some mortals call the tributaries
ley lines
."

"So where do sorcerers fit in?"

"We are guardians."

This was the most bizarre conversation she'd ever had. Mostly because she believed everything he was saying.

Vivien gave a short, incredulous laugh. "And demons have the same sort of magic as sorcerers?"

His lips curved, a tight, compressed smile. "No."

She blinked at the cold finality of his tone.

"But Ciarran and Darqun can do the same things as you?" she prodded.

Dain shrugged. "All sorcerers have magic. Each of us is unique in our choice of weapons and our mode of delivery. And I have no scruples about using my gifts." He sent her a wicked grin. "My comrades think me grandiose. A showman. And they're right. Ciarran is by far the most restrained. He refuses to use magic for the mundane."

"Magic for the mundane? What does that mean?"

"He would have taken the clothes off his back to warm you; he would not have conjured. He reserves his magic for guarding the realm."

Interesting. "But you don't."

"No. There's no law against it, and trust me, sorcerers are subject to a multitude of laws. I think of it like this—what's the point of being a billionaire if you don't spend your money?"

Billionaire. "That's an analogy, right?"

He didn't reply.

In a way she was glad. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Okay, but even a billionaire has a finite amount of money, right? Is your magic finite? Are there limits?"

Dain shot her a sharp glance. "There are limits. A rapid depletion of reserves can be difficult to balance."

"What would deplete a sorcerer's reserves?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, his jaw clenched. His fingers closed tightly on the steering wheel, white knuckled. Touchy subject. One he clearly wanted to avoid.

After a moment, she broke the growing silence. "So, um, my clothes, the ones I had on when I got in the car. They're the only things left from
my
stuff, from before the fire. Did you poof them into thin air, or what?"

"They're in the closet at the penthouse, Vivien."

"Good," she said, trying to get her head around all of this. "That's good."

The possibility that everything was gone, that those clothes were the only things she owned, was overwhelming. Maybe there was something left, something salvageable…

"I want to go to my house."

"No." Just that. A simple refusal, quiet, firm. He watched her, his gray eyes bright against the fan of dark, dark lashes. "It's too dangerous."

Her instinct was to rail at him, demand answers, throw open the car door and stalk off. But that was emotion pushing her to poor choices, and she'd had lots of practice at locking those away. She still didn't know the depth of the danger that stalked her, but she knew it was out there. Dain had been quite clear about that, and even if she wasn't inclined to trust him fully, she'd seen the demon with her own eyes.

"You've been there. To my house." Something in his expression, his tone, made her think it.

"Yeah, I've been there."

"What's left? Anything?" Her voice caught on the last word, mostly because she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"Vivien—"

"Just tell me." She shook her head, silently willing him to understand. "Just tell me."

He drew a slow breath, reaching across the space between them and taking her hand. Warm, strong fingers. Callused palm. She focused on that instead of on the pain in her heart.

"There are
hybrids
staking out the place. A dozen on quick count." He paused before continuing in a low tone. "Everything is gone. The house is rubble. The garage, too. Your car. The evergreens on the south side of the house."

That made her choke on a sob. Those trees had probably been a hundred years old.

She closed her eyes. What was the worst of it? The fear? The
hybrids
lurking, waiting? The loss of everything? The way her whole life had turned upside down? The fact that she was cut off from everything known and familiar? She dared not call anyone—not her mom, not her friends—because involving anyone else might put them in danger.

Dain's grasp on her hand tightened. "I'm here with you, Vivien. You're not alone."

Opening her eyes, she turned her gaze to his, found him watching her with such interest, such focus, as though there was no one else in the world but her. Her heart twisted; her throat locked.

"I can't let myself rely on that," she said. "Can't let myself rely on you. I've been a one-woman show for a very long time."

He stroked her cheek with his free hand, the most gentle touch, and she felt like she was melting, her emotions buffeting her, though she willed them back to the box she usually locked them in.

"Vivien," he said. Only that. But it was enough. Oh, God, it was enough. She thought he understood exactly how she felt, exactly how hard it was for her to let anyone in.

Leaning across the scant space that separated them, she pressed her lips to his, then drew away, back to her side of the car. Back to her own space.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He stared at her for a long moment, his expression taut, his gaze sharp. He drummed his fingers in that quick little rhythm against the steering wheel.

"I want to be inside you right now," he said bluntly, his voice a low rasp. It sounded as though the admission cost him dearly.

Jerking her head around to stare out the front window, she took a couple calming breaths, his words sending her libido flaring like a match. She ought to be appalled, but on a visceral level, she was thrilled. Enticed.

What he said, the
way
he said it, made her ache. Because, yeah, she
wanted
him inside her right now, and she didn't care if he had pretty words and romantic gestures. She just wanted him, raw and hard. And that was crazy, crazy, crazy.

She swallowed. "Glad we got that all out in the open."

The silence spun out, vast as the winter-blue sky, and the air was heavy with tension.

Swallowing, she looked down, fumbled with the seat belt until it was securely fastened. Finally, she cleared her throat, shot him a glance, and muttered, "Wherever we're going, I want coffee first."

Dain quirked a brow. "Your wish is my command."

She could think of a whole lot of ways to take that, and every one of them was naughty and raunchy, sending sweet, sharp tingles of awareness skittering through her.

Shifting into gear, Dain sent the Ferrari from zero to the speed of light in a single breath.

"Guess you never heard of defensive driving, huh?" She slapped her free hand into the grab-handle out of reflex, but relaxed after a couple of minutes. The truth was, she liked the feeling of flying along the road.

"You're okay, right?" Dain asked, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel. "You seemed a little out of it last night after we… yeah, after…"

"After you made me come?" she asked, her voice like smoke.

Dain made a strangled sound, and his jaw went rigid.

Her breath locked in her throat. God, had she just said that?

"I'm fine, Dain." Tense and ill at ease, Vivien looked out the side window, then down at her lap. "Fine."

Only she wasn't.

She was overwhelmed, sexually frustrated, exhausted despite a night's sleep, and she was afraid. Everything she had known all her life was gone—her assumptions about the world, her sense of security and success, her home, maybe her sanity.