Hunted Warrior (23 page)

The young man, who looked worse than hungover, switched to his halting English. “The man. Said there were keys.”

“I don't know anything about a man.” She dangled a key ring—the one to Mal's town car. The flash of clinking metal wouldn't hold up under closer inspection, but the man remained confused and unwilling to keep arguing. “Now out of my way, please,” she finished, pushing past him and into the building.

She walked up a narrow flight of stairs and waited at the second landing, listening. The young man grumbled with what sounded like Italian curses and slammed his door on the ground floor. She pulled a pin from her hair and searched the apartments. Picking locks had become somewhat of a specialty when she had checked on fragile patients Dr. Aster had insisted were beyond hope. Avyi had needed to know for certain, touching them, seeing the inevitable for herself. Never once had the doctor been wrong, but she'd tried every time.

Knock. Pick. Enter. Repeat.

Each was occupied except for a room on the third floor, which seemed to be set up as a bed-and-breakfast. There was a small kitchenette, furnishings, and a stack of city maps. A small makeshift souvenir area with miniatures of the Duomo and postcards featuring night views of the city took up one corner of the small living room. Three bedrooms were each outfitted with their own locks. A sign-in sheet was clipped by magnet to the refrigerator, and a calendar of guests' comings and goings hung beside it.

As did the keys.

Perfect.

She ran down to the foyer and opened the door for Mal. He examined the bed-and-breakfast with an expression of frank approval. “The best no money can buy.”

“That must be a new concept for you.”

He flashed his magnetic blue eyes without apology. “We can't help how we were raised,” he said. “Neither of us. Good or ill. It affects every perspective.”

“Did any of your perspectives imagine breaking in to spend the night as . . .” She checked the itinerary. “The Grovers from Chicago?”

“No. Your predictions?”

“Not a hint.” They locked themselves in one of the guest rooms. It was much larger than Avyi had imagined, considering the small, tidy nature of the kitchen and dining area. A double bed. A wide-screen TV. A full bathroom. She took the bow and arrow from him, wincing at a surge of promise that drove into her marrow, and hid them safely in a closet. Then she flopped on the bed. “I'm impressed. We did well.”

He crossed his arms, staring down at her. “Why did you agree with me? To come here and do this?”

Avyi didn't like the grim curve of his mouth. She wanted a smile at least. If he smiled, so would she. That might take some doing, because although she was being watched by the most potent man she'd ever known, she was also being watched by the man who had the farthest to go to reach his full potential—his best, most powerful self. The leader that existed within the Honorable Giva had not yet matured. Believing her was the first step. Now she wanted to make love to the champion he would become—fearless, faultless, relentless.

“Just like you said. Because I want to.”

CHAPTER

M
al watched as Avyi undressed without ceremony, but not without the awareness of his eyes as he stared, riveted. Her sidelong glances were equal parts tease and uncertainty. He liked both emotions. Although they had already made love twice, they would do so now with intention. Despite the electric kiss they'd shared while pressed against the wrought-iron gate, they were calmer now. More deliberate. The encounter promised to be slower and more intimate. Mal practically steeled himself for that, so strong was his connection to the woman coming to be.

At last, he could see the skin she bared to afternoon sunlight that entered through the twin windows on either side of the double bed. Nothing was concealed from him now. He wanted to see her. Ached to see her. They needed privacy away from terrible deeds and memories that wouldn't ever leave them be.

Maybe they could set them aside, if only for a few hours.

She stretched, languorously, and with a smile, rubbed her hair into a tangled mess, as if she'd already been thoroughly ravished. “As much as I'm looking forward to this, it will be good to get it out of the way.”

“Get it out of the way?”

“So we're not trapped by it anymore.”

Mal frowned as he turned the blinds and shut the curtains. “Trapped?”

“We can dispense with one of our fixed points and move on, so . . .” Her bra dropped to the floor, and she stepped out of her panties. “We get it over with. Prediction fulfilled. No guideposts to tell you and me where to go next. We choose, with no more obligation.”

He knew he heard her speaking, and on some level he registered the words as being sensible, if not mercenary, but he was beyond true conscious thought when looking at Avyi. She was naked. Pert, small breasts were tipped with nipples a shade darker than her golden-pale skin. She had no markings. Not even Dr. Aster had left behind physical proof of his abuse.

“Don't you think?”

As if lured, Mal moved to within arm's reach. “Thinking has stopped.”

“I'll consider that a compliment.”

“Meant as one.”

He pulled her closer, with his hands at her waist. “You're beautiful.”

With a slight frown, she tensed.

Mal was going to lose his mind within minutes, and he was going to do so with a bone-dry mouth and a throbbing hard-on. “Why the frown?” he managed to choke out.

“Beautiful. It's beneath you. I know you can do better.”

Mal grinned, then let it disappear just as quickly. “You make me want to try. To sacrifice. To believe the impossible.”

“All because I took my clothes off?” She stood plainly before him, no crouching posture, no sensuous pose. Just the thin lines of her limbs, the breasts that hinted at a deeper femininity than her slim hips, and a small black thatch of private hair she didn't bother to hide. She didn't hide anything. Her expression said,
I dare you to look away
.

“Because you brought us here,” he said. “
We
brought us here.”

“It's just life. Good or bad. And you know this will be good.”

“Good? I know you can do better.”

He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled off his belt. Every piece of clothing that was flung onto the floor added to a sense of shedding his skin. He was the Giva, and he was a man who was finding his way. Even his body seemed to be cooperating with his newfound sense of inner determination, because his ankles were healing at record speed. Was it because he was using his power more frequently? Because he simply couldn't be hindered by weakness, now or ever?

There was no knowing what to do when so much was already in motion, especially the moment when he and Avyi lay facing one another, completely bared.

Avyi stretched her arms toward him, her expression softer than he could have imagined of the woman everyone else still thought of as the Pet. “Come show me.”

She snapped her fingers, where sparks of static flickered like miniature fireworks. He'd already given her those bursts of power from what he struggled to contain. “Enjoy my body, Malnefoley. Let me enjoy yours.”

He nodded, resting his forehead against her stomach, reveling in the soft way she stroked the back of his neck. She had sure hands, finding places of tension and working them to nothingness. He was aroused to a staggering degree. A great deal of it had to do with curiosity. She
was
beautiful. But her mysteries flipped his brain. Their previous encounters were preludes to these moments. When she'd predicted them together, had she known how they would kiss? What position they'd assume? How they would reach the conclusion of their passion?

No. Those weren't fixed points. He liked that. When it came to these intimate moments, they still had free will.

She wrapped her hands around Mal's shaft with such swift assurance that he hissed his shocked pleasure. “Damn, Avyi. You go so fast.”

“We make the rules now.”

He stared down at her, to where her eyes shone with unearthly beauty. Her skin was aglow with pale gold, as if her veins pulsed with the energy he consumed, amplified, released. “If you were making the rules, how would you want this?”

With two fast strokes, she threw her head back and laughed. Mal couldn't decide which had unmanned him more thoroughly—the rough, sensual treatment of his cock or the unexpected melody of her laughter. “I want you any way I can get you,” she said. Then, with more tenderness, she lifted her head off the pillow just enough to kiss his forehead. “That's how it's been since we met.”

She clenched him hard, setting a rhythm he enjoyed too much. He groaned and dropped his face between her breasts, kissing and gasping against her skin. “I want it like this,” she said against the top of his head. “With your big hands on my ass. With your mouth on my breasts. Until neither of us will stand for anything less than magnificent.”

“With the pace you're setting, magnificent won't last long.”

“Your tornado tempers don't last long either. They tear the heavens in two and leave everyone utterly amazed, even terrified.” Without gentleness, she pulled his prick until he bowed his hips toward hers. She notched his engorged, aching head where she was wet, hot, and just as eager. There, she waited. “I'm not terrified, Mal. Not about this. But I do want to be amazed.”

*  *  *

Avyi looked into his storm-cloud-blue eyes and wondered just what she'd invited. Mal's moods were unpredictable in ways she was just beginning to comprehend. This was the pinnacle of sorts, but she'd only ever envisioned the aftermath. They would be tangled together, sweaty, satisfied. Nothing else was guaranteed. At the moment when the future would change between them, she wanted promises. Promises that neither of them could make.

So she concentrated on Mal, on his tension and the energy that literally thrummed in his blood, humming, making him even more extraordinary.

He tipped to the side and cupped her face in his hands, kissing, kissing oh so deeply, with so much passion. They were strikes of flint, flinging sparks, shooting off fireworks and sending lightning across the sky. He made her feel those images rather than see them. Her skin tingled where he touched. He was ahead of her every time. She'd want his hand on her breast, and he would already have his palm opened wide across her sensitive flesh. She'd crave the wet suck of his mouth against her throat, and he would already be tasting, nipping, inhaling her scent and whispering her name. Avyi. Her name—his claim on her, in a way that no one ever had exerted, and never would again.

She lay belly to belly with him, pushed into the mattress by his firm body. He grabbed her thigh and brought it up and over his flank. The sound he growled just beneath her jaw was untamed and possessive. Whoever he was outside of this room, or high above the Chasm when arguing with stubborn politicians—that was gone. He was ramping up faster, with more intensity, his hands everywhere and his mouth following.

“You stopped gripping me,” he rasped.

“You seemed convinced this would end too quickly.”

“I changed my mind.”

He took hold of her wrist and pushed it between their bodies. Their fingertips knotted in a fist around his shaft, which was fuller and heavier than before. Avyi moaned and closed her eyes. He was going to fill her. More than that, he was going to fill her over and over, until the pressure of his thrusts was all she knew, all she wanted.

“Yes,” she said on a long, hissing exhalation. “More.”

“Greedy.”

“So are you.”

“Yes.” He moved her hand with his, up and down, until their flesh created rhythmic, erotic sounds in that still bedroom. “You make me crazy. You . . .
strip
me.”

“I want you stripped. Nothing else comes between us now.”

Mal grinned against her cheek. “Not much room for that.”