by Nora Roberts
“Let’s call it a draw,” he suggested, lowering his head.
Her hand shot out, wedged between them. “There can be no mouth on mouth. This is not permitted.”
“Kisses are illegal in your world?”
“A kiss is a gift.” Now it was she who was breathless, from the press of his body, from the knowledge that his lips were nearly upon hers. “One given in promise between those who mate.”
“I had mating in mind.”
“No, joining. Joining is . . . sport. Mating is for life.”
He wanted that mouth, as much as he wanted to breathe. And he wanted her to give it to him. “In this world a kiss is a sign of trust, affection, love, friendship. All manner of things. When a man and a woman join here, a kiss is a part of the union. A pleasurable part. You’ve never kissed a man?”
“I’ve made no promise to a man with my lips.”
Make one to me, he thought. “Let me show you the way it’s done in my world.” He brushed his lips over her cheek. “Let me have your mouth, Kadra.”
The hand separating them began to tremble. “I can take no lifemate.” She felt his breath on her lips, warm, seductive. “It is not permitted for a slayer in my world.”
“This is here. This is now.” He closed his hand over the one she still held to his heart. “Let me be the first. Let me be the only.”
She could have resisted. She had the strength, and though she could feel it melting, she still had the will. But his lips were so lovely, so soft against her skin. The glide of them was like all the promises that could never be given.
And her own lips yearned.
His world, she thought as she yielded. She was in his world now.
Their lips met, silkily. And her breath rushed out in shock at the sensation. The intimacy, the sweet flavor, the smooth slide of tongue against tongue were more potent than any brew she had ever sipped.
With one drink, she was drunk on him.
“Again,” she demanded, and dragged him down by the hair until mouth ravaged mouth.
He had thought a kiss a simple thing, just another part of the mating dance. But with her he was whirled into the glory of it. He sank deep into her, and deeper still, until the taste of her was a craving in his belly.
I’ve waited for you, she thought, bowing her body to his—a body that ached for his hands. How could I have waited for you when I didn’t know you existed? How could I have needed you when you were never there?
But when his hands moved over her, she knew it was true. All the passion that was in her blood, all the passion newly discovered, she gave to him.
She was a fantasy come to life. All curves and sleek skin. Urgent hands and avid mouth. She raged beneath him, demanding more even as he gave. She was a feast who commanded him to feed.
Now when they wrestled, their breath was ragged and their skin damp. The mouth that had conquered hers rushed everywhere, tasted all of her.
When she crested, it was like a wave rising up inside her, spilling out on a throaty cry and pouring into him.
She rose above him, as she had in dreams. Woman, warrior, lover. She took him into her, closed around him, and throwing her head back, rode.
Joined, he thought dimly as his blood pounded. Everything inside him was joined with her.
He reared up, banding his arms around her, fusing his mouth to hers as they took each other over the brink.
6
NO joining had ever been so intense or so pleasurable. None had caused her to feel this mysterious sensation that was beyond the physical. Nor to find herself both conquered and victorious.
Bards spoke of such unions, but she had never believed the words were more than romantic delusion.
And they were joined still, she realized. Wrapped tight, fused like two links in one chain. This was more than sport, she thought. She didn’t wish it to end.
She rubbed her lips together, experimenting. His taste was still there—his flesh, yes—but it was more. His mouth, the intimacy of the kiss that had been like . . . feeding each other. She hadn’t known such matters could have such heat, and yet be tender.
She had never known tenderness, nor had she believed she required it.
Small wonder that in the world she knew, a mouth kiss was reserved for lifemates and was part of the sacred vows that stretched for all time.
If he lived in her world, or she in his, could there have been a lifetime between them?
Thinking it brought such a pang, such a wrench of longing. She was a slayer, she reminded herself, and he a seeker. They could walk the same path only until their battle was won. Then they, like their worlds, would stand apart.
But until their time was ended, she could have what she could take.
“I like the kissing,” she said, sliding her hands into his hair as she eased back to see his face. “I would like to do more if there’s an opportunity to join again.”
“Kissing isn’t just for joining.” Still lost in her, still steeped in the first heady brew of love, he brushed his lips across hers.
“What else? Teach me.”
At the idea of tutoring her, his pulse kicked again. “At times like this, after making love—”
“Making love.” Following his lead, she leaned in to rub her lips over his. “I like this expression.”
“Sometimes, after, while a couple is still tuned to each other, they kiss to show how much pleasure they were given. It might be long and lazy, like this.”
He drew her in again on a slow, gentle glide that brought a purr of approval to her throat. Soft, so soft, deep without demand. Sweet as a maiden’s dream.
“Yes,” she sighed. “Again.”
“Wait. Sometimes, when passions have been roused and people are still caught in that last edge of the storm of them, the tone of the kiss reflects that. Like this.”
He caught her to him, close and hard, and his mouth was like a fever on hers. Now she groaned and wrapped around him like rope. He felt the thrill of her on his skin, in his blood, down to the pit of his stomach.
“You make me want.” Her voice was thick now, and her heart galloped as if she’d raced to the pinnacle of the Stone Mountains. “In ways I have never wanted.”
“You make me need.” He held her now, just held her. “In ways I’ve never needed. What are we going to do about this, Kadra?”
She shook her head. “What must be done is all that can be done.”
“Things have changed. Things are different now.”
If only they could be, she thought. With him, a joy she hadn’t known was locked inside her could be free. “What I feel for you fills me, and empties me. I’ve never known this with another.” Still, she made herself draw back from him. “The fate of two worlds is in our hands. We can’t take each other and lose them.”
“We’ll save them. And then—”
“Don’t talk of ‘and then.’ ” She touched her fingers to his lips. “Whatever fate holds for us, we have now. It’s a gift to be treasured, not to be questioned.”
“I want a life with you.”
She smiled, but there was sorrow in her eyes. “Some lifetimes have to be lived in a day.”
He wasn’t going to accept that. He was good at solving puzzles, Harper thought. He’d find a way to solve this one. He also knew when he was banging against a head as hard as his own. There were times for force, and times for strategy.
“Having a warrior goddess drop on me out of another dimension, visiting an alternate reality, fighting demons, making love. It’s been a pretty full day so far.” He tangled his fingers in her hair. “What’s next on the schedule?”
Strength, Kadra thought, wasn’t only a matter of muscle. It was a matter of courage. They would both be valiant enough to accept destiny. “We must hunt Sorak, but we will need food and planning time. He’s the mightiest of his kind, and the most sly.”
“Okay, we’ll order that pizza and fuel up while we figure out our plan of attack.”
Nodding, and grate
ful he hadn’t pressed where she was now vulnerable, she rolled off the bed. “What is this pizza?”
No pizza on A’Dair, he thought. Score one for Earth. “It’s, ah, a kind of pie. Round, usually,” he said as he allowed himself the pleasure of watching her slip on the brief bottom half of her hunting costume.
“You’re magnificent, Kadra. ‘Beautiful’ is too ordinary, too simple a word,” he added when she stared at him. “Do men on A’Dair tell you that you take their breath away, that looking at you is like being struck blind by a force of beauty so strong it’s painful?”
His words made her weak, as if she’d slain a thousand demons in one day. “Men do not speak so to slayers.”
He rose. “I do.”
“You are different.” So wonderfully different. “When I hear the words from you, they make me feel proud. And shy. I have never been shy,” she added, baffled. “It pleases me that you find me attractive to look at.”
“Do you think that’s all I meant? You are very attractive. You’re right off the charts in that area. But then you add the courage, the brains, the compassion I saw in you when Mav told you of her father’s death, the active curiosity, the sense of fun, the heart of a warrior. You’re unique to any world, and I’m dazzled by you.”
“No one has ever . . .” Her throat burned. “I need time to find the words to give back to you that are as fine and rich.”
He took her hands, lifted them to his lips. “They were free. They don’t require any trade or payment.”
“Like a gift?”
“Exactly.”
“Thank you.”
He dressed, switched the TV to the news in case there were any updates. He started to call in the pizza order. Then he remembered it wasn’t just his taste that had to be satisfied this time. “Okay, pizza can come with a variety of options. Meat, vegetables—stuff like onions, mushrooms, peppers, sausage, pepperoni. It’s an endless parade. I usually get it pretty loaded. Is there anything you don’t eat?”
“I don’t care for the meat of the grubhog.”
He let out a quick, huffing laugh. “Check. Hold the grubhog.”
He called in the order—explained to her what a phone was—then went into the kitchen for a couple of beers. “It’ll take about twenty minutes. Let’s figure out what step we take next over a beer.”
“I like the beer,” she told him.
“Just one more reason we’re perfect for each other.” He tapped his bottle to hers. “So.” He dropped down on the couch, stretched out. “You said Sorak would have a lair. What sort of digs would he look for? What’s his habit in living arrangements?”
“Demons live belowground.” She crossed her feet at the ankles, then lowered herself in one smooth move to the floor. “They like the dark after feeding. They will burrow, dig tunnels so they may travel under the ground.”
She picked up the portable phone he’d set down and began to play with it.
“In the east, Laris and I once tracked a demon pack to a great lair, with many tunnels through the rock and dirt, with many chambers for stores and sleep and treasures. We slew the pack and destroyed the lair with fire. It was Clud’s palace, and there I destroyed the king of demons. But Sorak, then prince, was not there. When he heard of this, he vowed to kill the slayers who had killed his sire, and to build a great new kingdom in a place where no slayer could defeat him. I have this.”
She flipped back her hair to show him a thin hooked scar at the base of her neck. “Only a demon king can leave his mark on a slayer. This is Clud’s. The last swipe of his claws before my sword took his heart.”
“Impressive.” Harper pulled down his shirt to expose the line of puckered skin on his shoulder. “Skip trace, with a bad attitude and a switchblade.”
She nodded. “How did you kill him?”
“It doesn’t work that way here—ideally. I kicked his ass, then turned him over to the cops and collected my fee. The authorities,” he explained. “We put bad guys—our demons—in jail. In cages, like at the zoo today.”
“Ah.” She considered that, and found it just. Captivity was a living death. “Is the demon who broke your nose also in his cage?”
“Sucker punch,” Harper told her, running his hand down the uneven line of his nose. “Yeah, he’s doing a stretch. Pissant grifter going around snuggling up to rich women, then ripping them off, copping their jewelry, draining their bank accounts. Prick.”
Kadra angled her head. “I like the way you speak. I find it arousing to listen to your stories.”
“Oh, yeah?” He slid down onto the floor beside her, walked his fingers up her boot to her thigh. “I’ve got a million of them.”
“Sporting must wait.”
“I like your face. I find it arousing to look at your face.” He touched it, just a skim of fingertips over her cheek. “When I was sleeping, I dreamed of making love with you. Then it happened, just the way I’d dreamed it.”
“This is vision.”
“Maybe.” He thought of the blood and the battle, of the dark and the smoke. “One thing, before we get back on track. I’ve always liked working alone; that’s why I went out on my own. I’ve liked living alone, which is why I’ve screwed up any potentially serious relationship with a woman. I never wanted a partner, until you.”
She lifted a hand to his cheek in turn. A kind of joining, she realized, with only a touch. “I have been alone. It is the way of slayers. I never wished it otherwise, until you. They will write songs about you in my world. The great warrior from beyond A’Dair.”
And when she listened to them by the fire, she thought, she would be alone again.
She let her hand drop away, then took a deep drink of her beer. “I tracked Sorak across my world and killed many of his warriors. He has sired no young, and with his death, the power of the Bok will be diminished. I thought he meant to build a lair in some far-off place, a fortress of great defense. But in my world. I did not know he meant to come to this place, to build his kingdom in yours.”
“We won’t give him the chance. You said he would burrow underground.”
“Yes. The Bok require the cool dark when they rest.”
“I’ve got an idea where he might’ve gone. The subway. We have a system of tunnels under the city, for transportation. The sewers are another option,” Harper considered, “but I don’t know why anyone, even a demon, would want to set up housekeeping in the sewers if he had any other choices. The trick will be pinpointing the right sector.”
“What creatures of your world travel this subway, this underground route?”
“The variety is endless. Just people, of all walks. It’s a crowded city. It’s another reasonably efficient and inexpensive way to get around it.”
He spent the next few minutes explaining the idea and basic workings of the subway system.
“This is clever. You have an innovative and interesting culture. I would like to have more time to study it.”
“Stick around, take all the time you want.” He rose when his buzzer sounded. He went to the intercom by the front door, verified the pizza delivery, and buzzed the entrance door open.
“You keep a servant in that small box?”
“No.” Amused when she came over to peer at it, he explained its function, then opened his door to the delivery boy’s knock, paid him, and sent him on his way.
“Was that your servant?”
“No. I gave my servants this century off. He works for the place that makes the food. It’s his job to bring it to people when they call on the phone. Hungry?”
