Iskander bumped shoulders with Paisley, then caught her around the waist and pulled her close. From the corner of her eye, she saw Maddy cock her head. “That’s my girl.”
“Is it true you hear them screaming?” Kynan asked. He looked sickened by the possibility.
She held out a fist and slowly unfurled her fingers. “Until I let go.”
“Jesus,” one of the women whispered.
“If you don’t mind,” Nikodemus said to her, “I’d like a word with you. In private.” He swept a hand toward a door to his left. Paisley felt a tug in her chest and exchanged a look with Iskander, who shrugged.
She went with the warlord to an office with a red leather couch, a red leather chair, and a bookcase filled with empty glass vases. Nikodemus took two bottles of water from a mini-fridge on one side of the room. He handed her one of the waters and sat on the desk. His T-shirt read I’m with stupid. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.”
“Couple things.” He opened his water. “First, good work out there.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve cut a check to one Ashlin Lau, paying off her loan to you.” He took a drink of water. “I thought about buying your current location but decided I’d wait to hear if you want to find a larger space. I paid the rent for the rest of your lease, so don’t write any more checks to the landlord. If you have an auto payment, cancel it.”
“That’s generous of you. But it’s really not necessary—”
He cut her off with a sharp gesture. “Not your call. I did it. I take care of my people, especially the humans.” He swung his legs. “Maddy will give you a jingle and set up a meeting to go over your corporate structure, get you on the health plan and the 401(k). We do matching, by the way. Flex plan, health club membership. One of my accountants will get in touch with you. My advice to you is take advantage.”
She opened her water. “All right.”
He took another drink. “You should think about moving closer to the rest of us.”
“Have you been talking to Leonidas?”
“My place in Tiburon has plenty of room. Lots of company, too. I know Carson wouldn’t mind another woman in the house.” He shrugged. “Or you could move here if you want. Up to you. Either way, you’d be safer from Rasmus.”
“I’m happy where I am.”
He met her gaze. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“If that changes, you know you have somewhere to go.”
“Give him a little credit, Warlord.”
“Oh, I do.” He laughed. “I hope it works out between you two, I really do.”
He didn’t sound like he thought it would.
CHAPTER 32
Iskander was talking to Maddy and Harsh when Paisley came back from her meeting with Nikodemus. He put down his plate of cake and brownies. She was as pale as snow. Shocked, maybe, from what had gone down with the Russians. He didn’t care if it was rude—he went to her and she walked into his arms and said very simply, “Please take me home.”
“Let’s go.”
They left without saying good-bye to anyone. The drive home was quiet and air-conditioned via that goddamned window he was going to have to get fixed. Paisley wasn’t inured to cold the way he was. At this hour, there wasn’t much traffic, and they were home before he knew it. Home. His house, which he had so often struggled to make into a place he wanted to be, really did feel like home. Because of Paisley. That came as something of a shock to him, and it made him sad, too.
He wanted this to last, this feeling that he had a home and that everything was right and going to stay that way. His life wasn’t an easy one, and maybe Paisley had decided she couldn’t deal with the violence. He wouldn’t blame her if she just wanted to get far away from his world.
Inside, he threw his keys on the little table by the back door and stayed there, considering what to say. He came up with, “What?”
Genius, he thought. But she was being too quiet. Way too quiet.
She leaned against the wall, her arms crossed under her breasts. Her mouth was tense and his heart sank. He didn’t expect a good outcome from this. She said, “Were you the one who told Nikodemus to buy out my lease and pay off Ashlin?”
“Is that what he did?” Her response to that was a roll of her eyes. Time to fess up, then. “I told him you needed business advice.” He wanted to touch her, but he could tell she was angry about something. He just wasn’t sure what.
“I wish you’d warned me about you and Maddy.”
His stomach tensed up. “If I told you about every woman I’ve been to bed with, that’s all we’d talk about.”
“She isn’t one of your one-nighters, Iskander. You two work together. You see her all the time.”
“We’re not seeing each other like that.”
“You haven’t slept with her?”
“We had a thing for bit. But that’s over.”
“Well, she obviously thinks you two still have a relationship.” She balled her fists and looked away. “Listen to me.” She let out a trembling sigh. “I sound like a jealous bitch.”
“Hey.” He closed the distance between them and touched her cheek. “Hey, cupcake. We had a thing, but we don’t anymore. We both knew we were never good for the long-term.”
She lifted her eyes to him, and even he could tell she felt miserable. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have said anything, but she’s just so beautiful, and you were having a good time talking to her. And everyone likes her—I could tell.”
“Yeah.” He kept touching her, stroking her cheek. “She’s smart and funny, and I like her a lot. But she’s not you.”
She rested her head against his chest and sighed again. “Damn,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
“No kidding. Come on. I know the perfect place for us to relax.” He grabbed her hand and walked her toward a room at the back of the house. Durian had a similar room in his house in St. Francis Wood. Bare walls the color of midnight, a spray of copper stars scattered across the ceiling and falling toward the floor. He opened a drawer in a table he’d lacquered sunset-orange and took out a wooden box and a lighter.
Still holding her hand, he led her out back. She didn’t resist, so whatever Nikodemus had said to her, whatever she thought about him and Maddy, she wasn’t kicking him to the curb. Yet.
He took off his shoes and set the box down on the ledge. “Sit down if you want, Paisley. Or not.”
She did, waiting in silence while he took the cover off the hot tub.
“You can ask me anything,” he said. “And I’ll answer you. You want to know about me and Maddy, okay. Or Fen. We can talk about her, too.” He stripped off his shirt. His jeans were next, but he stopped with his hands on his fly. Her eyes were on him, and that was something, wasn’t it? He dragged down his zipper. “So, questions for me?”
“A few,” she said.
He shucked his jeans in one motion. Paisley wrapped her arms around her middle as he stepped into the hot tub and reached back for the box he’d brought with him. He proceeded to roll his own cigarette from the contents. “Water’s warm, cupcake.” He brought the hand-rolled cigarette to his mouth and inhaled.
Paisley sniffed. “What’s in that?”
He let out a stream of smoke. “Bergamot-infused Turkish tobacco, cut with unrefined copa.”
She shook her head. “Copa. What’s that?”
“The kin use copa to relax.” He lifted a hand in the air. “Commune with the greater world. The magekind found out it lets them use more magic, and a lot of them abuse. It’s addictive to them. If they aren’t careful”—he took another hit—“really careful, sooner or later they burn out their magic.”
Paisley walked around to where Iskander had his arms on the platform. She sat down cross-legged and held out her hand. She wiggled her fingers. “What happens if I smoke it?”
“Tobacco is bad for humans.”
“But not for you?”
“N
ope. Demons don’t get lung cancer.” He snuffed the cigarette between his wet thumb and forefinger, then turned around and with one smooth motion, hauled himself out of the hot tub. Water dripped off him. He stayed where he was, letting Paisley look her fill. His stomach dropped off the world because she did look. From his head to his toes with a nice long stop at his junk. At the bench, he picked up the items he’d set there. He walked back with his hand open. There were two lumps of copa on his palm. “Pure copa. Take the smaller one. Don’t let it dissolve in your mouth. Swallow it as fast as you can.”
“Is it safe?”
“You’d have to take more than I have on hand to overdose.”
“Why?”
He knew what she was asking. “I want to see if it works on you. Maybe it’ll take down some of your resistance.”
“And?”
“And then there’s nasty shit I want to do to you.” He waited for her to tell him to forget it.
“What if nothing happens?”
He shrugged. “Then nothing happens, and I don’t ever have to share my stash with you.” She took the smaller lump from him. It was soft and a bit crumbly, the way high-quality copa should be. “Tastes like shit, just so you know.”
“Thanks for the warning.” She made a face when the bitter tang hit her tongue, though she did what he said and swallowed the stuff. Iskander put the larger clump of the copa in his mouth. “I’m not going see pink elephants, am I?”
“No.” He slid back into the hot tub, sitting so he faced her. “Come on in,” he said softly. “The water’s fine.”
Paisley stood up and pulled her dress over her head, and then, with Iskander watching her, she took off her bra and panties, too. Under the circumstances, he felt he didn’t need to make an effort to look at her face. Her body ought to be illegal. She had killer curves and legs that went on forever, and, well, in all honesty, he was a boob man, and Paisley’s were spectacular. He wanted to touch her everywhere, but especially there.
“Just so you know,” she said, “I’m a total lightweight when it comes to drugs.”
“I’ve got your back.”
She blinked down at him and slowly nodded. “I know you do.”
He held out a hand. “First question?”
She got in the hot tub with him and said, “Are you having sex with me because I have red hair?”
“No.”
“Is it because I’m here and convenient?”
The copa was working on him, and he did feel less tense. But not less tense enough. “I’m sleeping with you because you’re a beautiful woman.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“You’re human and that turns me on. You have magic, and that turns me on, too. I’m bound over to you, and that makes a difference. You’re—”
“Are you in love with Maddy?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She’s in love with someone else, only it didn’t work out, and that first night we hooked up—that was way before Rasmus scourged your apartment—she was looking to feel better.” He didn’t regret that night with Maddy. Paisley was right. It had been different with Maddy. She’d shown him that maybe there was something more he could have. “I’m good at making women feel better.”
She sank lower into the water. “True.”
“Funny thing is, when she knocked that night, I thought it was you.” He stretched out a leg and touched her thigh with the side of his foot. Her eyes locked with his, and he got a straight shot of her psychic state. He smiled. Because, well, she didn’t move, did she? “Hey, Paisley,” he said softly.
She gazed at him, and damned if it didn’t look as if her eyes were turning. “Is it only sex with us?”
He thought about her long legs and the way she felt to him the times he’d connected with her. She wasn’t anything like the vanilla humans he’d been with. He moved closer to her. “No,” he said. “It’s not.”
“Why?”
“I like you. A lot. You laugh at my jokes.”
She waved a hand and blinked some more. “Some of your jokes are actually funny, you know.”
“You work hard at the bakery. You’re making a success out of it. On your own. You take care of me. You think about me. Nobody has ever done that before. And you’re doing this thing for us, for the kin, even though it’s dangerous. I’d respect the hell out of you just for that.”
“Are you still in love with Fen?”
“No.”
“What would happen if I said I loved you?”
His heart turned over. “Do you?”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“I’d be fucking scared to death, Paisley.”
“Just so you know, I don’t know if I love you or not.” She wrinkled her forehead and blinked a few times, which made Iskander wonder if the copa wasn’t affecting her more than a little. The drug did stuff to humans with magic that could affect vision, but that only happened with actual witches, not latent humans.
He moved through the water until he was right in front of her, straddling her with his thighs. They weren’t far apart. He put his hands on the platform by her shoulders and leaned in to her. “You make me feel good, Paisley, and I want it to keep going.”
She tipped her head back, exposing the length of her neck to him, and gazed at him. She didn’t know what that meant to someone like him, showing him the pale sweep of her naked throat. Her eyes blinked a few times, slowly. In between he could see her pupils contracting. Her resistance thinned to just about nothing. Then she said, “You make me feel good, too. You’re my friend.”
What was he supposed to say to that? I don’t fucking want to be friends?
“Urban and I were never friends. I think that’s why we didn’t work out. Well, one of the reasons. But you’re my friend. We have a good time together.”
Her eyes were a deeper green than they had been. While he watched, her pupils went from big to pinpoint small. Whatever Rasmus Kessler had done to her or had been doing over the last weeks had leaked magic into her. With her resistance thinned the way it was right now, he could feel the wide, deep pond that had been forming in her.
He grabbed her by the waist and put her up on the platform, and he took the time to drink in the sight of her wet, naked body. Her hands landed on his shoulders to steady herself. He reached past her for the copa and formed two more balls of the substance, working quickly so his damp hands didn’t dissolve the stuff. He put one in his mouth and held the other to her. He placed it on her tongue when she opened her mouth.
“About those nasty things I want to do…” he said.
She made a face as the bitter copa dissolved in her mouth. “Mmm?”
“You on board with that?”
Her answer to that was a smile and a sultry backward lean against the hot tub.
“Then how about you let me in, Paisley.” He tapped a finger to her temple.
“Yes,” she said.
And he was in her head, easy and smooth. He put his fingertips on the upper part of her chest, just above the swell of her beautiful, gorgeous, human wet-dream tits. His slid his fingers down and made sure she was getting his reaction. Things got really quiet. His fingertips traced along her skin, slid over her nipples, and she drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you like that?”
She nodded.
“What if I used my mouth? Would you like that?”
“I’d like that a lot.”
He circled her nipples, feeling her get hard under his tongue. He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to him. The skin down his back rippled. He kept one hand on her hip and slid the other up to her breast again. Her sharp intake of breath turned a few cranks for him. She touched her palm to his cheek.
“Iskander.”
He was so close. He moved his head to her shoulder and nipped her. With teeth that were still human. “I want a taste of you. A little blood. Can I do that? I can make i
t good for us both if you let me do that.”
“All right.”
He made a deeper psychic connection with her, and it was still smooth and easy. She was relaxed. Nothing invasive but enough for him to feel the magic in her and an echo of her fealty to Nikodemus. With one hand he grabbed her wrist, the one Rasmus had scarred.
Paisley drew in a long hiss, and it was all he could do not to take things too far. He brought her wrist to his mouth and let himself change. Enough. Maybe a little more than enough. He lifted his head and said, “Look at me and tell me what you see.”
She did, but she was a little wobbly, so he caught the back of her neck and held her steady. Her eyes were jade green now, and he could feel the magic in her. And his oaths to her. She frowned. “I’m having trouble focusing.”
“That’s the copa working on you. It’ll settle down in a bit.”
“Oh.”
“I won’t hurt you, Paisley. Ever. I promise you that.” He let the change take him the rest of the way. He was a thousand times more aroused that he’d been even with Fen, not because he hadn’t loved Fen—he had before everything went to hell between them—but because Paisley was human and humans had that effect on his kind. And because he was with Paisley.
He watched her eyes. Her pupils were pinpoints of black in the jade of her irises. She squinted and then blinked several times. “This is what I am.”
She put her hands on either side of his face, touching all the planes and angles that had changed, and while she did that, he touched her, too. “I know you,” she whispered. “I know what and who you are.”
He slid both hands around her waist and then around and up her back until his hands cupped her shoulders from behind. A growl rumbled in his chest. His breath hitched deep in his body. He made sure she understood that if he wanted to, he could take her over so she would understand all the risks. He wasn’t going to, though. Instead, he let her feel his desire for her, his urge to be inside her. At the same time that pool of still magic came through to him and drove his desire higher yet. Not quite a witch. Something else. Something in between.
She sucked in a breath, and he looked down at her body, so slight and delicate compared to what he was now. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and raised her arm to his mouth while he watched her face. His teeth broke through her skin, and her blood washed across his tongue, hot and sweet, and his body responded to the point where he forgot anything but the psychic connection and physical sensation. Warm water around them. Their wet, slick bodies, her skin under his fingertips. The scent of her, the taste of her, the sizzle of magic. His intense pleasure. Drugging pleasure.
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