He allowed her to continue just for the pleasure of watching her, admitting to himself that although his preference for women seldom extended to anything but slim, elegant, cool blondes, this woman, this earth goddess, with her abundant curves and wild brown hair spilling down her back, stirred something deep inside him. Something primal, some urge woke and demanded that he claim her in the most fundamental way a man could claim a woman.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, watching with fascination as her lips moved while she continued to lecture him. A faint scent caught his attention, and he breathed deeper, hoping to catch it again, and when he did, the analytical side of his mind noted that it was just the scent of a sun-warmed woman, as if she had been out lying on the beach. It was nothing extraordinary, nothing unusual, and yet it seemed to go straight to his groin, firing his desire as the most costly perfume had never done.
“—and you’re not even listening to me!” the goddess yelled, drawing his attention from his contemplation of laying her down on his bed and burying himself in her glorious body. She gave him a particularly hard jab in the chest, and he captured her hand without thinking, idly rubbing his thumb over her fingers.
“Of course I’m not,” he said, dismissively. “There’s nothing further to discuss. The woman pursued Theo, not the other way around. She is not injured, despite her claims to the contrary.”
She stared at him with stunned surprise for a moment or two, thick black lashes blinking over eyes he had first thought were gray, but now he could see were more hazel, the irises seeming to darken slightly as she looked at his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to point out the obvious,” he responded, his eyes on her lips, wondering if she tasted of the sea. She certainly looked like some goddess who had risen from the sea in vengeance, a tempest in human form.
“No, your hand. Your thumb. It’s . . .”
Her gaze lifted to his, and he watched with primal satisfaction as her pupils dilated in sudden awareness of him as a man. How easy it would be to arouse her, this tempest. “What is your name?”
“Harry,” she said, suddenly giving a little shiver as she pulled her fingers from his.
He frowned. That was not at all fitting for a goddess from the sea. “You have a man’s name?”
“It’s a nickname, actually,” she said with a rueful smile.
His gaze moved instantly to her lips, a drawing in his groin warning that if he continued contemplation of her mouth, what he’d like to do to it, and what he’d like it to do to him, he would end up carrying her off to his bed. While that idea seemed just fine to him, there were other things to attend to . . . at least while Elena’s party was under way.
“My name is actually Eglantine, but no one but my mother calls me that. It’s just such a mouthful that everyone calls me Harry. What’s your name?”
“Iakovos Panagiotis Okeanos Papaioannou,” he said with a slight frown, as if he was surprised she didn’t know it.
That floored her. She grabbed onto the first part. “Yackydos? ”
“Iakovos. It’s Greek for ‘Jacob.’ ” When she gawked at him, he continued. “My name is quite a bit more than a mouthful, yes. I would suggest that since you are this young woman’s manager, you escort her back to her proper lodgings. I will attend to my brother.”
“I’m hurt! I want to go to the hospital!” Cyndi cried.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need a doctor’s care,” Iakovos told her.
“I’m their acting manager, and if she wants to go to the hospital, then I’ll take her to the hospital.” Harry poked him in the chest again, not, she told herself, because she wanted to feel his fingers on hers again. Oh, sure, he was the walking epitome of sex on two legs, your standard gorgeous hunk, but he was also an extremely obtuse hunk—one who had a very large surprise coming if he thought he could just brush away Cyndi’s (albeit minor) injuries.
“May I remind you that you are in my house,” Iakovos said, his voice low and incredibly arousing. “On my private island.”
Harry never really thought of voices as being sinfully sexy before, but the way this man’s rumbled around in his chest made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was like he was a god, a Greek god come to life, standing right there in front of her, doing all sorts of things to personal, intimate parts of her that she didn’t want to think about. He was a drunkard’s brother, for heaven’s sake! How could she find his voice arousing? “Look, Yacky—”
“Iakovos!”
“We may be in your house on your precious island, but we’re also in a country that I’m willing to bet doesn’t tolerate abuse to women, especially to American citizens, and double especially when the American citizen in question is just barely eighteen.” Harry took a deep breath and leveled the Greek god a look that should have felled him. “I’m assuming that since we had to take a boat to get out to Smut Island, we’re going to need one to get Cyndi to the hospital on the mainland. And since I also assume you own all the boats here, I’d appreciate if you could have one of your lackies fire one up for us.”
“And if I don’t?” Iakovos asked, his black eyes damn near spitting fire at her.
“You’re going to be one sad little panda,” she snarled.
“Are you threatening me?” He looked completely outraged at such a thing.
“You bet your incredibly attractive and probably hardenough-to-bounce-a-quarter-off-of ass!” she snapped back.
An indescribable look flitted across his face. “You are the most irreverent woman I’ve ever met.”
“And you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lick you!” she yelled.
He stared at her in outright surprise.
“Sorry. That came out wrong.” Color warmed her face as she mentally damned that odd twist in her mind that led her to speak without thinking. “Sometimes, the dialogue I write in my head comes out of my mouth instead of staying where it belongs.”
“You wish to . . . lick?” he asked, the same odd expression on his face.
“Not all of you!” she said with dignity, straightening her shoulders. “Just that spot there, where your neck meets your collarbone. Where that little indentation is . . .” Her voice trailed off as he continued to look at her as if dancing boobs had just appeared on the top of her head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
He opened his mouth to say something, shook his head, and, with a dismissive glance at Cyndi and the others still clustered together in silent shock, pulled out a cell phone, speaking rapidly in Greek into it. “A boat will be waiting for you at the east dock.” His lips tightened as he looked at his brother before jerking him upright. “I trust that a visit to the hospital will reassure you that your charge has no injury beyond that done to her pride.”
“Pride?” Harry grabbed his arm as he was about to leave. He spun around and pinned her back with an outraged glare, which she more than met with one of her own. “She’s battered to hell and back again.”
His black gaze flickered over Cyndi, who thrust out her chest and gave him an outraged look. “I see no signs of battery.”
“She has red marks all over her chest and neck!” Harry said, pointing at Cyndi.
He looked at her steadily for a moment, and she could have sworn that one side of his mouth twitched. “Have you never had a lover who had heavy whisker growth?”
“Huh?”
“It is common among Greek men to have to shave more than once a day, and my brother and I are no exception to that fact.”
She eyed his jaw, squinting slightly. He did have a slight darkness on his lower face, as if he was about to sport some manly stubble. He also had extremely attractive lips, the lower one in particular, with its sweet, oh so very sweet curve, and the upper with a deep indentation up to a long, straight nose. Like with the spot on his neck, she had the worst urge to taste that upper lip dip. She actually licked her own lips thinking about it before she remembered that
ogling a drunk’s brother, especially one who should have been on the cover of GQ, really wasn’t the thing. “Er . . . what was the question?”
He sighed. “Whisker burn. That is all the red marks are.”
“They are?” She turned to Cyndi. “Cyn?”
“He hurt me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Even if it was just his rough cheeks, I need to see a doctor.”
Amy, Derek’s girlfriend and the other singer in the group, immediately hugged her, her blue eyes worried. Even Terry—bright, cheerful Terry, who always had a joke on his lips—looked somber as he moved closer to the two women. All four sets of eyes watched Harry with an obvious plea in them.
“Whisker burn.” She turned back to face the annoying god with the sexy lips. He raised an eyebrow, and she was thankful that he was clearly beyond such mortal things as saying “I told you so.”
“I told you she wasn’t hurt,” he said with slight smirk.
She pointed a finger at him. “You just knocked yourself off your pedestal, buster. All right, I’m willing to accept that your brother didn’t intentionally hurt her. But she’s very upset, and she does have some nasty rashes, so I think it probably would be better for everyone’s peace of mind if she saw a doctor. If you and Mr. Grabby Hands over there would just get out of here, I’ll get Cyn dressed, and we’ll take her to the mainland.”
His lickable lips tightened as if he wasn’t used to receiving orders—a thought that gave her immense pleasure. Oh, how fun it would be to take him down a peg or two, to remind him that he might think himself a god amongst lesser folk, but in reality, he was just nothing more than a man. An extremely rich, urbane, sexy, and probably quite fascinating man, but still a man.
She looked at the dip on his collarbone. Her tongue cleaved to the top of her mouth. “Temptation is a bitch.”
“You can say that again,” he muttered, giving her a dark look before turning on his heel and leaving the room, dragging his brother with him.
New York Times bestselling author
KATIE MACALISTER
Steamed
A Steampunk Romance
When one of Jack Fletcher’s nanoelectro-
mechanical system experiments is jostled in
his lab, the resulting explosion sends him
into the world of his favorite novel—
a seemingly Victorian-era world of
steampower, aether guns, corsets, and
goggles. A world where the lovely and
intrepid Octavia Pye captains her airship
straight into his heart...
For videos, podcasts, excerpts, and more, visit
katiemacalister.com
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
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KATIE MACALISTER
The Dark Ones Novels
Even Vampires Get the Blues
Paen Scott is a Dark One: a vampire without a soul. And his mother is about to lose hers too if Paen can’t repay a debt to a demon by finding a relic known as the Jilin God in five days.
The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires
Portia Harding is stalked by the heart-stoppingly handsome Theondre North—who’s also the son of a fallen angel. Portia’s down-to-earth attitude frustrates beings from both heavenly and hellish realms—and gets Theo turned into a vampire.
Zen and the Art of Vampires
Pushing forty and alone, Pia Thomason heads to Europe on a singles tour, hoping to find romance. What she finds are two very handsome, very mysterious, and very undead men.
Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang
Pia Thomason is torn between two Dark Ones: her husband Kristoff—who doesn’t trust her—and his best friend, Alec, who is MIA. So Pia goes back to her humdrum Seattle life—but fate has other plans.
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
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THE AISLING GREY, GUARDIAN
SERIES HEATS UP!
FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
KATIE MACALISTER
“With so many intriguing,
intelligently drawn, distinctive
characters it is no wonder [MacAlister]
is soaring to the top.”
—ARomanceReview.com
HOLY SMOKES
LIGHT MY FIRE
FIRE ME UP
YOU SLAY ME
Available wherever books are sold or
at penguin.com
New York Times bestselling author
KATIE MACALISTER
The Novels of the Light Dragons
Love in the Time of Dragons
Tully Sullivan is just like any other suburban mom—except now she’s woken up in a strange place surrounded by strange people who keep insisting that they’re dragons—and that she’s one too. But not just any dragon. She’s Ysolde de Bouchier, a famed figure from dragon history.
Tully can’t shape-shift or breathe fire, and she’s definitely not happy being sentenced to death for the misdeeds of a dragon mate she can’t remember. Yet she’ll have to find a way to solve the crimes of a past she has no memory of living.
The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons
Ysolde de Bouchier is still coming to terms with the dragon part of her, while at the same time trying to free a friend of Baltic—her Black Dragon lover—from the weyr, get Baltic to meet with the dragons who want him dead, rescue a half-dragon damsel in over her head, raise the shade of the man everyone says killed her, and once and for all clear Baltic’s name of the murder charges that continue to plague him. For Ysolde, being a dragon is starting to bite.
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin. com
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Also by Katie MacAlister
Paranormal Romances
IN THE COMPANY OF VAMPIRES,
A Dark Ones Novel
CONFESSIONS OF A VAMPIRE’S GIRLFRIEND,
A Dark Ones Novel
LOVE IN THE TIME OF DRAGONS,
A Novel of the Light Dragons
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF DRAGONS,
A Novel of the Light Dragons
STEAMED, A Steampunk Romance
CROUCHING VAMPIRE, HIDDEN FANG,
A Dark Ones Novel
ZEN AND THE ART OF VAMPIRES,
A Dark Ones Novel
ME AND MY SHADOW,
A Novel of the Silver Dragons
UP IN SMOKE, A Novel of the Silver Dragons
PLAYING WITH FIRE,
A Novel of the Silver Dragons
HOLY SMOKES, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
LIGHT MY FIRE, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
FIRE ME UP, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
YOU SLAY ME, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
THE LAST OF THE RED-HOT VAMPIRES
EVEN VAMPIRES GET THE BLUES
Contemporary Romances
BLOW ME DOWN
HARD DAY’S KNIGHT
THE CORSET DIARIES
MEN IN KILTS
Much Ado About Vampires: A Dark Ones Novel Page 30
