Mortal Temptations

by Allyson James

  She still had no idea what he’d been looking for. She’d searched her record books for whatever valuable items she’d moved in the past few weeks but couldn’t decide which one he’d come to find: the eighteenth-century writing desk; the ostracon, a small slab of limestone with Egyptian hieroglyphs on it; the carnelian earrings belonging to one of Queen Victoria’s daughters; or the bone-handled letter opener from 1675? She’d found buyers for all of them from her list of people who paid her to keep an eye out for “special somethings.”

  Patricia handed Nico’s card to the doorman, telling him that Nico had invited her. The women in line behind her wore tight dresses, which showed mountains of cleavage, and sharp-heeled shoes, which bared miles of legs.

  In her neat black pants and blouse, Patricia felt woefully out of place. She’d put in antique earrings and a cobwebby antique necklace that earned a few envious glances, but the ladies behind her were surprised when the doorman nodded gruffly and opened the door half a foot so she could slide inside.

  A second doorman, wearing an Andre’s T-shirt and sporting a phone on his ear, took the card and jerked his head for Patricia to follow him. He led her through the dark club and up a flight of stairs. At the top he touched a buzzer beside a door and waited until the door clicked open. The doorman gestured her inside but didn’t follow her in.

  Nico waited for her at the end of a plush-carpeted hallway. His Andre’s T-shirt was crisp and clean, and there was no sign of his wings. He’d obviously shaved since their last encounter, and his dark hair was damp from a shower.

  He wore black jeans instead of blue, and sandals. Patricia had never liked sandals on a man, but she decided she’d make an exception for Nico. They seemed to go with him, giving him the aura of an ancient god.

  He smiled at her, his dark eyes promising. “Hello, Patricia. I’m glad you came.”

  He took her hand and led her into the room behind him.

  She’d expected an office but found a suite. It had a living room done in trendy minimalist decor and a small kitchen tucked behind a shining granite counter. Through an open double door she saw a bedroom with an iron-poled canopy bed and cubelike shelves.

  A man came in from the bedroom, also wearing an Andre’s T-shirt. He was not quite as tall as Nico, but his body was as well built and bulging with muscle. He had mottled black-and-white hair and eyes of clear ice blue. While Nico’s eyes could melt a woman like ice cream on a hot sidewalk, this man’s eyes chilled her through.

  The one thing the two men had in common, besides powerful auras, was the thin gold chain around their necks.

  The two of them looked completely wrong in this room, which must have been decorated before they moved in. This suite was for men in expensive corporate suits, not these beautiful males with auras of wild magic.

  “This is Andreas,” Nico told her. “At least that’s what he calls himself. Andreas, Patricia Lake of Lake Antiques.”

  Andreas swept Patricia a dismissive glance and started talking to Nico like she wasn’t there. “Does she have it?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Have what?” Patricia asked. “I can’t help you find something if I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  “The ostracon.” Andreas fixed her with a chill blue gaze that had fiery rage behind it. “Give it to me, and Nico and I will fulfill your deepest desires. Anything sexual you’ve ever wanted to try, we’ll do it for you.”

  2

  PATRICIA blinked. “Oh, is that all?”

  She thought of Nico’s wings feathering around her while she had helped unwind the bandage, the warm, black silkiness against her skin. Her heart started to pound. She imagined his wings cuddling her naked body, the satinlike feathers touching every part of her.

  Andreas stepped in front of her, dissolving the heady vision. Andreas smelled of male musk and spice, a little like Nico, but while Nico was enticing warmth, Andreas radiated danger.

  “You know what we’re looking for.”

  “Of course I do. The ostracon with the inscription from the Ptolemaic period. Not as good as Eighteenth Dynasty, and not very important historically, but my client wanted it.”

  “What client?” Andreas demanded.

  “The one I sold it to.”

  “So, get it back from him.”

  Patricia’s irritation rose, covering her uneasiness. “I can’t just ask for it back. There is such a thing as client loyalty, and besides, I can’t afford it.”

  “We will pay for it.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  Andreas threw a glance at Nico, who watched with his arms folded. “Nico, leave us alone.”

  “No.” Nico seated himself in an elegant armchair, drawing his knee up and planting his sandal firmly on the upholstery. He smiled, but his dark eyes were watchful.

  Andreas’s icelike gaze returned to Patricia. “I will pay you three times what your client paid for it.”

  “Really? Why do you want it so bad?”

  “Will you get it back for me?”

  “I don’t know.” Patricia folded her arms, pretending his stare didn’t unnerve her. “I’m intrigued now. What is it about this ostracon that’s so special?”

  Andreas glared at her another moment, then swiveled away. “Nico.”

  Nico remained folded in the chair. “She’s obviously not going to be moved by money.”

  “All humans will do anything for money,” Andreas returned. “Especially their women.”

  “Insulting me isn’t the best way to get me to help you,” Patricia said. “I know the market; I can find another good piece for you at a decent price. As long as it’s legit. I don’t deal in stolen antiquities. But if you’re going to be an asshole, forget it.” She paused. “And anyway, what do you mean by all humans? I know Nico’s not human, and you don’t feel like it, either. Are you a winged creature, too?”

  Andreas scowled at Nico. “How does she know?”

  Nico shrugged. “She caught me with my wings down. It doesn’t matter—she understands. She’s magical.”

  “Magical, how?”

  “Psychic,” Patricia cut in. The way Andreas talked to Nico like she wasn’t there annoyed her. “I can see the auras of people. And things—I’m best with objects. The psychic clutter that inanimate objects pick up over lifetimes is amazing.”

  Nico unfolded himself from the chair and came to her as Andreas’s gaze locked on Patricia again. They both knew how to pin with a stare. Patricia held her ground, determined not to back away from either of them.

  Her heartbeat sped, and not entirely with fear. Having two very muscular, large males hemming her in wasn’t such a bad thing. Good cop, bad cop, or good winged man, bad . . . whatever. She could have fun dreams about this.

  “What psychic clutter do you see on us?” Nico asked her.

  Patricia looked at him, debating whether to lower her shields. She’d learned as a child to erect barriers between herself and what came to her, or she’d be so bombarded she couldn’t function. When she’d found Nico this morning, she’d kept her barriers firmly in place, sensing he had enough psychic energy to knock her across the room.

  Now she slowly lowered her shields. If she was careful and controlled it, she could look without hurting herself.

  The white-hot blaze of Nico’s aura sent her staggering. It was bright with awful power, stronger than anything she’d ever seen. She felt herself falling, then someone caught her—Andreas, she thought dimly.

  Andreas’s aura struck her from the other side. It was as strong as Nico’s, but purple instead of white, sizzling with strength. Their collective power punched her like fists, and she screamed.

  Nico’s arms came around her, his body so bright and savagely beautiful that she had to squeeze her eyes shut. He cupped her cheek, his voice insistent and urgent.

  “Block it out, sweetheart. You aren’t made to stand this. Shut us out.”

  Patricia collapsed in on herself, huddling into a ball supported by Ni
co’s strong arm. She instinctively started the exercises she’d learned as a child, chanting a string of sounds and picturing a screen rising to mute the auras around her.

  Gradually the light died away, the wild purple hue of Andreas and the incandescent white of Nico dimming until they became hard-bodied males and nothing more. She drew a sharp breath that hurt her lungs, realizing she’d stopped breathing altogether.

  Nico traced her cheek. “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know.” She gulped. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my entire life. What the hell are you two?”

  “Trapped,” Andreas said, suddenly somber. “Enslaved.” He touched the chain around his neck. “That’s what we are, Patricia Lake. Slaves who can’t go home.”

  NICO spread the magazine open on the table, standing behind Patricia as she leaned over it. Her hair smelled like honey. The compulsion of the spell was making him crazy with desire, and he wondered if it was driving Andreas crazy, too. The spell would embrace the one Patricia was first attracted to, but a woman could be equally attracted to both of them.

  Patricia touched the photograph of the ostracon he showed her. An ostracon was nothing more than a piece of stone or pottery with ancient writing on it. Egyptians and ancient Greeks had used them like modern people would use paper tablets. Many contained jottings of day-to-day notes by scribes and priests, or even school-boys’ lessons.

  The photograph’s caption said the entire thing was about one foot wide by two feet high. The magazine showed one close-up section of it, and Nico could read what looked like a spell that might mean his and Andreas’s freedom. Or it might mean nothing at all.

  Patricia nodded. “This is the one I had. I bought it from a dealer here in New York. It was offered on the market by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, not for very much, so it couldn’t have been that important.”

  “I don’t care where it came from,” Andreas said. “I only care where it is now.”

  “But where things come from can tell us a lot about them,” Patricia argued. “Objects retain impressions of where they’ve been and who touched them.”

  “And what did this tell you?” Nico asked.

  “That it was old.” Patricia looked up at him, those aquamarine eyes catching him. “Authentic, not a copy. From the Hellenistic period in Egypt—after Alexander the Great and before Cleopatra. It’s fairly ordinary—as far as ancient ostracons go. I didn’t feel it trying to give me a strange or urgent message or anything.”

  Andreas shoved himself away from the table. “We didn’t need you to tell us this. It’s in the article.”

  Patricia ignored him. “Anyway, a dealer bought it and brought it to New York. I thought it was interesting, so I picked it up.”

  “And sold it again,” Nico prompted.

  “I have a buyer interested in Egyptian artifacts. So yes, I sold it.”

  “To a person you keep secret,” Andreas growled.

  Patricia made a noise of exasperation. “If you’re so anxious, I can ask my customer if you can at least look at it, as long as you don’t do anything obnoxious, like try to steal it. If you’re nothing but powerfully magical antiquities thieves, I’m not letting you anywhere near it.”

  Andreas’s lip curled, but he subsided.

  “If you can arrange such a thing, we’d be eternally grateful.” Nico smiled, warming when her eyes softened for him. Andreas liked to dominate, to take, and make a woman enjoy his taking. Nico, on the other hand, very much enjoyed giving.

  “I’ll make phone calls tomorrow,” Patricia promised.

  Andreas grabbed a cell phone from the kitchen counter and shoved it at her. “Call now.”

  To Nico’s delight, Patricia met Andreas’s belligerent look with one of her own. “It’s too late, and my client’s elderly. Tomorrow.”

  The growl that came out of Andreas’s mouth was primal. Nico expected the man to morph to his true self and force Patricia to do what he wanted, but Andreas clenched his hands and turned away.

  “Is he always like this?” Patricia asked Nico, loud enough for Andreas to hear.

  “You have no idea.” Nico winked at her. “But sometimes he’s a pussycat.”

  Andreas sent him a furious look. “Why the hell did I have to get stuck through the ages with you?”

  “Fantastic luck,” Nico answered.

  Andreas’s growl escalated, his fists tightening. But Andreas wasn’t stupid. They needed to find the answer, and as volatile as Andreas could be, he’d not jeopardize things when they were so close. His dominant tendencies sometimes got in the way, but he’d learned—painfully—how to control himself.

  “I’m going downstairs,” Andreas said and slammed out of the room.

  Patricia watched him go. “You have interesting friends.”

  “That’s one word for him.”

  “Um . . . I have to ask. Are you two . . . ?” She looked embarrassed.

  “Lovers? No, sweetheart. Old, old friends who got stuck with each other, is all. Why?” He grinned. “Were you thinking about it?”

  Her furious blush told him he was right. Women they’d pleasured together had said what would please them most was watching Nico and Andreas naked on a bed together. Sometimes they obliged.

  The two of them shared a friendship that spanned eons, and they could touch each other when they needed to without worry.

  Patricia gazed at Nico in a gratifying way. He imagined her bare against his body, her sleek curls rubbing his skin. He’d like her looking at him like that while he lay flat on the bed with her straddling him. He could reach up and catch her breasts in his hands, lift his head to suckle her.

  “Can I see your wings again?” she asked.

  Nico’s body tightened as her blue green eyes flicked over it. His cock began its little dance of hope. “My wings?”

  She twirled one of her curls around her finger, her eyes soft and so damn sexy. “I want to make sure I didn’t imagine them.”

  “Seeing my true aura didn’t convince you?”

  Patricia shivered. They’d had to feed her two cups of coffee before she calmed down after letting herself look at their naked auras. Nico had never met a human being who could see them, which made Patricia even more interesting.

  “That’s different. The wings were tangible; I felt them.” She gave him a wistful smile. “I’d like to see them again.”

  Nico grinned, his cock dancing even faster, and moved to the center of the room to strip off his T-shirt.

  He often let his wings free when he was upstairs, to keep from cramping, but never before had unfurling them been tinged with erotic excitement. It was almost like she’d asked him to do a striptease.

  He tossed away the shirt and put his hands on his hips, determined to give her a show. He made a soft sound as his shoulder blades gave a jerk that was always slightly painful but somehow a pleasure, like the moment before climax.

  The wings rippled from his shoulders, spreading in black smoothness out from his body. They were huge, curving up over his head and down his back to curl at his feet.

  He stretched, loving the warmth of extending the tendons to the very tips. He couldn’t fly much in Manhattan—too much risk of being seen—and he loved any opportunity to spread himself wide.

  Patricia’s red lips parted. “They’re beautiful.”

  Her voice rasped, low and sweet, not releasing any tension from his erection.

  He curved the wings in an arc in front his body. “So come here and touch them.”

  In wonder, Patricia left her chair and came to him. He tickled her cheek playfully, and she laughed, burying herself in the crush of his feathers. She rubbed her face against them, humming in her throat as she enjoyed the sleekness on her skin.

  Her cheeks flushed, her nipples pebble-tight against her blouse. “They feel so good.”

  “You aren’t bad yourself.”

  Nico slid his arms around her and gently drew her into his complete embrace. She came against him withou
t a struggle, still buried in the warmth of his wings.

  “My cats are fascinated with you,” she said. “They think you’re some kind of bird man.”

  “No.” He cupped her face in his hands and brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Some kind of god-man.”

  She gave him a startled look. As her lips formed a question, he leaned in and kissed them.

  He kissed her slowly, sliding his tongue into the warm wetness of her mouth. She made a noise in her throat, her breath hot on his lips, then she opened to him like a flower.

  Something jolted across his skin, a spark of awareness, an incredible joy. His heart beat faster, and a trickle of sweat moved from his shoulder blades down his spine to his ass.

  With the spark of joy came sorrow. The curse had fully ignited. It was going to be good, so good. And then it would hurt like hell.

  The kiss went on, her lips moving while she wove her fingers through his sensitive feathers. She was exploring him, getting to know him. He cupped her head in his hand, her warm curls spilling over his fingers.

  “My,” she murmured.

  He’d like it better if she’d said Mine.

  But she couldn’t, of course. Part of the enslavement was that Nico and Andreas could give plenty of physical enjoyment, but they’d receive no love in return. No matter how much he delighted Patricia, she would never fall in love with him. In the end, she’d walk away and forget him, and Nico’s heart would break.

  He pressed the thought aside. “Do you like to dance?”

  She blinked. “Dance?”

  “Downstairs. This is a club.”

  “Oh.” She looked like she’d forgotten. “No—thanks. I haven’t danced in a long time, and I’m not really dressed for it.”

  Her face was red, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Nico thought about the women who usually came here to ogle him and Andreas, dresses cupping their asses and mile-high shoes. Patricia didn’t think she could compete, but she was wrong. She’d look fantastic in a tight skirt, but even more important, she’d look fantastic out of it.