by Various
“Yes,” he reached into a black portfolio case at his feet, removed the pictures, and handed them across to her. “Tell me you’ve seen stuff like this before and I won’t believe you.”
Agate studied the pictures, sharp photos of strange monstrous creatures and men throwing fire from their fingertips, pursing her lips in concentration.
He wanted to lick those lips. To suck on them. He shifted again in his seat, but it was no use, his cock felt full to bursting in his pants. It was nearly painful.
Her gaze locked with his, jolting him. She had such a powerful stare, such deep eyes.
He realized suddenly that she was wearing colored contacts. He wondered what color her eyes really were and became quite obsessed with how he might go about finding that out for himself. He supposed it would be easier just to ask her, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be half as fun.
“These are all the photographs you have?”
He blinked. And remembered again why they were here. Damn but this woman wreaked havoc on his strict self-possession. He tore his eyes away from her face, looking at the photos instead. “Yes. What do you think? Do you know what those things are? What they were doing in a New York City park?”
“Where are the…” she seemed to search for the word, “…the negatives?” She blatantly ignored his questions.
Alek felt a little shadow of doubt, a small frisson of caution, and frowned. His instincts never led him astray and something about this woman didn’t sit right with him. Well, a lot of things about her didn’t sit right, but now it seemed important that he pay more attention to that instead of her luscious breasts.
“They’re at my apartment in New York,” he lied easily. Actually, they were in his portfolio, but she didn’t need to know that.
“We asked that you bring them,” she frowned. “When we emailed you.”
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“I was already here in Paris when I received your email. You don’t need the negatives anyway,” he pointed out, “the photographs show everything. I developed them myself.”
She blinked. “I need them for authentication purposes.” The words were well practiced.
She sounded like an automaton when she said them.
His curiosity and his caution escalated at once. “I can assure you that they are authentic.”
“But I need the negatives,” she exclaimed. “You’ll have to go home and get them.”
He choked on an incredulous laugh. “I don’t have to do anything. What are you so bent out of shape about anyway? Those photos aren’t doctored, they’re real. What I saw was real,” he started to get angry. “I’m not lying about this.”
“Bent out of shape?” Her eyes rolled as if she were swamped with confusion and rising panic. “Doctored? Cady didn’t explain these phrases, I don’t know what this means—” she groaned and tears filled her eyes.
Alek felt like a heel. Even though he had no cause to—this woman was a nutter and he’d probably be better off getting up right now and leaving—he felt like he’d just kicked a puppy.
“Look, I might have the negatives back at my hotel here,” he offered smoothly.
She jumped on the possibility, her eyes dried instantly and her smile was brilliant.
“Let’s go look.”
His mind reeled with her mercurial changes of mood. But she’d actually offered to go with him, back to his room. Alek had never felt so lucky. He felt certain he’d have her in bed in no time once he got her into his room. Maybe once he’d had a taste of her, his mind would clear long enough for him to study her. To find out what it was about her that had him wanting to look over his shoulder every few seconds, as if he feared an ambush. Once he’d had her a couple of times, he felt sure he could read her better.
Actually, it might take more than a couple of times…
God, she was so damn sexy he almost lost it, almost creamed his jeans merely looking forward to the night’s promise.
He ignored his misgivings about her, of course. She was that hot.
The photographs disappeared into the messenger bag. She slung it over her shoulder, jumped up from her seat, threw a large bill note on the table, paused, then added another to it.
And then he had it. Again he felt sure he knew what it was about her. This woman was rich. So rich she was eccentric, flighty, and careless about leaving exorbitant tips behind for mediocre service. It made perfect sense now.
At least she wasn’t snobby, her effusive apologies to the waiter had proven that beyond a doubt. He couldn’t stand snobby, self-centered women.
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Alek picked up his portfolio, well aware that the negatives to his photographs were inside it. Well aware too, that he was luring this eccentric, animated young lady to his lair with the full intent of fucking her brains out. And he didn’t feel at all guilty about it.
She grabbed at his hand, tangling her fingers with his. It was an almost innocent gesture. But she was an adult—for all she looked so close to being jailbait—and so was he. Holding hands wasn’t all they’d do tonight. Not if he had anything to say about it.
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Chapter Two
Alek Fromin was extremely appealing. His hair was brown with bright blond highlights, hanging down to his shoulders in negligent waves. His skin was dark from the sun—oh how she longed to one day see the sun!—and his intelligent eyes were so pale a blue they looked like ice.
But they were too hot for ice. They fairly burned into her. She knew he was attracted to her. Knew, too, that he wanted to “get in her pants”, as Cady might have said. She wanted him in her pants—skirt—as well, but she knew it was an impossibility.
He was a human and she was a Shikar. A Shikar sent to steal this human’s memory.
She felt so guilty.
But not that guilty.
She liked holding hands with him as they walked back to his hotel. Of course she knew what a hotel was—she’d been studying the human culture for years—but she hadn’t seen one up close before. More than anything, Agate hoped it had an elevator—
and that she would get a chance to ride in it.
The streets of Paris were teeming with people, even though it was night. Lamps illuminated their way and beckoned from the dozens of shops they passed. Agate felt the energy and purpose in the people around her, felt their enthusiasm—their joy of life.
She knew that her people were needed here, to help protect these humans from the threat they were so innocently oblivious to. It made her feel both sad and proud. Sad that Shikars must always keep themselves secret from humans who were known for fearing things they did not understand. And proud because her people would not hold such prejudices against the humans, the Shikars would always keep the world safe from the monsters that roamed the night. It was a Shikar’s duty and privilege to protect those weaker than themselves.
And humans were, generally, much weaker than Shikars. But Aleksandr Fromin…
Agate wasn’t so sure about him. She sensed a core of steel underneath his brooding, handsome exterior. There was something about his eyes that warned her he was not a man to be underestimated, nor taken lightly. He’d seen much in his life—Agate could clearly see the jaded cynicism in him—he’d suffered much.
At least she could take some of his suffering away from him. He would not be haunted or dogged by the nightmarish memory of the Daemons or the Shikar Warriors he’d witnessed battling with each other, not after tonight. She would make sure of it.
“Have you ever seen these monsters?” He was obviously thinking along similar lines as she.
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Agate nodded. It would do no harm to be open and truthful with him now—he wouldn’t remember it later anyway. “Many times. There are more than you might think, far more.”
Alek paused under the yellow glow of a streetlight and looked at her pensively for a long moment.
“I’ve been trying to convince myself that this has all been some hallucination brought on from stress. I might have believed it eventually if not for the photographs.”
“I know.” She would help him with that, at least.
He shook his head, his lips twisting in a self-depreciating smile. “How can you know? Monsters do not exist. Seven-foot men who throw fire from their fingertips do not exist. They can’t. If they did, everyone would know about it.”
“Oh, you would be very surprised about that. Humans prefer to look the other way when something supernatural is going on. Not very many people have seen these Daemons. And even fewer have seen the Shikar Warriors. They refuse to see the truth that is staring them in the face.”
“And what is that?” he asked, looking bored, but Agate knew better. The wheels of his mind were spinning. He was both fascinated and skeptical about their topic of conversation.
Agate felt her heart soften for him. He was so stoic, so reserved. Even when facing what must be a terrifying ordeal such as this.
“The truth of it is that these monsters, we call them Daemons, roam the Earth with increasing frequency and violence. They care for nothing and no one. Their one drive is to feed on humans with strong spiritual and psychic gifts, to feast on their life force to fuel their own horrible existence. The men you saw—the ones in your photos—they are Shikars. A species not too dissimilar from humans—though they live in secret underneath the surface of the Earth’s crust—who are sworn to protect humans from the Daemons’ violent hunger.”
Alek laughed darkly, clearly not believing her story. “You must be joking. You don’t really believe any of this crap, do you?”
Crap? Cady used the word often, and though Agate had never asked what it meant, she knew it was a derogatory word all the same. “You have seen this for yourself. You were caught in one of their battles, your pictures are proof that what I say is true.”
He was silent for a long while, lost in deep thought. His eyes were hard as flint rock when they swept her from head to toe, and Agate was sure they held no small amount of suspicion. “If all of this were true,” he said at last, “then these Shikars would hate for these pictures to get out.”
Agate was shocked at his cunning, but determined to give nothing away. He was watching her closely now. If she faltered, this human—whom she now understood was quite dangerous when cornered, as he must no doubt feel in his present situation—
would not allow her further opportunity to recover the proof he possessed, nor would he bother hanging around long enough for her to rob him of his memory.
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Now was the time when all her cunning would be needed and though some might underestimate this in her, she had plenty of it when the situation called for such a thing.
Agate simply chose, in most cases, not to flaunt it.
“You are absolutely right,” she said truthfully, knowing full well that this man would see it if she lied.
Unable to resist the urge that had been growing inside her since she’d first heard his sexy bedroom voice, she leaned into him, rising on her tiptoes. He was taller than she’d first thought, even with her borrowed heels. She lifted her face and pressed her lips to his. Her hands came up to his shoulders to steady herself as the world reeled about her. He seemed to allow her the upper hand in this intimacy for but a moment.
Then he took total control, dominating the kiss, and Agate was lost.
His hands came about her waist, lifting her hard against him. She felt his erection pressed tight to her belly, so hot and hard, as if there were no clothes separating them.
She gasped, parting her lips, and his tongue filled her mouth. He tasted like hot, hard, demanding male and a swirling flame of lust licked at her womb. Visions danced in her head, swamping her, coming faster and faster—
And she could see inside of him. Images of war and battle and tragedy, graphic pictures of human suffering, of violence and famine and death—they flowed like raging whitewater from his mind to hers. Her empathic traits—dull and weak until now—
flared as hot and bright as their kiss, and she could see into him. See his every secret, every thought, every memory.
The Daemons were there, as were the Shikars. The memory of the battle he’d witnessed haunted him, but not as she’d imagined it might. He was not so devastated by the possibility that such things existed, but that he had somehow misinterpreted them. That he didn’t understand them and that these beings had been in his world all along without his knowledge aggravated and angered him.
And the memory of war was there also, human war. Agate had only seen pictures of such violence before—but now she was reliving the horror through his memories. He had been in the middle of the gunfire and the explosions, taking his pictures, documenting the events with a cool and detached ruthlessness. More than anything, he believed in recording the events that shaped his world, in documenting reality with as much detail as possible.
He was no different than she in this respect. The both studied the world around them, at times separate and alienated from all they must witness and record, even as they were caught up in the middle of it.
He’d been hit by bullets, cut with blades, burned and bruised and torn. He’d known such pain, physical and mental, but through it all he’d taken his pictures. Alek had been born in the midst of war, in the Ukraine, and his family’s flight to America had done nothing to help him forget it. He understood war, even as he hated it. He could not sit back and do nothing as parts of the world lived in chaos.
Alek and his camera held witness as the world rumbled its discontent.
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Agate saw everything, shared in his pains and his triumphs, lost in the wonder of his kiss.
His mouth ate at hers. His tongue uncovered and conquered every secret, tasting her, discovering her. The strength of his arms encircled and imprisoned her. A strong hand anchored atop the rising curve of her buttocks. The other swept up her back and tangled into the hair at her nape. He held her so tight she could have wept, her heart full to bursting with need and love and empathic understanding.
She could not take his memory from him. Not now. Not after touching his mind like this. Not after knowing his heart so well and so dear.
Alek sucked her lower lip, using his teeth to nibble erotically. His hand came around to cup her breast, nearly burning her through her clothing. Agate moaned.
Then, with a gasp, she pulled away, nearly stumbling on her shaking legs. Too much longer in his arms and she would have willingly made love to him there on the street, with the whole world passing by unnoticed. She wanted him that much.
Their eyes met. And Agate saw that he had felt much the same as she.
“We’ll finish this,” he said roughly, gaze burning into hers.
Weakly, she nodded. “Yes,” she breathed unsteadily.
His jaw clenched. Agate heard his teeth grit with his resolve. He took her hand this time, holding her fast and strong, as if he’d drag her along should she prove unwilling.
She wasn’t—unwilling, that is. Not at all.
With breathless anticipation, she walked alongside him, nearly skipping to keep up with his long strides. She smiled to herself. Cady was going to be so pissed.
It seemed she would be late getting back after all.
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Chapter Three
A small shop caught his attention, dragging him out of his erotic thoughts—each involving his escort’s naked body, long legs, and sugar-sweet lips. Her mouth fascinated him beyond all reason.
He wanted to fuck that mouth.
Wanted her on her knees in front of him, eager and willing, as she wet her lips with that wicked tongue of hers and opened for him.
Get it together, man. If he weren’t careful, he’d lose all control, take her to a darkened side street and be done with any romance or softness. She made him that cr
azy.
But first he needed to buy a box of condoms. He only had one or two in his overnight bag—they’d been there for weeks now, he’d just been too busy and preoccupied to use them—and he knew he’d need more than that tonight. Making a detour in this shop would only cost a few precious moments.
He ignored the devilish urge to just forget about the extra protection, that time was too precious, he shouldn’t squander it, even the few seconds it would take to make a quick purchase. But he’d never neglected to use a condom before and he wasn’t about to make an exception now, no matter how hot he was to have the mercurial minx at his side.
Agate nearly tripped as he made the swift detour into the storefront door. He was loath to release her hand—he wasn’t sure if he feared she might bolt or if he just liked the feel of their tangled fingers—but he did, allowing her to enter the door before him, an ingrained gentlemanly gesture he hadn’t even given second thought to.
It amused him, as well as puzzled him, when Agate bounced excitedly over to a display of chocolate bars and candies. She seemed so childlike in her enthusiasm, but there were moments when he saw a seriously adult mentality behind her eyes. She was more than she seemed on the surface, he was certain of that.
There had been a moment, when he’d kissed her, when he’d almost felt as if he knew her far more intimately than he should have. As if they’d already shared many secrets about their lives, their pasts, their hopes and dreams with each other. But it was fleeting, and just as he noticed the incredible feeling of discovery—of the elemental and soulful knowledge of her—she had pulled away from him.
It was a good thing she’d done that, too. Alek wasn’t sure, even now, that he would have had the strength to pull away himself. The tight need in him was stronger than any he’d ever experienced. He’d held onto his self-control by a thread, and it was a wonder he hadn’t taken her there on the street.
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“I love chocolate,” she exclaimed with a bright smile, grabbing a generous handful of assorted sweets. She plunked them down on the counter before the bemused-looking cashier, and added several more to it. “These too,” she added one of each of the local newspapers and two glossy magazines.
