by Nina Croft
He’d never doubted that Soraya would see him and remember their love.
Until now.
She shifted in her sleep, hugging the robe closer. He wanted to go to her, couldn’t help the feeling that time was running out, but she appeared exhausted with shadows under her eyes, and he liked her like this. Asleep, he could believe that Soraya was in his grasp; that everything would work.
Day 2
As dawn broke, he let himself into her room. She slept on. He guessed she’d gotten little rest during her stay at the police station and she was making up for lost time. In addition, a half-empty bottle of champagne stood on the coffee table beside her.
Reaching across, he picked up the bottle and lifted it to his lips. The taste of her lingered on the glass and the once-familiar flavor of her filled him with heat.
He sank onto the chair opposite the sofa and watched her, until her eyes finally blinked open. For a moment, they gazed at him sleepily, and a smile hovered somewhere close. Then she snapped awake and any hint of warmth vanished.
“Hey, don’t I get any privacy?”
“I knocked but there was no answer. I was worried,” he added smoothly, but was unsurprised when her eyes narrowed on him.
“You and I need to get some ground rules sorted out.” She sat up, tugging the folds of the robe around her. “You’re in my space, and I don’t want to think you might be creeping up on me every few minutes.”
He took another swig from the champagne bottle, leaned forward, and handed it to her.
She eyed it warily but took it from him and lifted it to her lips. A jolt of heat hit him in the belly as she put the bottle in her mouth. Fascinated, he watched the movement of her throat as she swallowed. He shifted in the chair, crossing his legs. If she got any inkling of the effect she had on him, she would run so fast and so far, he might never catch up.
She placed the empty bottle on the table between them. “So, are you here to tell me about this job?”
“In a way.”
She scowled. “Look, don’t go all freaking cryptic on me. Just tell me why the hell I’m here and what the fuck you want me to do. Some sort of con I guess.”
“Not quite.”
“Jesus.”
She got up and stalked into the bedroom. Her little dog lay, curled up on the cream bedspread. It opened one eye, caught sight of Torr through the open door, and growled. Bella glanced around once and then slammed the door.
Torr sat staring at it, the hardness of his erection subsiding.
What seemed like seconds later, she emerged from the bedroom dressed in faded jeans, which fitted tightly to her narrow hips, and a black T-shirt with some sort of rock band logo on the front. She carried a pair of trainers and she plonked down on the sofa and pulled them on.
She wasn’t planning on going out was she? They needed to talk. “Going somewhere?” he asked.
“I have to take Skip for a walk, unless you like having your expensive carpets peed on.”
Torr saw her point. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.
“Cade, I’ve got an important job for you.” He turned to look at Bella. “We need to talk.”
A minute later, a knock sounded on the door. Torr stood up and crossed the room to open it. Bella came up beside him, the dog on a lead at her side. She peered up at Cade, in his smooth business suit, and handed him the leash with a grin.
Cade looked at Torr, his eyes narrowing. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I never joke,” he replied.
Cade sighed but took the lead gingerly. “Okay. But you owe me.”
“And Cade,” Torr said, “we need a meeting this afternoon. Call the others in.”
“Trouble?”
Torr glanced at Bella; she was making no attempt to hide that she was listening avidly. But he wouldn’t keep secrets from her. Not ones he was allowed to tell anyway.
“We may have. I’m going to see what I can find out.”
“Okay. I’ll send out a call. Finn is here, but the rest could be anywhere.” Cade turned to go.
“Look after Skip,” Bella called out, but the dog seemed quite happy trotting along with Cade. “He seems to like him more than you,” Bella said as the door closed.
“I have a dog. He can probably smell him on me.”
“You do?”
He didn’t mention that the dog was actually a hellhound. A present from Lilith, but he didn’t hold that against the animal.
“So does this problem have anything to do with me?” Bella asked.
“No. It’s tied in with my partners.”
“Partners?”
“There are seven of us who own the company.” He waved a hand at the sofa. “Now, we need to talk.”
Torr had thought hard about what he should tell her. The truth—that they’d been lovers in a past life—was obviously out of the question, but he needed a way to get through to her. And quickly.
Somehow, she’d built a solid wall around her empath abilities, blocking them out. Having seen the file on her, he could understand why. Her mother had been a monster, and her life on the streets must have been hard, but he still needed to smash through that wall. Her past had made her afraid to love, but if she could see into his mind, she would know how he felt, know his feelings were genuine, and maybe allow herself to feel again.
***
Bella kicked off her trainers and sat on the sofa cross-legged. “So what’s the job?”
His smooth, suave, sophisticated appearance was becoming unraveled. Midnight black hair hung loose to his shoulders, and every time he ran his hands through it, Bella’s fingers itched with the need to know how it would feel. She sat on her hands, in case they reached out when she wasn’t paying attention.
He should have looked scary, with those yellow eyes and that scar, but she didn’t feel scared. Maybe it was the champagne.
Torr crossed the room and poured himself a scotch. He held the bottle up to her, but she shook her head. “It’s not even eight in the morning.” She wasn’t used to alcohol and perhaps now was not the time to experiment with its effects. He came back; but instead of resuming his seat opposite from her, he sat down on the sofa beside her, put his glass on the coffee table, and leaned back with a sigh, his long lashes flickering closed.
Bella shifted in her seat. He was having the strangest effect on her. She wasn’t used to men having any effect, and she tried to analyze the feelings as she studied him from the corner of her eye. He’d lost his suit jacket somewhere along the way, and his white silk shirt was stretched taut across his broad chest. Through it, she could see the faint shadow of dark hair. The shirt was open at the throat and her eyes were persistently drawn to the triangle of skin revealed. Her gaze drifted lower to where the shirt was tucked into the waistband of his black pants. His belly was flat, hips narrow, legs long. She tried not to stare at the bulge of his groin, but her eyes kept flicking back. Finally, she forced herself to look away and out the window.
Her fingers drummed on the arm of the sofa. She wished he’d get on with it. Whatever ‘it’ was. Give her something else to think about. She tried to be patient. Her attempt lasted around thirty seconds. “Well? What’s the con?”
He opened his eyes; they were sleepy, heavy-lidded. Turning his head, he looked at her, a slight frown forming on his lean, handsome face. “We’re not con artists.”
“You’re not?” Her brows drew together. “So what do you want with me?”
“We run a security company. This is our head office, though we have offices all over the world.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.” She was, but she still wished he’d get on with it.
“We get contracts, often from government agencies, but also private companies and individuals, to provide security, do risk assessment, including identifying individuals who may present a threat, and providing background checks on people who are going into sensitive positions.”
Bella had no clue where this was going.
How could she possibly be of any use to such an organization? Maybe they wanted her to test systems, to see if she could con her way through their safeguards. But the idea seemed a long shot.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “What do you want me for? I don’t see how I can help?”
He straightened and reached for his glass, swallowing the amber liquid down in one gulp. “We know you were born with certain unusual abilities.”
Shock hit her hard in the solar plexus. Whatever else she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
How could he know?
Freak. Monster.
Her mother’s words echoed through her mind. But her mother had been out of her life for years, and no one knew now, except for Justin and the woman who had helped her control her problem. Justin would never betray her, and the woman hadn’t even known Bella’s real name.
She gritted her teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bella, you could be of invaluable use to our company. You have the ability to look at people, know if they are telling the truth, if they have good intentions. Or evil.”
“No one can do that.”
He reached out, rested his hand on her forearm and she stared down at it. His fingers were long, pale against her skin. Little tremors of sensation zipped along her nerves.
“You don’t have to pretend here. We can help you.”
She pulled her arm free and leapt to her feet, stalking around the sofa so it was between them. “I don’t need help.”
He ignored her. “We have people who can show you how to control your gift. Not crudely as you do now, but so you can use it, as and when you desire.”
Bella folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “I have no gift. And even if I did, I have absolutely no desire to learn how to control it.”
He appeared to think for a minute. “We can pay you a lot of money. More than you could ever make on your ridiculous con jobs. You could be secure for the rest of your life. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Security?”
He knew way too much about her. How did he find all this shit out? “Have you had me investigated?”
He shrugged. “Of course. We always run a background check on potential employees.”
“I am not a potential employee.”
“You could be.” He rose to his feet, took a step toward her. “Don’t you want to know what you can do?” he asked, his voice laced with frustration. “Are you happy with this pathetic little existence?”
She backed away from him and turned to stare out through the window. Shock and fear warred within her. She tried to control her emotions and think about his proposal rationally; but she found this was not an easy subject to be rational about.
Her ‘powers’ as he called them had ruined her childhood. What child wants to be able to sense that her mother hates her, resents her very existence. What fourteen-year-old girl wants to be blasted by lust from her mother’s boyfriends’ disgusting, perverted brains? She shivered as waves of remembered revulsion washed through her.
No way was she going back to that. She’d wait until she was alone and then she was out of here.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled around to find him far too close. The sharp, musky scent of his body filled her nostrils, at once strange but somehow familiar.
She stood transfixed. Inside, a voice screamed at her to move, but she couldn’t seem to obey, could only watch wide-eyed as his hand came up to cup her cheek. The pad of his thumb brushed across her lips and tingles of sensation radiated out from the point of contact. She wanted to close her eyes, forget where she was, who she was with, and give in to the urge coming from somewhere deep inside her that said let him do what he would.
Instead, she kept them open and stared straight ahead. She only came up to his chest, about level with the open neck of his shirt. She raised her eyes to the strong column of his throat where she could see the throb of blood in his veins.
She should feel threatened. He was so much bigger than she was and he was encroaching on her personal space, again, but she didn’t feel threatened in any way. In fact, she was fighting the urge to take the final step that would bring her body flush against his, enable her to rest her head against his chest, feel the beat of his heart.
“Let me show you all you can be,” he murmured.
Chapter 5
Torr’s hand, still cupping her cheek, drifted lower, his fingers stroking her skin. He tipped her face upward so she looked up into his eyes, and her breath caught in her throat. He was staring down at her with a strange expression, longing and something else. She shut her eyes then; afraid the emotion was too intense, and she felt, rather than saw, as he lowered his face to hers and kissed her.
At the soft touch of his lips, lights flashed behind her closed lids. He deepened the kiss, the stroke of his tongue, pushing, insistent, and she opened to him. He thrust inside her, warm, wet velvet, and her body responded, as she’d never believed it could. Heat pooled at her core. Her arms went up, her hands tangling in the silk of his hair as she held him close against her and her head spun out of control. She sensed the force of his will pushing against her, saw that door in the wall once again, and fear flashed through her.
She struggled in his arms, her hands moving to his shoulders to try to pries some distance between them.
But he was far stronger. He held her with ease as he ravished her mouth, and the power of his will pounded against her defenses. She lost control then, fought him furiously, bit down hard on his lower lip, and tasted the sweet metallic tang as his warm blood flooded her mouth.
He went still against her, and then backed slowly away. She watched mesmerized as he touched a finger to his lip where a bead of blood had formed. He licked it away then looked at Bella.
His yellow eyes glowed feral, and real fear flickered to life deep inside her. She didn’t dare move, her eyes darting around the room for some way to escape, only to return to his face as if drawn by some invisible magnet.
As she stared, he took control of himself. Wrapped it around himself, like a cloak, and the hunger faded from his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m moving too fast. You have my apologies. I won’t touch you again without your permission.”
She wanted to make some smart remark like it would be a cold day in hell, but she couldn’t seem to form the words on her tongue. All she could do was stand there and watch as he turned on his heel and walked away.
He paused in the doorway. “One more thing. If you decide to leave now, I’ll have you taken back into custody.”
“What?” She finally managed to get a word out, as her brain slowly started to function again.
“You were only allowed out on the assumption that you would be working for Stormlord Securities.”
“How did you do that anyway?”
“I told you, we get a lot of government contracts. We have contacts, people willing to return favors.”
“You bribed somebody? So, let me get this right. You’re saying if I don’t go along with what you want, you’ll have me locked up again?”
“It’s your choice.”
Suddenly she was filled with righteous fury. She picked up the empty champagne bottle, and stalked toward him.
“Get the fuck out of my room,” she screamed.
***
Torr pulled the door closed behind him and heard the crash as the heavy bottle smashed into the wood.
Well, that had gone well.
He could still taste her on his lips and feel the softness of her. His cock was hard and his balls ached. He slammed his fist into the wall.
“How’s it going?”
He glanced up to see Phoebe standing in the hallway watching him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was pity on her face. “Brilliantly,” he snarled.
Most people would have backed off, but Phoebe was tougher than that. “So what happened to make you look so happy?”
“Let me think. First, I insulted her way of life, then I assaulted her, and finally I threatened her with prison.”
“Assaulted? Is she okay?”
“Of course, she’s okay. What do you take me for?”
A slight smile flickered across her face and was gone just as quickly. The truth was Phoebe knew exactly what he was, and what he was capable of. But she also must know he would never hurt Bella.
“Well,” she said, “it sounds like a great way to get someone to fall in love with you.”
“I don’t need her to fall in love with me. I just need her to remember that she’s already in love with me.”
“You want me to talk to her?”
“You can’t tell her; that would be breaking the Covenant.”
“I know that. But maybe a friendly face will help her relax.”
“I’m friendly,” he growled.
Another crash came from inside the room.
Torr ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Okay. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay with her. I’ve got…things to do and a meeting; and yeah, she could probably do with some company.”
“Okay. It will be nice to have another woman around this place. You guys can be a bit overpowering you know.” She strolled past him and tapped lightly on the wood.
“Get lost!” Bella shouted.
Phoebe turned to Torr. “Go on. I think this might go better if you’re not here when she opens the door.”
Torr didn’t want to leave, but he had to go see if he could find out any information. And afterward he needed to tell the others what had occurred with Lilith. They had to try to work out who had his soul and what they planned to do with it. If it was Razul, they were in trouble.
Razul hated his guts.
Along with the rest of him.
***
The tap came again.
Bella strode across the room and yanked open the door, opened her mouth to tell him to…and closed it again.
