But deep inside, she knew her frustration was caused as much by the silent man trailing behind her as the stress of potential death.
What the hell had he been thinking to confront six armed drug runners by himself?
Okay, she logically knew that he could have destroyed the humans. She’d even tried to pretend she was concerned they might end up bloody corpses. But inside she’d been a seething mass of terror that Fane would be injured.
Which for some reason pissed her off.
Was this why he’d always been so insistent that he couldn’t make her a permanent part of his life? Had he known she would be tormenting herself every time he stepped into danger?
After all, it was one thing to be at Valhalla knowing he might be at risk, and another to be watching as he deliberately placed himself in the line of fire.
She’d been so angry for so long at his stubborn refusal to believe she was capable of accepting his commitment to his duties. She assumed he thought she was too pampered, too sheltered to be the partner of a warrior.
Now she was forced to accept that he might have had a point.
Watching him . . . shit. She’d been a breath from stepping out of the car and blasting them with enough psychic force to knock them out for a week. Only the knowledge that Fane would put himself in even greater danger if she’d attracted the attention of the thugs had kept her in the car.
Not that the nerve-wracking afternoon had changed her feelings for the aggravating beast. She wasn’t sure there was anything that could destroy her love. But it forced her to admit that her resentment toward Fane hadn’t been entirely fair. And to acknowledge that being the lover of a Sentinel might involve more than she’d originally anticipated.
She hated being in the wrong.
“Well that was a waste of a day,” she muttered, pacing the sitting room.
Bas had dropped them off in front of the hotel, warning he was returning at eight. Of course he refused to say where they would be going, only insisting that she was to wear the formal gown.
The bastard.
Moving without a sound, Fane was standing directly in her path, his hands lightly gripping her shoulders.
“It’s not too late, Serra.”
Her heart skidded to a halt at his touch, her mouth going dry. She’d spent the entire day trying to ignore her acute awareness of this man. Now she was too damned tired to deny the thrill of excitement that raced through her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice husky.
His expression remained grim, but his grip eased, allowing his fingers to lightly trace the line of her shoulders.
“I can contact the Mave.”
“No.”
He scowled. “Serra—”
She lifted her hand to press her fingers to his lips, halting his protest. “Not yet.”
Without warning he nipped the tip of her finger, his eyes darkening with a blast of arousal he made no effort to hide.
“I knew you were going to be trouble the minute I saw you,” he murmured, his low voice brushing over her skin like a caress.
She frowned, glaring into his hard, starkly beautiful face. Hell. He was supposed to be the aloof, untouchable Sentinel. The distant warrior she’d sworn had rejected her for the last time.
She couldn’t possibly fight her aching need when he wasn’t playing by the rules.
“You don’t even remember our first meeting,” she accused, her treacherous fingers lingering on his surprisingly sensuous lips.
His hands smoothed down her back, his caress heart-stoppingly tender.
It was something that had always fascinated her.
How such a strong, lethally trained Sentinel could possess a touch delicate enough to carve the exquisite wooden figurines that filled the nursery at Valhalla or make a woman melt in desire.
She shivered as he cupped her ass with an intimacy that made her breath tangle in her throat.
“I remember every second of our first meeting,” he informed her, the movement of his lips beneath her fingers oddly erotic. “I’d been away from Valhalla for almost fifty years and I was anxious to return to my favorite fishing spot by the lake. But instead of the peace and quiet I was expecting I discovered a dark-haired, green-eyed vixen who was wearing a dangerously skimpy tank top and short-shorts.” His gaze drifted down to the low cut of her neckline. “You looked like a wood sprite.”
His low words vividly conjured the magic of the day.
She’d escaped from her training so she could finish her latest romance novel. It’d been a rare autumn day filled with sunshine and just a hint of frost in the air. The sort of day that begged a young woman to play hooky.
Knowing that Inhera, the leader of the psychics and clairvoyants, would send someone in search of her, Serra had hidden among the reeds that surrounded the lake, feeling deliciously rebellious.
And then . . . Fane had appeared.
“I glanced up from the book I was reading and I was dazzled,” she told him, her fingers moving to stroke the exotic tattoo that wrapped around his thick neck. “You were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”
He arched a brow. “Beautiful?”
“You are.” She smiled with rueful resignation. “But then you grunted at me and before I could even say hi you were storming away in a huff.”
“Because I felt like a perv,” he muttered, a shocking heat staining his high cheekbones.
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
“You were so young.” He shook his head. “Too young.”
“I was over eighteen.”
“Barely.” His eyes lowered to the swell of her breasts, his eyes dilating with a hunger he couldn’t disguise. “Christ, all I could think about was laying you back on the grass and peeling away that teeny tiny top.” His hands skimmed up her hips to slide beneath the edge of her sweater.
She hissed in shock, but he held his searching gaze even as she shuddered at the feel of his hands on her bare skin.
They scalded. Tormented.
Aroused.
“Then you spent the next fifteen years pretending I didn’t exist,” she muttered.
He gave a short, humorless laugh, his hands moving up to cup the heavy weight of her breasts.
“That pretense is well and truly over.”
Serra swallowed a groan, her senses sizzling with electric anticipation beneath his bold seduction. His fingers found the straining tips of her nipples, teasing them with a blissful skill.
Oh . . . God.
This was her fantasy. Her deepest dream made real.
But even as her back arched with blatant invitation, an annoying voice whispered in the back of her mind that at this precise moment he would be in Tibet if she hadn’t been in danger.
“Shattered by the sword of Damocles that hangs over my head?” she rasped.
“Shattered by fate.” He lowered his head to brush a light kiss on her mouth, his thumbs stroking her nipples with increasing urgency. White-hot excitement curled through the pit of her stomach. “A fate I’m tired of fighting.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” she breathed, her hands grabbing his shoulders. To push him away? Or yank him closer?
She hadn’t decided.
He teased her with another brush of his mouth, lingering just long enough to make her ache for a deeper kiss.
“Neither do I,” he admitted in rough tones. “I suppose we’ll find out together.”
“But—”
He gave her lower lip a punishing nip. “Are you always this chatty when a man’s trying to get you naked?”
Chatty? She narrowed her gaze.
“Do you always have such trouble getting a woman naked?”
He lifted his head to reveal a smile that sent a tingle down her spine. That smile warned of all sorts of wicked pleasure.
“Ah. A challenge.” With a strength only a Sentinel could claim, Fane had her tossed over his shoulder and was headed to the bedroom.
She gave a c
hoked gasp of disbelief. “Caveman.”
Entering the bedroom he lowered her onto the bed, gazing down at her with a searing intensity as he bent down to tug off his boots.
“No more talking,” he warned.
Serra wrenched her gaze from the dark promise in his eyes, feeling her entire body melt beneath the potent heat of his desire.
What the hell were they doing?
Twenty-four hours ago he’d been determined to leave her behind. Now he was staring at her as if he wanted to devour her.
Shouldn’t she be kicking some serious Sentinel ass, not considering how long it was going to take to trace every one of those exquisite tattoos with the tip of her tongue?
Of course, in her defense, she’d wanted Fane with a desperation that was painful.
She hadn’t lied when she’d told him he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
He was obscenely magnificent.
Not only his lean, savagely handsome face, but the sculpted body he was swiftly revealing as he tugged off his camos to reveal his perfection.
His skin was silky smooth beneath the tattoos and stretched tight over the impressive muscles that moved with liquid ease. His chest was broad and tapered to a slender waist, his arms were massive, and his legs long and powerful.
Lethal power combined with the gentle touch of an artist.
A potent combination.
“Did you just tell me to shut up?” she demanded, her gaze sliding down to watch in fascination as his cock hardened, revealing he was as generously proportioned as she’d always suspected.
Oh . . . hell.
“I told you to stop talking.” A slow, wicked smile curved his lips. “There are more satisfying ways of communicating.”
“Telepathy?”
Holding her gaze, he placed a knee on the edge of the mattress and lowered himself to plant his hands on either side of her head. Then, he dipped down to nuzzle a spot just below her jaw, making Serra’s heart slam against her ribs.
When had that particular spot become so unbearably erotic?
“I was thinking something more physical.”
“You’re Mr. Taciturn, remember? You don’t want to . . .” Her provocative words were cut short as his seeking lips found another point of pleasure at the base of her throat. “Oh.”
“You have no idea what I want,” he growled, nipping her collarbone. “Or how many nights I’ve tormented myself with thoughts of having you in my bed . . . screaming my name as I enter you.”
His dark, musky scent brushed over her, seeping into her skin and clouding her senses. It had to be an aphrodisiac. Why else was she stroking her hands down the magnificent length of his back, trying to urge him downward?
“You think you can make me scream?” she muttered.
His soft laugh sent a prickle of excitement over her bare skin as he reached down to grasp the hem of her sweater and with one smooth motion had it tugged over her head and tossed across the room.
“Do you want a detailed explanation of how I intend to accomplish my goal?” he demanded, easily dealing with the clip of her bra so he could peal the lacy garment away.
Serra shivered. His dark gaze was a tangible caress as he studied the full globes of her breasts. Her back instinctively arched upward. Her nipples were hard, agonizingly sensitive as they yearned for his touch.
“Arrogant.”
He tormented the pulse at the base of her throat as he slid down her pants, pausing to tug off her boots before he had them stripped away and tossed on the carpet. Only then did he settle his heavy weight between her legs that had instinctively widened.
“Determined,” he corrected.
“Determined to what?” she rasped, shuddering as pleasure blasted through her. Oh, hell. This was so much better than she’d fantasized. The welcome hardness of his body as it pressed her into the mattress. The sizzling heat of his touch. The brush of his breath over her breasts. “Seduce me?”
His tongue flicked over her nipple, the rough stroke wrenching a moan from her throat.
“Is it working?”
She dug her nails into the smooth skin of his ass. “You’ve always known how badly I wanted you,” she said with blunt honesty. “I’ve done everything but beg to get you in my bed.”
He continued to tease her nipple, his hardening erection pressing with flawless precision against her clit. Oh . . . God. It felt good. Beyond good.
“If you hadn’t meant so much to me I would have been in your bed a long time ago,” he said, licking a path of wet heat between her breasts.
“Is that supposed to make sense?”
With a low growl, Fane surged upward to claim her lips in an openmouthed kiss that was hard with unrestrained hunger. Desire streaked through her, destroying any hope of resistance.
“I knew I could never be satisfied with sex,” he confessed against her lips, rubbing his erection against her clit. “I wanted to possess you. Completely and utterly.”
Her hips instinctively arched upward. Somewhere deep inside she desperately wanted to believe his low, husky words.
“And now?”
He chuckled, scorching a path of kisses down her throat. “Now I intend to start the possession. Starting from the top and working my way to the bottom. With plenty of stops in between.”
She retained enough sense to remember that she didn’t entirely trust this abrupt change of heart. It was one thing to give in to the potent hunger that thundered through her. She wanted this man with an intensity she couldn’t deny.
But while she might give him her body, her heart wasn’t up for grabs.
Not again.
“Don’t think this changes anything, warrior,” she warned, scoring her nails up his back. She reveled in his violent shudder of pleasure. “No one gets to possess me utterly and completely anymore.”
“Serra,” he breathed. “Haven’t you learned the danger of challenging a Sentinel?”
“It was a warning, not a challenge.”
“Warning . . . challenge. It’s all the same to me,” he rasped.
His hands skimmed over her body, his lips searing a path down the quivering plane of her stomach.
Serra nearly came off the bed when his tongue dipped into her belly button, a shocking blast of pleasure traveling straight between her legs.
Man, oh man. Fane’s lovemaking was as intense and forceful as he was.
A male who didn’t apologize for being male.
Closing her eyes she savored the soul-shattering sensations. The thorough, detailed exploration of his hands, the thrilling heat of his lips, the hard thrust of his erection that rubbed against the center of her pleasure.
It was like being in the middle of a thunderstorm, sensing the lightning was about to strike at any second.
“I don’t want to be a challenge,” she managed to mutter.
He lifted his head to regard her with a dark, searching intensity. “Then what do you want, Serra?”
“Just to be a woman wanted by a man.”
Chapter Ten
Fane was way past the point of no return.
How many years had he tried to play the noble Sentinel? Too many.
He’d denied himself the female who had stolen a piece of his soul the minute she’d glanced at him with those enticing green eyes.
Now he was done with playing the role of hero.
At some point between leaving Valhalla and arriving in St. Louis his need for Serra had altered from want to have to have.
Claiming her as his own was as necessary as breathing.
Serra, unfortunately, wasn’t nearly so ready to accept their inevitable fate.
Or maybe it wasn’t so unfortunate, he abruptly realized, sliding his hands beneath her to cup her sumptuous ass in his hands.
Convincing her that she was now his, and his alone, offered a wide variety of opportunities to earn the love she’d once so lavishly offered.
And until then . . . well, he wasn’t opposed to allowing her t
o believe she was just using him for his body.
With one smooth motion he was flipping onto his back and settling Serra until she straddled his waist. She made a sound of shock, her startled gaze searching his deliberately unreadable expression.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting you in charge.”
She licked her dry lips, the unconscious gesture making Fane’s cock twitch in anticipation.
Christ, she looked like the very image of temptation as she perched on top of him, her eyes darkened to a mysterious emerald and her dark hair a cloud of ebony spilling over the lush ivory of her breasts.
“In charge of what?”
“If you won’t let me possess you, then I’m going to let you possess me.”
Another lick of those sensuous lips. “Utterly and completely?”
Fane groaned.
Oh. Hell, yes.
What warrior didn’t want a woman to possess him?
Especially if that possessing included the use of his body that was primed and ready to please her.
Not that she seemed to be in any hurry to start.
Dammit.
Calling on the patience that had been learned over decades of brutal training, Fane allowed his hands to lightly skim up her bare thighs. Her skin was satin soft beneath his fingertips, but he refused to rush her as he caressed the slender indent of her waist before at last cupping the plush softness of her breasts.
His body might be on the wrong side of pain with his need to be buried deep inside her, but nothing was happening until she was ready.
“My Serra,” he said thickly, his thumbs strumming her hardened nipples. “You are so fucking perfect.”
Her breath caught at the unashamed awe in his voice, her hands bracing against his chest as she leaned down to kiss him with a rough passion that made him growl in pleasure. She tasted of chamomile and warm, sweet temptation.
Fane’s hips jerked upward, rubbing his aching cock against her, silently cursing the satin panties that kept him from completing their union.
He needed to be in her.
He needed to slide into her damp heat. To drown himself in her scent. To be connected on the most basic level.
As if sensing his primitive instinct, Serra gave his lower lip a punishing nip.
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