In the aftermath of that vilely nasty surprise, Michael had been a mess. He’d broken things off with Jade and had kept to himself ever since then. Now, though, those three hundred and however many days roared through his bloodstream now, heat and temptation howling for release. But not just any release; his blood and body were clamoring for Sasha—for the woman in the photos, the fighter who’d escaped from her own cell. He wanted her energy, wanted to take it inside himself and use it to light the dark corners of his soul.
He was vaguely aware of a half dozen gray-robes blocking open the damned doorway and taking up positions inside the chamber, looking out into the hallway. As if from a distance he heard radio traffic, reports that the other magi were just around the corner, but meeting heavy resistance from search parties bent on recapturing Sasha. But if Iago wanted her, why had he used her to bait the Nightkeepers into Lucius’s ambush? Why not just have Lucius himself call for help?
A half-realized thought gnawed at the edge of his consciousness, warning of something deeper, but it was quickly lost when Sasha kissed him again, then moved against him, restless with desire.
A hard-fought battle raged within his soul. The Nightkeeper warrior in him wanted to attack the gray-robes, helping clear the way for his teammates, and the man in him wanted to rip into them for what they’d done to Sasha. But at the same time he was brutally aware of the nahwal’s warning. He was already running too close to the edge of his control; killing could put him all the way over.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he dimly heard Strike report. “Hold tight and keep the woman safe.”
I will, Michael thought with the force of a vow.
Magic hummed in his skull—a compulsion for sex, for orgasm, the feeling sharper than before, more protective. Possessive. He wanted to take her, make her his own. He wanted to keep her safe, kill for her, take his revenge on the men who had hurt her. He held the impulses grimly in check, but then she twined her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his in a blatantly carnal, openmouthed kiss.
And he broke.
Heart hammering, heat roaring through him on a wash of red and gold gone gray at the edges, he returned the kiss and dragged his hands down her curvy body as he pressed her into the wall, his body armor a hard barrier between them. He growled as he reversed the caress, bringing her shirt up so he could reach beneath. Her skin was warm and soft and so very alive under his touch. She was alive, arching and quivering, responding beautifully to him as he shaped the dip of her waist, the flare of her ribs, the curves of her breasts. She moaned as, beyond himself, Michael groaned and kissed her, tasted her, touched her.
Somewhere at the back of his brain, beyond the madness of lust and magic, a voice of reason was shouting, Abort, abort! Bad idea! She’d been Iago’s prisoner for a year, had to be in a fragile mental state. But there was nothing fragile about the feel of her as she pressed against him, demanding as much as she gave, and more. She raked her fingernails along his bare shoulders and arms, making him shiver with the raw power of his response.
The hot, jagged magic grayed his vision and brought a flash of a high wall with narrow gates inset near the top. Warning buzzers sounded, but he was too far gone within the heat and need to do anything but take the next kiss deeper, take them both higher. He was shaking with desire; they both were.
On the other side of the chameleon shield, he was dimly aware that the gray-robes had taken high and low positions on either side of the doorway, digging in to return the Nightkeepers’ fire.
Part of Michael wanted to drop the shield and open fire, taking out the gray-robes from behind. He wasn’t sure if that was his warrior’s talent talking, or a thought-thread coming from behind the wall, from that hated part of himself. But his priority was keeping Sasha safe. Which he was doing; with each kiss, each caress, the magic ramped higher, the shield grew denser and thicker, seemingly in proportion to his own hard, aching flesh.
He hissed as she loosened the Velcro waist straps of his body armor and reached beneath his tank to run her hands across his heated skin. She drew gentle, inciting trails across his stomach, along his sides, down his spine and then lower to latch onto his ass and pull him into her, anchoring them together at the point where he ached to connect them. He broke their kiss briefly to yank the armor off over his head, then tossed it aside and reached for her, so they were wrapped together, chest to chest, though still clothed.
Her sweetness surrounded him, seeped into him, humbled him. He chased kisses along her jaw and down her neck, heat racing through him as she shuddered and clung. A moment later she pushed him away, but only to create a space between them, room to reach for his pants, and work the fly without undoing his weapons belt. He groaned when her fingers found him, closed around him. Locking his knees so he wouldn’t buckle as the blood drained from his buzzing head, he kissed her, pressed his cheek to hers and let himself feel.
She stroked his erection, trailing soft fingers along his length. He was so hard he ached, but he held himself still, absorbing the delicious torture until he could take no more. Then, knowing only that he had to be inside her, that nothing else in the world mattered, he shifted to kiss her again as he undid the worn catch of her bush pants, causing them to fall to her feet. He hissed when his hands found her bare skin beneath, then stepped back and looked at the treasure he’d uncovered. The sweatshirt covered her to the tops of her thighs, but he didn’t want to take it off her and leave her bare to the carved stone at her back.
Boosting her up, he cupped her sweetly rounded ass in his scarred palms as she wrapped her legs around his waist, opening to him without hesitation or pretense. He leaned in and kissed her softly, lingering over her silky lips and the taste of her passion.
He turned the shield opaque with a thought, blotting the gray-robes from sight as he eased away from her, cupping her gorgeous, angular face between his scarred palms. He waited until her eyelids fluttered open, dark lashes framing chocolate brown eyes. When their eyes met, he said, “You said you dreamed about me. Where were we? What were we doing?”
“We were here,” she said simply. “And we were making love.”
Aroused, humbled, caught up in the magic they’d made together, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers in a kiss that started gentle and caught fire from there, until they were pressed together, straining together. Mind hazed red-gold with greedy need, barely aware of the firefight escalating beyond the shield, he caught her hips and boosted her up against the wall, pressing into her, rubbing himself against her slick folds. “Like this?”
Murmuring pleasure, she bit his shoulder, the side of his neck, urging him on with a whisper of, “Don’t tease. Not now.”
“No, not now.” He would have said more, but words left him as he thrust into her.
Her hot wetness gloved him, rubbing with perfect friction. That first moment of joining sent a shock of sensation and pleasure through him, tightening something inside his chest.
The battle hammered on beyond the shield; magic surrounded them; she surrounded him, locking her bare feet at the small of his back. And when he pulled back to look down, she smiled up at him and lifted a hand to cup his cheek, rubbing a thumb over the bristle on his jaw. “It’s okay,” she said softly.
“We’re good.”
He didn’t know what she’d seen in his eyes, didn’t know why her words loosened something inside him, but they did.