Assassin's Heart (28 page)

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Authors: Monica Burns

BOOK: Assassin's Heart
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“You went—”

At almost the same second she burst into the room, Lysander bolted out of the bathroom in nothing more than a towel. He didn’t need any more than that as she went flying backward to hit the wall. She hung there for a brief instant before she slid downward and landed in a heap on the floor. Stunned, she gave her head a sharp shake as if doing so would help her make her less groggy.

“Goddamn it, Phaedra, what the hell’s the matter with you, busting in here like that. I could have killed you,” he rasped.

One knee resting on the hardwood floor, he knelt down to help her sit up and lean back against the wall. His mental blow still had her feeling wobbly, and she closed her eyes for a moment. The minute she pulled in a deep breath, his scent washed over her. Fresh, raw, wholesome male. Whatever soap he used, it had a spicy smell that made her want to lean forward, press her nose into his skin, and just breathe. Deus, he smelled wonderful.
“Phaedra, open your eyes,” he snapped. “Look at me.”
“Stop yelling.” She glared at him as she rubbed her head with her hand. “I’m not deaf.”
“
Christus
, you made me think …
don’t
do that again. Understood?” Whatever he’d really wanted to say, he managed to hold it back. She nodded her obedience.
It was about all she could do at the moment, since her body was slowly coming alive as her senses were attuned to his frequency at every level. She drank in another breath of him, and her heart skidded along at a fast pace. Slowly, she allowed herself the pleasure of letting her gaze drift downward across strong, muscular shoulders to toned, wellsculpted arms. Deus, he was gorgeous.
His chest rose and fell at a quick pace that indicated his heightened state of emotion. She tentatively reached out with her senses, and her heart skipped a beat at the wild mixture of emotions churning inside him. They rolled off him at a dizzy pace. There was the concern for her safety and a primal need to protect. That primal urge sent a thrill through her. Then there were the soft tendrils of an emotion she was almost too frightened to identify. A sudden rush of delicious heat streaked through her veins, and in the blink of an eye, she knew the truth.

He did care.

For whatever reason, he was hiding it, but he cared about her. Afraid to look at him just on the off chance her senses were misfiring, she dropped her gaze lower to the sight of a bent leg where the skimpy towel he was wearing parted and draped the sides of his thigh. His leg was a thing of beauty. Taut, sinewy muscles bulged slightly against the skin. There was a long scar that ran diagonally across the lower part of his thigh.
One more reminder that he’d suffered by refusing the
Curavi
. Tentatively, she reached out and ran one finger along the fine, white line. The harsh breath he sucked in pulled her gaze back to his face. The naked desire she saw there made her shudder, and her hand moved from his leg to his mouth. It had always been the most beautiful thing about him, and she was so glad that Praetorian monster hadn’t destroyed it.
Suddenly, a strong hand gripped her wrist, and in less than a second, he’d pulled her to her feet. Stark need tightened his features, but he released her and turned away. A wave of fury crashed over her, and she drew in a sharp hiss of air. The son of a bitch didn’t have the courage to love her, even though she knew he wanted to.
Every fiber in the man’s body was drawn to her, and he didn’t have the guts to admit it. A growl rumbled out of him as he slowly turned to face her. Her gaze flitted from the horrible disfigurement of his demonic side to his angelic profile, which was drawn up hard with anger. She glared at him.

“What?” she said angrily.

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he stepped back into her, his fingers slipping between her breasts to the fragile strip of material holding her bra cups together. The touch made her gasp, and she was suddenly aware of the cool air on her shoulders. She’d been so determined to chew him out that she’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing a shirt.
The heat of his fingers pressed against her skin, and with a sharp tug, his fingers broke the bra, the cups sliding off her breasts to expose her completely. Her immediate reaction was to cover herself. She’d been expecting him to pull her toward him, not undress her.
At least not yet.
She reached out with her senses and caught the faintest whisper of something dark. It was a part of him, and yet she could tell he fought it constantly. Surprised by it, she retreated from him until her back was against the wall. A savage look tightened his ravaged profile, and his unmarred side reflected an emotion she couldn’t describe.

Invisible hands caught her wrists and pulled them up over her head to pin them to the wall. She drew in a quick breath of surprise but didn’t take her eyes off his face. The terrible emotion he was struggling with wouldn’t win, she was certain of it. He would never hurt her. His features darkened, and he moved forward to brush his mouth over her shoulder. A primitive noise rumbled out of him.

“Is this what you want, Phaedra? A half man, half monster?”

With a turn of his head, he gave her a magnified view of his horribly scarred face. There was no eye patch to hide the eyelid sealed shut over the indentation where his eye had once been. From his scalp to his jaw, the twisted flesh was there for her to see in all its glory. His marred flesh broke her heart, not because of what he looked like, but because of the bleak note in his voice. His pain was deep. So far down, she wondered if her love was strong enough to help heal his spirit. De
us
, she wanted to kill the Praetorian devil that had tried to destroy him.

“Do you really think I’d be here if I didn’t want to be?” She tried to break free of her invisible restraints but failed.

“I don’t know what the hell to believe.”

There was a quiet desperation in his voice that said he was standing on the edge of a great precipice. It made her long to hold him. Reassure him that if he fell, she’d fall with him because he was all she wanted. With renewed determination, she strained to free herself from his mental grip.

“Kiss me and I’ll show you what to believe,” she said in a voice that challenged him to listen to his heart and nothing else.

Chapter 15

THE woman had him on the brink of breaking every rule he’d ever made where she was concerned. He bowed his head to keep from looking at her, feverishly trying to clear his head so he could think straight. That blatant look of desire on her face was enough to pull him off the edge into an abyss from which he wouldn’t be able to return.
How in the hell had he gotten himself into this predicament? Right. Her charging into his bedroom like a Praetorian on the loose. The sound of his door crashing open had thrown him into reactionary mode. He’d learned never to question. It was a quick way to die. Or worse.
It wasn’t until he’d seen Phaedra flying backward and hitting the wall that he realized his mistake. An error that could have easily killed the one person who meant the most to him. Then he’d tried to walk away from her—away from those brown eyes glowing with an invitation he desperately wanted to accept but knew he couldn’t. But it wasn’t her eyes that had made him turn around. It had been her thoughts. He’d not meant to read her mind, but his resistance where she was concerned had been almost nonexistent.
He’d been so busy trying not to make love to her right here on the floor, he’d barely noticed that he was reading her thoughts until the word “coward” sounded in his head. He’d almost shouted his denial at her unspoken allegation, but stopped himself just in time. The fact that he’d come so close to exposing his secret infuriated him. He’d almost lost control. The next time he might not be so lucky.
Now she was asking him to believe that she really wanted to be here with him.
Merda,
he didn’t have any trouble believing that at all. No, his biggest problem was that he was teetering on the edge of giving way to her demand. She was so fucking determined, and he was fast losing the battle against her persistence. Especially when she smelled so goddamned good.
Christus
, what was she wearing?
Nothing from the waist up, his brain answered, even though he’d really been trying to identify her sweet scent. He lifted his head slightly to study her breasts. They were full and lush. Seeing them locked away in that damn bra had driven him to rip the thing off her. He’d always been a breast man, but Phaedra’s made him hard just looking at her.
His mouth watered at the thought of swirling his tongue around the tip of her, and he heard her gasp then watched in fascination as she arched her body forward.
Merda.
With her hands pinned above her by his mental hold, she was the most tempting creature he’d ever seen in his life.

“Please, Lysander, touch me. Touch me with your hands, so I know this is real.”

Soft and husky, her voice stroked him, enticed him into doing what he knew he shouldn’t. He leaned forward and caressed one breast with his mouth and the other with his hand. As his tongue swirled around a hard nipple, his thumb rubbed against the other. She tasted as good as she smelled.
He heard her moan with pleasure, and it drove him to work his mouth up to her shoulder and then the nape of her neck. With every caress, one more brick in his wall crumbled into dust. Deep inside he heard the roar of warning, but he ignored it. Just another moment, a few more seconds of denial.
That’s all he needed. To touch her like this, breathe in the scent of her. He was going to Tartarus for this, but holding her again was worth the price he’d eventually pay. His mouth grazed its way along her jaw, and he deliberately took his time as a whimper echoed out of her. De
us
, he loved the way she responded to him.
Loved the way she quivered against him. She abruptly turned her head, and her lips brushed across his. The explosion of desire her kiss ignited slugged its way into every cell in his body. Pleasure and need mixed with darker emotions he didn’t want to face. Her teeth tugged gently at his lower lip, and he automatically deepened the kiss and swept his tongue into her delicious mouth.
In the next instant, he was drowning in a bloodred haze of passion as her tongue swirled with his.
Christus
, he wanted her. Needed her. Right now, right here. His body was hard, and the urgency driving him had him making short work of her jeans, shoving them downward as her feet slipped out of one leg and then the other.
The towel whipped off him, and then it was nothing but hot skin, just like the last time. Desire blinded him to everything but the urgent need to slide into her hot folds and stay buried there. There wasn’t time for seduction. He’d been without her for too long. He just wanted to sink into her silky depths and drown himself in the sensation.
His hands cupped her buttocks and he lifted her up until his cock found the sleek creamy center of her. With a low cry of satisfaction, he rocked inside her, his body on fire at the way she clutched at him. It was like having a velvet vise around him growing tighter every second only to release him for a tantalizing moment before her body renewed the process.

He released his mental hold on her wrists and she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck to arch away from him, making it easier for him to thrust up into her. Beneath his mouth, her silky skin tasted like peaches. Hot, sweet peaches. He’d missed her so damned much. It was as if he’d been starving and hadn’t realized the extent of his hunger until this moment. He couldn’t get enough of her. He’d gone without her for so long, and now he was like a starving man unable to keep from satisfying his hunger. And she felt so damned good wrapped around his cock. With each surge into her tight core, her body responded with tiny spasms that rippled over his erection, hard and fast. He shuddered. Fuck, he was ready to come right now.

“
Inamorato
, I can’t …” He choked back a shout as he throbbed violently inside of her.

A sob of pleasure parted her lips, and she fell forward to bury her face in his neck as her body clenched with savage intensity around him. It made him deaf and blind to everything but the way her body was loving his. Slowly, he edged his way down off the cliff he’d been standing on and carried her to the bed.
He was going to have to deal with reality soon, but he wanted to put if off as long as possible. Gently laying her on the bed, he dropped down next to her onto his back and closed his eye. What the hell had he been thinking? This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid for the past year. And he didn’t even have an escape route.
Merda.
What kind of excuse was he going to be able to use to keep her at a distance now? She sure as hell wasn’t about to let him get away with saying he’d been in need of a good fuck. That had been his excuse a year ago.
But what had happened just now had been anything
but
a good fuck. If there had even been the tiniest piece of him that hadn’t loved her before, it was gone. She didn’t know it, praise the gods, but she owned him now. Body and soul. The mattress shifted slightly and a warm hand slid across his chest.
It was a gentle touch, but the warmth of it conveyed an emotion he didn’t want to name.
Christus
, he was a doomed man. He didn’t have to open his eye to see her shift her body upward so she could lean over him. It was easy to see her in his mind as her dark curtain of hair brushed over his shoulder and she lowered her head to kiss him. It was a featherlight touch, but it was enough for him to ache for her all over again.
In the next instant, he sucked in a harsh breath as her mouth touched the thin scars that crisscrossed his flesh where his eye had once been. There was little sensitivity left in his disfigured face, but he could imagine what he didn’t feel. A shudder went through him as her mouth touched his cheek, caressing every inch of his scarred tissue. Something wet rolled down the side of his neck, and he suddenly realized she was crying. He rolled her onto her back to stare down at her, his fingers wiping away the tears shimmering on her skin.

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