Risk (A Mageri World Novel) (14 page)

Ella warmed to him, craving his approval. The awareness of her pounding heart was never more pronounced than when he brushed against her to lock the front door. She didn’t move, and he gave her a peculiar look—one filled with humor that quickly turned serious when his gaze drifted down to her mouth. Her energy quickened, and she couldn’t stop staring into his brown eyes. Even with patchy stubble and sweaty hair, Simon was handsome. In a swift movement, he turned away and headed into the kitchen.

Her shoulders sagged. What was she expecting? For him to kiss her?

Ella followed, and just as she looked up, he nailed her in the forehead with an orange.

Stars twinkled in her line of vision, and she fell backward. Instead of hitting the floor, Simon flashed into the room and caught her in time.

“You were supposed to catch that,” he said.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you say
catch
,” she mumbled sarcastically, still leaning back in his arms.

Simon’s cheeks seemed fuller since he was leaning over with his arms around her. He smiled, his eyes glittering. “You can take out a Mage with a dagger, but I can knock you out with an orange. And here I thought we were making progress.”

“Looks like we’re making produce.”

When he laughed, she got butterflies in her stomach. Not just because of the way his body shook and how his eyes changed to crescent moons, but while he was touching her, she could hear the laughter in her head. She reached up and traced her finger over the dimple carved in his left cheek. His pupils dilated so fast that they swallowed up his brown irises. Simon was attractive, but not in all the conventional ways. He was dangerous, intelligent, and everything about the way he looked at her gave Ella goose bumps.

Simon stood up and then let go of her, taking a step back. “I think we should have offed those men instead of locking them naked in the trunk.”

“What did they want?”

“You.”

“For juicing, or did they want a well-dressed bride?”

Ella didn’t care for the accusatory look he was giving her, as if she knew something about it or had brought it on. She withdrew her blade and set it on the bar. “Clean my bloody knife.”

“Did you just make a pun?” He shook his head when she didn’t laugh. “What are you so flustered about?”

She pointed at her leggings. “My favorite pants have blood on them.”

He licked his lips and gave her a mischievous grin. “I’ve wanted to work that crossword on your left thigh since I first saw it.”

She laughed and stuck out her leg. “If you can solve it, I’ll obey your every command. I’ve been working it out in my head for years.”

When Ella spun around to head to the shower, Simon snatched the waistband of her leggings and yanked her back. She peered over her shoulder.

“Challenge accepted.”

Her heart stuttered. “I was kidding.”

“Never set a challenge you don’t mean to make good on. People will never take you seriously.”

He said something else but turned away before she caught it. Simon led her to the oversized chair in front of his sofa and pushed her down. It felt good to relax, and she watched him swagger to the desk on her left and dig in one of the drawers. When he turned around, he had a slim marker between his teeth as if it were a cigarette.

She was too tired to laugh at the way he was theatrically strutting through the room as if he were on a catwalk. Simon was right about her dependence on flashing during a fight. She’d tried not to use it as much this time, but she could tell by his boundless energy that she’d tapped into her own light far too much.

Ella tucked her fist against her cheek, sleepily watching Simon kneel before her and bite the cap off his marker. He wedged himself between her legs, his left hand resting on her inner thigh while he examined the puzzle.

She kept thinking about his hand—how warm it felt through her thin leggings and the way the tips of his fingers would press against her when he filled in a word. Being this close to a man should have frightened her, but the fact that he didn’t make any advances made her feel more trusting toward him.

And, much to her surprise… aroused.

“How old are you?” she asked.

He mumbled, and she jostled her leg, causing him to lift the pen and look up at her. “I lost count,” he mouthed more clearly. “In the hundreds.”

“You barely look thirty. Am I the first female student you’ve ever had?”

Simon glanced up from between her legs, his left hand still resting near the apex of her thighs. “A Learner is a Learner, and what you’ve got between your legs makes no difference to me. What bothers me are your dresses. Did you pay attention to how well you fought today?” He snapped her leggings. “These are the kind of clothes you should be wearing, not long dresses that will tangle around your legs.”

“My Creator prefers me in dresses. Since she buys my clothes, I don’t have a say in the matter.”

He looked down and scribbled in another word. She smirked when the thin marker tickled her thigh.

“I like this,” she said, watching his mouth.

“What? A man between your legs?”

She thumped him on the head. “No, having a conversation. You don’t realize how much you miss it until you’re cut off from the world.” Ella concentrated on the volume of her voice, touching her larynx to make sure she wasn’t too loud. “How do I compare to your other students?”

After filling in another word, he shook away the hair from his eyes. “You’re more headstrong, but you pay attention and follow orders without question. I guess I can thank Hannah for that. But it’s not escaped my attention that your technique has improved.”

Her eyelids grew heavy, and reading his lips became increasingly tiresome. Ella took his hand—the one resting on her thigh—and touched his fingertips so she could listen to him while he spoke. He didn’t seem to mind, but in truth, she wanted to hear his accent and the rhythmic cadence of words that was sometimes musical and other times sexy.

“Who taught you how to fight?” she asked. “Your Creator must have been a badass.”

Simon retracted his fingers and didn’t respond.

Even though Simon looked like a rock star who should be on the cover of
Rolling Stone
one day and
GQ
the next, she sensed his experience. The older a Mage was, the less human they seemed. It gave her hope that she’d someday be able to shut off her own emotions, because they were the very thing that had almost killed her.

She made contact with his fingers and sent him a thought.
Will you have sex with me?

His pen slanted across her thigh and left a streak. Simon slowly lifted his eyes, and the moment they met with hers, a feverish desire licked over her body.

His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed thickly. “Don’t tempt a man with a promise you can’t keep.”

“You don’t think I’m serious?” she replied aloud.

Ella dragged his hand upward until it rested over her sex. She released a heavy breath the moment his knuckles brushed against the tight fabric—every movement electric.

“I think you like to toy with men,” he said.

“Maybe I just know what I want and I’m not afraid to ask for it.”

He smiled bleakly. “Then you’ll fit right in with Hannah.”

She drew back her leg and kicked him in the shoulder. Simon fell backward on his ass, staring up at her in disbelief.

“Don’t compare me to
her
. I don’t sleep with men for favors. And you’ve probably slept with every woman in Cognito, so don’t judge me. I just like you. Is that all right?”

One eyebrow arched into a wicked slant. “It’s not uncommon for a pupil to fall for the teacher.”

“Oh? Have you had this problem before with your male students?”

He shot her a look of disgust and said something she didn’t understand. When she didn’t answer, he repeated it slowly. “Am I just the antidote to your insecurities?”

Ella leaned forward, forearms resting on her knees. “If you keep inflating your ego, one day you might float into outer space.”

He flashed his dimple, one arm draped over his bent knee. “I always had a thing for Uranus.”

She laughed and sat back, enjoying the banter. Now that she could hold a conversation with someone, she didn’t spend as much time thinking about her disability. “You never answered my question. What were those men after?”

“What are all men after?”

She crossed her legs and glanced at some of the answers he’d written in. “I can read lips, remember? He said he wanted my life. Why?”

Simon wiped a fleck of blood off his wrist. “And that is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Or is it fifty-three? Maybe it’s seventy-two. I never could get all those bloody game shows straight.”

Ella sighed inwardly, uncertain why Simon was being evasive. She thought about the Chitah who had visited his apartment and the formidable Mage he’d talked with at the bar. It had seemed more than just casual conversation.

One thing was for sure: she couldn’t go home looking like she’d rolled around in a barn. She rose from her chair and headed toward his bedroom, closing the door behind her and removing her boots. Simon had a curious-looking room for a man who wore leather pants. Stacks of science books were on a small desk to her right, and even though his sheets were black silk, the overall décor was quite plain. A man his age should have had tons of keepsakes lying around from his past, but the only personal item she noticed was a dagger sitting on the bedside table.

Why did I open my big mouth and ask him to have sex with me?

She hadn’t thought a man would reject such an offer, and it left her feeling humiliated.

Ella sat on the edge of his bed and fell back, crossing her arms over her face. Screw the shower. Why should she care what Hannah thought about her appearance? This was training, not charm school. Ella had spent so long trying to please Hannah that she’d forgotten what it was like to make her own decisions. Now that she could finally ask her Creator questions about the past few years of neglect, she didn’t care. Dangerous thoughts raced through her mind—thoughts she shouldn’t be having about her Creator. No matter how much she despised Hannah, she could never entertain the idea of killing her. Attacking a member of the Council was an act of treason.

However, staining her white furniture and carpets with black ink and then locking her in a dungeon for a hundred years had crossed her mind once or twice.

Ella’s thoughts drifted back to Simon, and her body tingled. Why couldn’t Hannah have chosen an unattractive Mage with foul body odor to train her? Simon’s eyes were the color of peanut brittle, his brows mischievous and sloped, and his body toned. But it was his mouth that she loved the most—full in the center and thinning at the edges so that it gave him a naughty expression with the slightest curve. Simon had done what few others could: make her laugh. His sense of humor didn’t seem to impress others, especially her Creator. Even without hearing his voice, she could read his humor in his facial expressions and the animated gestures of his hands. Because of that, he seemed more alive to her than anyone else.

Warmth covered her body. And weight.

She raised her arms to find Simon crawling on top of her.

“Ready to give it a go?” He waggled his eyebrows.

She locked her legs around him and kissed his neck. Simon rocked against her and raised his head, moving his lips to meet with hers. She turned her head to the side and he tried to follow, but panic set in. Ella hadn’t kissed James; it was the one thing she’d avoided during their sexual interlude.

Need coiled deep, her body racing with impulses of energy. She took in his scent and then kissed the line of his jaw as he returned the favor.

Simon drew back and pressed the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip. “I’m going to kiss you now. Maybe you kissed that bloke you were with before, but I’m going to show you how it’s done.”

S
imon went
into his bedroom to change clothes, expecting Ella to be in the shower. When he found her stretched across his sheets, a wicked impulse got the better of him. Not to seduce, but to crawl on top of her like a horny dog and convince her that her feelings were misdirected. Simon wasn’t a knight in shining armor, and the sooner she realized it the better.

What he hadn’t expected was her reaction. The moment her mouth latched onto his neck, he grew hard with need. Simon had enough restraint that it often took a little time to work him up, but this woman set his blood on fire.

He tried to resist, but when she lifted her hips, he pushed his shaft against the snug, warm crease between her legs. A groan resonated deep within his chest.

For such slim legs, they were strong, and they wrapped around his hips like a vise.

He raised his head when she started kissing his jaw again. She was avoiding a kiss on the mouth, and that perturbed him. Kissing was one of the things he did best, and sometimes a necessary part of the job if he was trying to get answers out of someone. Simon put on his training hat and decided to give her a lesson.

His thumb pressed against her bottom lip, and he watched her cheeks flush. “I’m going to kiss you now. Maybe you kissed that bloke you were with before, but I’m going to show you how it’s done.”

She shook her head.

“Afraid you’ll get cooties?”

He could feel her heart pounding against his chest.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Kissing is the least intimate thing you can do,” he said. “You might be in a situation someday where you need to gain a man’s trust, and he’s going to want to kiss you. If you let your fears take control, then you’ll always be weak.”

“You’re just saying that so you can kiss me,” she said against his thumb. The movement pulled her bottom lip down and made it glisten.

Simon moved his thumb away and planted a feather-soft kiss on the corner of her mouth. Her legs relaxed, but her blue eyes were still watching him. He slowly dragged his lips across hers until he reached the other corner, delivering the same gentle kiss.

When her eyes closed, he moved to the center and kissed her bottom lip so softly that he wasn’t sure he’d ever delivered a kiss that tender. Simon suddenly became aware of her in every conceivable way, from the feel of her breasts to the salty taste of her skin. He deepened the kiss and she responded, as if learning him through taste. When he met her velvety tongue, he almost lost it. The kiss went deep, and her legs tightened around him.

Ella’s fingers grazed across the nape of his neck and tangled in his hair. The longer they kissed, the more intense it became. Not frantic. Not hurried. Just as dangerous and slow-moving as lava down a volcano.

Bloody hell.
Simon trembled and broke the kiss, his breath heavy.

Ella suddenly tossed him off and switched out the light. In the darkness, she pushed his shoulders back and climbed on top of him.

Simon reached over and switched the lamp back on.

The weight of her delicate breasts beneath her shirt brushed against his face as she reached toward the table and switched off the light.

Simon hooked his thumbs on the waistband of her leggings and pulled them down a few inches—just enough that he could rest his hands against her warm flesh. A curse flew past his lips when she kissed the base of his throat, and he swung his right arm out and flipped on the light again.

Ella yanked up her leggings and sat back.

Simon rose up on his elbows. “I hate to shatter your pristine image of me, but I’ve seen my fair share of naked women. I’m not a man who likes to do things in the dark.”

Her energy vibrated with fear. When they were rolling about, her energy was confident as long as she was in control, but as soon as he had the upper hand, it changed.

“Want to tell me what really happened when your brother died?”

Ella got up and walked near the bathroom door, leaning against the wall, her arms folded.

Stubborn woman
.

He slung his legs over the bed and swaggered over to her. “Think you’re the only one who’s got secrets? Some aren’t so hard to guess.”

“Don’t belittle my pain.”

“I never professed to be a sympathetic man where my students are concerned. My job is to teach you to push past all that and become a weapon, and a weapon can’t have a weak spot. You need to channel all that fear and anger into something else.”

She smirked, which provoked him a little bit. “Is that why you use humor as a weapon?”

He widened his stance. “What if you’re in a street fight and a Mage tears away your dress? Are you going to curl into a fetal position and cry, or are you going to beat the living hell out of him?”

“Are you asking me to beat you up naked?”

Now that was a delightful image she conjured. “Not a bad idea, love.”

When Ella moved to pull down her stretchy trousers, he stepped forward and placed his hands over hers.

“I can’t in good conscience let you do this.” His mouth brushed against her ear, and his voice grew low and husky. “Allow me.”

She couldn’t have heard him, but he was certain his words nestled in her head through their connection, because no sooner than they were spoken, she moved her hands away.

Simon knelt before her and gripped the waistband of her leggings, slowly peeling them down. First he saw her black panties with a bit of lace on top. Then he saw something that made his jaw slacken.

He looked up at her, gobsmacked. “What the bloody hell is this?”

She placed her hands on his and flooded his mind with images. He saw the masked man assaulting her with a blunt object and then carving her thighs up with a dagger. The wounds had left scars that spelled out
whore
on one leg and
justice
on the other.

The sodding bastard who had murdered Ella’s family didn’t rape her in the way Simon had first assumed. The same object used to kill her brother had been used against her in a most offensive way, one that left a cold chill racing up his spine. The images faded and he was staring at her legs again, but he didn’t see those vile words carved on her flesh now. He traced his finger over a fierce tiger on her right leg surrounded by exotic lilies and cherry blossoms. Ripples of blue water gave a sense of calm, despite the lurking predator. Her left leg, on the other hand, was covered with detailed flowers and butterflies. The colorful patterns blanketed across her hips, and then he turned her around, her energy prickling his senses.

Painted across her lower and middle back was a colorless tree, absent of leaves. Three birds soared high above it, all of varying sizes—two large ones, a smaller one, and then a tiny baby. One bird remained behind, sitting alone on a branch. The scene was elaborately detailed, and nothing about it was whimsical.

This was her family tree.

He turned her back around. “I didn’t see him scar your back.”

She circled her fingers across the tiger. “My past is behind me, but these represent who I want to become. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my immortality staring at words that meant nothing to me—that didn’t define who I was.”

“Do you know why he attacked your family?”

She solemnly shook her head, a single teardrop glittering on her cheek like a diamond.

Simon had never found tattoos attractive on a woman. In fact, most women who had them were loons he avoided like the bubonic plague. And yet he couldn’t strip his eyes away from the intricate patterns and how the images weaved together. He wanted to trace his tongue over the tiger and through the vines until he found the patch of forest.

He pulled her leggings down and then off her feet. The panties did nothing but obscure his view of the landscape, so away they went. He smoothed his hand from the inside of her calf up to the apex of her thighs, feeling her tremble beneath his touch.

The energy crackling between them gave him the most painful erection he’d ever experienced. It didn’t just throb, but the ache radiated to his lower spine. Simon ran his tongue along the colorful ink, tasting the sugary nectar of the flowers on her legs. He could still sense uncertainty in her energy—fear. So he unsheathed a three-inch blade from the holster behind his back and stood up.

Her eyes widened.

“Everything is a lesson, love,” he whispered. He lightly ran the dull side of the point up her thighs to where her scars were hidden. “You’ll never be the tiger if you’re afraid of it.”

Ella watched wide-eyed as he traced the blade up her stomach, leaving a delicate indentation on her pale skin. When it met with the fabric between her breasts, he turned it around and cut the strap with a clean slice.

With incredible speed, Ella snatched his wrist and stole his blade. Few men could ever claim to have disarmed Simon Hunt, but Ella’s moves were fast and unpredictable. He tensed when she placed the sharp blade to his jugular.

Perhaps he’d gone too far in trusting a tiger.

The steel bit into his skin, and he glowered.
Bloody hell
. She probably schemed this all along so she could take out her teacher and run away. A tiger surrounded by all that distracting beauty couldn’t have been a better representation for a woman who wanted to conceal her true motives.

Despite his predicament, he couldn’t help but notice how provocative she looked in nothing but a curtain of tattoos.

Ella cupped the back of his neck with her free hand and turned them until his back was against the wall.

He grimaced when the blade pierced his flesh and blood trickled down his neck. “Go on then. See if you have it in you to cut off a man’s head. Is that the price of freedom these days?”

She slipped her fingers inside his trousers and…

He groaned when he felt the tiniest brush of her finger against the head of his cock, the dagger simultaneously pressing against his neck until every beat of his heart pounded against the tip. She removed her hand and petted his stomach as if he were a docile panther. Simon discovered restraint he never knew he had.

Ella’s fingers moved down and fondled a tiny bulge in his pocket. “What’s this?”

Simon carried a miniature chess piece in his pocket—a queen to be exact. “Love, that’s not the piece I want you to stroke.”

She looked up at him, her lips pursing together. “Shhh.”

Women never took control of Simon this way, and just the thought of it made him so weak with lust that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold out for the actual act.

Ella went down on her knees and pressed her lips against the stretched leather covering his erection. He nearly lost it. Images flooded his mind of sliding somewhere warm and wet. Suddenly his throat went dry. He flattened his palms against the wall behind him, intoxicated by her unpredictable nature. There was no sense in taking over and trying to dominate her in the bedroom; her needs were nonnegotiable.

Ella placed her warm palm between his thighs and slowly moved it up and down. She never moved her hand any higher, and it sent him over the edge.

“Bloody hell
. I’ve died and gone to heaven… or hell. I’m not sure which yet.”

Ella pulled his hand away from the wall and gripped it.
What did you say?

The synapses in Simon’s head misfired when Ella’s provocative thoughts tangled with his own. Images of what she imagined them doing together projected into his mind.

He broke contact and smiled down at her. “I won’t be able to hold out much longer if you keep that up.”

A smile touched her lips. “No stamina?”

Well, that was just insulting. “Do what you want with my body, but unless you want to share light, don’t touch my hands.”

“Is something wrong with my thoughts?”

“Love, what’s racing through your mind right now could power Asia.”

He glanced down and began to take notice of her disheveled appearance. Cuts on her knuckles, dirt beneath her fingernails. She had more color on her left cheek than on the right from that manky bastard who’d punched her in the face. That imagery combined with sex was powering down his sexual grid.

“What’s wrong?” Insecurity flared in her eyes.

Simon pulled her up and heaved a sigh. “Let’s clean ourselves off and heal before we do something regretful.”

“But two seconds ago—”

“Sorry, love. I have a dirty mind, but I’m not about to take you in this condition. We look like two wounds rubbing together.”

She grimaced and laughed all at once. What he didn’t reveal was that he knew Ella wasn’t ready for sex. She was forcing it upon herself, and all the conflicting emotions in her energy were making his head spin.

When Simon’s phone rang, he thumped his head against the wall. There was no need to look at the number when he retrieved it from his back pocket.

“Who is it?” Ella asked, peering at the screen.

“The cockblocker. One moment.” Simon sat on the edge of the bed while Ella disappeared into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. “Has anyone ever told you that you have impeccable timing?” he said, answering the phone.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Mr. Hunt?”

“I can tell you how deep a river is by standing on a bridge.”

He listened to her fingernails tapping against a hard surface. “Our arrangement doesn’t include abducting my Learner whenever the urge strikes you. My guards wasted an hour searching the grounds for her. This isn’t a game, and I don’t appreciate you taking advantage of—”

“Trust me, the last thing I want to do is take advantage of you.” Simon unlaced his boot with one hand and dropped it to the floor.

He glanced up and watched Ella through the crack in the bathroom door. She was leaning over the sink… nude. The shape and creamy color of her bum stood out amidst the colorful ink. Simon was feeling randy and regretful all at once for feeling this way about a pupil.

He averted his eyes and switched the phone to the other ear. “I had a little test for her today, and she passed. Is there something you need, Hannah? My hands are full.”

“I want you to bring her back this moment.”

He scratched his jaw and kicked off the other boot. “There are still a few loose ends we need to tidy up. I’ll have her home before moonrise.”