The Djinn's Dilemma (5 page)

“If not an interview, I’ll take a statement,” Sarah said. “Otherwise, it’ll run without his side of the story. Worse, I’ll have to include that he didn’t return our calls…which makes him seem dodgy.”

“Right. When’s it running again?”

“Sunday. Front page.”

Dinner was at Mi Tierra, a restaurant overlooking Lake Travis. A beautiful Texas sunset painted the sky. A group of Mariachi musicians serenaded them with soulful Spanish songs. A sweaty bottle of beer and a beautiful woman sat in front of him.

Rukh wished he could live in this moment forever.

But he had work to do. He still had no inkling about who wanted Jasmine dead or why. He let his fingers trail over the knuckles of her left hand, enjoyed the sharp intake of her breath. “So you help out bakers in distress and as a member of the press you keep the masses informed. Should I call you Santa Jasmine?”

“Hardly.” She giggled. “I’m paid to observe the political circus in Austin and write stories for the newspaper. Quite a few people think I’m far from a saint.”

Huh. Her mental blocking was flawless; could she also control her aura? Was she that good a manipulator? “Anybody in particular?”

She shook her head. “There’s always someone, somewhere mad.” She took a sip of her margarita. “If a news story makes everyone happy, it’d be more accurate to call it a very good press release.”

He laughed.

“You must cover some interesting people and stories,” Rukh said, shifting to make sure he got an eyeful of her cleavage. “Tell me something exciting.”

She told him of governors clashing with the legislature, of crooked politicians that had been nailed, of presidential candidates stumping through Texas.

“Are you working on anything big right now?”

She shrugged. “There are a few things, but I can’t talk about them,” she said. “Journalistic ethics.”

Damn the goody two-shoes! Didn’t she realize he was trying to keep her alive? Of course, she didn’t. And why the hell would someone like her make it on not one, but two different hit lists?

A headache throbbed at Rukh’s temples. What did it matter if she was a good person or not? Innocent or not? It
shouldn’t
matter to an assassin. He needed to walk away from this job.

But even if he turned down the contract, the client could go hire some other mercenary. He had no clue who his client was, or even whether the person was male or female. Nothing to latch onto and hunt. For once Rukh regretted all the layers of security between him and his clients even though it protected him as well.

And how to stop the bad-ass djinn? Why was he involved? Rukh chugged his beer and almost slammed the bottle back on the table.

Sarah laughed. “Thirsty?”

“You make me nervous.” Maybe it was time to retire. It’s not like he needed the money.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“You’re unlike any woman I’ve met before.” Add to that: a disturbingly nice aura, a kill contract, another djinn, and time tick-tocking away. Rukh snagged a passing waiter and ordered her another drink.

“Trying to get me drunk?” She smiled.

“All’s fair in love and war,” he replied. Enough drinks could loosen her inhibitions and tongue, make her walls come down. He wasn’t beyond playing dirty, using drinks and sex, to get what he wanted. He’d decided this time he’d be the one in control. After all, it was a matter of life and death. Hers.

Dread pooled in Rukh’s stomach, made his muscles clench.

“So what do you do, Rukh O’Shay, besides showing up everywhere I happen to be?”

He told her he was an executive assistant. “I execute and assist.”

She propped her chin on her hand. “Who do you work for?”

“The government.” The lie seemed the most plausible answer to stop her questions.

“Which branch of government? Which office?”

He smiled. “It’s classified.”

After dinner, they went to a salsa club and danced. One of the hot, trendy places on Sixth Street that Sarah had heard about from the entertainment reporter. The beat of the music spoke to her soul, making her feet move and her hips shake.

Rukh kept his smoldering gaze on her as he moved with the music and with her. His hand grasped her at the waist and pulled her close to his side. He twirled her away, pulled her close again. She leaned back against his warm, broad chest, as his hips gyrated in rhythm with hers. She felt his need pressing into her. Hard and unapologetic. Then he twirled her away again. Their gazes kept crashing, full of burning hunger. She followed his lead and swung the hours away, wondering what sex with this man would be like.

Her misgivings and fears melted away, she forgot she was a journalist, that she meant to dig out his secrets. Dancing, Sarah became simply a woman, knew only that she wanted him.

The swell of a tanned chest peeked out from the opening of his black shirt and taunted her to touch. Her gaze traced down to his narrow waist, the firm hips encased in tight blue jeans. She imagined him naked, her hands skimming over all the hard, chiseled planes and soft, warm niches of his body. She imagined his gaze staying on hers as he moved in and out. The music pulsed inside her, between her legs with a liquid heat.

On the drive back to the hotel, Rukh covered her hand with his and kept it there. His fingers interlaced with her, slid free, then returned. A sensuous dance of skin on skin. Voltage sprang and snaked its way up her arm. She shivered.

“So tell me something more about you,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Something secret.”

Sarah giggled. She had wanted to be Jasmine tonight, exotic and sexy. So she’d chosen her sexiest peep-toe pumps, bought a flirty fire-engine red dress and left off her underwear. She had to see his expression when he learned that naughty little tidbit. Should she share that she’d slipped off her panties in the ladies’ room? Oh God, she was so tipsy and horny. She leaned towards him with a smile, brought her mouth close to his ear. “I’m not wearing any panties.”

The car did a jig on the road, before Rukh brought it under control again. “Heaven and hell…” he said. “Really?”

Sarah leaned back against the door, raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Want to investigate?”

“It’d be my pleasure.” Something dark laced his teasing voice. He moved their entwined hands to her knee, then, still keeping her hand underneath his, he massaged his way higher and higher. Sarah swallowed as her hand pressed into her thigh, inched upward toward her wet core.

Her mind flashed back to the shower and how she’d pleasured herself. Now she was doing it again with a guide and an audience. Turning her fantasy to reality. The intimacy almost made her come.

With a moan, she wrenched her hand free.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice emerged in a hoarse whisper.

Oh God, no. “No.”

Keeping his eye on the road and one hand on the wheel, Rukh moved under her dress, inch by agonizing inch. His fingers skimmed her heated skin, teasing, stroking and caressing, while moving upwards like heat-seeking missiles.

She gripped the edges of her seat, rolled her hips up, pushing closer to his hand. Tasted salt and realized she’d bit her lower lip. Hard.

His finger played with the hair on her mound, toying with her as he deftly avoided her clit. His light touch sent flickers of pleasure shooting through her. A moan escaped her lips and she parted her legs for him. Oh damn, she wanted him. She wanted him bad.

He glanced at her, ran his tongue over his bottom lip. She imagined it running over the folds of her slick center. His fingers caressed the entrance to her cunt, spreading the delicious juice all over her most sensitive parts. She breathed in the scent of her own sex, anticipation and excitement choking her.

“You’re so wet.” His voice emerged, low and throaty. Rukh used his fingers to spread the lips of her vagina. Using the tip of his middle finger, he massaged the nub of her clit with circular motions. A ragged moan clawed its way out of her throat. From time to time, he’d stop and slip and slide around the silky lining surrounding the nub. Then he moved further and probed into her. He pushed two fingers in. Pushed in and pulled out until Sarah was leaning back in the passenger seat writhing and gasping.

He fisted his hand and ground it against her, worked her like mortar and pestle. Until waves of pleasure surged and crashed through her. Until she spasmed with desire. Until a dam burst and a fresh wave of wetness flooded through coating his hand. Then her mind went blank and her body lolled back totally relaxed. She threw him a sideways glance.

He raised his glistening fingers to his lips and licked each one clean. “God, you’re a beautiful woman.”

Rukh held Sarah’s hand tight against his side as he made his way to his hotel room. At his door, she stepped close and kissed him. A bare brushing of lips that set him on fire. She deepened the kiss. Then softened again. She pulled away and laid a trail of butterfly kisses to his right ear.

In the car, as she’d orgasmed, he’d explored her aura, her mind. There truly wasn’t any hidden darkness, nothing evil, to mark her as a target. Her thoughts had been all about him. Rukh pulled in a deep breath to shake free of those memories.

The answer must lie in her work, which she refused to discuss. He hoped some mind-blowing sex would lead to loosened lips and interesting pillow talk. Guilt hammered at him. What a pair—an assassin and a saint. He was taking advantage of a truly good person…for her own sake. Still. God, he was such a gentleman. Not.

“Are you sure you want to come in?”

“Yes.” That one whispered word came wrapped in such dark, raw longing it shivered through him. Drove him crazy with want.

He managed to open the door and they stumbled in, half leaning on each other. As soon as the door clicked shut, Rukh ran his hands ran all over her body. He turned her around and inched the zipper down, slid the dress off her shoulders, her hips, and let it pool at her feet. Reveled in her cinnamon and vanilla scent-layered skin, the color of creamy chai. He just wanted to lap her up.

She stepped out of the dress and faced him. Sarah tugged his shirt out, unbuttoned as fast as her need-clumsy fingers allowed, and pulled it off of him in a rough, quick motion. Her face glowed with a look of pleasure. Gently she reached out and touched the tip of the highest tattoo on his throat, traced the lines downward with her fingertips. “Did it hurt?”

Her fingers lingered in the hollow at the base of his throat. The heat of her touch seemed to be melting his very skin. “No, I’m tough.”

Actually, the tattoos were a source of pride, a natural part of his djinn heritage. When he’d turned thirteen, he’d come into his powers and his tattoos had appeared. In one year’s time, he’d filled out and turned into his big, bad self.

His
family
halfheartedly tried to claim him and gave him a letter his mother had left him. From it he’d learned about his father, an Irishman called Daniel O’Shay. He’d chosen to come to the human dimension.

“Ooh, tough guy. Let’s see how tough you are,” she said. Her fingers traveled lower and her nails grazed his left nipple, driving all thought from his mind except one. He wanted her now.

And he wanted her with every bit of passion burning inside him.

Rukh pushed her back against a wall, pulled up her arms by the wrists and held them imprisoned in a fist. He kissed her hard: biting her lips, pushing her teeth apart with his tongue, nipping at soft flesh.

“Open for me,” he grated out as he nuzzled her throat and shoulders.

She did. He gripped his dick and rubbed its blunt head along her slit, pushing the tip inside. Sarah quivered and sighed.

The smell of her arousal, the trembling of her flesh, sent heat rushing through him.

He lowered his head to her taut breasts; her nipples stood hard and pointed from her stretched form. His tongue slowly circled one, then rough teeth gently clamped and tugged.

She let out a soft moan, and he almost came. Control. Control yourself.

Rukh let go of her hands and tried to step back, away from her. But she wasn’t through. She leapt on him and imprisoned him in her arms. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She bit him on the chin with a throaty growl. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to stop him. “I haven’t had enough of you yet,” she whispered.

Pleasure ripped through Rukh, making him almost come. He growled and grappled for control.

Sarah kissed him roughly, with tongue and teeth, while running one hand up and down his rigid penis, fondling his balls. She nipped his earlobe and sucked on it.

“Are you sure about this?” Need rode rough in his voice.

“I want you. Now.”

Rukh reached over and snagged his discarded pants, fumbled until he’d extracted his wallet and then a condom. One careless act of passion had created him. He refused to make the same mistake as his parents. Tearing the foil, he hurriedly rolled the protection over his straining length.

Thank God at least one of them was thinking. Sarah drank in the sight of Rukh’s naked body. Man oh man, he was magnificent. All rippling muscles and intensity. What if he lived up to his name? What if this was just a one-night stand for him, an out-of-town fling?
Don’t go there.

Instead she focused on his package, taking in the dark purple skin, following the veins, the texture and color of his balls. A desperate hunger gnawed at her. Sarah was just considering dropping him with a kick and climbing on top of him, when he pushed her down on all fours onto the thick pile. He caressed her buttocks, covered them with soft kisses. The unexpected gentleness made her pull in a sharp breath.

“Do me,” she begged in a whisper.

Rukh responded with a not-so gentle nip on the left cheek. “When I’m ready.”

Ready? His sex looked ready a long time back. What was he doing? She shivered under the assault of his fingers and mouth, the sure strokes, the flutter of warm breath, the tickle, the licks, the nips and pinches, the soft swirl of tongue. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. With despair she realized all her partners until now—the few that she’d had—had been sadly lacking. The lovemaking had been sweet, sometimes awkward, but not this long, drawn-out exploration. Excruciating moments of torture and pleasure. Too intimate. She tried to pull away, but his fingers dug into her hips.