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She was either the most courageous woman he knew, or the stupidest. He'd wait
to see if she lived before deciding which.
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He shouted, drawing the attention of the boy with the knife as she tucked her
chin to her chest and dropped straight down, out of Knife Boy's hold, elbowing
him in the crotch as she fell, then rolled away.
She came up with a gun in a two-handed grip, safety off and ready to fire.
She pointed the weapon at the boy on the floor holding his groin and moaning,
then looked up. "Von Simeon, I'm "
It was already too late. Von was hoofing it toward the door double time.
"Nathan, stop him!" she yelled, but he let the boy pass with nothing more
than a murderous look.
"Damn it!" She kicked the fallen knife away from the boy on the floor and
holstered her weapon. As she passed Nathan, she shot him a murderous look of
her own. "Watch this guy. I'm going after "
"No." He snagged her arm. He didn't jerk her, but brought her gently to a
stop, his fingers tingling as the conduit between their minds expanded, pulsed
with life.
She squirmed in his grasp. "He's getting away!"
"He's already gone."
"We can catch up." She tried to jerk away.
He held her back. Waves of anger, his and hers, crashed between them, inside
them. He was angry at her for putting herself in this situation. She was angry
at him for interfering.
But on the backside of the anger, there was something else. Something
quieter, but just as powerful. The ultimate affirmation of life. Of survival.
Sexual awareness.
Desire.
Her pupils dilated. His nostrils flared.
Need ebbed and flowed between the waves of anger.
Swearing, though he wasn't sure if the curse was meant for her or for
himself, he tugged her outside, where he backed her into a recessed stoop and
hemmed her in with his body in front of her, the building behind her, and one
arm planted on the brick wall on either side of her head. He towered over her,
his senses reeling, full of her. Blood pounded in his groin until he thought
he would burst the seam of his pants.
"What are you doing?" She looked up at him, her green eyes wary but unafraid.
Why wasn't she afraid of him?
He was sure as hell afraid of her. Of what she could do to him.
The fact that she wasn't afraid of monsters, punks with knives, or men with
raging hard-ons who dragged her into the street infuriated him.
Made him so mad that there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it except
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kiss her.
Chapter Nine
If Nathan's previous touch had been electric, his kisswas a power surge on a
cosmic scale. Whatever the anatomical equivalents to circuit breakers were,
Rachel's blew in rapid succession. She could feel the switches popping down
her spine, in her mind. In her nipples and the core of her sex.
She was angry at him, but she couldn't for the life of her remember why. Her
short-term memory, conscious thought in general, had been overwhelmed by heat.
By need.
He was so close she could see each individual whisker on his jaw. The texture
was fascinating. She wanted to feel it against her cheek. Rub her lips over
it.
She settled for a single stroke of her fingertips along his jaw.
God, what was it about this man that attracted her even when she was furious
at him?
He lifted his head a millimeter and drew a deep breath. His Adam's apple
bobbed once and the chords of his neck strained, as if her desire pulled
through his body, strung him tight.
He captured her wandering hand with his, linked their fingers and brought her
knuckles to his lips his incredibly soft, sensuously curved, full lips.
For all his hardness his body, his eyes, his mind his lips felt like moist
silk on her skin. The sight of them nibbling at her sent her spinning on a
journey she wasn't ready to take. A path to oblivious pleasure. She had to
close her eyes to ground herself in reality.
When she opened them again, he'd tucked their joined hands against his
shoulder, but his eyes still blazed with the heat of the kiss.
"You have absolutely no sense of self-preservation, do you?" he asked.
She barely found enough breath to reply. "I've managed to keep myself more or
less in one piece for thirty-three years."
"Pure luck, most likely."
"Well, thank you for that vote of confidence."
"You aren't going to let go of this, are you? You're going to keep looking
for Von."
"Yes."
"Even if it means you're stuck with me for the duration."
"Even if I'm stuck " She blinked, mentally rewinding his words and listening
again to what he'd said. "I'm stuck with you?"
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Geez, was that mouse squeak really her voice?
He nodded.
"You're going to help me?"
"God knows I can't leave you on your own the way you attract trouble. The
city might not survive."
Her face started to burn. She was still two sentences behind in this
conversation and was losing ground fast. "I attract trouble? You're the one
who bumbled into an assassination attempt "
He swung around to her side, took her by the elbow, and propelled her
forward. She only caught a glance, but she could have sworn one corner of his
mouth kicked up in a ferocious smirk.
"We'll get started first thing tomorrow," he promised, tucking her into a
cab. He gave the driver directions to her hotel, closed the door behind her,
and slapped the roof to send her off.
As the car pulled away, he gave her one long, last look that sent shivers of
renewed awareness down her spine.
His dark hair was tousled and a swath had fallen over his eyes. His tanned
cheeks were ruddy from the fight or the cold or the kiss or all three. The
knuckles on the hand he braced against her window were bleeding, but he didn't
seem to notice.
Art professor, her hind end. Here was the consummate warrior. The bad-boy
playboy from all her favorite romance novels. The beast that every beauty
dreamed of taming in her fantasies, but didn't dare encourage when they
crossed paths in real life.
And his whole focus was on her. He stared at her with a look so intense that
the heat of his gaze warmed her skin. When she looked back at him, wondering
if he could feel the same warmth from her, it was as if more than their gazes
connected. Their minds joined.
She saw into his thoughts. Saw images of the two of them naked, limbs
tangled. She felt their heartbeats pound in synchrony to the erratic beat of
an unheard drum. And she heard voices, so far away they were like the buzzing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]