He breathes in deep against my neck, and I’m transported back eight years. I can smell the yellow honeysuckle in the fence, hear the bells tolling in the cathedral. “I missed you, Holly.”
“You didn’t even know me.”
“With your vicious fucking mermaids.”
There’s no reason to laugh—none. No reason that I should find that hilarious. It must be the total lack of food and water. It must be light deprivation making me insane. I push at his shoulder, but it’s completely ineffectual. “They’re only vicious because the dragons are so… they’re so…”
“Terrible,” he says, his voice severe. “I know.”
My smile fades. “Go to hell, Elijah, or whoever you are.”
“Elijah Michael North. Sergeant First Class. 452-48-9472.”
“That sounds like name, rank, and serial number.”
“Because that’s what it is.”
“You share that if you’ve been captured.”
He leans down to bite the place where my shoulder meets my neck. I can’t help but arch into him, and the zing of pain makes me moan. What a messed-up situation. What a terrible time to find someone hot. “Consider me captured,” he murmurs.
“You’re telling me that you joined the army?”
“I’m telling you that I joined the army, yes. Before we met.”
I push him away, for real this time, and he finally moves. The clearing doesn’t give me nearly enough room to pace. I rub my hands on my arms, but the dawn is still too cold. Or maybe the cold is coming from inside. “And the diamond?”
“My mission. I was pulled into a special counterterrorism task force. The person who wanted the diamond, the person who financed the theft, had ties to a cell in Paris. I had to steal the diamond and make it believable in order to gain access to him.”
I blink at him. “What’s a terrorist doing in France?”
“They’re everywhere, sweetheart. At least they were eight years ago.”
“That’s what you’re doing now? Tracking terrorists? Tricking them into thinking you’re one of them? Finding out their secrets so you can put them behind bars?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you. God, you’re as bad as Adam. Lying about being part of Interpol.”
“He’s not lying about that. As to where his true loyalties lie, that’s still a question. I’m not even sure he knows the answer to that.”
I feel torn between two men, pulled apart at the seams. It’s like they’re tugging and tugging with every lie, with every attempt to make me trust them. And in the end, I’m the one who unravels. “You know what? Fine. He’s an Interpol agent. You’re a soldier. Have a nice life.”
With that I turn and stomp away from him. I’ve only taken three steps when a weight slams me onto the grassy forest floor. The breath whooshes out of me, and I cough my indignation into the dirt. He’s gentle as he turns me over, righting my clothes and tucking a wild piece of hair behind my ear. “You’re not going anywhere,” he says, sounding almost regretful. Almost, but not quite.
“Why do you care where I go? I’m not holding your diamond in my backpack?”
He’s leaning over me, his powerful arms flexing in the bloodred light. “Did you think I gave a fuck about that? I could have taken it from you at the crepes place if I really wanted to. I could have sent men into your goddamn hotel room. I kept coming back to you because I couldn’t stay away.”
“You stayed away from me just fine for eight years,” I retort.
That crooked smile again. It’s lethal. “Which one makes you angry? That I used you to hold the diamond? Or that I left you once I did?”
“Both,” I say, snarling the word. I feel like one of those vicious mermaids he mentioned. And he’s a dragon, holding me down with his talons, keeping me away from water.
“I’m not staying away now,” he says, nudging me between my legs. Somehow he’s settled himself there. As if he belongs. As if he’s come home.
I buck my hips, but it doesn’t dislodge him. “I hate you.”
“No one gets me hot, Holly. Just kissing you was better than the sex I’ve had since then.”
My eyes close in bitter defeat. Tears leak out of my eyes and stream down my cheeks. It’s what I wanted then, what I’ve wanted for so long, and I hate that. “Do it, then.”
“You’re going to ask nicely.”
It makes me want to hurt him, even as I surrender. I reach up as if I’m going to kiss him, and he bends down to meet me. And I do kiss him. Once. Softly. Before biting down on his bottom lip. He grunts in pain, and I taste blood. His hips roll against me. It’s made him harder.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he says on a rough laugh. “You’re going to beg before this is over.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elijah
Eight years ago, I walked away from the most beautiful girl in the world.
I don’t bother telling her that because she wouldn’t believe me. And anyways, it’s not precisely a compliment. I walked away knowing that other men would kiss her and fuck her.
Damned if I’m going to do it again.
I saw you. I wanted you. And I take what I want. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, Holly. I said those words to her once, but they were just a fantasy then.
“You need to understand something. The US government doesn’t give a fuck what happens to you. And Adam? He wants you gone now that you’ve seen his face and learned his secret. I’m the only thing standing between you and death right now.”
Her eyes are a storm. And she wonders why I picked her up at the Louvre. She wonders if she’s as pretty as her sister, if she’s special. There’s a universe inside her. When I bite her, it’s because I can taste the wildness, the saltwater rain.
She’s crying now. Her hips move in a primal rhythm against mine. It’s too much, an overload of emotion after being held in captivity, after escaping. I should give her space to recover. Instead I’m going to fuck her like I should have done eight years ago. I’ve given enough of my life to upholding the rules. I’m taking her even with broken bones and a black eye. With cigar burns on my chest. All of it makes my dick harder, because she’s my proof of life. Proof that I made it out of that hellhole. Proof that I’m still alive.
She tears at my clothes, her hands fumbling and clumsy. I have to push her away to undress myself. When I’m naked, she makes a sound of pain and touches one of the whip marks. Fuck him. I take her fingers and grind them into the red welt until I grunt in pain. She yanks her hand back. “Stop it,” she says, crying harder.
This is how I want her. Not laid out in some hotel bed with a sultry smile. Not wearing pantyhose and a red dress. Oh hell, I want her that way too. But now, right now I want her as raw as possible. Only her body covered in dirt and sweat and grass. I pull her clothes away to reveal pink nipples and a flush that spreads across her breasts.
I suck the tight buds into my mouth, and it’s heaven. If those burns and broken bones were the price of tasting her, they were worth it. It’s a sick and twisted thought. In a perfect world the horror that I see on a daily basis would never touch her. But it did touch her. Adam kidnapped her. Somehow, in a world full of men and women, he found her for me.