“No. First, it was a contained space, especially compared to an entire estate. And it was also indoors, which is more defined and easier to control, or at least that’s how magic works in my experience. I’m also told by those who understand such things that few sorcerers are capable of casting several spells at once and Sakal isn’t one of them. And before you ask, he must have been preparing his ambush for me for a long time.”
“Okay. What if he waits until the battle starts tomorrow night to cast any spells?”
“He won’t. Again, he can’t cast several at once, so unless he is planning to use all of his power on a single trap—which is a risky proposition in war, as you well know—he’ll be working tonight to lay as many spells as he can. His people escaped with him just before sunrise, which means he slept through the entire day, so he should be fully rested.”
“All right. I’ll brief Kerry before we leave, which should be midday. We’ll want to assess the situation before we move in. But now . . . ” She went up on her toes and kissed him. “It’s time for you to rest and replenish.”
He gripped her arms and, pulling her up to her toes, sank into the kiss. Her lips were so soft, her mouth so warm as his tongue stroked along hers, until desire had his fangs pressing against his gums for release, and he had to lift his mouth lest he slice the delicate skin of her lips. Because once he tasted her blood, even a single drop, he wouldn’t stop. She’d be naked and spread out on the conference table in seconds. Unable to forego the taste of her altogether, he kissed her neck, her throat, while she spread her hands through his hair and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pulled back, wanting her breasts in his mouth, and ready to rip apart the long-sleeved T-shirt she wore, until a voice from the hall outside the closed door reminded him this wasn’t his office. He stopped and set her on her feet, then took her hand, opened the door to the hallway, and tugged her back to his office. He didn’t stop there, but walked through the office to his bedroom, and farther, crossed to where a thick tapestry hung on the wall. Reaching behind it, he keyed in a ten-digit code, followed by his thumbprint on the reader.
Layla uttered a surprised, “Oh!” when the wall split along a previously invisible seam to reveal a set of stairs going downward.
Xavier pulled her in behind him, scanned his entire hand to close the door, then led her down two flights of stairs to yet another door, which opened to a second scan of his hand and a ten-digit code. That door opened in turn to reveal a short, silent, and dimly lit hallway that went nowhere, except to his private vault. One more biometric scan, this one of his eye and five fingers together, and he was pulling her inside before the door had finished its slow swing open. Still holding her hand, he shoved the heavy door shut, locked it with the same double scan he’d used to open it, and then turned to study her.
AS SOFT LIGHT slowly filled the room, Layla realized they were standing in another bedroom. A much bigger bedroom than the one upstairs, with a huge bed and very little else in the way of furniture. She’d had no idea that this place even existed. Hell, that this level even existed. She turned back to Xavier, to ask him about it, but found him studying her with the utterly focused gaze of a predator who’d just caught himself a tasty rabbit.
As if reading her thoughts, his lips curved into a lazy smile, while his eyes filled with a muted silver light, as if reflecting the gleam from another source. She didn’t have to look around to know there was no other silver light, that this was a physical manifestation of Xavier’s power, unique to him alone.
“I’ve never seen you really use your power, before today, with the door,” she said, realizing it was true. Oh, there’d been the telepathy he used as casually as if everyone possessed the talent, and she knew he could heal horrible, even fatal wounds on others as well as himself. But she’d never witnessed an explosion of his vampire magic, never seen him— what the hell—never seen him stop a train, for example. Or anything equally dramatic and impossible. And yet, when they were close, when he was relaxed the way he was now, she could feel his power simmering just below the surface, like a static electric charge on her skin that was so strong it actually made the hair on her arms stand up.
“Most people don’t want to see me use my power. They don’t want to risk the chance that I’d be using it against them.”
She closed the few inches of space between them, until she could slide her arms around his waist. “But I’m not most people, am I?”
He gripped her upper arms and yanked her even closer, until her breasts were crushed against his chest, her thighs pressed against his, and . . . . “Oh fuck,” she whispered, as the bulge of his straining cock pushed right between her thighs.
“I can feel your heat,” he murmured back to her, his breath warm, as his tongue explored the curve of her ear, dropped to nibble at the earlobe, and then farther yet as he sucked the skin of her neck and throat hard enough to leave a trail of bruises, before sliding his fingers under the fabric of her T-shirt and shoving it aside so he could kiss her bare shoulder. She was still shivering under the sensual onslaught when he gripped the hem of the shirt with both hands and stripped it off over her head so fast that by the time she registered what he was doing, he had the front closure of her sports bra open, and was pushing it off her shoulders, until she was bared to his gaze.
“Xavier,” she said in what she meant to be a protest. She was sure it started out that way. But when he ripped off his own shirt to crush her against his gorgeously naked chest, she could only hum with pleasure at the delicious sensation of her soft breasts against hard male muscle, puckered nipples scraping the thatch of dark wiry hair that thinned to a narrow trail before disappearing into a pair of black, low-slung jeans that barely managed to hang on his hips and showed off the tight oblique V that seemed to point directly at his bulging cock.
“Layla,” he breathed against her skin before his teeth closed over the delicate arch of her clavicle, hard enough to break skin.
Years of fighting had warning bells going off in her head, telling her that he could snap her fragile bones with a single bite. That with his strength, he wouldn’t even have to put much effort into it. She silenced the damn bells without a care. If she knew one thing in this world, it was that Xavier would never hurt her. Not physically. Her heart though . . . .
The pain when he’d broken her young heart ten years ago was nothing compared to what he could do now, in this moment, this time they had together. But despite knowing that, she couldn’t make herself step away, couldn’t ask him to stop, to let her go.
It was too late. She’d lost any chance she’d ever had of walking away when she hadn’t caught a plane and gotten the hell out of Barcelona after that first night. She tipped her head forward and licked the salt from his chest, detecting the very slight tang of iron that flavored his sweat. Did it mix with his tears, too? she wondered. She’d never seen Xavier cry, so she didn’t know.