“You should get an award for your acting,” she grumbled. “Iwasin the process of freeing myself when you strode in on your invisible horse and played knight in shining armor.”
He laughed, and damn it if it didn’t make him even more tempting. The swine.
Ash marched to the sink, finished her tea, and rinsed the mug. She set it on the two-tier draining rack, hitting her wrist on the top rack?—
“Ow!” That bloody hurt.
“What is it?”
She pivoted. He was already there, his gaze skimming over her, his presence a tangible force that seemed to drag her closer. Uneasy, she stepped back and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m fine?—”
He caught her hand, and her heart tripped.Oh, no, no!
While she sort of liked him—only a blind woman wouldn’t—she wasn’t interested in anything so soon after Paul. She’d learned the hard way what powerful men did when things got difficult. They stepped back and let you shatter.
Even if this one did look like sin sculpted in skin and muscle.
“I said I’m fine.” She tried to tug free.
“I disagree.” His grip tightened marginally as he pushed up her parka sleeve. “So, the fire did get a piece of you.”
“What?” Then her eyes widened, and she grimaced at the bruises and slight burn on her wrist—likely from herowndamn lightning. Bumping it now had drawn a bit of blood.
“By the way,” he said casually, “since you’resointerested in me, and asked a thousand times already, I am Race.” His head lowered, and he licked the lesions on her wrist.
Her breath caught, her jaw unhinging.
Then, cool as hell, as if he hadn’t just shattered her entire composure with his tongue stroking her injury, he said, “There, that should do it.”
“Do what?” she breathed, then gaped as her skin healed before her eyes.
“Magic saliva.” He smirked, casually checking her other wrist. Then, with a shrug, he licked the bruises there, too.
Christ!She must still be asleep in the cold guest house, because all of this felt utterly surreal. She yanked free and rubbed her healed, tingling wrists against her jacket, trying to shake off the sensation.
His actions might have been innocent, but her body sure as hell had different ideas—gah!
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Pretending to be unaffected, she said coolly, “Thanks for the tea, now take me back.”
He let her go. “Soon. I’m waiting for a message. Work?—”
He went motionless, then his eyes hardened to ruby stones, every muscle in his body tensing. Without another word, he turned and strode out, his voice cutting through the air like a whip. “Stay here.”
Oh, hell no. He wasn’t leaving her alone in this bloody mausoleum of an abbey. Ash took off after him, through the living room, down the corridor, and out the front door, only to pull up short.
Race stood in the courtyard, facing three men as tall and enormous as he was, each with massive swords strapped on their backs.
One’s hair burned like dark fire. Another’s gleamed like sunlight—and the last was cold pewter, the color of forged steel.
They all looked like death had come calling, carved from the merciless stone. The air tightened, humming with peril. The fine hairs on Ash’s nape rose as she took a step back.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t a reunion.
And these weren’t friends.
Chapter
