Demon's Hunger (8 page)

What was wrong with her? Was she some sort of freak that terror made her horny?

She'd been attacked by a gray-skinned, eight-foot-tall monster with teeth. Really big teeth.

Her house had been burned to the ground.

She'd lost everything, maybe even her sanity.

And all she could think of was the need, no, the
compulsion
, to touch Dain Hawkins, skin to hot skin, to run her tongue, her teeth, along the strong column of his throat, to kiss his hard mouth.

It was like someone—
something
—else was alive inside her skin.

No… not something else, but maybe a part of herself that she'd never known, never recognized.

She shivered.

She'd never had much of an interest in physical intimacy, had convinced herself that her lack of libido was normal given her hectic schedule and career-oriented lifestyle. Every test her doctor had done came up negative, so she'd accepted the fact that she was just one of those people who wasn't all that interested in sex.

Until now.

Now, with her world crashing down around her, she thought she'd do just about anything to have Dain Hawkins lay his big, solid, naked body over hers and—

"I'm asking you to stay," he said, his voice low, his breath fanning her cheek. "Stay long enough to hear me out, Vivien. The door is open. It isn't my intent to hold you prisoner, only to hold you safe. The choice is yours."

"You won't stop me if I walk out of here?" Breathless. She was breathless.

"No, but I
will
follow you. I don't know if
hybrids
or even demons will seek you out when you leave my protection. I don't know what they were after when they approached you. And I still need your help." He gave a low laugh, short, dark. "So, for now, where you go, I go."

Where you go, I go.

Yeah, right. Everyone always left her, but he was saying that he wouldn't. And she was supposed to trust that? Trust him? He'd leave. Just like everyone else did.

On a sharp exhalation, she acknowledged the fact that the thought of him taking off bothered her. She didn't even know the guy. Why should it matter if he left her?

Because if he was telling the truth about the whole demons and
hybrids
thing, then she definitely didn't want to be alone to face them.

Wasn't that an ugly little jolt of reality?

Yeah,
reality
. That was the thing she needed to figure out. How could she believe this? Any of it?

As though he had read her mind, Dain's lips quirked in a scant smile. "Watch."

In an instant, he began to glow with bright light, a supernova. He was haloed in it. Then a thick fog swirled up from his feet, twining and winding around his body and hers until it joined them, bound them, blocked out everything else.

"Believe me, Vivien. Trust what you see." His voice was a low rasp, and she was lured, tantalized, wanting to believe. "You are a scientist. Wouldn't you like to know what this is? How it works? Wouldn't you like to catalogue my secrets?"

"This isn't science," she whispered, lured nonetheless by his words.

What was truth and what was trickery?

She took a step, froze, then spun to face him.

"Everything will be fine, Vivien," he said, his voice low, a little rough. "Trust me, and we'll do just fine."

He wanted her to trust him. Problem was, she didn't know if she could trust herself.

Her gaze collided with Dain's, liquid silver, scorching heat. Her skin felt sensitive, like she'd sat in the blistering sun for hours. She could barely stand the feel of her T-shirt and jeans. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

OhGodOhGod
. What was happening to her?

She was so hot, so edgy, her nerve endings on fire.

But if she could just have Dain Hawkins, have him naked and pounding hard, then the fever would ease. It
would
ease.

On a sharp exhalation, she stumbled back, wrapping her arms tightly about herself to still her shaking.

She needed to think of something other than the craving to touch him, kiss him, feel him deep inside her.

She needed to get a grip.

Falling back on decades-old habits, she began to mentally catalogue evidence and information, focusing on what she knew. In information was strength, safety, reassurance.

Problem was, she didn't have a whole heck of a lot of facts to categorize.

She rolled her lips inward until her teeth cut against the soft tissue with a distracting pain. Dain stood in front of a very cool-looking gilt-edged mirror, watching her. The mirror reflected a great view of his denim-clad ass.

He was one of those guys who just looked amazing in a pair of faded, worn jeans.

Wrenching her gaze away, she walked to the bank of windows that faced south, stared out at the CN Tower in the distance and the white curve of the Skydome. Oh, yeah, reality check… the powers that be had renamed it the Rogers Centre how many years ago? Two? Three?

Reality check
? What the hell was reality? Nothing that she was overly familiar with right now.

She was actually believing him about the sorcerers and the demons. Her gut was telling her it was true, and despite her years of scientific study, she still put faith in instinct, because her instincts were usually right.

Leaning forward, she let her forehead rest against the cool glass.

After a moment, she looked around the penthouse. Dain's personality was evinced in the clean lines and artful surprises. As uniquely as he chose to dress, his decorating style followed suit and spoke of his taste. Unexpected splashes of color added a certain flamboyance to the vast and open space, a spark of life. She thought there must be at least five thousand square feet here, divided into rooms not by walls but by furniture placement and style. What appeared to be priceless antiques mixed with modern pieces in a way that shouldn't have worked together but did.

In the northwest corner was a staircase that led to a second floor and what she assumed must be a bedroom.

She turned away. Dain Hawkins's bedroom was the last place her mind, or any other part of her, ought to linger.

Squinting at the painting on the opposite wall, she thought it might be a Picasso. Wow. She wandered closer, studied the amazing placement of shape, the unique use of color.

Dain closed the door—it was only in that instant that she realized he had left it open this whole time—and shot her a glance.

"Would you like tea?" he asked. The question struck her as funny.

Apparently, taking her strangled laugh as a yes, he moved to the kitchen—state-of-the-art with cherry cabinets that gleamed with a rich patina, stainless-steel appliances and hardware, black granite countertop with a trio of blue glass vases gracing the end. Everything about the place screamed of wealth. Class with an unexpected twist.

Lifting the kettle, he brought it to the sink. The sight of his strong, long-fingered hands—one on the handle of the kettle, one on the tap—made her shiver.

She glanced down, stared at the floor, struggling to find her equilibrium, and she realized she was missing a fuzzy green slipper. In her fear and fury, she'd pegged it at Dain's head and hadn't retrieved it. She imagined it was lying somewhere in her driveway amidst the wreckage of her home. Her life.

The single slipper she had on looked strange without its mate. Bedraggled. Sort of sad.

"I lost my slipper," she said. She'd lost
everything
. The slipper just made the scale tip beyond endurance. Silly, she knew, but it was either focus on the slipper or dissolve in a sobbing, sniveling heap. She opted for the slipper.

Dain studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. He raised his right hand and unfurled his fingers with the same gesture he'd used earlier, a graceful, showy twist. It made her think of a fencer with a foil.

Sparks of white light fanned through the air.

"There," he said. "Now you have two slippers. Fuzzy, neon green."

He smiled, his hard mouth curving in a way that made her lose her breath, lose her thoughts.

She felt that smile slide through her, all the way to her toes. Why him? Why did he elicit this response? Ciarran was gorgeous. So was Darqun. But she'd barely noticed them. Why was it only Dain who shot her libido into overdrive?

With a shake of her head, she sank down on the chair beside her and froze. There
were
two slippers now. Fuzzy, neon green.

"How… ?" Her head jerked up.

Somehow, he'd made her slipper appear out of nowhere, so maybe he could do that with other things.

"Can you do that with my life? With my house? Wave your magic wand"—she paused as he shot her a look—"wave your magic
hand
and fix everything?"

He turned on the stove, put the kettle on the element. "Yes." Her heart swelled with hope, only to deflate as he continued. "And no. It's technically possible for me to repair your home with magic, but it's impossible for other reasons. Too many humans are aware of the destruction. We prefer to maintain our anonymity. In fact, our laws demand it."

"Who's 'we'?"

"I told you," he said patiently. "I am a sorcerer."

Her gaze slid to his white, white sleeve, her fuzzy green slipper, and back to his face.

"Then why are you boiling the water? Why don't you just use that… that"—she slashed her hand through the air, frustrated—"that magic, or whatever you call it, to boil the water?"

His smile deepened, a flash of white in his stubble-darkened face, wicked, dangerous. Enticing.

Dark, aching lust stirred deep inside her, and she almost moaned. Her blood was roaring in her ears. She thought that if he took even one step toward her, she'd leap on him in a wild frenzy.

"I like gadgets."

"I wouldn't call the stove a gadget." Her voice had a low, breathy quality, and he pinned her with a look that made her think he knew exactly what dark, secret longings tugged at her.

"It is to me." He shrugged. "Knobs, dials, switches… I like to play with things."

Play with me.

It wasn't until the humor faded from his face and his features got hard and hungry that she realized she'd said it out loud.

Oh, God, yes. Play with me.

She'd jacked him sky-high from the first second he'd seen her. Dain dropped his gaze to the kettle, but it didn't help. Vivien Cairn was as hot as a Georgia sidewalk in July; he didn't need to look at her to feel the burn. Dared not look at her, because the problem was, he wanted to take her up on her invitation.

He liked her look—sleek, strong, sexy. He liked her bravery, her resilience. She'd been dumped with a heavy load and had yet to lose it. Actually, it was incredible the way she had coped with everything that had been thrown at her this morning, taking it all in, analyzing, assessing, her analytical mind working through the possibilities and quickly reaching conclusions that, to her, must be incomprehensible. He admired that quality in her, respected it.

He glanced up, found her watching him. He liked the way she looked at him—as though she'd take him down and take what she wanted.

Fuck. He wanted that. Wanted
her
. Because damsel in distress or not, he had a feeling that Vivien was a take-no-prisoners kind of girl.

He was on dangerous turf.

She was inviting him to play with her, her hazel eyes sultry and dark, her lips parted in a way that begged him to kiss her.

"Backgammon?" he asked, his voice rough.

Her gaze raked him, leaving Dain with no illusions about the game she wanted to indulge in.

Dr. Vivien Cairn had one hell of a strange reaction to having her life turned upside down.

And damn him, but he was tempted.

He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, hold her close. Offer her comfort.

Yeah, right.

Altruistic bastard, that was him, for sure.

Not.

He wanted her naked and writhing beneath him, screaming his name.

But he needed Vivien for other reasons, reasons that involved the wall between dimensions and the safety of mankind. He wasn't enough of an asshole that he'd put everything the Compact worked for at risk just to get laid.

If he did that, he'd be no better than the Ancient, betraying everything he believed in.

Only, from the second she'd opened her front door, raked him with a look that screamed
sex
, then raised her gaze to his and let him read the shadows in her eyes, he'd had no doubt that with her, it would be more than a single hot night. And that freaked the hell out of him.

Now, keeping his focus on his actions, he prepared the tea, sandwiches, and a mandarin-orange-and-spinach salad. He figured she must be hungry.

She didn't offer to help. Wise lady. Standing hip to hip in the kitchen would not be their best plan, not unless the plan was to melt into a steamy puddle on the floor.

Instead, she moved around the penthouse, spending a few minutes by each window, gliding from one to the next, looking out. The loft had a great view, but he didn't think she really found it all that engrossing. He figured she was more intent on avoiding him after that little interchange than she was on admiring the scenery.

"Lunch is served," he said, pouring the balsamic dressing over the salad and giving it a quick toss.

She pressed her lips together and turned to face him, her body outlined by the nimbus of winter sunlight that poured through the window at her back. Jeans. Black T-shirt. No bra. His gaze lingered longer than it should have.

"Thanks. Actually, it's breakfast for me." The husky tone of her voice made electricity ramp through him.

Deliberately, he lowered himself onto a stool at the far end of the granite kitchen island, poured two mugs of vanilla-bean tea, and added milk to one. He cocked an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head.

"I take it black, thanks."

It took her a few minutes to work her way closer. She flitted to the side table, picked up the coffee-table book of American roadside mailboxes and thumbed through it.

"I like the rooster," Dain said when she got to the page.

She smiled a little, nodded, put the book down, drifted closer. Finally, she gingerly climbed onto the stool at the opposite end of the island, leaving empty space between them.

Safe space. A "no-fly" zone.

He pressed a button on a remote, and a nice bluesy jazz colored the air. She cut a glance at him, then quickly looked away.

"You okay?" he asked. "I know this must all seem very strange."

She shifted a little on the stool, getting comfortable. "I'm used to strange."

Yeah, he supposed she was, given her line of work. She dealt in the gruesome and the macabre. And yet, she retained an aura of artlessness—natural and unforced—that he found incredibly appealing.

"Vivien, I'm sorry about your house."

Her gaze snapped back to his, her eyes wide and a little lost. He felt that look like a blow to his gut.

Pressing her lips together, she studied him for a moment, then said, "Thank you. I am, too. There were a lot of… memories in that house."

Memories. He understood that. Understood sweet recollection that would only grow hazy in time.

"You'll make new memories in a new house," he said, striving to reassure. The look on her face told him he'd fallen flat.

"No, it isn't the house memories I was talking about. The truth is, I haven't lived there all that long. Just a few months."

"Then what?" He pushed her mug of tea along the granite counter toward her.

"The furniture, the rugs, the paintings. I don't really care. They were only things. I can buy new things." She turned the mug of tea, slowly spinning it round and round. "It's… the photos. And the stuffed teddy I won at an amusement park. The T-shirt I still had from my high school boyfriend. I never wore it or anything; I just liked knowing it was in the drawer." She shrugged and turned the mug again. "Nothing of value to anyone but me."

Her soft statement kicked him hard. He knew about her high school boyfriend. He'd been incinerated in a car crash, the remains identified by dental records.

Dain tapped his fingers on the countertop, wondering what the hell to say. He knew about loss, knew about pain, but he wasn't about to share a deep moment of commiseration.

"So, uh, how did you end up working in forensic anthropology?" he asked.

She glanced at him, her brows drawn together in a frown, and then she laughed. "Why does this feel like the horrible, strained conversation I had on my last blind date?"

Dain smiled, then sent her an exaggerated leer. "Hey, baby, what's your sign?"

"I said blind date, not pickup in a bar."

"Get picked up in bars often?" he asked with a laugh.

"No, I…" She paused, frowned, shook her head as though trying to grab a thought that kept slipping away.

For a second, she looked incredibly lost and afraid.

He half-reached for her, wanting to touch her, to reassure.

"What about you? You get picked up often?" she asked, her voice falsely bright.

He meant to throw out a line, something funny and charming that would make her laugh. Instead, he told her the truth. Because she didn't deserve a line.

"No. I'm more of a lone wolf."

She played with her mug a little more, then slanted him another of those sexy, sideways glances.

His magic stirred and rippled, though he didn't summon it, and he tensed, wondering exactly what the hell was going on here. The damned demon bone he'd been carrying around lately must have really scrambled his senses, because Vivien was mortal, and mortals didn't call sorcerer magic.

She looked away, toyed with her salad, then took a sip of tea, and the odd sensation inside him dissipated.

"So you were going to tell me about your career path," he said, keeping his tone light.

Laying her fork flat on the countertop, she stared at it for a long while. He thought she wouldn't answer, would keep her secrets to herself, and he was startled when she didn't.

"My high school boyfriend, Pat. He died. MVA—motor vehicle accident." Her tone was flat. Emotionless. And it was in the lack of expression that he read her heartbreak. She didn't let herself feel. He understood that, understood her, because he, too, was adept at building walls, locking himself away.

"Between the crash and the fire, there was almost nothing left to identify. They had to use dental records."

She shook her head, lifted her fork once more, tapped the tines lightly against the rim of her plate. "A day after his funeral, I changed my course selection for my freshman year at college to include all the prerequisites for the forensic anthropology program." She fell silent, blew out a breath, gave a shaky little laugh. "So… yeah… that's my story."

Dain had known all that. It didn't come as any surprise. Still, he felt the rawness of it, the loss, heard an undercurrent to her words that told him there was more to it than that. She had shared this with him. Why? Maybe because she needed to let it out.

For some crazy reason, he was glad that he was here to listen.

"Your whole story?" he asked, not certain why he prodded, not certain why he even wanted to know. But he did.

Her brow furrowed, and her reply was slow in coming. "A part of me—a big part—has always blamed myself, because I let him go off angry, let him leave when he was in such a fury. Macho posturing and teenaged testosterone." She tapped the fork on her plate again, faster, a brief, staccato burst. "I can't believe I'm telling you this." She shook her head and whispered, "For a very long time, I wished I could have sixty seconds of that night, just sixty seconds to live over again."

Dain nodded, stunned that she'd shared this with him. Touched. A little freaked because he understood all about regret and blame and wishing you could have just that one moment to do over. Jesus, what was it with Vivien Cairn touching the live wire of his emotions?

What was it about her that made him want to open his mouth and let his own dark tale pour free?

He knew exactly how she felt, exactly how strong the yearning could be, the aching wish to have a chance to say good-bye.

"And now what do you wish?" he asked, knowing he should just let it go. Not ask. Not care.

"Now?" She blinked, gave a shaky laugh. "I don't wish. There's no point. If wishes were pennies…" She met his gaze head-on, and he saw old pain, resignation, and strength. Incredible strength. "Those seconds are gone, and I can never retrieve them."

He inhaled sharply.
Those seconds are gone
. Gone, like Moria and Ciel were gone. Too late.

"In an instant, that moment is gone, and it's too late," he murmured.

"Yes," she whispered.

She was watching him, her gaze focused, and it made him uncomfortable, the knowledge and understanding he read in her eyes, the connection to her. It also made her unbelievably attractive to him.

"I've never talked to anyone about Pat. Never told anyone about keeping his T-shirt." She frowned at her salad, stabbed a leaf and ate it.

Vivien Cairn was one tough lady.

One tempting lady, on so many levels.

And he wanted her with a hard-edged intensity.

The demon bone was locked up tight in the vault, had been since the second they'd returned to his penthouse, so he couldn't blame his raw lust on its dark aura. There was no one to blame but himself. He had no business lusting after her, no business liking her.

He needed to focus on the task at hand. He needed her help to determine if his suspicions about the contents of the red gris-gris bags were fantasy or fact. He needed answers.

And he needed to stop thinking about raking his arm over the countertop to clear it, laying Vivien across it, ripping that skimpy little black top off her body, jerking her jeans down her hips.

Licking his way along her naked skin, inch by luscious inch.

He shot her a glance, found her watching him, her stunning hazel eyes heavy-lidded, her lips moist and parted. Oh, yeah. She was back to eyeing him like he was dessert. He saw her pretty white teeth and the tip of her tongue… thought of all the places on his body that he'd like to feel her teeth and tongue.

Fuck.

He was so screwed.

Swiveling his ergonomic, ecofriendly task chair, Javier Saint aimed the remote at the flat screen on the opposite wall, turned it on, and cranked the volume.

God bless MTV.

There were times he enjoyed the quiet. This morning wasn't one of them. Actually, he'd started to crave noise. Maybe he was hanging with Darqun too much.

He spun his chair to face the bank of three computers before him. His little hobby. He did love his IT.

A faint tingle skittered across his skin, and the air shimmered for an instant, then coalesced into a man's form.

"You could have used your key," he said with a cursory glance at Darqun. Ragged cargo pants, white T-shirt, brown leather jacket that looked about a hundred years old. Javier sighed. "You ever gonna learn how to dress?"

"Key's no fun. You know I like riding the dragon current. And, no, not if learning how to dress means emulating your style. I'll take my T-shirt over your hand-stitched Italian silk any day."

"Peasant," Javier said, lacing the word with mock derision. "Anyway, find the key, and use it. Or knock. What if you'd beamed yourself in here at an inopportune moment?"