Of Consuming Fire (11 page)

As Eli moved to do the same, Jayden stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. The man stiffened and continued to stare forward. “Human, I — ” Jayden forced himself to continue. “Anything you can do to discourage a rescue attempt — please. I do not know if I could stop myself from — ”

Eli hesitated a second before looking Jayden in the eye. Those blue eyes stared for several moments before the man nodded curtly. “Thank you,” he said again. Then he quickly followed his wife.

Relief and, again, the feeling of rightness settled over Jayden, even though by letting the two go, he was technically going against orders. How could going against his orders feel so right? He hissed as he realized he’d mentally called them all by their actual names. Unease settled in as Jayden quickly piled the rocks again, making sure no human could get in or out without his knowledge.

Then he returned to the room where they ate. It was disturbing how empty the wing felt now without the three humans. Without Genesis. Jayden realized how much he had enjoyed the infant’s presence, even if he never interacted with her.

When he passed through the doorway, he came to a stumbling stop. His Temptation was alone in the room. A quick use of his senses told him that the other couple was in their room. Making love. Again.

Jayden grimaced.

From the look on his Temptation’s face, she knew what the other two were up to as well. For the briefest of moments, thoughts of the orgasm she had given herself yesterday passed through her mind, but just as quickly, her memories of the rape flashed.

It was the first time since their interlude yesterday that Jayden sensed her directions take that path, which was the longest break since he had first encountered her. He did not like that her thoughts returned there now.

He felt himself move forward. “No one is allowed to hurt you, you know.”

Her head snapped in his direction, surprise at his presence flaring in her eyes. She had not known he was in the room.

The surprise quickly vanished to be replaced with pique. “No one except for you,” she said tersely.

And just like that, all the relief releasing the three humans brought vanished, to be replaced with something that felt alarmingly like …
fear
.

He
was
going to hurt her. He could not part from her, could not even think about it, and so she would be with him when the Compulsion struck.

Jayden quickly thrust those thoughts from his mind. He would go mad if he allowed himself to think on them for long. He pointedly ignored her last statement and approached the table where he sat to her right.

She eyed him warily from the corner of her eyes, but the flare of lust did not miss his notice. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply of her skin. Being close to her calmed the majority of his anxiety, and he was grateful.

Riding on the heels of that feeling came these words: “You can defend yourself from such a thing in the future, Temptation.”

She stared at him dumbly for several seconds, and then scoffed. She raised one brow and gestured to her body with one hand. “Oh, yeah. I’m a regular ninja.”

He did not understand what she meant, but something told him she was insulting herself. He frowned.

When he did not speak again, she went on. “Don’t worry. I’ve done everything I can to make sure no one wants me that way ever again. I mean,” she gestured at herself again, “look at me. I’m smaller than I used to be, but this is still bigger than men want.”

Heat spiked behind Jayden’s heart. First, if anyone else said this about her, he would kill them. The fact that she said it about herself drove him to the brink of an outburst. Second, he did not want her thinking about what other men wanted at all, only what
he
wanted.

Jealousy and rage.

Jayden realized he had been feeling a flurry of emotions this day, something that he could not allow to happen and keep the Compulsion at bay. He forced himself to calm. “You will not talk about yourself in such a manner,” he said smoothly, earning a disbelieving look from his Temptation. “Besides, you are vastly mistaken if you think your appearance would detract anyone from wanting you.” He allowed how much he wanted her to come to the forefront for a moment, looking at her with a heated glare.

She colored beneath his scrutiny and looked away. Confusion passed through her mind. She truly did not realize her allure.

Unbelievable
. Jayden shot up from the table and strode to the door, desperately needing a distraction. Desperately needing to distract
her
. The work he had brought her only yesterday was clearly not diverting her enough. When he turned around to look at her, she was still staring at the table. “Come,” he said shortly.

She looked at him. Pink stained her cheeks as she remembered what it felt like to do just that only hours ago. Her eyes cast down to the floor.

Jayden swallowed past a star-sized lump in his throat. “Come,” he couldn’t prevent himself from repeating, his voice now impossibly deep and rough.

“Where?” she snapped, her eyes jerking back to his censoriously. Her brow furrowed, and her eyebrows crashed down.

She knew he repeated it to get a rise out of her, and she was upset with him, he realized. And what was worse, she was
beautiful
when she was upset with him. Jayden forced his mind to other things. “We are going to fight.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“We are going to fight. Practice,” he gestured to the hall. “I will teach you how to defend yourself, and then you will no longer have to worry.”

She laughed without humor. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. If I wanted to learn self-defense to protect myself, I would have taken a freakin’ karate class years ago. I protect myself in other ways.”

Jayden crossed his arms. “These other ways. They have worked for you? You are not, for example, currently imprisoned?”

It was a low blow, and they both knew it. Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth opened. No doubt to deliver a terrible set-down of some sort.

A loud, feminine moan sounded from the room next door. His Temptation blushed and looked at the ground again.

“Do you have anything else you would rather be doing right now?” Jayden asked, shocked by the innuendo in his tone. He had not meant the question to come out so … naughty.

Her eyes snapped to his, and he saw longing flare there briefly. Her thoughts returned to her pleasure, this time replacing her own touch with his.
His
fingers caressing her body.
His
touch bringing her to completion.

Jayden sucked in a breath. He turned quickly and left the room. She either would join him out here or she would not, but if he stayed in the small room with her one moment more, he would not be responsible for his actions.

Several seconds later, she stepped timidly into the hallway. “Are you serious about this?” she asked softly.

“I am always serious.”

Her doubt lingered heavily in the air.

He would need to move slowly. Help her gain confidence. The truth was, she was much more capable than she guessed herself to be. He turned and walked to the end of the hallway, then pivoted back to face her. “Stand here,” he said, pointing to a spot two feet in front of him.

She moved slowly forward, not yet meeting his eyes. She stopped where he pointed.

“Lesson one,” he began, hoping she would look at him. “Hard to soft.”

She finally did meet his eyes, but it was obvious she did not know what he meant. He held his arm out and pointed to his knuckles and then his elbow. “Hard — ” then he patted his belly, “to soft.”

She made a fist with the hand she had injured trying to punch him yesterday and looked down at it and then back at him disbelievingly.

“This is why you hurt yourself yesterday. Your hand is hard; my breastbone is hard. ’Tis not a good mix.” She continued to stare at him mutely, her loosely formed fist before her. Jayden shifted uncomfortably beneath her stare. “Come on, think, Temptation,” he said gently. “Where on my body am I soft?”

Her eyes roved down his front and then back to his eyes. He felt it like a caress.

“Nowhere?”

He made a noise that sounded oddly like a chuckle. Her widened eyes said she heard it. “No,” he said before he could make a bigger fool of himself. “All men are soft here,” he pointed to his eyes, “here,” his throat, “here,” his stomach, “and here,” his groin.

Her eyes lingered on the last spot.

“Well, usually soft there,” he amended quietly as he felt his body stir under her gaze. “Perhaps not when we are around you.”

Her eyes flew to his face in wide shock at the same time he realized what he said. Dear Lord, was he …
flirting
with her?

And who said that to someone who had been through what she had been through? He quickly scanned her thoughts; preparing to apologize and try to ease the fear that such a statement would inevitably give her.

Instead, he discovered another flare of pain and lust. He swallowed hard as her eyes drifted from his face and back downward. “So try it,” he blurted out over loud.

Victory. Her eyes returned to safe territory. “Try what?”

“Hit me.”

She laughed. Several seconds later, “Oh, wait. You’re serious?”

“I am always — ”

“Serious.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard.” She flashed him a brilliant smile that momentarily dazzled him, and then she moved much faster than he anticipated.

Her right fist flew forward and nailed him directly in his abdomen. Her strike had more power than he would have guessed, but it was still nothing. Nevertheless, he forced all of his air from his lungs with a loud
oof
, and doubled over, placing his hands on his knees. He held his huddled position for some time as he falsely struggled for breath before making a great show of cautiously returning to an upright position. He rubbed his stomach. “Good,” he said with a wince.

“You know,” she said, “that was actually kinda fun.” Pure confidence flowed through her, no fear and no pain.

“Again?” he asked.

She nodded eagerly.

He reached forward and took her hand. As soon as their skin touched, her smile faded. She sucked in a surprised breath, and Jayden found his eyes coming to rest on the way her breasts moved with her gasp.

He forced his eyes back to her face and bent her fingers gently until she was making the peace sign that had grown so popular in the nineteen seventies. He brought her fingers to his face and made a slight jabbing motion toward his eyes. “Very effective move,” he said in a hoarse voice. He let her hand fall back to her side.

She stared at him dumbfounded.

“Go on,” he coached gently.

She tilted her head. “Stab you in the eyes?”

He nodded.

After a moment, she shrugged. Her strike this time was much less fierce out of fear of hurting him, but Jayden threw his hand up as a blade between his eyes to catch her fingers at their crux, stopping her fingertips just short of their mark.

She relaxed and smiled again.

“Excellent,” he said. Her smile grew in response.

This time it was she who asked, “Again?”

Over the next few hours, Jayden showed her a variety of easy moves that boosted her confidence and had her gifting him with dozens of spontaneous smiles. By the time she yawned, Jayden was so worked up from casual contact with her body that he was more than ready to call it a night.

“Bed time, little one,” Jayden said as her fatigue washed over him.

At his words, disappointment wafted through her mind along with anxiety that her thoughts would revert to fanaticizing about him without anything to distract her, but she nodded and turned toward her room. Just as she reached the door, Jayden stopped her.

“Tomorrow,” he said, causing her to turn to him, “we will continue.” He could give her this. With both of their minds and bodies otherwise occupied, they may have a fighting chance.

As soon as the words set in, she smiled brilliantly at him, joy and relief lighting up her gray eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Good night, angel.”

Jayden felt a burning in his cheeks. He smoothed his fingers over his lips only to discover he was smiling back at her.

Her eyes followed his fingers, and her thoughts skittered like butterflies, and he captured each one like it was a treasure. One thought she arrived at again and again: she used to
love
kissing. Wondered what it would feel like to kiss him.

Jayden felt his smile collapse beneath his fingers as need clenched tightly in his belly.

Her smile faded as well. She turned and went into her room and closed the door.

Jayden remained in the hall and stared at her closed door for several long minutes before going into his own room next door. He moved to the wall that separated them and pressed his hand to it at heart height.

Angel,
she called him. With all of his being, he wished she would have said his name. But to do that, she would have to know it.

“Good night,” Jayden whispered to the wall, “Grace.”

Jayden was sitting outside his Temptation’s room, huddled against the door, his head buried in his upraised knees while his Temptation’s screams echoed down the hallway.

Physical pain, unlike any Jayden had witnessed in a human before, was tearing through his Temptation’s body. Her thrashings rang clear through the door, as did the mouthy one’s attempts to make things better.

The screams had started this morning. Jayden had been right outside her room when the torturous pain first tore through her. He had stumbled back against the wall, clutching his heart as it tried to beat out of his chest, while the defilers sprinted out of their room and into hers.

And things had only gotten worse.

The blond one eventually left, partly because Jayden’s Temptation’s screams distressed his male sensibilities, partly to think in quiet to try to determine what was happening to the writhing redhead.

Jayden mentally monitored the blond one’s thoughts in a room at the end of the hall. The man was arriving at conclusions and discarding them left and right, but one idea was becoming prevalent, and it scared Jayden to within an inch of his life.