Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) (28 page)

“Is going to have to learn to live with it. And if she can’t, then you’ll just have to go back to coping with your death magic the old-fashioned way. You managed to do it for a century before her.”

His face hardened. “If you can call what I did ‘managing.’ You remember that long list of bad things that have happened to you? Who was it who
beat
you?”

I’d thought Jamaal had forgiven himself for that. Apparently, I was wrong. “Even when your temper flared, you wouldn’t have done that to one of your friends,” I said. “You thought I was the enemy. Look, I don’t like it when you go off like a powder keg, and I know fighting the death magic made you miserable, but if using Sita to vent it means you have to live your life in complete isolation from the rest of us, then it isn’t worth it. I’d rather deal with your temper.”

Jamaal shook his head. He opened his mouth to argue, but I reached up and put my fingers on his lips to stop him.

“You deserve to have a life,” I told him, caressing the fullness of his lower lip with my thumb as I closed the last remaining distance between us. Almost against his will, he put his arms around me. There was a look very like fear in his eyes, and I was determined to extinguish it. I raised up on my tiptoes and kissed him, and a small sound of need escaped me.

“This is a bad idea, Nikki,” he said against my lips, but the sexy rasp in his voice and the way his
hands gripped me tighter said he was in as much of a mood to be bad as I was.

I breathed deep, taking in his scent of smoke and cloves and something else I suspected was hair product. And underneath was the scent of
him,
of the man who could chase all other thoughts from my mind with the lightest brush of skin against skin, or even with the faintest hint of a smile. I slid my hands up his chest and looped them around his neck, pulling his head down toward me.

For all his protests, he didn’t resist. His lips came down on mine, and there was no longer room in my brain for anything but the taste of him, the feel of him against me. He was rapidly hardening beneath those soft flannel PJs of his, and I wished I were taller so I could grind something other than my belly against him.

Jamaal apparently had a similar thought, because his hands slid down my back to my butt and he boosted me up with casual strength. I groaned into his mouth and wrapped my legs around him, reveling in the feel of him. His tongue stroked mine rhythmically, and I grabbed hold of a double handful of his hair to remind myself not to let my hands wander. It was hard to remember
anything
at the moment, hard to think of anything but how glorious his lips felt as he kissed me.

My heart was already tripping along happily in my chest, but when Jamaal carried me through the sitting room and into his bedroom, I thought it might burst. I wanted him more than I wanted my next
breath, wanted to lose myself in the sensations he sparked in my body, but I knew from past experience that I needed to keep some small section of my brain on-line and functional if I didn’t want to scare him off again.

Jamaal laid me down on the crisp white sheets of his bed, pushing the covers further aside without breaking the kiss. He came to rest on top of me, his lower body held in the cradle of my legs, which I kept wrapped around him. My hands yearned to explore, to tear away the clothing that separated us. I wanted to feel his skin, hot and slick against mine, but I didn’t dare make any overtures.

I let go of Jamaal’s hair and groped for the headboard. I hadn’t paused to examine it when Jamaal had carried me in, but I had a vague impression it was carved of dark wood and had some posts I could hold on to. Maybe if I kept my hands out of the fray entirely, I could keep them from wandering when they shouldn’t. I found a couple of handholds and latched on, still kissing him for all I was worth and holding him close with my legs.

I almost howled in protest when he broke the kiss, but he didn’t withdraw from me, merely cupped the side of my face in his hand and stared down into my eyes. With his erection pressed up tight against me, there was no missing his desire. Unfortunately, there was no missing the hint of fear in his eyes, either.

“I want you,” he whispered, then rolled his hips against me to emphasize his point. I gasped
in pleasure and arched my back. “But you know I have . . . issues.”

I let go of the headboard long enough to run my fingers down the side of his face in a caress that I hoped was equal parts sensual and comforting. “I know. I don’t care about your issues. Tie my hands so I don’t get careless, and then have your way with me.”

A tremor ran through him, and he closed his eyes.

Shit. I was losing him.

“Don’t you dare stop now!” I said, clamping my legs even more firmly around him.

“You deserve better than me.”

“
I’ll
decide what I deserve.” I was somewhat heartened by the fact that despite his words, he was still rock hard against me. There was a part of him trying to withdraw, but it wasn’t all of him. “I want you inside me.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I had an owner once . . . The scars turned her on. She—”

I shut him up with a kiss, gently taking hold of his lip between my teeth when he would have pulled away. Apparently, he found that sexy, because he momentarily forgot his objections and returned my kiss with an intensity that took my breath away.

He was panting heavily when he ended the kiss. “Have to keep my shirt on,” he said between breaths.

“Don’t care,” I said, and realized I was panting with need, too. Actually, I
did
care, but the time to talk to Jamaal about whatever had been done to him to make him so skittish about the scars was not now. I didn’t want him thinking about anything that
might make him back off yet again, so I channeled my inner porn star. I’m not usually into talking dirty, but for Jamaal I was more than willing to make an exception. “Fuck me. Now!”

It’s amazing the effect those two little words can have on a guy. Jamaal forgot all about his excuses and apologies and explanations. He pushed up to his knees so he could get to the fly of my jeans, and he had them open and down before I could even offer to help. I’d have liked to have taken them off entirely, but he seemed in too much of a hurry and I wasn’t about to complain.

I groaned when he dropped his pajamas and I got a good look at his erection. I’d known from the feel of him against me that he was, shall we say, well endowed, but naked and ready for action, he was nothing short of magnificent. My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, to stroke the smooth hardness of him, but since I hadn’t let him pour out his whole tale of woe, I didn’t dare, not knowing what might trigger traumatic memories.

A shiver of need passed through me, along with a tiny twinge of anxiety. I’m no virgin, but my spectacular ability to fall for inappropriate or unavailable men meant I wasn’t the most sexually experienced twenty-five-year-old in the world, and Jamaal’s size promised an uncomfortable beginning. I hoped it wouldn’t hurt so much that I couldn’t hide it. The last thing I wanted was for Jamaal to feel even a twinge of guilt.

“Condom,” I reminded him as he stretched out above me, having barely remembered in time.

“Not necessary,” he assured me. “The lines don’t mix.”

I took that to mean that descendants of different divinities couldn’t have children together, which I stored away as something to ask questions about some other time. Right now, I was more than prepared to take Jamaal’s word for it. I spread my legs as wide as I could with my damn jeans and panties restricting the motion. Jamaal didn’t take me up on my offer to let him tie my hands, but he did pin my wrists to the pillow above my head. I had no objections.

I arched toward him in anticipation . . .

And felt like I’d been plummeted into a pool of ice-cold water when I heard a feline growl, way too close to me.

Jamaal cursed and shoved me aside, putting himself between me and the five-hundred-pound tiger that had suddenly appeared on the bed beside us. I rolled off the side of the bed, frantically pulling up my pants as I did. Sita growled again, the sound just short of a roar.

“I did
not
summon you!” Jamaal shouted at her.

Staying out of sight might have been my wisest choice, but I couldn’t help peeking up over the side of the bed. Jamaal was on his knees, his arms spread wide as if that would block Sita from getting to me. We both knew she could jump right over him if she wanted to. He hadn’t bothered to pull his pajamas back up, and I saw that his backside was as scarred as the rest of his torso. He reached out as if to touch
Sita—which he seemed to need to do to put her away—but she danced out of reach, baring a very intimidating set of teeth. Her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the room, and they locked on me like laser beams.

Jamaal moved to put himself between us again, trying to cut off her line of sight, but I didn’t want him getting hurt because of me, and I worried Sita wasn’t above taking out her temper on him. The idea that she’d just appeared out of nowhere without being summoned wasn’t what you’d call a comfortable one. I wasn’t about to cower while Jamaal took the heat for me, so I rose to my feet and glared at the tiger.

“Jamaal has a right to a life, Sita,” I said. “You can’t keep him entirely to yourself.”

“Shut up, Nikki!” Jamaal snapped at me as Sita growled her disapproval. “Just get out of here while you can.”

There wasn’t much I could do to help, but leaving Jamaal to face an angry tiger by himself didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Of course, staying and getting mauled didn’t sound so great, either.

I shook my finger at Sita like I was scolding a small child. “If you hurt him, I swear to God I’m—”

Sita interrupted me with a roar that rattled my teeth.

“She won’t hurt me,” Jamaal said with conviction. “Now get the fuck out of my room.”

There were a lot of things I wanted to say just then, but I swallowed them all. Jamaal said he hadn’t
summoned her, but could I be sure that was entirely true? We’d taken some slapdash steps to avoid triggering his issues, but maybe it hadn’t been enough. Maybe we’d avoided the conscious issues, but the unconscious ones were deeper and more insidious. So insidious his subconscious had called for Sita to intervene. Maybe he would have to talk through whatever had happened to him in his slave days before he would be able to let someone get so close again.

Or maybe Sita was as out of control as his temper had been, before he’d learned to summon her.

I knew I couldn’t help him. Not right now, anyway. I didn’t want to leave him to face Sita’s wrath alone, but I suspected my continued presence would just make her more angry.

Mentally promising myself that this was not over, that I was not going to give up on Jamaal no matter how difficult the situation, I slowly backed out of the room.

I was awakened in the night by another blast of thunder.
I was surprised to discover that I’d fallen asleep at all, considering how long I had tossed and turned, searching for a solution to the Sita problem—one that didn’t involve Jamaal having to shut one or the other of us out of his life. And wondering if he was just one more on the list of unavailable men I was destined to fall for.

I rose from my bed and went to the window, hoping to see that it was pouring down rain, but the sky was clear enough that I could have counted the stars
if I’d wanted to. I wondered how big the clearing was going to be when Anderson had finished venting his pain and rage. Hopefully, we’d still have
some
woods left.

I slept only fitfully after that, waking up every forty minutes or so, brooding about Emma, and Jamaal, and my most recent brush with death. By 4 
A.M.
, I was lying in bed debating whether I should try to get some more sleep or just give up and get out of bed. The decision was taken out of my hands when the phone beside my bed rang.

Phones ringing at four in the morning are rarely a good thing. The only person I’d given my land line number to was Steph. The last time she’d called so early, it was because the Glasses’ house burned down.

Dread pooled in my stomach as I sat up and turned on the light. I blinked in the glare, trying to see the caller ID before picking up the phone.

My hand was halfway to the phone when my vision cleared enough for me to read the caller ID: Cyrus Galanos.

I was an emotional
wreck when I got off the phone with Cyrus. I spent a few minutes indulging in a crying jag, a little piece of my heart breaking. When the worst of it was over, I went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. My eyes were red and puffy, and I had shopping bags under them from not sleeping. The hair around my face was wet from the splashes of water, and the hair that wasn’t wet was tangled and frizzy. I wanted to get into the shower and put myself back together, but there wasn’t time.

I threw on the first pair of jeans I could get my hands on and grabbed a warm, comfortable flannel shirt. Then I dug out my one pair of waterproof boots, nice and fleecy to keep my feet warm in the snow. I braided my hair sloppily as I made my way down the stairs to the second floor. The house was dark and quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that
it was now twenty after four. I’d wasted too much time having my pity party. The moon would set in less than two hours, and I would need every spare second of that time.

Of course, it was possible I wouldn’t survive relaying to Anderson what Cyrus had told me when he called. I wished Cyrus had had the guts to tell Anderson himself without using me as his messenger service. After all, Anderson couldn’t kill the messenger over the phone.

I hesitated when I reached the hallway leading to Anderson’s wing. We were forbidden from going into the east wing past his study, except in case of emergency. This was an emergency, but that didn’t exactly make me eager to trespass. Not with the message I bore.

I gave myself a swift kick in the pants and reminded myself once again that I didn’t have time for hesitation. I needed to be at my hunting best, and that meant I needed the moon.