“They left for dinner.” He glanced down at her. “You need to eat.” His stride matched her shorter ones.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “Actually, I haven’t felt hungry in days. I hope I’m not getting sick. That would just make my life so perfect right now.”
Titania was aware several women and many more men noticed her entrance, and if only David and Justin had been with her, she would’ve had to fight off at least a few autograph seekers. With Diego, no one dared approach. Intimidating. That was the word.
She was blessed with silence until the elevator.
“
You will try to eat something this evening.”
“I am not a baby,”
she argued back, not thinking about the intimacy of the mental path as her ire rose. It was definitely easier when she couldn’t answer outright.
“
I’m fine.”
She gave him a sugary smile. A dark brow arched in answer.
“Little liar. You are tired this evening. You need to eat.”
She sighed.
* * * *
“Tani? You feeling all right?” David asked, resting a hand on her hip. She didn’t resist when he pulled her closer for a hug.
“I’m fine,” she replied, looping arms comfortably around his shoulders. “Just stressed out. I had no idea saving this one was going to give me so much trouble.”
David laughed, brushing her trademark black hair from the side of her face. “Who could stop you? Houston calls you an angel in disguise, and he’s right,” he told her warmly. Tani really had no idea how beautiful she was, how entrancing she could be when she smiled. Lately she glowed, seemed to be even more beautiful than David had ever thought her to be. David loved Titania like a sister, but when she looked at him with those beguiling eyes of hers, sometimes he wondered if she would ever think of him as something more. He knew how sensitive she was to emotions and intentions so he always held those thoughts close, kept them hidden behind his fun laugh, the one she knew and trusted.
His quiet chuckle died a fast death though when he glanced up and found Diego’s stare aimed at him. Even in the dimness of the elevator, he could feel the weight of her new bodyguard’s intent. Houston didn’t trust this guy at all. David had faith in Houston’s judgment. Now he was positive Houston knew what he was talking about. This man was walking death. Cold seeped into David. Instinctively, he wanted to pull Titania closer, to protect her as if danger was imminent.
“David?” Her voice dragged his attention to her own questioning blue eyes. “You paled. Are you feeling all right? I was just wondering if I was catching a bug.”
He blinked, coming back to the elevator where they all were. He placed Titania away firmly, and instantly the cold, oppressive weight disappeared. He swallowed, his laugh shaky. “No. I’m fine. Just wandered off there a minute. Hey, here’s our floor.” He focused on the doors to distract himself.
Leaving the elevator, Diego placed a hand on her lower back, his actions intent and immediately protective as he guided her to her room. David and Justin always roomed together, as Houston did with Laney. It had never bothered David before that Titania slept alone.
David understood that no one with a brain cell of sense would harm her with her bodyguard around. But as he watched a final chilly stare reach him from the dark, brooding expression of the other man as the door closed behind them, David wondered who was going to protect her from Diego.
* * * *
“Does he always touch you like that?” Diego stopped just within the door as Titania reached for her suitcase next to the bed.
“Who?” She started sifting through clothes. “Oh, David? Yeah, I guess so. Why? He’s like a brother. We’re family.”
Diego pinched his mouth shut. Possessive heat burned through his veins. David had almost died on that elevator, and Diego was sure he knew it.
“We have a room for you,” she said, pulling out a change of clothes.
“I will not be needing it, but thank you.”
She jerked up. “You can’t stay here!” A telltale rush made her pulse leap. Her lips parted as her breathing increased to a shallow pant. His body ached in reaction. Not a flicker of his response showed in his expression.
“I will be with you during all hours of the night. Brakka is a threat, as is the one I detected when I first arrived. I could not locate the source. You are not safe here. When I am not available, you must stay with Houston.” There was no room for argument. The threats he had encountered were real and dangerous. There had not been enough time to narrow the hunt to the source before their arrival that night.
Titania’s fists rose to her hips while her chin tilted in challenge. “You’re real good at making the rules, aren’t you?”
“When it involves your safety, yes. That is what I am here for,” he pointed out.
“Well, look. I want to shower, so make yourself scarce.” She waited and then frowned when he didn’t move.
His gaze drank her in, her defiant stance, her glowing beauty. He met her frown with one of his own, finding hunger beating at her, beating at him. “You will eat when you are finished.”
“Stop ordering me, and we’ll see,” she retorted. “I told you, I’m not hungry.”
Diego strode across the room, his long legs demolishing the space between them. “Maybe I am not making this clear enough. I am not ordering. I am ensuring your survival. Even now, I can feel the fatigue in you. You have no idea whatsoever of what Brakka is. You believe he and I are alike, and that is very close. If you are weak, he can control your mind more easily. You have felt him once already, fought against him. You know I am telling you the truth.” Blue eyes flashed with the sapphire fire he was coming to expect from her. “There will be no compromise.”
“Then you’re fired,” she argued. “I don’t need another person trying to put me on a shelf.”
He cupped her chin, his thumb stroking the soft skin in his palm. “
Cara
, listen to my words, not the dictate. You are not safe. I have to keep you safe.” His tone gentled, his heart slamming hard with her in his hold once more. A reaction he had yet to become accustomed to. “And make no mistake, Brakka has decided to come after you. He does not stop until his goals are reached.” He inched closer, body heat seeping through his clothing. “I am the only one who can stop Brakka. Not Houston, not David, and not some token paid guard. I know him. I trained with him, and he is ruthless.”
“How do you know him so well? He hates you.” She had stopped retreating, finally listening. “The night of the fight, he was so cold, so angry. I knew the second he discovered you. Hatred almost overwhelmed me.” Her eyes studied him; he could almost feel their caressing touch. He sat in the back of her thoughts, feeling her work her way through her anger, her hatred of being controlled. He should have known. She had been protected not only by her family because of her gifts and talents, but by her friends for her entire life. She would resent one more person curtailing her freedom to enjoy life.
Diego slid a hand around her neck, her skin warm, her pulse beating strongly into his palm as he soaked her into him. With trust came the grudging need to reciprocate. It was just that every nugget he gave her brought her that much closer to the truth, and he dreaded it.
“Brakka was my best friend. He did not hate me until I refused to follow in his footsteps. We grew up together, fought together, trained together. We are not related, but we are bonded by blood. I did not take the path he chose.” Diego encircled her with his arms, needing her in his hold to complete him. “I did not lose my soul. He has. He hates me for that alone. I hate him for destroying me.”
“Destroying you?” Her voice was thoughtful, and it fed into his blood again. Just one of those things she could do. “Like a company? Did he ruin you financially?”
Diego shook his head, wishing it were so simple. He did not care about money. “No. He did something far, far worse.” His voice had deadened, the remembered ache, the pain of his betrayal, of a sacred friendship, burning so deeply, he tasted the bitterness on his tongue.
“I’m sorry, Diego.” Titania wrapped her arms around his waist and held on. His chin settled on the top of her head, her silken tresses warming him. He accepted her compassion greedily. “I can feel your pain,” she said, her face pressed into his chest. “You loved him like a brother.”
“Once.”
She let out a tremulous breath. “And you have absolute faith he will come for me?”
His chest ached with the knowledge that he was right. “I am certain his reasons have doubled now. Retribution for your interruption and…” He tucked a finger beneath her chin, lifting her luminous blue orbs to his, letting her see the truth. “Because you have become important to me.”
What followed was meant only as a brush of skin, his lips to hers, an exclamation of his growing feelings for her, but the instant his lips found hers, all reasoning deserted him. She was sweet and hot, soft and seductive to his senses.
The earth moved beneath his feet, rocked him to his soul, and he held her tighter to keep from flying off into space. Her body matched perfectly to his, meeting his planes and hard angles with the curves and valleys of a woman’s body. An unknown urge screamed in his head and pounded at his temples. To claim her. To make her completely his. To be able to protect her, regardless of time or distance.
He shoved the thought far away. He would never pass on his curse. He would not condemn this woman of compassion to a life of death. Instead of dwelling on the impossible, he shifted his weight, bringing her flush against him. He glided a hand through the thick weight of her hair, savoring every electric sensation to his skin.
He tasted her lips, nibbling at the corner of her mouth, feeling her breath, sipping at her lips until she gave in, and he burned.
He moaned a low sound of need when he found moist sweetness. Molten heat coursed through his veins while hunger devoured him as he consumed her. White-hot lightning arced between them.
Diego’s mouth glided from her nectar-filled lips to the underside of her jaw. The sweet scent of her essences filled his mind, bombarded him. She twisted closer, and he could feel every lush, rounded inch of her. She was trim with firm muscles beneath smooth skin. Full breasts pushed into him, and desire flared brighter.
He nipped gently at her ear, and she sighed in answer, a bewitching sound that fed his own passions higher. His incisors exploded at the innocent timbre. He breathed her name, fearing for his sanity.
Distantly, he heard the rumple of clothing hitting the floor. Then her hands were running up and down his back, slipping beneath the edges of his coat to find his ribs. Desire flared anew, raged, burned.
He nibbled the delicate skin beneath her ear and swirled a scorching path down her neck. He ignited with her in his arms. Finding her pulse unerringly, the rush of blood called to him. The beat of her heart beneath his lips. His teeth scraped back and forth, seducing her. He could hear the pounding of her heart, hard, enticing. Wanting, a wanting so strong, he was lost to it as much as she was. “Titania,” he groaned, unable and unwilling to fight it. “Please. I need this. I need you.”
She arched into him, and his teeth sank deep. Everything that he was took her in, drank in need, in insatiable hunger.
Heat enveloped him; he became a conflagration of his hungers. It had happened. Diego had officially lost all control with her. Her hands tugged at clothing, and he pressed into her questing palms, groaning with a primal hunger when she touched enflamed skin for the first time. He lost all sense of time, of place. Cells soaked up her offering. Feeding earlier had not prevented this, meant nothing when he held her in his arms.
His heart slammed into his ribs, harsh and heavy against his ears. He inhaled sharply when her fingers danced across sensitive skin, blazing a trail in her wake.
He laved his tongue across her pulse, his last thread of sanity stretched to the breaking point. He claimed her mouth once more, pinning her body to his. He was sure he was going to burn to a cinder.
“Diego,” she whimpered into his mouth. A gasp. A plea, and he forced sanity to return with a strength honed from years of control.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her body hungered for his touch, for release, but she was overwhelmed. He pressed his forehead to hers, listening to her panting.
Titania’s eyes widened, the blue bottomless, her fingers lifting to his mouth. Her mouth was kiss-swollen, ripe and delectable for more. He ripped his gaze from the temptation. “No more of that. I’ll melt. I swear I will.” Her hand retreated from inside his jacket, and he missed her heated caress instantly, ached to have her touch him again. His arms held her steady, gentle bands of strength. “No one should have a mouth like that.”
“You like my mouth?” He felt oddly pleased that she would.
She peered upward. “You just can’t keep doing that. I can’t think. Your kisses are lethal. No one should be able to do that.” She studied him, confused, aroused and uncertain.
His hand slid from the heavy folds of her hair to rest against her pulse. It beat strongly, wildly into his palm. “I will try for restraint when I am with you.” It was the most he could promise. He was still craving her touch, desiring what he knew he should not want.
“You do that. I mean it.” She stepped away, a feminine retreat for space. She lifted her hair up and off her skin, an innocent, sensual movement that made his blood a living thing in his veins. She had no idea how sensual a creature she was.
For just a second, he could forgive David’s earlier thoughts. She was beautiful. Innocence shined from her, her eyes alight with her compassionate nature.
He moved through her mind effortlessly with her concentration elsewhere and could feel thirst building. He had been greedy in his passions. He walked to the mini bar and reached for a bottled water. He removed the cap, then handed it to her. “Drink. Then take your shower.”
Her eyes flashed blue fire. “Don’t start with the bossy stuff again,” she warned, but she took the water without a grain of refusal.
He offered her a small, goading smile. “Please, take your shower so you can eat, or I will be in there myself with you.”
She whirled and disappeared into the bathroom before he could start laughing at her.
Diego was deliberately investigating the room to distract himself from the woman on the other side of the door when the bathroom door cracked an inch. He could not restrain the quiet laughter when her clothes zipped from the room followed by a slam of the door.
* * * *
Titania slumped under hot, pounding water. That man should be outlawed. His lips, his eyes. All of him. He just should be! How did one man kiss like that? She’d had a few passionate kisses, but nothing that had left her melted to the floor. It felt like an inferno had taken up residence within her.
What she didn’t understand was why she didn’t feel threatened by him. Diego was the most overwhelming, overpowering, sexiest man she’d ever met, and she’d met plenty. Musicians, producers, songwriters. Even some of Hollywood’s biggest drawing names. She’d been singing professionally since the week after graduation, but no one had ever treated her so gently, so respectfully, so tenderly, or—she hated to think it—so passionately. She braced herself with a hand to the wall, a limp noodle.
Swallowing, feeling the mist on her tongue, she was surprised at how thirsty she was, having downed half the bottle of water before she stepped into the shower. Searching beyond the curtain, she found the bottle on the counter and drained it. Maybe that was why she hadn’t been hungry. Maybe she was dehydrated.
She tossed the bottle toward the trash when she was finished. “Two points,” she murmured with satisfaction when it sank into the can. She retracted the shower curtain, then began lathering her hair, thinking over what Diego had said—before that incredible kiss.
He knew Brakka well, if what he’d told her was true. One thing she could almost swear to was Diego’s integrity. The man lived by his honor. She could only take his word that Brakka would search for her. Brakka had found her once already. There wasn’t any reason not to believe him, and Diego was right even if she hadn’t agreed openly with him when he’d mentioned it. Brakka was extremely powerful. That kind of power made her wonder again just what kind of a person Brakka was. His mind manipulation was staggering. She knew she couldn’t stop him.
Her shoulders slumped further, admitting that. She couldn’t fire Diego. She needed him, but somehow she needed to keep her hands, and if possible her lips, away from him. She couldn’t think straight with him around. She couldn’t think, period, of anything but him most of the time. That right there, made no sense all to her.
What was with her lately? She never got obsessed over a man. She lived her life, loved to sing to the crowds regardless of size. She didn’t have the time for a man now, anyway. After San Francisco, they were going to the east coast for the second leg of her tour. She had shows to do, obligations. Whatever this was couldn’t happen. She let out a tired sigh.
The last thing she expected was the comforting warmth of arms holding her, cradling her. She said his name under her breath, and her heart somersaulted.
“I knew you were getting tired. Come out and eat.”
The husky growl of his voice was tender, caring, and she caved. Mostly.
“Don’t go thinking I’m always going to comply, Diego.”
But she twisted her hair to dry and wrapped a towel around her body.
“I have no fear of that.”
This was punctuated with a suffering sigh, and she smiled.
She dressed, drying her hair, winding it into a knot on top of her head. When she entered the suite, Diego had removed his coat and draped it over a chair, and her heart flipped again. The man had shoulders. Fantastic shoulders.
He stood partially facing away, but if she didn’t know any better, she would swear a ghost of a smile hovered over his chiseled lips.
“You better not be in my head.”
Silence was her answer. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
An eyebrow rose in quandary when he looked at her. “Something wrong?” His voice was sinful, and she was perfectly aware he knew it.
“You’re a rat. A six-foot something rat.”
“Six-six.”
“Are you serious?” Her gaze roamed from the top of his head to his black leather boots. He liked black, and damn, he looked good in it, too.
“I can shrink if you like,” he told her, an absolutely wicked taunt in answer.
She backed off. “No. I don’t want to know.”
He motioned toward the phone. “You better order soon. The kitchen closes in an hour.” She rolled her eyes. “Honey, do not fight me on something this small.” His gaze hardened to mercury. Flat. “You know if I really want you to, you cannot fight me.”
“You admit you can control my thoughts? Control me?” She wasn’t sure if she should be terrified or shocked to actually hear him say it.
“Why should I deny it? You already have experienced far more from being in my presence than any other person alive. I told you I could never lie to you. What would it serve? You must trust me, or I cannot keep you safe. It is as simple and as complicated as that.”
She half turned, avoiding him now. “Have you been controlling my thoughts? Have you done it before?”
There was absolute honesty in his tone. “I softened the memory of your attack. The night you risked your pretty little neck to stop Brakka, I helped to relieve you of nightmares. Beyond that, no.”