Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) (22 page)

And her body was demanding his.

He leaned in even closer to her, close enough she could feel the heat of his body, and she caught her breath in anticipation of a kiss. She could feel her face flushing, her heart racing, as she braced for his reply, wondering if he felt even half of what she was feeling. And if he did…she wondered what he was going to do about it. She certainly knew what
she
wanted to do, and it didn’t involve talking.

But Rowan, apparently, had not reached the same conclusion. Yet.

“What were you thinking, throwing yourself at Vasily?” he finally hissed out.

HEX’S SHOULDERS SLUMPED
slightly, as if he’d disappointed her somehow with his question. Her expectant expression closed off into an irritated scowl he was becoming all too familiar with. She attempted to break the hold he had on her arm, but for some reason he couldn’t let her go. In fact, he tightened his grip and stepped even closer, close enough to smell the sweet-salt of her skin and the fading perfume in her hair. Even after days of captivity, she smelled exquisite to him.

And he could so easily have lost her. One microsecond more, and he would have been too late to save her. He didn’t know what he would have done if she’d fallen. All he knew was that she wouldn’t have even been in danger had she not interfered.

“I was thinking that you were about to fall into a bottomless pit and needed a little help. You’re welcome,” she retorted dryly.

“I was doing perfectly well on my own,” he said, trying to tamp down his rage at her nonchalant attitude. It was impossible, however. He’d never felt this furious and heartsick all at once. She could have died a hundred times in the past two days, and she was acting like nothing had happened. It was infuriating.

She snorted derisively. “Not from where I was standing.”

“Even had I fallen, I would have survived,” he insisted.

She stiffened slightly, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t know that for sure. You don’t know your limits any more than you knew how to kill Vasily. I did what I had to do.”

“The difference is you had
no
chance of surviving a fall like that. Why would you risk it?”

She shrugged casually and refused to answer, carefully avoiding meeting his eyes. “You caught me, and I’m alive, damn you, so let’s not dwell on it,” she said stiffly. She tugged at her arm with enough insistence that he finally relinquished his hold. He followed her with his eyes as she crossed her cabin, opened a drawer, and began sifting through some clothing. “I think we’re done,” she said stonily.

Oh, he was
not
done.

“What about the next time you’re in danger and I’m not there to save you?” he pressed.

She spun around and glowered. “Look, I didn’t ask you to ‘save me’. And you damn well aren’t my keeper.” She slammed the drawer shut and stalked back across the room. She swung open the cabin door and gestured at him to leave.

Something in his chest tightened in distress at her harsh denial, but he ignored her blatant desire to get rid of him. “Someone should be.”
He
wanted to be, for Simon had been right. He was hopelessly besotted with Hex. He had been from the moment he’d met her. “You conduct your life in a needlessly reckless manner.”

Oh, she didn’t like
that
. Her cheeks were as red as her hair now, her eyes bright with anger. She slammed the door so hard the electric light fixture above their heads blinked. She leant back against the door and crossed her arms over her chest, fixing him with a deadly look. “Excuse me, but some women haven’t the luxury of knitting their life away in some drawing room, drinking tea.
Some
of us have to work to survive, and I won’t apologize to anyone for the way I choose to do it,” she said, her voice seething with fury.

“It’s too dangerous,” he gritted out.

“Yeah, well, where’s the fun in it otherwise?” she quipped. She tipped her head to one side, studying him, and a sly grin slowly broke out on her face. “Maybe I
like
dangerous.”

He held her eyes, daring her to say another word, to test him further. Then she bit her bottom lip with unmistakable intent, and something dropped in his stomach, his anger beginning to transform into something else altogether.

She pushed away from the door and sauntered toward him, hips swaying in her filthy, weathered buckskins and her eyes never wavering from him, as if she were approaching a dangerous animal. He
felt
rather dangerous as he waited for her to touch him, like some predator anticipating his prey. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but the heat that had begun to spread over his body gave him a fairly good idea of what he
wanted
to happen.

Nevertheless, he caught her wrist before she could touch him. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“What does it look like?” she retorted in a low voice, bringing her free hand up before he had a chance to protest further. Her gloved fingers stroked his bare shoulder where his shirt had ripped away during his altercation with Vasily. His skin seemed to throb at their point of connection, her gentle touch more searing than the desert sun. He wondered when—or even if—anyone had ever touched him so intimately.

Men like us don’t have family
, the Swede had said so contemptuously.
We don’t have loved ones
.

How alone those words had made him feel. That small strand of hope he’d clung to—that he had something worth remembering, worth returning to—had withered and died with those words. He certainly didn’t deserve to seek it out now in someone else, because he was
toxic
. A freak of nature, for all of the Swede’s talk of invincibility and power. Hex knew all of this,
he
knew all of this, yet her touch made him shiver helplessly, his anger ebbing away completely on a tidal wave of need.

She sensed it too, a small, shocked breath catching in her throat. Her mouth parted, and something flashed through her magnificent blue eyes, something hot and intent. She’d been baiting him before, but now it was as real for her as it was for him. He expected at any moment for her to come to her senses and pull away, as she should have done minutes ago.

Instead, she astounded him by moving even closer and placing her palm flat against his chest, beneath the tattered remains of his shirt. The she moved it down, rough leather and cool steel skimming slowly over his skin, leaving behind a trail of fire. Her hand stopped over his heart, then flexed outward, so the bare skin of her wrist finally touched the bare skin of his chest.

His breath seized. For some reason, the touch, skin-to-skin, seared him more than any other, made his pulse race and the bottom drop out of his stomach. She felt the acceleration in his heartbeat, measured it, then drew back. She dropped her hand to her side and slowly raised her eyes to his. They were wide, her pupils dilated until the blue was almost subsumed entirely.

This was desire. Rampant, irrational, dangerous.

He had a sneaking suspicion that
she’d
been the predator all along.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he whispered.

One of her eyebrows shot up. “And yet?”

And yet? He wanted to tell her to keep her distance before a second more could pass, but he couldn’t make his voice work. He couldn’t even move. He had fought. For her. It seemed he had been reborn, a
tabula rasa
, forever following in her wake. For her.

For her, he was here, in this frustrating, alien hell of a life.

She was the only solid thing he had to hold onto, keeping him from sinking into a black pit of despair and confusion. The only constant in his short, month-long existence. But he couldn’t tell her this. She could never know how much he’d come to depend on her in so short of a time. She already thought him a madman.

A freak.

Didn’t she?

His head spun, and in that moment of weakness, it happened. She suddenly closed the distance between them, stretching up on her toes for a kiss, and he let her, God help him. Her scent—sweat and spice and primal anticipation—invaded his senses, making his head spin even more. The heat of her breath touched his forehead, his nose, his lips, and a jolt of lightning shot through him, his body instinctively stiffening, expectant, wary.

"No," he murmured, voice as raw as his nerves.

But she didn't listen. She never listened to him. She moved forward, her legs brushing his own, her hand arching around the nape of his neck, stilling his retreating head. He tried to say no again, but it was too late, and
he just didn’t want to
. The moment her lips met his, he was gone, rational thought suddenly obliterated in an inferno of feeling.

He tried to collect his wits, tried not to respond to her provocation, but his resolve lasted all of three seconds. Her lips were soft, sweet like honey, and so, so warm. He tasted them with tongue, lips, and teeth, kissing her back hungrily. It was as if he’d been starving for centuries just for this moment, just for this taste.

At length, she pulled back for a breath, and he was nearly unmanned then at the sight of her flushed cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, and girlish freckles. He loved those freckles. His hands went up, one around the back of her neck, one tangling in her ridiculous, gorgeous hair—another thing he loved about her—and pulled her closer. He seized her mouth again, his tongue feasting. He could feel the frisson of shock that shot through her at his sudden, needy reciprocation. It rippled through her whole body, the tremor passing out of her skin and into his hands. Then she sighed against his mouth, her hands gripping his shoulders as if for balance, and she melted into him, returning his kisses fervently, wildly.

He felt giddy, intoxicated, an electric warmth rising up inside of him and spreading through his body. He was helpless to stop it, and that seemed his only justification for letting her kiss him…and for kissing her back. Helplessness. Powerlessness. He was simply too weak to resist. A terrible excuse, considering his infinite strength, but that didn’t make it any less true.

Hex pushed herself even closer, crushing him against the closed door, her body melding with his from breast to toes, her hair falling all around them, tangling in their kisses. He brushed it back with his hands, the silky, ginger mess sliding against his skin, inciting his desire. She smelled of honey beneath the patchouli and sweat, tasted of honey.

He wondered if she did everywhere, if every part of her body tasted as good.

The thought—the corresponding hardness it triggered—shocked him just enough to break the kiss. Instead of pulling her closer, his hands held her at a safe enough distance to allow his mind to clear. He tried not to look at her. He tried to fight his body's enchantment. For she couldn’t really want
him
. He had set a dangerous precedent with his impulsive kiss back on the docks, and he was not entirely sure if it was the wisest thing to continue down that path. Not after everything they’d been through. He could foresee nothing but trouble if they did.

The rush of escaping death, the need to connect with something…
anything
, even a freak like him, motivated her, but that just wasn’t good enough. For while he felt the same urgency, he was certain that no one else would do for him.

He wanted her to want
him
. Or at least to be sure, damn it.

She started forward again, but he held her away with an iron grip, though inside he was growing weaker and weaker the longer he touched her. She shook her head, perplexed by his denial, but he felt completely at a loss to explain his inner torment. She’d think him such a sentimental fool.

"I need this, after today,” she whispered. “Please, Rowan." She covered his hands with her own, the black leather warming them instantly, yet the emptiness that had been momentarily filled by her kisses returned, then doubled in size at her words. He’d been right. She didn’t want
him
, precisely. She wanted a
feeling
. And it hurt.

He shook his head, but no sound passed his lips. She took his hands from her shoulders, squeezed them, and stepped back, just out of his reach. He felt at once bereft and relieved at the loss, thinking she'd decided to heed his caution at last. He wouldn’t have had the strength to resist her if she’d continued her seduction. He didn’t even particularly want to resist, but he knew that on the other side of it, he was going to feel even more alone than ever.

But she threw him off balance yet again. In the blink of an eye, quicker than he could gather his fractured wits, she had kicked off her boots and undone the buttons of her leather waistcoat, sliding it over her shoulders. It dropped on the floor at her feet, and her trousers quickly followed suit.

Then suddenly she stood before him in nothing but her billowing white undershirt, no corset in sight, stained with desert sand, dried blood, and sweat, so thin the electrical light behind her made it all but transparent. Her naked breasts pressed against the threadbare fabric, tips dusky and erect. Her breathing was deep, drawing her shirt tight around her breasts, keeping nothing hidden. He could see the outline of her body, the curve of her surprisingly long legs, and the shadowy triangle between her hips. Desire streaked wildly through him at the sight of her bared to him, and he clutched at the wood paneling of the door at his back, legs weak, heart stuttering.

She approached him warily but didn’t stop until her body was once more pressed against his own, hot and urgent. “What are you waiting for?” she demanded.

He managed a ragged breath, inhaling nothing but
Hex
, and his last defenses crumbled. He wasn't going to refuse her. Even in his most clearheaded moments, he didn't think he could have turned her away if she'd come at him like this. She was offering herself to him. As tribute, as compulsion, he didn't quite know. But he would take, and take, and give himself in return…at least for this moment. At least while this madness between them lasted.