Hunted Warrior (16 page)

He lifted his head while pulling her nearer, then caught one nipple between his lips. Avyi gasped. Fear flickered, threatening its return, but she had known
real
fear. This was exactly as Mal had said. This was pleasure. She leaned into his wet caress as he circled sensitive skin with his tongue and teased her with gentle nips. With her hands threaded at his nape, she pulled him even closer. He switched to her other breast and deepened his kiss. Between his hands and his mouth, she was quickly succumbing to sensations that layered over each other until none could be named. It was just her and Mal—their surprising combustion.

“Here,” he said, urging her hand between her spread legs. “Your turn.”

She would've been embarrassed before, but no longer. Avyi was wet, aching. What began as a tentative touch quickly became more forceful as Mal worked magic on her breasts and she discovered her body's own secrets. Their respiration matched, not in cadence but in urgency. She briefly wondered what it would be like to see Mal's face hovering over hers, with his body in full mastery of hers, but that was too much. She needed to be above him. She needed to keep that fear of capture at bay, or she would lose these astonishing feelings.

They met each other in a forceful kiss that was unlike their previous encounters. This had an underlying shimmer of tenderness, as well as anticipation. Mal stroked his tongue across hers until she moaned. They shared rather than warred. It wasn't furtive, but a prelude to the dance yet to come.

Avyi wanted that dance, before that underlying tenderness became as chilly as fear. Pleasure. This was for pleasure.

“Now,” she whispered against his damp lips. “It has to be now.”

“Not yet.”

Mal urged her to lift higher on her knees—then higher still. He positioned her pussy above his mouth. She had thought his touch was amazing. The hot flick of his tongue, however, blew away the last remnants of thought. He tasted, suckled, licked. Avyi thrashed her head, bracing herself with both hands flat on the inner hull of the ship at the head of her bed.

Her climax was so quick that she had no time to anticipate the onslaught of so much sensation. She grabbed the back of Mal's head and arched as waves pulsed up from where he still bestowed the most erotic kiss.

At his mercy now, she found herself straddling him again, but this time across his thighs. He covered her hands with his and showed her how to touch him, with strokes so strong that she thought they must be painful. Not so. He urged her to fondle his balls, massaging in a slower counterpoint to the heavy pulse they kept along his thick cock. It was fully engorged now, stunning in its rigidity and power. His eyes blazed. He grunted a curse and lifted his knees, digging his heels into the mattress.

“Now,” he said on a groan. “Come to me, Avyi.”

She braced a palm on his straining pecs. The muscles of her thighs trembled as she raised up enough to align his throbbing head with her sleek opening. Mal helped her, but only so much. Once Avyi had him fully in hand, he let his fall away. How could he know?
Did
he know? She needed to be the one to do this her way, as inexperienced as she was.

He was hot and pulsing as she sank down, so slowly at first. But need got the better of her. She enveloped him in one swift move. A surprised cry slipped from her lips. Mal was there. He had sat up, with his bent knees supporting her back, with his crossed arms holding her close. They kissed. They touched. They rocked together as that moment of pain dispersed.

“More,” he rasped against her throat. “You can give us more.”

She found that she could. There was nothing barring them anymore. Nothing barred
her
. She grasped the strong muscles that sloped from his neck to his sculpted shoulders. The pace she set was forceful and sure. Mal tossed his head back with a groan, like an invitation—one Avyi accepted by licking up from his collarbone until they were kissing again. Her world centered on him, on all the ways their bodies connected. The deepest connection was where man met woman with the most primal strength. She took him as much as he took her.

They locked gazes. Mal touched her hair, just as he had in the hostel. The surprise of that renewed tenderness was Avyi's undoing. She rolled her hips and rode the magnificence he offered. Fire burned behind her eyes and along her skin and down her belly, until it was a blaze of need. That need consumed her as sweat slicked her skin and stole her breath. She pinched her nails into his pecs when the first burst of release made her gasp his name. Another followed as he continued to pump up, gaining speed, holding back nothing.

He circled her body in a fierce grip. She sucked a patch of skin at his throat, then sank her teeth deep. Mal shuddered, then went rigid with a heavy grunt. After a few more lingering strokes, he flopped back on the mattress with a dazed, satisfied look on his handsome face. Avyi's inner thighs were sore as she slipped free and joined him on the bed, half lying across his body. They were both panting.

“That was . . .” She didn't have the words. How could she describe how right that had felt, in too many dangerous ways?

He hadn't taken her virginity; he had provided the freedom for her to give it to him. “Fantastic?” he offered.

She burrowed her face against his chest. It was as good a word as any, as she tried to completely shut down thought. The taste of his kiss remained on her tongue and the aftershocks of satisfaction still hummed in her blood. “Yes, Mal. It was fantastic.”

CHAPTER

M
al didn't walk through the next twenty-four hours in a fog, but everything he did was hazed with new sensation and sidelong looks at his companion. She behaved as if nothing had happened in that ferry berth. Only the way she walked gave her away. She had a looseness to her joints that belied her previous tenseness. Although just as wary, with her eyes a constant study in the suspicion a wounded soul used to assess the world, she walked beside him with what might almost be described as ease.

As he and Avyi disembarked in Venice, Mal was dressed in Armani. He could've been a businessman headed to Switzerland for a G8 conference about the economic futures of the industrialized world. Instead, he was the leader of the Dragon Kings, hiding weapons in his luggage and trying to smuggle in a young woman without papers.

She looked both respectable and radiant in a pair of slacks, a gauzy blouse, and a tailored jacket. Her fawn-colored merino wool suit created a striking contrast with her midnight hair, which was swept back from her delicate features. Ginovosa had outdone herself in finding an outfit to fit Avyi's petite frame and help contain some of her prickly attitude.

Although it was a strange thing to feel, he wanted her back in
her
clothes, boots and all, but their possessions had been stowed in a train station locker in Florence. Although the Tigony he'd sent to complete the task was one of his most trusted men, Mal hadn't dared reveal that the chest contained his sword and the quiver. But now . . . this polished version of a beautiful woman wasn't Avyi. The off-kilter vivacity was still there for any who looked hard enough, but she was straightjacketed. He wondered where she had stowed her switchblade and brass knuckles. He had no doubt they were somewhere readily accessible.

No more,
he thought.
Not for the rest of her life.

The first Italian customs agents they met were typically Italian. They weren't ruled by clocks and hurry-scurry attitudes. They more resembled the humans of Mal's homeland, where family, good food and wine, and enjoying life's pleasures overruled pettier considerations. Greek, Italian . . . they were descended from the traditions taught by the Tigony. Mal's selfish heart spoke their language. He hadn't been raised to accept responsibility. There were always valets.

And priestesses. And victims.

He knew how deeply the craving for bacchanalia went, and how greatly the Tigony had been responsible for the worst of it.

“This is Avyi Tigony,” he said in Italian, presenting his passport and a convincing business itinerary for his stay in Italy. “She's my wife and lost her passport on the ferry. We've looked everywhere. The ship's captain was still searching when we docked.”

Avyi only raised her brows. She didn't seem averse to using any tactic. After all, she planned to search a world-famous cathedral for a mythical bow.

The customs agent was small in stature and wiry, as thin as the cigarette he let dangle from his lips. Not exactly the stuff of high-end airport security. He examined Mal's papers. He eyed Avyi, particularly lingering on her hair.

Under the agent's scrutiny, she assumed a placid expression that sent chills up Mal's back. It wasn't her.

It was the Pet.

She was everyone and no one.

The agent handed back the papers and passport. He took a drag on the cigarette and pointed it at Avyi. “The Greek Consulate will be your next stop. We can have you escorted.”

Mal smiled benignly. “No need. We don't want to be a nuisance. Our ultimate destination is Berlin. Sorting out her passport is a first priority. Even more of a priority than the canals,” he said, as if by way of apology to Avyi.

“Next trip?” Her plea had just the right timbre of petulant and genuine disappointment. “You promised.”

“I did promise.” He kissed the top of her head, then added steel to his voice. “Next time you'll remember not to misplace your things.”

The agent smiled as if in agreement with Mal's harder tone. They were a people who would rather have wine insulted—as proof of good taste—than to bear obsequious courtesy. They understood and appreciated the attitude of a spoiled child. Mal could affect that without effort.

“Go then.” The agent angled his head toward the area of the docks that extended to the marina, then the mainland. “If you're apprehended by
la polizia
and they find you haven't applied for a new passport, your stay in Italy will be indefinitely extended.”

“
Grazie
.”

“And keep a close eye on this one.”

He ushered Avyi away, with his hand at her lower back. They hired a porter to assist with the baggage. Soon they were seated in a rented town car, with a driver whisking them overland toward Florence.

She glanced at Mal, a cheeky bit of side-eye. “You didn't listen to the nice man. I see no consulate.”

“And you won't. No papers, ever, at all, means you have no consulate. You're a woman without country.”

“So I'm Greek by default, as your wife?” Her brows were so expressive that the rest of her features couldn't keep up.

“You understood that?”

“Some.”

He watched her for clues, indications, but she only aimed that blankness at him. “How long until we arrive in Florence?”

“About three hours,” he said. “Might as well get some sleep.”

“It's two in the afternoon.”

“Yes, but we were both up at all hours.”

“Yes, we were.”

Mal was left pressing his lips tight. So casually, Avyi tossed him that comment before leaning against the window. She didn't sleep, but she didn't move either. She simply watched, as she had during the helicopter flight. He picked near-invisible flecks off his trousers and adjusted the creases. This was his skin. The clothing that defined him. Yet he almost missed the freedom of jeans and a T-shirt.

“Was last night your prediction?”

“No,” she said simply. “In what I've seen, we're surrounded by white.”

Mal hovered between satisfaction and surprise, between greed and knowing the road they traveled together would not be tidy. It would never fit his former life of private jets and Armani suits packed for him by an on-call valet from his own clan.

Maybe that was for the best.

He'd left his life in the care of others for too long.

Staring at her profile, he was hit again by her unexpected beauty. She had cleaned up nicely for their entrance into Italy. But could no one else see the wildness bubbling beneath the surface of her forced calm? Of course not. She'd had years to become the Pet. Only Mal knew Avyi. And Dragon damn, he wanted to know even more about her.