Touch of Darkness (28 page)

He'd backed her into a corner, and worse—he done it by making her face the facts.

Her plan never had a chance of succeeding.

At least one of them was going to die.

And that was the ultimate failure.

Frustration held her in its heated grip. "I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in a corner. I want—"

"What do you want?"

You.

Rurik
and a return of her naive belief that if she just got her hands on the proof, she could defeat the Varinskis and find peace with her parents' deaths.

Rurik
and some semblance of the comfort he'd given her on the train.

Rurik
and that vague sense that this was a man she could love.

But now she'd seen him change into a predator,.. . She'd seen proof of the devil and his work. Every dream crushed . . . and Rurik had crushed

them.

With a growl, she dropped the backpack and the burden of the icon, and heaved them under the altar.

She shoved him in the chest. She shoved him with all her might.

He barely swayed.

He was immovable: strong, tall . . . right.

It felt good to shove him, so she did it again,

And again.

And he, who had been standing there a pillar of reason and calm, picked her up, crushed her against him, and kissed her.

Not a kiss like the ones on the train. Not the gentle, slow, reassuring seduction of mouth against mouth, but a kiss of heat, fury, and frustration.

He crushed her lips, opened them with his tongue, and took without asking.

She wanted that. For a few precious moments, she wanted the fire between them to burn away the painful truths and give her forgetfulness.

So she answered him with the same fierce passion, holding his head in her hands, sucking at his tongue, making him groan.

He adjusted his hands, cupping her bottom and

lifting her legs, matching them so that his erection rubbed against the seam of her pants.

She broke the kiss, arched her back, as orgasm, swift and unanticipated, burned through her.

He held her, thrust at her, prolonging the pleasure, but as soon as the passion crested, he turned, pressed her against the altar, and pulled her shirt over her head. He flicked her bra open with one hand and her belt with the other.

"You son of a bitch." Did he think he could strip her, just like that, and do her?

Not without getting naked himself.

She pulled his belt loose and unzipped his jeans with enough violence to make him mutter, "Careful!"

He shoved her pants down to her ankles.

She toed off her shoes, abandoned everything— Levi's and panties—then pushed his pants down. In one graceful move, she followed the pants to kneel before him.

"Careful!" It was more a grunt than a word.

She didn't need to be careful. She knew exactly what she was doing.

She took his erection in her mouth in a long, deliberate motion that moistened the silky skin. The tip felt like heated velvet, and she savored the first drop of semen, welling up and filling her with his taste.

Their nights together had been about him taking her, pleasuring her, indulging her. Now, here, at last and at least, she was in control.

She sucked on him, taking as much into her mouth as she could, then slowly releasing him.

His hips jerked as if he couldn't stand still. His dick twitched in her mouth. He swore, a long string of cursing that utilized desperate words and unknown languages. God, revenge was sweet.

He must have seen her smile, or who knows? Maybe he felt it, because he stripped off his T-shirt, toed off his jeans, leaned down, and picked her up by her armpits.

He lifted her, put her on the altar, spread her legs, and followed her up.

The stone was rough and warm beneath her back. He was scorching and ready above her, his dick squeezed so tightly against her, it was slick with come.

So she said, "No."

He stopped. His arms trembled as he held himself in position. His eyes were hot coals, and whips of red flame flickered in their depths. "No?" Would he stop if she told him? Fat chance. She grasped his arms. "You get on the bottom."

His chest heaved, and his teeth clenched. He looked down the hill toward the Varinskis, then back at her. "Woman, you push me too far."

But he did as she commanded. He rolled with her.

"Perfect." She sat up straight on him, groin to groin. Here, on top of the altar, she could see for miles— down into the valley, up the far mountain range, and through the horizon into eternity. Up here, they were on top of the world, and she was on top of him.

The breeze was just cool enough to make her nipples tighten ... or maybe his gaze aroused her. . . .

The contours of his mighty chest and arms shone in the sun, and the light dusting of dark hair emphasized the definition of each muscle. That tattoo, that wild, primitive tattoo, strutted across his skin in a bright, archaic design. His lids drooped as he watched her, half-concealing his eyes, but she saw the truth. Deep within his pupils, the red flames flickered more strongly.

He was a predator. He was wild. He was savage.

And for this moment, she had wrested power from him.

She stretched her arms over her head, laughing in a wicked burst of triumph.

He reached for her.

She caught his wrists in her hands.

For a moment he resisted. Then he allowed her to bend his arms over his head.

She stretched out on him, the hair on his chest lightly brushing her breasts. She smiled into his face. "I'm not afraid of you."

"You should be."

She laughed again, and slid her tongue into his mouth.

He dueled with her, his tongue against hers, wet and warm.

He let her hold him captive, yes.

But he moved between her thighs, heightening her sensations, tempting her . . . but she was strong. She didn't take him inside. Instead, she rode his hard-on in gentle waves, pleasuring herself without giving him a damned thing—except, perhaps, the satisfaction of knowing that with nothing but the memory and the promise of his dick inside her, touching that place deep within, he could make her want him.

She wanted to provoke him to madness.

And maybe she did. But two could play that game, and while she provoked, he drugged her with sensation. He plumped her breasts in his hands, moving her nipples in the rough hair on his chest. His mouth slid away from hers, along the ridge of her jaw to her ear, then down her throat in a long, slow, damp caress.

Her heartbeat strengthened. She was alive as she had never been in her life—perhaps because death hovered so close
-

Shuddering with need, she pulled away from the addictive intensity of his mouth.

She sat up again, but she wasn't laughing this time. Blind with lust, she groped between their bodies, took his dick in her fist, and held it, squeezed it, knowing that she could finish him with the stroke of her hand, trying to convince herself she could live without him inside her.

But she couldn't. This might be, probably would be, the last time they had sex. Even if they both lived, could she sleep with the enemy?

No. No. This was it. The last time.

"Do it." He watched her, his face hard-edged with need, and she would have sworn he knew every thought in her mind. "You've tormented me enough. Do it now."

She placed him at the entrance to her body and pressed down, taking him inside. She was wet with desire, but her tissues yielded slowly, wrapping around him, and he groaned as if he were in agony.

Yes.
If this sex, this dilemma, this pleasure, broke her will and stole her breath away, then it was only right that it should be a two-edged sword.

That night on the train, it had seemed as if he'd been inside her every way possible, that they'd explored every sense, every feeling.

But no, this time was new, different. She was on top, in command. She set the pace, developed the

rhythm. As she rose and fell, the stone scraped at her knees. The sun shone on her head, on her shoulders. The scent of pine, fresh air, and Rurik filled her lungs. She saw Rurik, glorious, muscled, damp with sweat, beneath her.

He strained, his rugged face transformed by sunlight and dark obsession. Fierce passion colored his eyes. He held her thighs in his hands, flexing his fingers, lifting her, caressing her, over and over, as if he couldn't get enough of touching her. She could almost see the restraints he placed on himself—he was one second, one motion, one breath, away from seizing command of the day and of her.

He possessed the power, and as he held himself back, his power grew.

She experienced him, large, strong, and vital, inside her. His hips drove up at her; she met his thrusts with her own motion. Together they traveled a passage as ancient as the stone beneath them, and as new as the dawn.

Her breath rasped in her throat.

Her climax built and built within her, a mighty, feverish tidal wave waiting to crash over her. She lost track of time, of place. There was only Rurik and Tasya, a single being, joined by enchantment.

Then it struck—a single, long spasm of joy, wracking her body. As the oldest glory in the world sang in her ears, she sank her nails into Rurik's
shoulders. As he thrust and came she welcomed and embraced, and she lived this moment as she had never lived before—and would never live again.

Lust gripped them.

She cried out her pleasure to the skies.

He groaned deeply, wracked with pleasure.

And lightning ripped up from the earth, through the altar stone, through him, and into her. The sensation was a fire and a shock such as Tasya had never experienced. She screamed in pain and rapture. The jolt took their mutual orgasm and drove it beyond the bounds of the world, binding them together and sending them into one glorious, final, blissful spasm.

"What . . . ?" She braced herself against his chest, and looked down at him, exhausted, sated, so handsome he brought her to tears. "What was that?"

He smiled a savage smile. "Fusion."

***

They dressed in silence, but Tasya could see Rurik glancing over at her.

She pretended she didn't notice. Better not to think about what happened on the pagan stone altar in her own country with the sun shining on them like a blessing.

She was tying her shoes when Rurik thrust something under her nose.

The semiautomatic pistol.

She looked at it for a long moment.

"Take it. You'll need to get away." In quick, precise detail, he told her how to find his parents.

She wrapped her hand around the grip. "I don't want—"

"What you want and what I want is not important. One of us has to defeat the devil, and at least, my darling, we've shared a long good-bye."

She looked up at him.

He smiled at her with all the intensity that had first focused her attention and made her realize that this could be a man she could trust. "Believe me, Tasya, it's every man's dream, to share great sex with the woman he loves right before he dies in a fight."

"With the woman he ... you . . ." He'd said it before, but she hadn't believed him. Now how could she not?

"Of course I love you." Kneeling before her, he finished tying her shoe.

"You do
not."

"Tasya, I'm thirty-three years old. I may never have loved before, but I recognize it when I feel it."

She didn't know what to say, or how to say it. He'd made her trust him, shattered her dreams of revenge with a savage dose of the truth, then offered to die for her. And he was a Varinski. Her
enemy,
for shit's sake.

But somehow the word had no meaning.

"It's okay." He helped her up, helped her tug the

pistol in her belt at the back. "I know you don't love me. But if I had time, I could change your mind, and that makes me happy, too."

"Maybe," she mumbled. "Sure." She reached under the altar and grabbed her backpack.

He helped her shrug into the straps.

The bag seemed heavy, as if with each of Rurik's declarations of love, the weight of the icon grew.

The icon was simply a holy object. It didn't have a preference for where it went or whom it served. Tasya needed to get a grip, and get it fast, or she'd be babbling the truth to Rurik . . , and maybe that was what she should do, anyway.

"Come on." She sprang down the hill, away from the idea.

He followed, then took the lead—and veered toward the entrance to the cave.

He stopped beside the sinister, black gash in the earth.

"What?" But she knew.

"I want you to take the path through the cave."

"No."

"You've done it before. You can find your way out."