“Maybe if they tried sex with you, the others would change their minds, too.” She scowled. “Dev?”
“I know, you like sex. Gimme a couple of minutes.” It was a laughing complaint.
“No.” She drew the sweat and man scent of him into her lungs, luxuriating in the sensations. “Are you planning on having sex with someone else?”
He pinched her nipple hard enough to make her jump. “That’s what you get for asking silly questions.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “That hurt.”
“You’re just asking for trouble.”
“Am I going to get it?” She bit his ear again.
His hand curved around her breast. “Keep that up and you’re not going to get any sleep tonight.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Groaning, he rose up on his forearms. “No more sex for you. We shower off the sweat, and then we catch some sleep. We need to be ready to head out at dawn.”
She reached up to press kisses along his chest, cradling his growing arousal against her lower abdomen. Swearing, he let her play, but only for a minute. “Shower.” And this time, he wasn’t budging. She found herself being thrust into a fast, hot shower, and then tumbled into bed.
“Sleep.” It was an order in her ear as his body closed around hers, protective, and yes, very definitely possessive—the thigh he pushed between her own ensured she wouldn’t be going anywhere without him.
For the first time, her compulsion to go north wasn’t the overwhelming thought in her mind. And though the heat between them burned white-hot, that wasn’t at the forefront either. No, it was the tenderness of the kiss Dev pressed to the curve of her neck, the intensity of his hold. He was, she realized, looking after her.
It was an odd feeling, one that swept warmth through her limbs, turning them heavy. But she found the will to untangle their legs and turn so she could tuck her head under his chin and place her hand over his heart. He thrust his thigh back between hers the next instant. Smiling, she snuggled close. Her sleep was soft, dreamless, peaceful.
Six hours later, the precious interlude was a thing of distant memory. The car was warm, but Katya huddled into her jacket as Dev drove them out of the lodge with grim determination. The dread he’d silenced with the protective warmth of his embrace had a clawhold on her heart once again. She didn’t know if it was because of what she’d sensed, what she was leading them toward . . . or because of her terror that the compulsion was born of nothing, her mind a place of nightmares and lies.
“Don’t think about it.” A cool order from the director of Shine.
His strength fed her own. “It’s hard not to,” she said. “I can feel something calling to me, but I know I’ve never been in this area before.”
“Is it possible you were held around here?”
“I suppose. But . . . I feel no sense of familiarity with anything.” The snowy fields passing by on either side as they drove ever deeper into largely uninhabited territory sent a chill down her spine, but not because of any memory of torture.
The world on the other side of the window was actually rather beautiful, the snow glittering with diamond shards under the morning sun, the sky a placid blue that should’ve made evil impossible. But—“In my mind,” she whispered, “everything’s swathed in shadows.”
The cold, clear-eyed soldier in Dev told him to turn back, that Katya was most likely leading him into a trap, but he kept driving. Today, he was going to follow the gut instinct that had saved his life more times than he could count. This woman—his woman—needed this, and he would give it to her.
“Tell me something,” he said when she fell silent, her eyes locked on the outer vista.
She started, as if he’d broken into a trance. “What?”
“You mentioned your parents—any memories you want to share?” He just wanted to get her thinking about something other than the darkness coming inexorably closer. It wouldn’t take long, he thought. They’d reach their goal either tonight or early the next morning.
“Well,” she said after a long pause, “since my parents had a full coparenting agreement, we all lived together in a family unit. They always consulted each other before making any decision about my welfare.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad.” It was, in fact, far better than he’d expected.
“No. It was a good existence.” Folding her arms, she tilted her head to face him. “But it was simply an existence. When I turned eighteen and moved out, there was no difference in my life other than the fact that I could make decisions on my own from then on.”