I yanked on the chains again, hissed at the pain, threw my legs once more in his direction, and this time I flipped half off the bed, landing hard on my knees, my upper body still attached. I wrenched my back, and my breath caught.
“Nice job,” I muttered. Now I ached all over, and I still hadn’t managed to brush against Sawyer at all.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“You think?”
He gave a half laugh that sounded almost like a sob, and I stilled.
“You aren’t Sawyer,” I said.
I sensed movement in my direction, and since I didn’t want to be skewered while lying half on and half off the floor, my back to my attacker, I scrambled and twisted, pushed off with my legs and threw myself onto the bed.
The only way I could detect an approach was a slight shift in the air current, the increase in that scent that was so maddeningly Sawyer’s. What creature could imitate his voice, his smell, his very essence? I had no idea.
I waited, tense and ready, until the telltale lifting of the hairs on the arm, the crackle at the back of my neck that shrieked, Run! became too strong to ignore. Then I scissor-kicked my legs—bam, bam—right where a face should be.
I didn’t hit anything, but I didn’t fly off the bed this time either. Only because this time, hands grabbed my calves, shoving me back onto the bed as a heavy, hard, all too familiar body pinned me down.
“Get off!” I shouted. “You’re not him.”
“What is wrong with you?” Sawyer growled, and when he growled, he actually growled. His beast—which one, I wasn’t quite sure—was very close to the surface.
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. What was wrong? Let me make a list.
“I’m captured, chained, and in the morning I have to prove myself to my psychotic nymphomaniac mother, who just happens to be a shape-shifting Egyptian firebird. I’m the leader of the forces of light, but I can’t lead. A seer who can’t see. Jimmy hates me. I’m a vampire. You’re—” My laughter died. “What are you?”
“I’m me.”
“Prove it,” I said. So he kissed me.
It was good proof. No one kissed like Sawyer.
He tasted of salt and sugar; I liked to lick his teeth. When I did, his tongue flicked out and tickled the base of mine. I felt it all the way to my curling toes.
There were things I did with Sawyer that I’d never done with anyone else. With Sawyer there were no rules, no boundaries. When he kissed me—now and always—every thought disappeared, every memory, every hope and dream, leaving only the burning desire to kiss until kissing wasn’t enough, then to get naked, sweat-slicked skin sliding along sweat-slicked skin, plunging within, over and over until at last the burn went away.
A thought meandered through my lust-laden brain. I was supposed to be doing something.
Seduce him.
At least I was right on track.
I arched, wiggling in the hope he might touch me as I’d ordered. I forgot my hands were tied and nearly tore them off at the wrists when I tried to run my palms over his back. Instead, I wrapped my ankles around his, opening my legs so that he lay cradled between. I immediately deduced the seduction was working.
His mouth trailed down my neck; then his breath traced the moisture left behind, and I shivered. My nipples hardened, and he suckled me through my shirt and bra; the sensation of tongue and lips and teeth, along with the friction of the material, made me moan.
The sound snapped me out of the lust coma I’d nearly fallen into. I had to keep my wits from melting along with my body. I needed information.
“Does she have the key?” I asked. Talk about sexy murmur. My voice was so low and hoarse I got excited myself.
“Mmm,” Sawyer answered, the sound buzzing along my breast like a vibrator.
Was that mmm, mmm good? Or mmm as in yes?
“She does?”
He lifted his mouth; his face was so close our breath mingled. “You shouldn’t have come. I had it under control.”
“Had what?” I frowned. “Are you saying you infiltrated ahead of us?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“And I’m supposed to . . . believe you?”
“Why do you think I came here tonight?”
I arched my back, pressing my pelvis into his erection. “The usual reason.”
He snorted, his breath a sharp puff of heat against my face. “I’ve got more sex than I can handle.”
“That’ll be the day.” I had a sudden flash of the Phoenix giving him a blow job in the foyer. “So what was the plan? Fuck her until she told you the truth?”
“It’s worked in the past.”
Sawyer had whored for the federation before; sometimes I wondered if he did much else.
I should talk. I’d planned on doing the same thing.
“How’s it been working on her?”
“Not quite as well,” he admitted.
“What have you found out?”
“Nothing.”
“If you were still on our side, you’d share what you know.”
“I would, if I had anything to share. She’s a little leery of trusting me.”
“Join the club.”
“There’s something you should know,” he said.