But at least I knew why I couldn’t move. Tight black jeans and a matching cashmere sweater showed off six feet of solid muscle he didn’t need. A first-level master, Louis-Cesare could have held me against the desk with a tendril of power he wouldn’t even miss.
“You haven’t been alive in four centuries,” I pointed out, as he tore off my jacket. My weapons hit the floor, followed in short order by my tank top and bra. “Hey!”
“They saw what you were wearing.”
“Pretty soon I’m not going to be wearing anything!”
“Exactly.”
He ripped my belt out of its loops and popped the line of buttons on my jeans, all in one smooth motion. I caught his arm. “This isn’t going to work. They’ll scent us!”
“No, they won’t.”
“We have a bloody head in a bag!”
“I have hidden talents.”
Not so hidden ones, too, I didn’t say, as he shoved his own jeans down. It was the only disrobing he bothered to do before pushing me onto my back. The desk was cold against my bare skin, like the steel of the knife he used to cut my thong away.
I started to ask if the vamps had seen the color of my panties, too, but he swallowed the words, kissing me as his fingers worked roughly, expertly, between my thighs. He broke the kiss after a moment, to give me time to breathe, I suppose, but air wasn’t what I needed. I knew he was just trying to fool Cheung’s boys into believing we were having an assignation, but it had been a long, dry month and, damn it, I’d missed him. My hands fisted in his shirt, giving me leverage to pull him down and kiss him back, brutally.
He tasted sweet, with a bitter edge of hard liquor, and he smelled even better. And he wasn’t wearing anything under those jeans. My hands slid down the thickly muscled back to the taut mounds below, fingernails sinking deep.
Olga had definitely been right, I thought vaguely, as a shudder went through him. He raised his head to glare. “That was completely unnecessary.”
“Oh, it was necessary,” I said, wishing it had been my teeth, but I couldn’t reach that far, and then he did something with his fingers that made the breath fracture in my throat. The best I could do was a growled command: “Faster, faster, you son of a bitch—”
He obliged, although the desk really wasn’t built for our current activity, and my head and shoulders fell off the back. Not that I was complaining. Not even when his fangs—damn him—sank into the tender flesh his fingers had been tormenting. My spine arched with a combination of pain and pleasure so intense that I didn’t even notice when the door burst open.
Until he spun, snarling.
“Sorry,” a deep voice said, and the door shut again.
He drew in air he didn’t need, his lips glossy and a little swollen. I thought of how they had gotten that way and met his eyes. “If you stop now, I will kill you,” I told him distinctly.
The threat had no apparent effect, but a shiver went through him when I suddenly grasped evidence that he hadn’t been entirely playacting, either. “Dorina . . .” The tone was a warning, but I was way past caring.
I tugged him a little, sending a shiver through that strong frame. “Louis-Cesare. It’s good to finally have you in hand.”
He winced, either at the pun or the sensation, and his right hand tightened on my thigh. His left was occupied with the duffel, which he’d snatched from under the desk as soon as the door closed. I found that pretty telling, considering that he hadn’t even bothered to pull his pants up first. “You don’t.”
“More or less.” He was a big boy. Everywhere. “Although I’m a little fuzzy on why you stole my duffel bag.”
“It seemed the easiest way to get you off the floor without a fight.”
I stared at him incredulously. Louis-Cesare was the dueling champion of the European Senate. He didn’t walk away from fights; he relished them. I guess it’s true what they say about only being able to think with one head at a time.
“Then why’s your hand still on it?” I asked sweetly.
“I’m not the only one who is acting possessive.” He stared down at my own hand, blue eyes gleaming. “Are you planning to do anything with that?”
“I’m debating it. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”
“That is not your concern.”
I stared at him, half in awe, half in exasperation. Louis-Cesare had been born the son of a king, and none of the centuries that had passed since had diminished his arrogance one iota. I had his dick in my hand, and he was still acting like he was the one in control.
“Okay.” I gave him an experimental stroke. It was a new interrogation technique, but I thought it had possibilities. “How about a trade? Give me back my property and I’ll return yours—in good working order.”