Sins of the Flesh

Raising his cut palm, he said, “Take what you need.”


That open offer was almost impossible to resist. Blood dripped off the edge of his palm, and she followed a single drop until it splashed to the floor. The drop fragmented into a hundred smaller drops and splashed up before settling back on the floor.

As it had in her dream. Her memory. Her father’s blood.

Her gaze flashed up.

She wet her lips and strained back as far as his hand at her nape would let her. “I’ll heal.”

“Not fast enough.” His tone hardened. “Drink. Before the damned cut closes and I have to slice myself again.”

Both lured and appalled, she hesitated.

“I get it,” he said. “You think I’m a monster. The last thing you want is my blood, but be practical. That’s who you are, isn’t it, Calliope? The pragmatic, practical soldier in Aset’s army. My blood will heal you and give you an edge that would be handy right about now.”

His gaze cut to the assassin on the floor in the unspoken implication that there might be others.

When she said nothing, he took the choice from her.

With his eyes locked on hers, glittering and bright, he brought his lacerated palm to his mouth and sealed his lips to the wound. Then he tightened his grasp on her neck and leaned in. She could fight. She could turn her face away.

She did neither.

For reasons she couldn’t—didn’t want to—explain, she let him press his mouth to hers.

She tasted him. She tasted blood. Her entire body hummed and arched toward him, like she was a parched plant and he was rain.

Pushing his tongue past her lips, he angled his mouth on hers, taking the kiss deeper, letting the blood from his mouth slide into hers.

She jerked back, swallowed. The taste assaulted her senses; the thrum of his life force raced to her cells.

But it was his kiss she craved more than his blood. The weight of him pressed against her felt so damned good. She felt drugged, enticed, and she didn’t want to fight against it.

Going up on her toes, she pressed her open mouth to his.

He made a sound low in his throat and met the thrust of her tongue with his own. He teased her, lured her and finally drew his mouth away, and she found herself flush against him. His fingers were tangled in her hair. Her fists crushed the cloth of his shirt.

Her pulse raced, her skin felt sensitized and the sensation of his prana surging through her was like a drug.

Off balance, she reached for the calm of her soul. She wanted the safe shroud of her control.

Because that kiss sliced her open and left her exposed to the bone.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN



Save me from those who deal wounds, The slayers whose fingers are sharp.

Who deal out pain,

They shall not have power over me,

And I will not fall into their cauldrons.



—The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 17

PANTING, CALLIOPE JERKED AWAY.

Mal let her go and almost smiled when she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “You trying to make a statement to me or yourself?” he asked, then he went all in and pushed. “Which of us do you think you’re fooling?” He lowered his voice. “What you really want to do is fist your hands in my shirt, drag me close and push your tongue back inside my mouth.”

She kept her mask in place, but he could see the flush in her cheeks and the way her pulse beat at her throat.

Catching her wrist, he turned her palm up. The slash on her forearm was already starting to close. He tugged her closer, keeping his gaze locked on hers.

“You want to taste me. Feed from me. Sip my life force while you take my dick inside you.”

Her expression shuttered. He’d gone too far. Regret bit him and he let her go when she pulled her wrist from his grasp. But he noticed she didn’t deny a word of it.

Poor uptight, ramrod-straight Calliope Kane. She was in for a hell of a surprise when he swept aside all her rules and locks and cage doors.

And he meant to do exactly that. Meant to free the wild thing inside her.

That attracted him. The woman beneath the veneer. She had this amazing ability to be both the coldest, and the hottest, woman he’d ever met.

Gently, so gently, he turned her face back toward him and stroked her hair off her cheek. “I think maybe there’s a very fine line between love and hate, Calli.”

Confusion danced across her features before she locked it down. He figured he pretty much knew what was going through her head. She saw him as a monster. She hated him. And wanted him. That had to have her head spinning. He knew his was spinning. Because he’d already figured out that he’d suffered a broadside hit and he was going down, drowning in the need to have her, mate her, make her his. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers, the smell of her hair, even the way she looked at him, as if she was on the other side of a wall of ice. It made him want to turn up the heat and melt her barriers.