She closes long, elegant fingers around the hilt. “Fine,” she says coolly.
She draws back her hand and, aiming at his heart, stabs him.
At the last moment, however, her wrist stutters, jerks, and twists around. The blade skids sideways, flat to his chest.
She goes motionless, fist resting on his bare skin and they stare at each other. Emerald ice meets silver steel.
I angle myself sideways, spellbound, trying to get a read on what’s going on by their expressions but, Christ, it’s like trying to read two standing stones. I’m startled to realize Dani didn’t merely grow up—she grew tall. The top of her head comes to Ryodan’s jaw, and since I know he’s six-foot-four, she’s got to be all of five-foot-ten, plus two inches of thick combat boot soles.
They both begin to shift subtly as if they’re fighting a silent war of the wills with their bodies. Ryodan’s stance becomes even more aggressive, intimidating, coercing. But unlike Dani, who would have backed away, Jada molds herself farther into his space, demanding her share of it.
For nearly a minute they stand there like that, staring at each other, trying to force the other to yield in some small way.
It’s Ryodan who breaks the volatile silence. “I’ll give you a choice. Kill me.”
“By definition ‘choice’ mandates a minimum of two possible avenues of action.”
“I wasn’t done. Or kiss me. But do one or the other. Before I do one or the other to you.”
Jada stares at him a long moment, then slowly, deliberately, presses the full length of her body up against his naked one, black leather to nude man, soft, feminine curves to heavily muscled, scarred chest.
Ryodan doesn’t move a muscle, just stands there.
She wets her lips and angles her head so that her mouth is a breath away from his, and I’m a mess of quivering frigging nerves in the corner because she just stays like that and her eyes fix on his mouth, and his fixes on hers and I think, Shit, this room is going to blow, then I think, Shit, this is Dani and Ryodan. But it’s not.
It’s two cataclysmic forces of nature that are brilliant and stubborn and strong, who cut their teeth on razor blades and live on a razor edge of violence at all times. I’ve learned a few things about the world, about myself, during my sojourn in Dublin. In the great pasture of life there are really only four kinds of creatures: sheep, as Dani likes to call them; shepherds who try to guide the sheep and keep them on the straight and narrow; sheepdogs who run them from field to field, prevent them from straying, and fight off the predators that come to slaughter and feast; and wolves, savage, fierce, and a law unto their own.
I know what I am. I’m a sheepdog. If my food supply ran out and I was stranded on a mountain with the flock, I would starve before I ate one of the sheep. Nature or nurture, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. I protect the flock. To my dying breath.
Ryodan’s a wolf. He’d eat the whole damn flock if his survival depended on it.
Dani is a sheepdog, too.
Jada is a wolf.
Two wolves stand in this room, with a complicated past and an uncertain future, their lips a breath apart, and I’m not sure if they’ll kiss or kill each other. Probably both.
Then Jada reaches up and cups the back of his head with one hand, pulls his head forward and down.
And presses her mouth to his.
Ryodan holds perfectly still, still as stone.
So do I. Holy freaking cow.
She kisses him, lips parted, slow and sexy, lightly touching his lips with her tongue, offering wonders that would rock his world, while delivering nothing. Open mouthed, seductive, warm, inviting and … dangerous. Even I can feel the explosive sexual energy held in check behind her bare feather of a touch. She’s making sure he feels it, slapping him in the face with all she could offer—but isn’t. I’ve kissed men like that before.
It’s a challenge. It says “You think you have what it takes to handle me? Oh, honey, prove it.”
Still, he doesn’t move. Just stands there, letting her kiss him, making no response.
Against his lips she murmurs, “You’ll never kill me.”
Then Jada puts her arms around his neck and pulls him against her, melting against him until there is no space between their bodies. She turns her face slowly to the side and rests her cheek against his, her chin on his shoulder. Laces her fingers into his short thick hair.
His hands move to her waist, stop. Drop to his sides. They stand there like that, sort of hugging but not. Pressed together, staring past each other.
Intimate yet a million miles apart.
It’s one of the most subtly erotic moments I’ve seen.
She closes her eyes and for a fleeting instant every bit of tension in the fine muscles of her face vanishes. If pressed to define the moment, I’d call it basking, a cat soaking up sun on an icy winter’s day. Savoring something she’s wanted for a long time, and I wonder, did she think of him while she battled whatever demons she faced for the past five and a half years, lost in Faery? Did she hear his voice in her head during her darkest hours? Did she find strength in the hard truths he’d battered her with? Does touching him make her feel the way I do when I press my body against Barrons—like coming home?
“I’m all you have left of Dani,” she tells him softly. “Be very careful how you push me, Ryodan. I’m not a little girl. I could turn you inside out. Play you the way you play the rest of the world. You’re not a singularity anymore. I’ve become your equal in every way.”
Then she shoves him back and pushes past him with that long-legged gazelle walk, gracefully swipes the palm pad and glides out the door. He may think Jada doesn’t feel, but there is pure fire in the way she moves. She’s sexy, confident, strong. I’ve walked that way myself. It feels good.
I glance between him and the door, dying to stay, knowing I should go. I’ve seen more than my brain can process for one day.
He drops his dark head forward and stands there, unmoving.
As I slip out, just before it slides closed, I hear him murmur, “Ah, Dani, yes you have. As I always knew you would.”