Christan relaxed against the wall, giving her plenty of space. Lexi shivered. He moved his hand again and flames in the fireplace leapt higher.
“That’s a pretty handy talent you have.” Christan raised an arrogant eyebrow and Lexi wanted to scream. “Can you do anything else beyond lighting fires, opening drawers, and face planting innocent people on the ground?”
It was meant as an insult, but he smiled with such slow devastation she knew he was equal to her taunts.
“Maybe.” His eyes held a wicked glint of silver. “Would you like a demonstration?”
“You’re not going to face plant me on the floor again, are you?”
“What do you think?”
Christan widened his stance, crossed his arms. The muscles flexed, light catching the dark tattoos. He was still leaning against the shadowed wall, a deceptive predator waiting on higher ground, holding her poised on the edge of a blade. One wrong move and she’d be sliced to ribbons. Lexi’s hand fisted deeper into the towel. When she turned away, her legs were trembling. She pretended the weakness was due to the cold.
“I think I don’t trust you,” she said, keeping her back to him.
“Well, only one way to find out if you do.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Do you want to find out, or don’t you?”
She hesitated, staring into the fire. “Maybe you could just tell me.”
“A demonstration is more effective.” His voice was low and seemed to trace down her spine. The wet towel draped and exposed the small of her back. Lexi’s throat tightened.
“Turn around and look at me,” he said.
Lexi glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t take orders well.”
“Please.”
She turned.
“Close your eyes.”
Lexi did, hating her cooperation because he’d asked nicely. She flinched when the first light touch moved across her forehead. Her eyes flew open. She recognized the disembodied touch. She’d been on the edge of sleep, listening to the meditation app Wallace put on her phone. The touch had pulled her back, the warmth so real it unnerved her—she’d been alone.
“Was it you outside my office that day?” she demanded. “Using that—that hand flicky thing to touch my arm?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You needed to wake up.”
Lexi scowled. Now that she understood what that meditation app was meant to do, she realized he was right. “So, I guess I should thank you?”
“Yes, you should.” The amusement had returned in his voice. “Say thank you, cara,” he added softly. “It’s not that hard.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
Christan didn’t like the request; Lexi felt the predator rise in him and wanted to sooth him back into a relaxed calm. She wasn’t sure why.
“Thank you,” she whispered, then added his name. It felt… warm.
He was completely silent. Lexi closed her eyes, waited until the sensation of a calloused male finger traced along her eyebrow, down the curve of her cheek, over her nose to follow the angle of her jaw. The touch explored the soft skin beneath her chin until it dragged upward again and hesitated at the corner of her mouth. It took immense control not to part her lips and taste what wasn’t even a real.
The startling sensation moved down her throat and pressed against the sensitive dip between her collarbones. Beads of moisture were on her skin despite the warmth pervading the room. Lightly, the male touch slid into the pooled moisture and circled around, spread it in an intimate caress.
Lexi took a small, jerky step back.
“No moving.” His voice deepened. She cracked her eyelids and peeked. He was still leaning against the wall, his arms crossed against his chest, a witchy look in his eyes.
Lexi read the expression and snapped her own eyes shut, holding her breath until the slow sensation of movement resumed, tracing the curve of her shoulder, down her arm. Soft flesh of her inner elbow tingled. The length of her forearm. Hesitation, where the first faint tracings of memory lines curled on her wrist. He traced one to the tip of her finger, then back over her hand to her wrist. Lexi felt something like electricity and then flooding heat. An ache between pleasure and pain. She realized sensation was transmitted through the memory lines and he knew it—well of course he knew it.
“I think you can stop now.” But her eyes remained closed.
“You’re not ticklish, are you?”
She felt the caress resume at the top of her thigh, slide along the curve of sleek muscle, toward her inner knee. There it circled once, twice, before sliding along her calf, then her ankle, the arch of her foot to the tip of her toes. The touch began the return journey. Nerves burned until a wave of pure lust swept through her.
He tugged at the towel.
Startled, Lexi gripped the edges.
The tug grew more insistent. Her eyes flew open. Christan was still across the room but something dangerous had entered his dark gaze.
“Is this the road we usually go down?” she asked. “Because I’m not sure what this is.”
“We’re being adults. Your term, not mine.”
“One little apology in the woods does not make this okay.”
“I never said it did.”
But there was something taut and carnal now, mixed with the scent of wild oranges, heavy in the air. The heat of a desert sun was lush against her flesh, succulent fruit being dragged across her skin and followed by the pressure of his tongue. Her body softened, her breasts growing incredibly sensitive to the touch of the towel. There was an emptiness between her thighs begging to be filled.
Lexi turned her head away. She could feel his gaze on the curve of her throat where her pulse was beating frantically.
“They tell me touch is the most erotic form of foreplay,” Christan said.
“That isn’t what this is.”
“No, this is foreplay in the imagination. Memory. Shall I tell you who you used to be?” His voice was liquid in the dark. “You would take me by the hand, lead me to that secret place at the top of the hill where the sun was hot and the grass thick beneath our feet, and nothing but the blue, blue sky.”
It was difficult to breathe.
“You would kiss me, bite my lip.”
Her heart jumped, a gossamer memory warming her skin. She longed for that touch from across the room, shuddered at the pure irrationality of the thought.
“You would take off your clothes, slow enough to make me hard. Lean back on your hands, spread your body in the sun.”
A fever, pulsing and hot. Sunlight, burning behind her closed eyelids.
“You would tell me how to touch you. Suck in your breath when I did. Then you would watch when I took you with my mouth until your back arched and your hair spilled on the ground.”
Tangible, desperate tremors ran through her, making her clench her inner thighs. “I don’t recall.”
“I could remind you. Open your eyes and drop the towel.”
His voice undid her. Potent masculinity had her empty with an urgency to comply, but it would be the worst thing she could do. Lexi gripped the towel until her fingers ached.
“You used to like playing those games,” he said.
“Not with you.” Memories, the thick, hot feel of him. The way she would touch him, take him in her hand. She couldn’t breathe, not after the way he had stroked against a memory line like he knew exactly what he was doing.
Lexi pushed, forced, dragged herself to another desperate memory. Harder this time. The way he could hate her. Walk away from her. She remembered endless waiting while she cried until there were no more tears. And even then, she knew. Knew there had never been games with him, not then. Not ever. She took an instant to realize she wasn’t in the past and the words she’d spoken held no relevance to the present. Then she realized something hard had rolled in.