Amber Eyes (Amber Eyes #1)(14)

Slowly his arm lowered until it curved around her, holding her against his side. She laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“Hunter?”

“Yes, Kaya?”His chest rumbled against her ear.

“Why don’t you like me?”

He went very still beneath her. She couldn’t even feel his breath. His fingers that had been lazily making their way up and down her arm froze at her elbow.

For a moment, she thought he would lie and deny his obvious discomfort and conflict. But then his chest seemed to cave in as his breath expelled once more.

“You remind me of someone I lost,”he said simply.

She sat up so that she could look him in the eye. There was sadness there. A flash of grief. She ran her fingers through his light brown, muddy blond hair. They trailed over his temple and then traced his cheekbone ending close to his mouth. “I’m sorry. I should not have come here. I don’t wish to cause you pain.”

He caught her hand as if to pry it away, but instead he simply held it there close to his mouth. And then he kissed the tip of her index finger. Just one light brush that sent a shiver quaking over her entire body.

“You’re not causing me pain, Kaya. As Jericho has told me, it’s time to let go of the past.”

She turned to Jericho. For a moment she’d forgotten his presence. He sat a few feet away studying her and Hunter with stark interest. There was hunger in his eyes. She’d seen that look in many of her predator kin.

She turned back to Hunter and curled into his body once more. “Touch me,”she pleaded softly.

Again his breath caught and held for a moment. His fingers once again trailed down her arm. Then he took her shoulders and pulled her down until her head was pillowed in his lap.

Like a ray of heated sunshine in the spring, his palm slid up her body, over the curve of her hip and to her shoulder.

She sighed with absolute pleasure. How wonderful his touch felt. He continued to stroke her, petting her as he’d done the cougar.

She wanted to shed her clothing and feel his hand on her bare skin. Flesh on flesh, human contact. She wanted no barriers. She twisted restlessly underneath his seeking fingers until he applied firm pressure to her hip.

“What’s wrong, Kaya?”he asked.

“My skin,”she whispered. “Touch my skin. I don’t like the clothing.”

He sucked in his breath. His legs tightened underneath her, and his groin stirred to life. She did affect him. Did he feel all the wild and breathless cravings that she did?

Slowly and carefully, his hand slid underneath her shirt to the smoothness of her back. His fingers danced like fire up her ribcage to the crease where her arm rested on her side. Flat down, his palm caressed and made tight circles over her shoulder blade and then traveled down her spine.

A moan, soft and needy, floated past her lips, mixing with the popping sounds of the fire.

Jericho watched from his perch on the chair, his hands curled into fists. His pulse pounded in his ears, hot, loud like a freight train. She was his. Not Hunter’s. And yet he watched with a helpless fascination as his friend opened himself to a woman for the first time since Rebeccah.

Rebeccah who had loved them both but hadn’t trusted them to love her back.

It was a sort of torture watching Kaya arch with pleasure under Hunter’s tentative but seeking touch. Jericho wanted to be the one touching her. Such a strange, beautiful woman. Full of mystery. Her eyes a wash of an amber sunset.

Was she as fascinated with them as they were with her?

Hunter pushed her shirt higher, revealing more of her pale skin. His hands were gentle and coaxing, almost like he was soothing a wounded animal. She quieted and settled against his lap, calmed by the caresses.

Jericho knew the moment she surrendered to sleep. She gave a delicate little shudder and all the air escaped her in one long sigh. Still Hunter continued to stroke her skin. His gaze was locked on her face, and Jericho knew he had no idea how much tenderness shone in his eyes.

“Why does she remind you of Rebeccah?”Jericho asked quietly so as not to wake Kaya. Kaya was light, a study in burnished golds and liquid amber. A lot like the aspens in fall when the trees caught fire and lit up the earth. Rebeccah was dark yet vibrant, like a storm at midnight. The two women couldn’t be more unalike.

“Because she stirs me,”Hunter said simply.

And there it was. No woman had stirred him since Rebeccah. Jericho could relate. It wasn’t that another woman didn’t have the power. They just hadn’t given one the chance. Were they giving Kaya that chance?

“What are we going to do, Hunt?”

It was a simple question, and yet a wealth of meaning lay just below the surface.

Hunter met his gaze. “You want her.”

He wasn’t going to lie. “Yeah.”

“So do I.”Apparently neither was Hunter.

He blew out his breath. “Goddamn it, Hunter. We said we weren’t going this route again.”

“I know,”Hunter said calmly.

“There’s a damn lot we don’t know about her.”

Hunter nodded. “That’s true. It would seem we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“What if she doesn’t want to stay? She was pretty adamant before.”

“And yet she came back.”

“Like your cougar pet always seems to do,”Jericho said.