Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(8)

An invisible weight lifted from her shoulders. She was intelligent and capable. She could have arranged transport. She could have retrieved Vetta on her own. But the fact that she didn’t have to, that she had the kind of emotional support that Duncan had so generously offered her, was indescribably wonderful. It spoke of serious caring, and friendship.

The fact that she also found him heart-stoppingly sexy shouldn’t factor into her thinking at all. She should be focused on the task itself, which was ensuring that her niece got home safely—whether Vetta wanted to or not.

And Seremela would be focused on the task, when it really mattered. For now, she felt young, and feeling that way at nearly four hundred years old was a kick. Her pulse raced like a giddy schoolgirl’s.

She and Duncan would have hours of time alone. She could watch him in secret. Sometimes he would smile at her in that slightly crooked self-deprecating way that he had. He would talk with her, combining his intelligence with the sound of his gorgeous voice in a way that was so seductive to her. They might have as much as two or three days together. It seemed an extravagant fortune in stolen time.

Carefully she texted him back. Thank you for everything.

His response was immediate. It’s my pleasure. See you soon.

Seremela checked her email messages and found a reply from Carling that the other woman must have sent even as Duncan drove to her apartment earlier. Of course Seremela could have as much time off as she needed, and she was to let Carling and Rune know if there was anything they could do to help.

Seremela had to smile. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Carling had known very well what she was doing when she had shared Seremela’s email with Duncan. Carling had already provided more help than Seremela could have hoped.

The weather changed drastically over the next hour, swirls of sunlit blue sky breaking through the ominous dark clouds. They would have to take care on route to the airport. Seremela had finished packing in plenty of time, and she had showered and changed for the trip into jeans and a sleeveless yellow, button-down cotton shirt.

She felt calm and optimistic by the time Duncan knocked on her door again—and then, of course, all of that went to hell. Her snakes spilled in a helter-skelter swirl around her shoulders. If they really had been dogs, she had no doubt they would have been barking and having a running fit.

Time to bite the bullet. She wasn’t about to spend the next three or four days keeping the brats constantly under wrap under extreme desert heat, even though they totally deserved it. She squared her shoulders, marched over to the door and opened it.

“Hello, Seremela,” said Duncan. “Have you had time to—?”

She caught one glimpse of him. He, too, had changed into an outfit very similar to hers, wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt that molded to his lean torso and muscled biceps. Previously whenever Seremela had seen him, he had always been the epitome of cool male elegance. It was shocking, somehow, to see him so casually dressed.

Or at least she thought it was. She didn’t get a good enough look to be sure. Her snakes obscured her vision as they swarmed around her shoulders and over her head, shooting toward Duncan any way they could. The strength of their reaction surprised her and caught her off balance. She stumbled forward a step, which was all they needed.

Duncan began to laugh as her snakes wrapped around his neck and his upper arms. He caught her under her elbows as she stumbled, and they stood staring at each other, entwined. Something electric sparked in his eyes. She didn’t know what it was, but the strength of it affected her powerfully. Her skin flashed with heat.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s only—you know they just like you, and—”

“Don’t apologize,” he told her in a gentle voice. He touched her cheek with the fingertips of one hand. “Like I’ve told you, I enjoy them.”

Others might thrill to the crash and thunder of tumultuous passion. For Seremela, the most lethal thing in the world was exactly this kind of gentleness, this type of moment. They stood near enough to each other that she could see how his dark eyes had dilated, a subtle enough change in color that if she had stood even a few feet away, she wouldn’t have caught it. He looked at her intently, his face sharpened with that same electric expression that pierced through his gaze, yet he touched her as lightly as snowflakes drifting down to rest on her sensitive skin.

She was intensely aware of each of the four small points of contact, even more so because she could barely feel them, and they held so steady, so steady, as he looked deep into her eyes. That single, innocent touch was almost unbelievably erotic. The steady light contact said things, and the very fact that he paused so long meant that he made sure she heard it.

It said his exquisite gentleness was no accident. It said he had to be intimately aware of the placement and position of her body to achieve such a delicate, butterfly touch. It said he touched her because he wanted to touch her, and that he knew how to be gentle and tender, that he was confident and didn’t shy away from scrutiny, and that he could hold steady when he needed to.

It said he knew very well that she was clever enough to hear all of the nuances in his unspoken message.

Her breathing grew ragged. Her lips trembled as her snakes held him in position and he smiled into her eyes. And all he did was touch her cheek.

“Are you ready to go?” he said quietly, his fabulous, famous voice pitched for her ears alone.