Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(74)

Janvier complied. Straddling her, he said, “I’d say the same.” It was a dare.

Not about to break her streak of never once turning down one of his dares, Ashwini managed to strip off her shirt. It left her dressed in a demi cup bra in polka-dotted black with pretty yellow detailing along the edges. When he scowled and gently ran his finger over her scar, she said, “It doesn’t hurt and the vamp who did this is dead.”

Janvier’s scowl turned into a brutally satisfied smile. “Did you hear how his head bounced down the steps? Thud, splat, thud, splat.”

Laughing at a conversation only the two of them would ever have in bed, she reached back and unhooked the bra.

She wasn’t sure quite how it ended up off her. All she remembered was Janvier coming down over her, and then they were kissing and touching and whispering and driving each other to madness. He palmed her breasts with blunt possessiveness, bit and suckled. She ran her nails down his back and sucked a mark on his throat that made him rock his cock against the juncture of her thighs and call her a witch.

Laughter turning into a moan as he did something very naughty involving his fangs and her nipple, she bit down on his biceps. He retaliated by blowing a cool breath over her kiss-wet nipple, teasing her until she flipped their positions and did the same to him, the salt and maleness of him her new favorite dessert.

Her jeans stayed on. So did his.

But they were both sweaty and satisfied by the time they fell asleep again.

This time, she rested in peaceful warmth, the visions defeated for one night at least.





27


Ashwini woke to early morning birdsong tangled up in a man. She knew who he was at once—there was only one man with whom she’d ever been tangled. Easing gingerly away from his side, she looked at Janvier’s face to find him watching her. “Hey,” she said, the possessiveness in her veins a molten heat.

“Your phone beeped,” he said, his eyes slumberous and his arm around her waist. “That’s probably what woke you.”

Reaching for the phone, she turned into his embrace so that he was holding her from behind, his chest pressed to her back. “It’s from the Guild computer team. About Felicity Johnson.”

“Mmm?”

The low, rumbling sound made her smile before she had to return to the ugliness of what had been done to their victim. “They can track her up to about twelve months ago, through a number of low-income jobs, but she falls off the grid after that. No tax return, no insurance payments, no unemployment benefits.”

“Pass me my phone.”

“Lazy. It’s on your side of the bed.”

He bit her shoulder. “Don’t poke the gator.”

Laughing, she twisted to get the phone . . . and he suckled the tip of her breast into his mouth. She gasped, fell back. “Tricky.”

A proud smirk, his hand sliding up her rib cage. “Always.” Taking the phone, he made a call.

His hair was tumbled, his eyes still a little sleepy, his voice languid. And he was hers. He knew everything and he chose to be hers. It was a gift she’d hold on to with every ounce of determination in her soul.

“Tower personnel hit the same roadblock?” she asked after he hung up.

“Oui.” He put his arm around her again. “It seems we must solve this the old-fashioned way.”

She went to reply when his phone rang again. This time, whatever he heard made him frown, come to total wakefulness. “I have to leave to deal with a Tower matter,” he said after hanging up. “I’ll call you after it’s done.” A hard kiss, his hand stroking her body again.

It made unknown things wrench in her to watch the door close behind him a bare two minutes later. She’d never thought of herself as a woman who needed anyone, but maybe that had simply been because she’d never had someone who needed her in return. Already, she missed him.

A knock on the door as she was turning to head to the shower had her opening it without looking through the spy hole. She could feel Janvier on the other side. Not saying anything, he cupped her face and kissed the life out of her, one of his hands in her hair, the other roaming her body. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, pressed herself to the warm strength of him, the loose T-shirt she’d put on no impediment to his caresses.

? ? ?

“Okay,” he said when they came up for air, his chest heaving, “I really have to go now, cher.” Janvier kissed Ash again despite his words, finding it near impossible to leave her. It felt as if he were leaving half his heart behind.

“We can do this,” Ash said, her hands caressing his shoulders. “Teenagers do it all the time, right?”

“Right,” he said, though he knew as well as she that what lived between them was too old, too intense to be anything as manageable as hormonal lust. Even without a time limit, they would’ve always been a pair once they came together, more often seen together than not. “I have to go back to Club Masque.”

Ashwini’s forehead furrowed. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Report came in from Trace, was too garbled to make out much except the name of the club.” He forced himself to release her. “Do what you can about Felicity. I’ll call once I know what’s up at Masque.” This time, he made himself jog to the emergency exit and the stairs. Waiting for the elevator was what had gotten the better of his self-control the first time.