Free Obsidian Prey by Jayne Castle Page A

attractive amethyst artifacts sitting in your lab that you’d like rezzed.”
    “Forget the rocks. I don’t care if you never activate a single one of them. This is about you and me. What the hell do I have to do to prove that I’m interested only in you, not your talent?”
    Something in his voice seemed to catch her off guard. She frowned.
    “Good question,” she said finally. “Darned if I know. See, that’s the thing about getting off on the wrong foot in a relationship the way we did. I’m not sure there’s any way to get back on track.”
    “Let’s find out.”
    He leaned into the doorway a little. She did not step back. He took that as a good sign. She waited for the kiss, brows slightly crinkled, as though awaiting the outcome of a scientific experiment. Dubious of the results but not resisting. She was willing to allow the test, but if he failed, he was doomed.
    He wouldn’t fail. That option wasn’t even on the table. Not for a Sweetwater; not when it came to something this important.
    He kissed her slowly, deliberately; a real first date kind of kiss.
    She responded cautiously, but she did respond. Relief followed by a flash of exultation heated his blood and his senses.
    Her mouth softened under his. She put her hands on his shoulders. For a few worrisome seconds he thought she was going to push him away. But he could sense the rising heat of her arousal. Knowing that she still responded to him physically gave him an advantage that he fully intended to exploit. He came from a long line of hunters, after all, although his talents were quite different from those of the para-resonators called ghost hunters who joined the Guilds.
    He slid one hand around the exquisitely sensitive, incredibly soft skin at the nape of Lyra’s neck and drew his thumb along the delicate line of her jaw. She trembled.
    Unlike most people on Harmony whose latent psychic talents were evolving rapidly, thanks to something in the environment, the men of the Sweetwater family traced their abilities back to their ancestors on Earth. He had been born to hunt human prey, not alien energy ghosts. But that was not all his talent allowed him to hunt. Sweetwater men recognized their true mates with the same certainty they recognized their true prey. He had known Lyra for who she was the moment he met her—the woman he had been waiting for all of his life. He was a Sweetwater. He would do whatever he had to do in order to make her his own.
    For the moment, his senses told him more clearly than words that she still wanted him, at least physically. He could work with that. The trick was to remain in full control of himself and his passions.
    Her fingers sank into the fabric of his shirt, tightening. Without warning, a shuddering thrill whipped through him. Memories of all the long nights he had spent working late or restlessly prowling the empty streets of the Old Quarter in an effort to distract himself from thoughts of Lyra slammed through him.
    She was in his arms again. That was all that mattered now.
    He had been semi-aroused all night, and now he was consumed with a sense of rising urgency. The kiss was unleashing the full force of his own need. It was all he could do not to push through the door and drag Lyra into the bedroom.
    The only thing holding him back was the hunter in him. Strategy was everything.
    He felt the hot little shivery chills going through her and took another chance. He deepened the kiss, silently willing her to remember how it had been between them. Energy flashed and spiked in the atmosphere. Their auras sparked invisibly around them, testing, teasing, enticing, challenging. He and Lyra were dancing through a warm, iridescent shower of psychic rain.
    He heard a low, urgent groan and realized somewhat vaguely that it had come from his own throat. Probably time to stop. He could not afford to lose it, not at this juncture.
    Releasing her was the hardest thing he had ever done. All of his instincts were urging him