Free My Forbidden Desire by Carolyn Jewel Page B

you.
    “Scrap metal I found at a construction site.” Where found at might possibly be the same as stole from .
    “Magic?”
    “I tried a few times. It didn’t work that I could tell.” She shrugged. “My magic hardly ever does.”
    “I don’t know,” he said with a tilt of his head. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
    Was he serious? Nah. Not possible.
    She nodded, and his face got thoughtful. “When was the last time you sharpened that?”
    “A while,” she said.
    He drew his knife from his scabbard and held it up in the light. The blade definitely had some sort of bluish aura. “I made this, too.”
    “No shit?” His knife was a work of deadly beauty, with a carved hilt and that gorgeous glowing blade that looked to have some interesting shadows now that she could see it better. Was the thing completely carved?
    “I worked on it for years. Still working on it even now.” He reversed his grip on the weapon and presented it to her hilt first. “Trade you. Just for the night.”
    “Why?”
    “I like yours.” He didn’t laugh or anything. The guy looked dead-on serious. “You don’t have time to sharpen yours. Not the old-fashioned way.” He extended his knife to her again. “Mine’s already sharp. And if you need to use a weapon, you’ll have a better chance with mine.”
    She nodded because all he was doing was stating a fact. His blade was wicked sharp. And magic. And hers was pathetically not.
    She took Xia’s knife in her right hand, keeping hers in her left, and figured she wasn’t imagining the tingle in her palm when she held his. Was that how she could tell the difference between human and not human? That chill in her body? The blade was made up of dozens of smaller blades that twisted around and under and over each other so that every surface was a cutting edge. “It’s beautiful.” And ghastly. Fearsome, like its owner.
    “Thanks.” Xia reached out and clipped his scabbard to her jeans. As he did, his fingers brushed over her bare skin. Heat flashed through her, and this wasn’t of those freaky sensations she’d been getting from him all night. The heat was nothing but pure sexual reaction. Damn it. She gasped, and that made him glance up at her. Their gazes collided. Hard. “What’s the matter, witch?” he said in his low and golden voice. His fingers feathered over her belly, a light enough touch that, if she was into self-delusion, she could call it incidental.
    “What’s up with that, Xia?” she said. She didn’t move away and neither did he.
    They spent some time standing there with his thumb brushing across her navel, just below her amulet. He was big and strong enough to hurt her, but she knew he wouldn’t, even if he wanted to. The thing was, he didn’t like her but he liked her. And she was thinking she liked him that way, too.
    “Nothing’s up,” he said. But his thumb pressed gently over her navel while his fingers spread out, pulling her forward oh so slightly. Alexandrine bit down on her lower lip, not wanting to be the first one to admit she was turned on.
    “Nothing, huh?” She looked into his eyes. “That’s good. I thought maybe you were coming on to me.”
    “Baby,” he said, and God, did she want to melt at the way he made the word sound so wickedly rich. She wanted to hear that voice when he was about to come inside her. “You worried you might like a fiend’s dirty hands on you?”
    “Not worried at all,” she said. His slid his thumb up the midline of her torso, and this time she took a step forward. “I just think it’s funny how you can’t stand having the hots for a witch.”
    “Are you saying this doesn’t bother you?” He used his thumb and index finger to pop the bottom button of her shirt. His mouth curled in a tiny smile.
    “Does it bother you?”
    He shook his head. “Maybe. But it’s been a while since the last time I did it.”
    “Me, too, actually,” she said. She waited. After a bit, his palm flattened over her,