Free OnsetofDanger by Aubrey Ross

more
evocative than it should have been. “What I want has nothing to do with this.
I’m trying to save your life. If Prince Alexi gets his hands on you, there
won’t be much left when he’s finished.”
    Rather than shying away from his touch, she rubbed her cheek
against his hand and looked up at him through her lashes. “My hero,” she
murmured.
    He narrowed his eyes and cupped the back of her head, his
fingers teasing the wispy curls at the nape of her neck. “If you need a good
hard fuck, I’m good to go. But as soon as we’re finished you’re still going to
answer my questions.”
    She didn’t want a good hard fuck. She wanted to spend all
night exploring his amazing body, learning what pleased him and what drove him
wild. Was he a generous lover or was he the kind of man who bent a woman over
the nearest piece of furniture and selfishly slaked his lust?
    What difference did it make? She pushed his hand away from
her head and guided it back to the counter. This wasn’t a romantic getaway. She
was his prisoner and he’d sensed her lies and sidestepped her evasions. She
needed to tell him something close enough to the truth that he’d believe she
was cooperating. “I was sedated right after they snatched me from the party.”
    “They?” He latched on to the detail, his perceptiveness damn
annoying. “How many of them were there?”
    “I only saw one but it would have taken a team of three or
four… Unless the one I saw could teleport, of course.” She arched her brow,
accenting the implied challenge. Strigo was the only strain able to teleport.
Most other hosts could disperse their physical bodies and travel as mist, but
that wasn’t the same as instantaneously moving from one place to another. And
only the strongest Strigo hosts could teleport with a passenger.
    “I wouldn’t have needed to rescue you if Strigo strain were
behind your abduction.”
    “Where did you find me?” She tried to distract him, direct
his mind away from his questions. “Why does Prince Alexi want to question me?
What does he think I know?”
    He ignored her questions but took a tiny step forward,
bringing his body closer to hers. “The kidnapper had to have given you some
idea why you’d been abducted.”
    Awareness arced between them, hot and electric. Her
symbionts vibrated, sending impulses zinging through her without specific
direction. She felt energized, almost giddy, yet she had no control over the
sudden rush of energy. If she came on to him now he’d think it was another
evasion. Yet anything that stimulated her symbionts was worth pursuing.
    “There will be consequences for lies,” he reminded her.
    She could claim there hadn’t been time, that he’d flashed
her out before the other man explained his motivation. But a half-truth was
more believable. “He claimed my mother had stolen something that belonged to
him. He offered to trade me for whatever it is she took.”
    “He didn’t tell you what it was?”
    She shook her head then tried to duck under his arm, needing
him to touch her. As she’d hoped, he caught her upper arms and pressed her back
against the counter. “All he said was that I should know. When I insisted I
didn’t, he stormed out of the room. He said I might be more reasonable after a
couple of hours of solitude.”
    “But you’d just had two days of solitude.”
    “The majority of which I’d been unconscious.” Flecks of
green shimmered in his dark eyes, warning of a surge in Strigo energy. It was
now or never. She couldn’t let him push past her shields. He’d realize she was
helpless. “I’m exhausted and hungry.” She lowered her tone to a throaty purr.
“I’ve never been fond of bagged blood and you can’t feed me. But can you think
of anything else we can do that will make me feel less depleted?”
    With a low growl he bent his head and inhaled her breath.
“If you let me off my leash, baby doll, you’re going to get more than a few
scratches.”
    Her pulse