ONE
Avalon, Mageverse Earth
Present Day
Reece sprawled on one of the iron benches around the central square, watching the witches dance in the moonlight. Ageless, immortal, and beautiful, the Majae circled in an energetic eighteenth-century reel, jeweled hands glittering as they clapped and stamped.
The Desire stirred, hungry for a taste. He quieted it with a sip of donated blood from his goblet. It tasted of heat and magic, as different from mortal blood as aged bourbon is from tap water. Reece preferred to drink from a witch’s throat, but in lieu of that, the goblet would do.
Swallowing another sizzling mouthful, he eyed the dancers, wondering if he’d be able to seduce one of them into going home with him for the night. It was a distinct possibility. Majae needed to give blood as desperately as vampires needed to drink it; otherwise they both suffered unpleasant health effects. He’d never been sure whether that erotic symbiosis was a very neat system or simply Merlin’s wicked joke at their expense.
Perhaps a bit of both.
“You know,” Lancelot du Lac said in his ear, “I don’t remember that particular dance being so damned sexy.”
“Probably because the dancers weren’t wearing miniskirts and tight leather pants at the time,” Reece retorted as his friend threw himself onto a nearby bench.
“God, I love progress.” Lance sighed.
Reece grinned, noticing the way Lancelot’s hungry gaze tracked his new bride, Grace, as she sang and spun her way through the dance. “How’s married life, newlywed?”
“Anything but boring. You should give it a try.”
He snorted. “What right-thinking Maja would have me? If I’m not on a mission for the High Council, I’m hunting spies or terrorists for the Americans.”
“Hey, you were the one who agreed to be the Champion of the United States.”
Arthur, himself Champion of Britain for the past sixteen hundred years, had asked him to work with the fledgling country’s government as the Magekind’s eyes, ears, and hands. Since then, Reece had fought Redcoats, Johnny Reb, Apaches, and Germans—twice—as well as communists and terrorists. He’d spied, lied, and killed, walking an uncomfortable tightrope between the needs of his country and the demands of Avalon. The two did not always coincide, particularly since he had to keep his allies in the CIA and the FBI in complete ignorance about the Magekind. As far as they were concerned, he was merely a lone vampire with a patriotic streak.
“Yeah, I agreed,” Reece said. “Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago. A man’s entitled to a little time off.”
Lance laughed. They settled into a companionable silence, watching the Majae dance as other vampires shouted ribald encouragement from the sidelines.
All around the square, the city of Avalon thrust into the Mageverse sky. Medieval castles, French chateaus, and thoroughly modern townhouses shouldered against one another, each designed to suit the individual whims of its magical owner. Towering Mageverse trees stood between them, draped in swags of fairy moss, surrounded by drifts of jasmine and roses.
Listening to the music, Reece let his head fall back. Something small and glowing shot past overhead, almost lost against the shimmer of the Mageverse. “Look,” he said to Lance, “there goes a fairy.”
His friend shot a jaundiced glance skyward. “Probably spying.”
“Relations haven’t improved with the Sidhe court, I gather.”
“Not since the Majae’s Council turned down King Llyr again,” Grace said, dropping down beside her husband, delightfully sweat-dewed and panting. She was a lithely muscular woman, as blond as her husband was dark, an elegant match for his power. “I warned Morgana they’re pissing him off for no good reason, but as usual, Grandma ignored me.”
Reece lifted an interested brow as she wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Is he still set on marrying a Maja?”
“Yeah, and if we had any sense, we’d let him. We need all the allies we can get, given the situation on Realspace Earth.”
“What, with the terrorists?”
Grace stared at him. “No, the Death Cults. Didn’t you get CNN in Iraq?”
“Oh, those cultists.” Over the past year, dozens of cults had sprung up from D.C. to California. On the surface, none of them seemed related: Their rhetoric ranged from white supremacist to far-left ecco-looney, while their preferred weapons ran the gamut from poisoned cold medications to human sacrifice. Their only common denominator was the murders they committed and the panic they’d inspired in the public. “So we’ve decided they’re nasty enough to warrant attention.”
“Exactly,” Lance said. “Seems one of the Majae has had a vision the cults really are using magic.”
Reece stared. “The High Council thinks a Maja is involved?”
“No, and that’s the really terrifying part,” Grace said. “They swear the magical signature is not one of ours.”
Oh, that wasn’t good news. “Sidhe, then? Llyr?”
“I doubt he’d get involved in something like this,” Lance said. “Though I wouldn’t put it past that psychotic brother of his.”
Reece grunted. “I’ll see what I can find out from the Feds. I’m probably going to be stateside for several months anyway.” Catching Grace’s questioning look, he explained, “Hunting a mole.”
“The CIA thinks they’ve got another double agent?” Lance asked, interested.
“No, it’s the FBI. One of their counterintelligence guys asked me to look into it. Unless I get lucky, I’m going to spend months talking to bureaucrats to see who lies.”
His acute vampire senses allowed Reece to hear a liar’s heartbeat jump, or smell the faint trace of fear in sweat. Once he had a suspect, he could bring in a Maja for a little surreptitious mind reading. The Feds didn’t know about the Majae, so Reece had to conduct the bulk of such investigations without magical assistance. It was annoying, but he had to ensure the Magekind’s secret stayed secret.
“When are you heading to Washington?” Lance asked.
“Day after tomorrow. I’ve got to put in an appearance at Champion International first.”
Grace propped her head on her husband’s shoulder and smiled at Reece. “Have I mentioned how cool it is that you founded that company to provide for your descendants?” She cut her eyes at Lance. “Instead of just fathering bastards all over the place and letting them fend for themselves, like some people I could name.”
“Hey,” Lance protested. “He’s only been around a couple of centuries. They’re easier to keep track of when there’s not so damn many of them.”
“Which wouldn’t be a problem if you’d use protection once in a while,” Reece told him. “Hell, just pull out…”
“Now wait a minute. First off, I’m married, so I’m not doing that anymore anyway….”
“Damn straight,” Grace said, and nipped his ear in warning.
“Back off, you. I do the biting in this relationship.” Laughing, he threw up an arm as she tried to get him again. “Second of all, if every Knight of the Round Table had pulled out every time he banged a girl, neither of you would be here to bitch at me about it.”
“He’s got a point,” Reece reminded Grace.
“Except in my case, it was Morgana who did the bastard-spawning. Anyway, they could at least take an interest.” She punched Lance lightly in the ribs and told him, “When I was a cop, I never found one of Reece’s granddaughters living in squalor. They’re all pulling down a hundred thou a year working for one of the biggest multinationals in the world.”
“You want me to keep track of who Galahad’s knocked up, too? Now, there would be a full-time job.” Lance rolled his eyes. “‘Virgin knight’ my ass. I don’t know where the poets got that idea.”
“They made it up.” Reece grinned as he took a sip from his goblet, remembering the legend that painted Lancelot’s son as the saint of the Round Table. “Just like the one about vampires being sterile, walking corpses.”
Lance’s eyes took on a wicked glint as he turned to Grace. “Speaking of not being sterile, has it occurred to you that Galahad is now your stepson? Which makes all his descendants your step-whatever. And then, of course, there’s my sons and daughters and grandsons and great-great-et cetera.” As her expression became steadily more hunted, he purred, “We poor, limited vampires could never find them all, but with your goddesslike magical powers, you could. Given your keen sense of responsibility.”
She looked so horrified, Reece shouted with laughter. “I think you just lost that one, sweetheart.”
“No, he’s right.” Cool determination sparked in her eyes, and she rose to her feet. “At the very least, I can make sure none of them are starving.”
“Hey, wait, where are you going?” Lance said to her retreating back as she strode away. “Grace, we had plans!”
Reece slapped him on the back and stood. The last dance was breaking up; it looked like a perfect opportunity to do some seducing. “Well, you’ll have to excuse me. I want to get laid.”
“Yeah, well,” Lancelot said, staring glumly after his wife, “I’d say your chances just got better than mine.”
Atlanta
Reece hesitated at the door to the crowded ballroom, the scent of gin, caviar, and packed humanity teasing his senses. The light from dozens of chandeliers blazed over designer gowns and black tuxedos, and the air was full of practiced laughter.
With his vampire hearing, it was easy to pick up the dozens of conversations going on around him. Eavesdropping being a spy’s old habit, he listened with interest as the CEO of Champion Steel chatted up the pretty president of Champion Electronics. The woman laughed and turned the conversation to his branch’s search for new superconductors.
During the past two centuries, the little shipping company Reece had started with his son, Caleb, had grown and diversified beyond all recognition.
Not unlike his bloodline.
Most of whom seemed to be at this party. Some were legitimate descendants through his son, but others had been fathered inadvertently by Reece himself when a condom had broken, or—before modern condoms were invented—he’d failed to pull out in time.
The Maja’s Council frowned on birth control spells. They wanted the available pool of Latents as broad as possible, since the percentage they considered worthy to become Magekind was so small.
Like Grace, Reece had always found the Magekind’s careless attitude toward their mortal offspring a bit appalling. Whenever he learned of one of his own children, he made sure they were provided for. The High Council did not allow the Magekind to marry mortals, so the best he could do was to offer them or their mothers jobs at Champion International. Some branches of his extended family had worked for the company for generations.
“Reece!”
He turned to see the CEO of Champion International shouldering through the crowd. Steve Champion clapped him on the back and gave him a handshake, grip firm and warm despite the age spots on the back of his hand. “Glad you could make it,” the man said, his faded blue eyes lighting up in pleasure. “I know how busy you are.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” Reece told him with genuine pleasure. “I don’t see you enough these days.”
Damn, time didn’t just fly, it was jet propelled. Reece could remember when Steve had been the bright-eyed protégé he had tapped to run the family company forty-five years before. The boy must be pushing eighty now. Soon—all too soon—Reece would find himself attending yet another funeral.
Years ago, he’d tried to convince the Majae’s Council to send some pretty Maja to Turn Steve, but they’d refused. Evidently, the boy was one of those who couldn’t withstand the transition. Reece didn’t argue, having learned his lesson on that score two centuries before.
Now he was going to have to bury yet another child he’d come to love.
To make matters worse, he’d have to choose the lad’s successor. He dreaded that, too.
On paper, of course, Reece was no more than a junior VP who should have no say in such a vital decision, which was supposedly made by CI’s Board of Directors. Usually Reece let the board and CEO run the company without interference, but this was different. The board would damn well approve his choice, even if he had to have a Maja magically convince the holdouts.
When it came to CI’s future, Reece could be as ruthless as any other captain of industry.
“I suppose you’re aware of this deal I’m trying to put together to acquire ComTec,” Steve said now, dropping his voice. He was one of the few at CI who knew Reece was a vampire. Like the others, however, he was under a spell that prevented him from speaking about it to anyone else, a safety measure the Magekind High Council had insisted upon.
Reece nodded. “I’ve heard something about it.”
“ComTec’s CEO is here tonight. George Gavel.” Steve hesitated delicately before his voice dropped even more. “I’d appreciate it if you’d have a word with him. See how serious he is about this deal.”
Reece smiled slightly. “For you, Steve, anything.”
An hour later he was listening to Gavel drone on about his golf swing when he scented a Latent that was definitely no descendant of his. Her enticing blend of musk and spice seemed to bypass his brain and wrap around his sex like long female fingers. As his body hardened in instant response, Reece glanced around the crowded ballroom for the source of the scent.
Blue eyes met his over the CEO’s shoulder, amused and faintly mocking. A delicate blond brow lifted. The Latent’s carmine mouth quirked in a taunting half-smile.
Then she turned with a roll of a deliciously curved hip and sauntered away through the cocktail party crowd.
Reece’s eyes narrowed, scarcely aware of Gavel’s complaints about his new custom-made titanium driver. Her strapless gown was the same fuck-me crimson as her lipstick, in brilliant contrast to the cream of her slender shoulders. The dress clung to her tight, narrow waist and heart-shaped rump before ending at mid-thigh, displaying long, sleekly muscled legs. She wore her shimmering blond hair piled on top of her head like a crown, baring a tempting length of nape. He imagined pressing a kiss there.
He’d always been a neck man.
Then someone stepped in front of her, and she was gone.
“Excuse me,” Reece murmured to the CEO as he started after her. “I see someone I need to have a word with.” He could smooth any ruffled feathers later. Besides, he’d already discovered what Steve had wanted to know: Beneath Gavel’s endless prattle lay fear and desperation. ComTec was sinking fast, and Champion International’s offer was the only life raft in reach. Steve would soon add another holding to the family’s impressive portfolio.
In the meantime, Reece planned to take care of more personal needs. If the Latent let him.
Absently he reached into his lapel and checked the foil packets he carried everywhere he went. Hungry for her as he was, Reece had no intention of entering a Latent without protection. Thomas and Lizzie had taught him the folly of that more than two centuries ago.
It wasn’t a lesson he was ever likely to forget.
Pleased with her work, Erin Grayson scooped a champagne flute from the tray of a passing waiter and slid deeper into the chatting crowd. She’d circle back around and give Champion another good look later. Tonight’s objective was simply to establish contact, and piquing his interest was a good place to start.
So far it was definitely piqued. When Champion had looked at her, instant heat had leaped in his eyes, as if somebody had ignited a mental Molotov cocktail.
Erin meditated on the surprising strength of his reaction and frowned slightly. She wasn’t that damn good looking. Not that she was coyote material, of course, but she’d played the game long enough to know what male response to expect. Most men were appreciative, but Champion had stared with a searing primal heat she’d felt to the soles of her spike-heeled Pradas. The man packed quite a punch.
There was something just a little bit off about him, though, something that made her instincts hum. A sense of danger. But was it the danger of a handsome, sexy man—or the evil of somebody who’d bankroll a death cult?
A slight frown curving her mouth, Erin took another sip of her champagne.
Champion certainly looked the part of a wealthy corporate prince. His tailored Ralph Lauren tux showcased the kind of broad-shouldered build that spoke of frequent, time-consuming trips to a gym. His mink-brown hair had been cut by someone who’d probably charged him two hundred bucks, and those broad, long-fingered hands had recently been subjected to an expensive manicure.
He could probably afford to give Death’s Sabbat the money to buy weapons-grade anthrax. But was he the kind of man who’d do it?
True, there was a visible edge to him that didn’t fit the pampered persona. The line of that hawk nose wasn’t quite true, as if broken by either a fist or a polo mallet. The businessman he appeared to be would have gotten that fixed years ago. God knew his family could afford it; the Champions had been wealthy when Vanderbilt was a social-climbing upstart.
Actually, his whole face was subtly, oddly battered, despite its rough-cut good looks. A thin scar angled along his upper lip, and a shorter one slashed across a chiseled cheekbone. The resulting effect suggested knife fights and bar brawls rather than old money and Harvard.
But it was Champion’s jungle green eyes that really made Erin’s instincts chime. The last man she’d met with a stare that feral had been a DEA agent who’d gone deep cover in a Columbian drug cartel a little too long.
None of which jibed with the dossier she’d spent the morning studying. Champion’s childhood had been spent in private schools, with Christmas vacations in Aspen and summers in Greece. Between racking up indifferent grades at Harvard, he’d kicked around Europe and gotten his heart broken by some Parisian bimbo his family had flatly refused to let him marry.
Yet her gut told her the owner of those hard eyes wouldn’t have let anybody dictate who he could or couldn’t wed. Not even on pain of losing a multimillion dollar inheritance.
On the other hand, she found it just as hard to believe such a handsome, suave man would be willing to bankroll an anthrax attack on Atlanta. So was the Outfit’s intelligence that far off, or had Erin’s instincts gone that far south? Neither alternative appealed.
Frowning, she looked back in his direction, expecting to see Champion still talking to that boor from ComTec. Instead he was barely six feet away and closing fast, his pirate’s mouth curved in a lazy half-smile. His gaze met hers with predatory heat.
Erin almost bobbled her champagne as her instincts buzzed like cicadas. No junior VP would have dared walk away from George Gavel, not with the kind of power the CEO wielded. Particularly not when Champion International was trying to buy Gavel’s company. And certainly not just to chase a woman. Champion would have to be an idiot.
Unless he’d made her. Erin didn’t think she’d ever seen him at one of the cult’s Sabbats, but what if she was wrong?
Her heartbeat took on an adrenaline-rush rhythm as every instinct demanded she run. Instead she gave Champion her best seductive smile.
One thing Erin Grayson knew was how to play the game.
“Good evening,” Reece said when he was again close enough to breathe in the Latent’s delicious scent.
“Hello.” He could hear her heartbeat pounding as she smiled that sensual smile at him. There was fear under the exotic musk of her perfume, an alarm that didn’t quite mesh with her hooded come-get-me gaze. It made Reece wonder if she knew what he was. What she was.
What he could do to her.
Then again, maybe she was playing some other game altogether. Could be harmless, could be something that would get him killed. He didn’t have enough information to be sure either way. Which meant he should probably cut his losses and walk.
And normally, Reece would have done just that, if it hadn’t been so damn long since he’d tasted a Latent. Or a Maja, for that matter, since none of the witches last night had been interested in doing more than teasing him.
After all those months in Iraq, he was due for a night’s respite. One night’s sweet peace. It wasn’t so much to ask after everything he’d given up.
“I hope I didn’t lure you away from our host,” the Latent said as he reached her. Her heartbeat slowed from its original startled slam, and she gave him a teasing smile. “Don’t you like golf?”
“Other games interest me more,” Reece said. Her carnal scent teased his senses and soothed his jangling instincts. He let his eyes drift to the impressive cleavage mounding in the heart-shaped frame of her bodice. “Particularly with the right partner.”
“Partner?” She took a sip of her champagne and pursed her sensual mouth. “Or opponent?”
He toasted her with his own glass. “Partner, definitely. Partners share the same goals.”
A spark of cynicism glinted in those clear blue eyes. “Nobody ever really has the same goals. The best you get is similarity. The focus is always different, no matter what it seems on the surface.”
He studied her, intrigued. “Depends on the game, Ms….?”
“Erin,” she supplied, extending a graceful hand. “Erin Grayson.”
“Lovely,” he murmured, reaching to take those long fingers in his. Her skin felt deliciously silken. His own seemed to heat in instant response. “Reece Champion.”
She let her hand linger just a moment before she slowly reclaimed it, brushing his fingers with her own in the process. The Desire purred in hot response. “What’s it like being a member of a family you can trace back for centuries?”
“Confining,” Reece said, smiling easily. He’d fielded the question so many times, the answer had become rote.
Erin lifted one pale, perfect brow. “You don’t find it romantic—all the lives that came before yours, all the struggle to build everything you enjoy?”
Not particularly, since he was the one who’d done the building. He wasn’t about to tell her that, though. “It also comes with the responsibility not to screw it up for those who come after you.”
“I suppose everything has a price.” A waiter slipped through the crowd and paused beside them with a tray of canapés. Erin chose one and took a bite. Reece watched as her tongue swept a crumb from her lower lip with an agile pink flick. “The cost may not be evident, but it’s always there.”
“Sometimes that’s part of the rush,” he said, giving her a lazily suggestive smile. “How much can you get without paying more than you want?”
She studied him over the rim of her champagne glass. “You sound like a gambler, Mr. Champion.”
“Oh, yes. Are you?”
“Only for high stakes.” Her eyes shuttered in pleasure as she sipped, lashes curving against her creamy skin. “Nothing less is worth the trouble.”
“Or gives the same kick.” He smiled slowly. “Would you like to step out on the balcony with me? It’s a little crowded in here.” Particularly for what he had in mind.
Another waiter approached. Erin set her glass on his tray and took another. “Why not?”
Reece led the way through the double French doors. Instantly a flood of cool night air blew against his hot skin, carrying the high wavering wail of a siren and the rumble of traffic. Just beyond the balcony’s railing, the lights of Atlanta glittered across the dark earth, as if the sky had cast its stars on the ground.
“Beautiful view,” Erin murmured.
“Yes.” A full moon rode overhead, painting her face with pale, soft light. He moved closer, savoring the anticipation, the sheer elegant purity of her features, the lush scent of her body. “What color are your eyes?”
She blinked at the question. “Blue.”
“Yes, but what shade? I’ve been wondering.” He dipped his head and scented her hair. His inhumanly acute hearing picked up the answering thump of her heart. Reece concealed a smile and went to work. “The blue keeps changing. Sometimes it’s sapphire when the light is good, sometimes cerulean. Right now it’s a deep, mysterious…cobalt, I think.” He drew back to consider those long-lashed eyes. “Definitely cobalt.”
Erin eyed him in pure admiration. “Oh, you’ve got talent.”
He grinned. “Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sincere.”
A blond brow rose. “Are you trying to get me into bed, Champion?”
“Yes.” Testing, he ran his fingertips over the curve of her bare shoulder. “How am I doing?”
“Let me get back to you on that.” Smiling wickedly, Erin turned away, slipping skillfully from beneath his hand. “Are you always this brazen?”
“Occupational hazard.” He followed her as she moved to the balcony and leaned against the glass-and-chrome railing.
“Of being a VP at Champion International?”
That hadn’t been the occupation he was thinking of, but he shrugged lightly. “Of being a second cousin in a very large, very talented family. The Champions may have raised nepotism to a high art, but you’ve still got to impress those who run the show.”
“Ah,” she said, on a note of revelation, and took a sip of her champagne. “The family gene pool is stocked with sharks.”
“Not necessarily, but it does pay to be able to swim.” Reece studied her, wondering suddenly how she’d gotten invited to this very exclusive party. He did hope she wasn’t someone’s wife. He wasn’t sure his willpower was strong enough to resist the temptation. “So who do you swim with?”
That red mouth curled. “Fishing, Champion?”
“I like to know whom I’m trying to seduce.”
“Meaning, can I leave with someone other than the one that brung me?” Erin asked, lengthening her vowels into an exaggerated Southern drawl. “What if I said I crashed the party?”
“Did you?”
“I’m not that brave.” She shrugged and looked off across the glittering city. “Actually, I called in a favor from a certain ComTec exec.”
“Why?”
Erin gave him a shimmering glance that swept from the toes of his Gucci loafers all the way up into his eyes. She smiled slowly. “Maybe I’m fishing.”
He grinned, appreciating her wit. “For what?”
She grinned back. “Shark.”
“Better be careful. You might get eaten.”
“Only if I’m lucky.”
“Mmmm. Strikes me the shark would be the one with the luck.”
She shot him a teasing, sidelong look. “You’re such a gentleman.”
“But am I lucky?”
“I doubt luck has much to do with it.”
“Luck has everything to do with everything.”
“What, no faith in talent and preparation?”
Damn, he liked her. “No matter how talented and prepared you are, bad luck can torpedo you every time. But even the bumbling and lazy get lucky.”
“The talented and prepared make their own luck.”
He stepped incrementally closer until the lapels of his tux brushed the bodice of that maddening dress. “Is that my cue?”
Erin tilted her chin to look up at him. “I don’t know. Is it?”
He lowered his head. “I think maybe it is.”
“There you go,” she said, just before he took her mouth. “Talented, prepared, and lucky.”
He slid into the kiss slowly, savoring the moment, knowing what it would do to both of them. How the taste of her would hit him after his long fast.
The Latent’s lips bloomed open under his, silk parting for that first, eager thrust of his tongue. She tasted even more like sex than an ordinary woman did. Richer, darker, searing his senses like a slug of straight Scotch after drinking white wine. Like tangled limbs and darkness and drumming hearts.
God, he was ravenous for her. It had been too damn long.
With a groan, he eased his tongue deeper. Erin met it with a wet velvet stroke of her own. He licked at her, caught her full lower lip gently between his teeth. Suckled.
The Latent leaned into him, her soft breasts pillowing his chest. He eased his arms around her and drew her closer, deeper into the kiss. The red silk of her dress felt slick under his hands, warm from her body. Erin shifted on her high heels, her silky legs whispering against the fabric of his trousers. Curling her slender arms around him, she spread her fingers across his back. Reece could sense her body slowly awakening, readying itself for him, unconsciously eager for the Gift. His own blood began to burn with need.
Dangerous, he thought. She’s so dangerous.
Erin was the kind who would blow into the Gift like a detonating bomb if he took her too many times. He could almost taste the power stirring under her skin, even from so little contact. The Majae’s Council would have his head on a pike if he turned her without permission. Assuming she didn’t go mad and kill him herself.
But once… his clamoring body whispered. Once wouldn’t trigger her Gift, particularly if he used protection. He could take her once without taking her too far.
And finally slake his grinding, maddening thirst for the first time in a year. The thirst for a Latent with Merlin’s Gift running hot in her veins.
His cock swelled and heated even more behind his fly. In his mouth his fangs slid to full extension. He hoped she didn’t notice.
The taste of Champion’s mouth shouldn’t have hit her so hard. It was, after all, a simple kiss, a touch of lip and tongue, barely qualifying as foreplay by any reasonable standard.
Oh, she’d expected a little sizzle. Reece knew his business, and so did she. Both of them were fully capable of spinning a kiss into something sweetly erotic, a sensual aperitif, a promise of more to come.
But then something happened. Something magic that sizzled in the taste of his mouth, in the way those powerful hands caught her against his straining erection.
As he dragged her closer, she felt every inch of that big body, hard and brawny under the elegant camouflage of his tux. His tongue played around hers, teasing her arousal to blazing life. Every time he moved against her, the lace of her bra tormented her hard, sensitized nipples. Deep between her thighs, she felt the first heated trickle of desire.
Some instinct sounded a dim alarm. Erin wasn’t a dewy-eyed virgin. She’d played the game before, knew her way around a man’s body. Knew the dance of lust so well the steps had lost their urgency.
This was more.
His scent and taste swamped her blood like a narcotic. Need rolled over her, drowned intellect in fire.
It wasn’t simple desire, or even simple lust. It was more primal than that. As if he’d triggered some imperative buried in her cells, a drive to give herself up to him in some ancient erotic ritual.
Unprofessional, whispered the voice of sanity. For God’s sake, she was investigating this man’s possible involvement with Satanists.
True, she’d been ordered to establish a relationship with Champion, play on his well-known weakness for pretty women. But she wasn’t supposed to actually tumble into bed with him.
She’d better get herself under control. Now. Fight the spell of those magical hands and drag herself out of his reach.
But then those broad, strong fingers cupped the curve of her breast through her bodice. His thumb flicked across her nipple.
Oh, God, Erin thought, even as her body purred, Oh, yes.