Beguiling the Enemy - Pivotal Moment

Caitlin woke face down on black sheets. She’d never slept on black sheets. And she could hear distant music. Nirvana? And a shower running?

She jerked upright and nearly wrenched her arm from her shoulder in the process. Metal clinked against metal. Blood rushed to her head. She brushed her hair from her eyes, yanked at the handcuff that bound her left wrist to the headboard and clutched her free hand to her throbbing temple.

The room was dim. The window to her left boarded up. Flickering music videos filled the forty-two inch screen up in the distant left hand corner. To her immediate right, an en-suite door sat a-jar.

She was still wearing the silk negligee and underwear she’d gone to bed in – her bed and not the four-poster she was now manacled to. The bastard had swiped her in her sleep and from the headache and dizziness, she knew how.

Damn it.

She reached for the glass tumbler on the bedside table, her only possibility of a weapon. The cuff bit into wrist, her shoulder straining in the socket. But still she fell a couple of inches short.

She exhaled curtly, slumped back against the headboard.

The shower stopped.

The bathroom fell silent.

Her heart pounded. She curled her legs under her, pushed her negligee back over her knees, smoothed down her hair. The seconds scraped by like nails down slate as she watched the doorway with baited breath.

When Kane finally emerged, Caitlin snapped back a breath, enraptured, shocked at the warm rush between her legs.

The towel sat low on his waist, his cropped dark hair glistening, her attention drawn to the cobra tattoo beneath his heart, the droplets of water running down the crevice between his pecs. Droplets that slid down his bare, honed abdomen, his belly button, every trained taut muscle in his arms and broad shoulders flexing as he wiped the back of his neck with his hand.

Even if she had got a shard of glass, she wasn’t sure now if she’d even want to use it. But when he assessed her nonchalantly, it infuriated her, triggering, to her unease, a painful sense of inadequacy.

Yet still she couldn’t tear away from him as he turned to open the wardrobe. She lingered over the sword engraved in black ink down his spine, the ornate hilt resting between his shoulder blades. Lingered until he discarded his towel. She flushed, lowered her gaze until she heard him pull on his jeans and looked back to the see the glimmer of amusement in his eyes - eyes sinfully dark in the dim light.

And when he stepped up to the bedside table, Caitlin braced herself, her fingers digging into the bed-sheet as he knocked back a mouthful of drink, ice clinking against glass.

He wasn’t going to hurt her. He needed her on side.

But not as much as she needed him.

From the moment he’d revealed he could kill the thing that had slaughtered her parents, she’d thought about nothing else. Couldn’t. Because in five days time, exactly seven years since her mother’s murder, fourteen since her father’s, it was coming back for her.

And though it wrenched at her stomach, tore at her dignity, her self-respect, Kane was integral to her survival, her vengeance: all he knew, all he was, all he was capable of. It was going to take something lethal to bring that creature down and there was nothing more lethal than Kane.

Kane who now sat relaxed against the footboard, drink in hand.

It stuck in her throat even as she said it. ‘I want to make a deal with you.’

He didn’t flinch.

‘The thing that slaughtered my parents: it’s coming for me too. Help me kill it and I’ll give you what you want.’

He smiled, knocked back a mouthful, his dismissal riling her.

‘It wants my soul, Kane. So do you.’

‘Technically it wants to tear out your astral body, keeping your soul trapped so you’re forced to serve it for eternity. But not for another five days. I’ll be done with you by then.’ He stretched his arms across the footboard, defining every muscular curve. ‘Nice try, though.’

Her pulse raced. ‘To get to my soul you need my heart. So far you don’t stand a hope in hell. I’m offering you a way in. You’d be a fool not to take it.’

‘Such conviction.’ His gaze slid over her tauntingly. ‘So are you advising I’d best take what I want, while I can?’

Her stomach flipped. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why not? Help me hate you more.’

And she did hate him. Hated him for discarding her plea like it was nothing. Hated him for being so arrogant as to think he could still seduce her.

And as he flashed a hint of that sexy smile, those deadly alluring canines, she hated the way he ignited her inside.

Hated the fact he was so damned sexual. So damned bad.

So damned everything that deep inside she craved.

Hated the fact that she wanted him despite knowing he was poison.

Poison that if she let it into her system, it was all over.

**

Any other time, any other circumstance, her defiance and indignation would have incited him to act on his carnality.

But hate was less painful than love and he wasn’t going to be that merciful.

Because glower though she may, Kane had seen the look in Caitlin’s eyes when he’d strolled out of the shower. He’d seen the transfixed gaze she’d snatched away when he dropped his towel. Caitlin, who he now knew wasn’t just inexperienced, but enticingly shy.

In work mode she was bold, impetuous, calculated. But only because she had control, where there were boundaries and protocol. Here, she was awkward, unsure. And not just because of the power shift.

Kane moved off the bed and placed his glass on the bedside table. Cleaned his lips of the remnants of alcohol that would taint the taste of her.

He caught her behind her knees, unravelled her legs with ease despite her struggle, slid her onto her back under him, melding into her. Caitlin snatched back a breath, her hand pressing against his shoulder to forge distance. A hand he grabbed, deftly interlacing his fingers with hers, pinning it down beside her head. And as he trailed the back of his free hand down her bound wrist, her forearm, over the top of her breast, up her throat to gently hold her jaw, he revelled in the telling spark in her eyes.

But there was a fine line between a spark and an uncontrollable blaze and never had Kane needed to wield such self-control. Caitlin’s soft warm body, the panic and latent desire in those beautiful vulnerable eyes, summoned the depraved side of him. A side he reserved only for the most sexually proficient, not those barely teetering on their awakening.

And if she knew what he was capable of, what he wanted to do from the moment he’d first seen her, it’d scare the hell out of her.

Not least if she knew what he’d done to others of her kind. How he now fought beneath the surface to suppress the deepest of his desires, his needs. Humans were one thing, but the energy elite shadow-readers gave off when they climaxed was as intoxicating as it got, the bite knocking it up a notch, the ultimate dual feed.

But for now this wasn’t about sating his desires: this was about initiating hers. Getting inside her body, then her mind, unlocking the chastity belt that was her heart to steal the soul inside.

This was about getting his roots in deep. And he wanted to be as deep in Caitlin as anyone could be.

And he’d do it without the deceit of playing her protector.

He’d do it without the deceit of being her hero.

She knew enough of what he was. And the flush of her cheeks, the dilation in her pupils, revealed too much for him to act the gentleman he wasn’t. Especially with the rosy tinge of those tempting lips, her pulse racing invitingly, her tense body compelling him to mercilessly break inside her.

But there was a delicate balance between arousal and fear. Between pleasuring and wounding her.

He still had four days to break her.

He’d make her curse and cry. He’d make her scream. Most of all he’d make her his.

Another shadow-reader consumed.

And as his mouth met hers, as he gently prised her lips apart with his, as he caressed those lips, her teeth and her tongue slowly and coaxingly with his, her refusal to reciprocate, despite her arousal, emanated her enticing internal struggle.

And as Kane bit her lip, as she flinched, her fingers tightening in his, he savoured her blood. Blood just as sweet and intoxicating as he’d imagined, her shudder, her gasp, temptation enough to release her hand, slide his to the exposed waistband of her underwear, yearning to tear the fragile silk, his self-control breaking as her eyes flared.

Until Caitlin slammed her hand to his chest. Met his slow beating heart in time to catch that all-powerful pulse.

Until they connected, her eyes locking on his in horror. Horror as she saw exactly what his vengeance entailed.

Not only for her but everyone she cared about.