Chapter 8
Archer let the cool rush of absinthe tickle his tongue as it swirled around his mouth. Yes, a safe rush, one he was comfortable with.
Lyra sat next to him at the kitchen counter. “You drink that stuff for breakfast?” she asked, fascination more than disgust in her voice.
“Technically it’s still night. The sun hasn’t come up yet.” He nodded to the expanse of dark sky to the east. “Would you like one?”
“Gods, no. Are you still trying to get rid of me?”
“Get rid of you? By offering you a drink? Wouldn’t that be counterintuitive?”
She regarded him with a curiously suspicious expression. “If you say so. But what I need is food.”
His stomach grumbled. “I suppose sustenance would be appropriate.”
She gave him a funny smile. “Yes, sustenance would be highly appropriate.”
He opened the refrigerator. “I have eggs.”
“Any hot sauce?” she asked, coming up behind him.
“No.” He pulled out a jar of olives. “Will this do?”
“Olives and eggs. Yum. Not.” She nudged him aside and took in the contents of the refrigerator.
“Caviar. Capers. Dark chocolate truffles. I heard you Caidos lived high on the hog, and it’s true.
Not stuff I’m used to using, but I can work with this.
” She grabbed up several items and set them on the counter.
He eyed the box of truffles. “Don’t tell me you’re making caviar chocolate eggs.”
“The chocolate’s for me. After what we just went through, I need it.” She popped one into her mouth and pulled a pan from the rack hanging above the stove.
He watched her assemble the ingredients and pour the egg glop into the sizzling pan.
Admittedly, he was so fascinated by her—her confident gestures, her attention to detail—that he forgot to offer to help.
She seemed to have it well in hand though, and he suspected she’d have politely refused anyway.
Within minutes she’d plated two black olive and caviar omelets on plates and set them at the counter.
“I’m impressed,” he said after a bite. “I’d have never put these together like this.”
“What do you usually have for breakfast?”
“When I’ve recently had groceries delivered, I have a slice of buttered sourdough, a fried egg, and fruit. Sliced pear or apple. But being at your bakery has put a fluffy croissant in my mind. Do you deliver?”
“Afraid we don’t have the staff for that, but you could use one of those online pickup services.” She gave him a cheeky grin that sent a tingle through his chest. “But you wouldn’t see me, and that would be a shame.”
“Indeed it would.” He returned that grin, or at least he thought he did. He’d never done so before.
She tilted her head thoughtfully as she finished the last bite of her egg. “You know, if enough Caidos came to our bakery, I could set up a special Caido window of time, so you wouldn’t be exposed to other people’s emotions.” She winked. “And even make a special cookie for you all.”
He wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not, but the idea sent a warmth through him that reminded him of the heat from her skin when she was pressed up against him in Jeremy’s room. Good gods, what was happening to him? He shook it off. “Interesting though.”
She picked up their empty plates and set them in the sink. “Of course, we have bigger buns to bake at the moment.”
Yes, a good reminder to stay focused.
He pulled Jeremy’s address book close and flipped through the pages, looking for a name of interest.
She sat beside him, a mug of coffee in front of her, eyeing her cell phone.
“I feel like I should call Kirin and update him. Even though he sure as heck hasn’t been sharing information with me.
But I don’t know what I’d tell him at this point.
I know he’d yell at me for consorting with dangerous individuals.
” She flashed him a wry smile, then set the phone on the counter and leaned closer to the book. “Find anything?”
Her heat pulled at him. Why was he so sensitive to it? So drawn by it? Now he was aware of her physically, the smell of her shampoo and her unique scent, and the way her blond hair curved around her neck. When he’d held her, protected from pain by his wings, he’d gotten lost in her.
He focused on the book again. “I know some of these names.”
She pointed, her finger drawing an imaginary line beneath the name Silva. “Ooh, Jeremy was pissed at this guy. He scribbled his name out. Is Silva powerful enough to change the orientation of a fetus?”
“I’ve never heard of him, odd considering how small the Caido community is.” Archer flipped through the rest of the pages. “He’s the only name in here that Jeremy crossed off. Something big made him do that.”
He picked up the phone and called. When a man answered, Archer said, “Silva, please.”
“He’s busy,” the man snapped. “If you care to leave a message—”
“No, I care to talk to him. I understand he can perform…services.”
Had the man coughed or snorted? Archer couldn’t tell.
“Silva is not currently performing services.”
Lyra had moved close to hear, surrounding him with her heat and scent. He could barely think.
“I understand that his abilities are beyond any regular Caido’s, and I’m prepared to pay handsomely if he can provide this highly sensitive service. I’ve heard great things about him, but you know what…it’s probably beyond his skills anyway.”
Silence for a moment. He knew some Caidos had egos that knew no bounds.
“It’s an advanced service?” the man pressed.
“A very unusual one. So unusual I can’t discuss it over the phone. But if he’s busy—”
“Who is this?”
“Grayson Winter.” Just in case this Silva knew who Archer was.
“Hold for a minute.”
Archer turned to Lyra, who was smiling her approval. Embers flickered in her eyes. Even her Dragon was beautiful, and he didn’t like Dragons. Something he really must remember.
The phone clicked. “He’ll see you at two. You can tell no one you are coming here.”
“Understood.”
“If you have pen and paper ready…”
Archer wrote down the address and hung up.
“That was brilliant, using his ego against him. So we...” Her voice trailed off as she saw his intense gaze. “Your eyes are glittering.”
He brushed her hair from her face, leaving his fingers resting against her cheek. “There is something else I haven’t told you about Caidos.”
She leaned slightly into his touch. “What?”
Pain throbbed at the nerve endings of his skin, his desire and hers twining together like barbed wire.
“Being in angel form inures us to pain. There’s a nice side effect: I can feel desire without pain, too. But I can’t hold it for long.”
Her pupils dilated. “You mean I can touch you, want you, and it won’t hurt?”
“If the wings don’t bother you.”
“Hell, no.” She shook her head, but her expression darkened. “But it hurts you when you transform, as you call it.”
“It’ll be worth it. For one time.”
He slid off the stool and removed his shirt, then bowed and willed his wings to come. They drove through his skin, but he didn’t care about the pain. When he straightened and opened his eyes, she was standing, too, watching him.
They stepped toward each other simultaneously. He ached, but not from desire. From a need for her touch, to feel her heat. He was so cold inside. He hadn’t realized it until he’d held her earlier and felt it seep into his soul.
Her blue eyes were wide as she placed her hand on his chest, gently trailing her fingers over his pecs, watching him for some reaction.
“No pain,” he assured her. He didn’t tell her that the form muffled his feelings as well.
She smiled and put her other hand on him, too, running them across his shoulders, biceps, even down his forearms. She stepped around him, letting her fingers follow to his back. Her movements stilled.
“Can I touch them?” she asked.
No one had ever touched his wings, other than in combat.
“Yes, but you’ll feel an electrical pulse.”
“Hah, I already do. Every time I’m with you.”
He held his breath as her fingers dipped into the energy of his wings. While combatants tried to cut or damage each other’s wings, Lyra’s touch was gentle. Every feather transmitted her touch right down to his core. She breathed softly, tickling her way across the width of both wings.
She came around to the front again, her fingers working the buttons of her top.
It slipped to the floor, followed by her bra, and he had to keep from sucking in a breath at the beauty of her.
Beauty he could touch. She slid her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. “Touch me,” she whispered, as though sensing his thoughts.
His hands trembled as he ran them down her silky hair to her bare shoulders and back. So soft, smooth, so female.
She held tightly to him, her fingers splayed on his lower back, her breasts crushed to his chest. “Take my heat.”
He closed his eyes at her offer and pulled it into his body, her heat and everything about her.
He drank in the feel of her skin, the bumps of her spine, and then the beauty of her face as he tilted it back and kissed her.
All he could taste was the absinthe, but her mouth was warm and wet and everything her body would be if he buried himself inside her.
Even muffled, he felt enough to know that this would taunt and claw at him for the next hundred years.
That he would want more, would want to feel everything in vivid Technicolor.
That he would be tempted to do the Essex.
He should stop this now. His fingers tangled through her hair as he devoured her.
Gods, her tongue, the way it swirled through his mouth and sparred with his, and the purring sound she made…
He picked her up and carried her to the kitchen, setting her on the counter, never breaking the kiss. His body tingled as it came to life. Her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him close, and the contact sent a sharp rush through him.
His hands explored her breasts, across her stomach, everywhere he’d wanted to touch earlier when she’d slept.
He slid his hands down her back and beneath the waistband of her pants.
She groaned and pressed closer, rocking against him, and he had to fight for control as the world narrowed to the two of them.
His wings contracted, pulling in with a pinch. The pain returned, pounding like the beat at the Deuce nightclub. He dropped to his knees, hands on the floor, and had to catch his breath with the suddenness of it.
“What happened?” she asked, breathless herself.
“I couldn’t hold the form any longer. Damn it.” But her heat still swirled in him, even as he got to his feet.
She remained on the counter, gripping the edge, beautifully half naked in the soft light, with the glitter of Miami behind her. Her Dragon tattoo shifted on her skin. Its yellow was even deeper than it had been, its eyes as heavy as Lyra’s.
“I wish it had lasted longer,” she said.
He couldn’t speak, couldn’t say he did, too, or that he was glad it hadn’t because he had enough trouble letting her go even with the pain.
"So was this"—she grinned—“premature transformation?”
“You’re trying to make light of it?”
“It’s better than crying.”
He laughed then. “Too true.” He snatched her shirt from the floor and pushed it at her. When she didn’t cover those beautiful breasts, he settled against the back of the couch, a safe distance away.
She held the shirt in her hands, making no attempt to put it on. “I want more, Archer. More of you. If I give you a little of my—”
“No, not even a little. It’ll never be enough. I would suck you dry, Dragon Girl.”
She shivered, though he couldn’t tell if she was afraid or aroused.
He was far enough away, thankfully. She did, however, pull on her bra and shirt.
Everything about her, her heat, her essence, curled through him still and accompanied the thrum of pain at his wanting, at the will it took not to close that distance.
He walked to the wall of windows, pressing his body against the cool glass, arms spread. In the reflection, he saw her watching him. Take the heat away. Take it away, because I can never have it again.