Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
She didn’t go straight to her room. Instead, she diverted her escort with a blatant lie. “The commander asked me to visit the armory to choose whatever I need for the mission.”
“Certainly, ma’am. This way, please.”
He escorted her down two flights of narrow steps ending in a long corridor lined with steel doors. This was Elijah’s reality. The rest of the Seraphim was a facade: sleek, luxurious, and carefully curated to both mislead and reassure guests.
Her companion used iris recognition to unlock the door. “Do I need someone to sign out the weapons?”
“What do you think?”
Elijah’s cold voice pierced her spine. Of course, he knew what she’d done. Cameras were everywhere.
The officer had already gone, leaving Elijah in his place, and he looked more threatening than ever. All muscle and ice, he stared down from his great height as if she were the enemy.
“You can hardly stop now,” he said, as she began to make excuses in order to leave and choose a better time to inspect the armory.
How could I possibly have made love with this man?
Love? They’d collided like feral creatures wolfing down a reward.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked you first before coming down here.”
“As you’re here now…”
His eyes were like ice chips, but she met his gaze calmly. “I’m not sorry for letting curiosity get the better of me,” she admitted as the steel door hissed shut behind them, sealing them in a climate-controlled space.
“I trust you’ll find everything you need?”
Wow. Would she ever.
She gazed around at an impressive display of weaponry. Stacked on steel shelves, the inventory was as neatly ordered as Elijah’s mind had grown. “You used to be reckless,” she murmured as she examined the arsenal. “One handgun and a knife.”
“Three knives,” he corrected her. “One you could see—”
“And two concealed about your person.”
“Correct. But that was then, and this is now.”
“And now control is your thing.” Her lips tightened into a line of approval as she walked down his arcade of death.
“Control keeps me alive.”
The sealed room was ordered and lethal. This was the domain of a man who was no longer a young fighter but a hardened strategist, honed by experience, and backed by sufficient wealth to support a private army.
“You approve?”
“Do you care?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
Lounging against the wall, arms folded, he watched her inspection with a predatory stillness that set her senses on fire. Pheromones rolled off him, clashing with hers to create a vortex of tension that showed no sign of easing up.
She gasped involuntarily as he pushed off the wall. Elijah’s magnetism was overpowering. However cold he appeared, the charge between them was white-hot.
I hate that I want him—want it, want sex.
Subtle lighting carved harsh shadows beneath his cheekbones and across his jaw, where sharp black stubble, the same stubble she remembered abrading her skin, made him look like a marauding pirate.
Maraud away, she thought, wondering whether any woman with red blood in her veins could remain composed under these circumstances. Elijah could always tell when she was ready to mate, which used to be all the time he was around.
He halted when they were toe-to-toe. Her breathing faltered, and her body went on full alert. But he reached past to select a sidearm from its stand on the wall. “You’re gonna love this. It's better than anything you’ve used before.”
It took her a moment to speak. Why did she fall for this every time? The faint flare of amusement in his eyes told her he knew how he affected her. “Thanks for the suggestion,” she said, proud of her steady voice. “I take it you’ve got a firing range where I can test this?”
“Of course.”
Was he playing her?
Bastard.
He knew what made her tick—what used to make her tick for him.
“This is all very impressive.” She scanned the deadly gallery behind him: matte-black rifles, polished pistols, and steel blades resting in foam mounts. “You’ve come a long way.”
“As have crime and criminals.”
“And this?” She glanced at the locked compartment with its skull-and-bones insignia.
“Drones and other high-tech killing machines.”
Her stomach clenched. She was dragging him back into danger. Had she just wasted seven years?
The brutal answer was yes.
“I’ve seen enough. Thank you.” She needed to escape this museum of death and breathe fresh air.
Too eager to leave, she bumped into him.
They collided hard, like running into a brick wall.
He dipped his head.
She looked up.
Their mouths clashed in a kiss that knocked the stuffing out of all her carefully made pledges.
Whatever had happened in the past was irrelevant.
His fist tangled in her hair, drawing her head back.
Devouring her mouth, he kissed her throat, then the lobes of her ears, before driving his mouth down on hers.
Hardly a passive recipient, she slammed him into the steel cabinets, making the weapons rattle a tattoo. His hands found her hips, gripping and positioning. Yanking her hard against the thrust of his erection catapulted her back into the past. Heat roared between them—
But it wasn’t the past.
And everything was broken.
Elijah tore away first.
“I trusted you,” he raged, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth as if to erase all trace of her. “Do you have any idea what that means? No,” he bit out before she could reply. “You knew I couldn’t refuse this mission, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you can walk back into my life.”
It hadn’t started out that way. She’d have done anything to avoid involving him in an operation deadlier than most, but she couldn’t let the slavers win or save their victims on her own.
Things were rapidly going downhill with Elijah. His expression said she was teetering on the brink. Desperate to salvage the situation, she said, “Trust doesn’t come easily for either of us, but it grew when we worked together. I know it can happen again.”
“You destroyed trust!”
“I’m determined to rebuild it.” She had no idea how, yet, with the taste of him still on her lips, and the imprint of his body on hers burning into her soul.
“How do you propose to do that?” he challenged. “By attempting to seduce me?”
“What? I’m not interested.”
“Not yet,” he derided.
Why had she ever thrown herself at a man who clearly didn’t want her, who offered nothing but sex? She had wanted more—she still did: more emotion, more connection, a life that didn’t involve violence and danger and sex.
Seven years ago, that knowledge had almost destroyed her. Tomorrow, she would fight with everything she had to save those without the power to defend themselves. To succeed in that mission, it was vital to forget wanting Elijah.
“Time to call a halt,” she said briskly. “I’d like to try out this weapon at your shooting range—if you’ll show me the way.”
“I think you mean you should call a halt to this,” Elijah countered scathingly. “I’ll have someone show you where you need to go.”
“Thank you.” Her tone was clipped, but her pulse was off the scale. He was ice. She was fire. She had to get away—
She blundered into the corridor the instant the steel door opened. The lighting was merciless, like a spotlight on a stage. Her swollen lips and red cheeks were obvious to anyone.
“May I assist you?”
Could her face get any hotter? The ever-polite escort had just appeared on the scene. “My stateroom, please.” The shooting range could wait. She had to calm down first.
“Of course, ma’am. Please follow me.”
Not a flicker in his eyes betrayed that he knew exactly what had happened in the armory. There were cameras everywhere. The whole ship almost certainly knew.
With the most challenging mission of her career about to begin, she was still obsessing over the fact that Elijah could unmake her with a kiss.
That had to change.
Fast.
Worse—she’d let him kiss her.
Worse still, she’d do it again.
* * *
What the fuck…
He didn’t breathe until the door shut behind her. Her scent lingered, keeping him hard. Tearing away from Sable was not rejection. It was survival.
Bracing his hands against the wall, he exhaled hard.
Try as he might to reject the memories, they pressed in: Sable laughing on warm nights, her dress slipping off one shoulder.
The defiant tilt of her chin, the way she leaned into him with equal parts surrender and challenge.
Her mouth, soft, demanding, unforgettable.
Was recovery even possible?
No matter how many times he told himself it was just physical, they weren’t saints and had healthy appetites—he’d never found another woman like her.
No one came close.