He said nothing, staring at her with a quiet intensity she found more than unnerving.
“What?” she snapped, crossing her arms over her breasts, thinly clad in her nightshirt.
He smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes. “You seem awfully interested in my sex life for a woman who’s gone out of her way to avoid me. Could it be you’re afraid of what’s between us?”
Fury filled her, pushing aside her fear that he was right. Ellie pushed off the bed and clenched her hands into fists, barely refraining from socking him in the mouth. She didn’t stop moving until she stood within punching distance.
“Afraid? If anything, I’m afraid I’ll forget why I got involved in this in the first place and throw you out on your fat, conceited head. I’m avoiding you because I can’t stand being cooped up with a man who’s made no bones about his distaste for ‘my kind’. I still have trouble believing you may one day be king.” She poked him hard in the chest, glad for the anger that darkened his face. “After all the Djinn have done for you, if you do become overking, you’d better not forget them.” She forgot for the moment that she had no interest in Djinn affairs. “Jonas and my father put their lives on the line for you, as have the others. So try to have a bit of princely decorum when you get back. Recognise their efforts at least, even if they are just, and I quote, ‘unclean, Dark deviants’.”
He stared at her in silence, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. But when he replied, he spoke calmly, his voice husky with apology. “I said those things to you in anger, and for that I apologise. I certainly never meant that you were any of that. The Djinn I’ve met since being stuck with Jonas are different from what I’m used to. I can’t—I won’t—in good conscience ever call them evil or unclean.” He cleared his throat. “When you first confessed what you were—”
“Who I was helping,” she corrected.
“—okay, who you were helping, I felt betrayed. I trusted you, Ellie. I told you things I’d never told anyone else, only to find I’d given vital information on the Storm Lords to the enemy. To a woman I thought was the enemy,” he amended before she could protest her allegiance once more.
She squirmed under his regard, knowing he’d had every right to distrust her. She’d done a favour for her father and, in his defence, what would be best for Foreia and the Storm Lords in the long run. But Cadmus only knew he’d confided in Ellie Markham, a human woman who smiled and talked with him.
“It was a bit more than smiling and talking.” Cadmus reached up to caress her cheek, reading the stray thought. “I’m sure your father never asked you to go so far distracting me.”
She inhaled sharply when his finger grazed her lower lip. “Ethim il Ruethe would no more allow his daughter to touch a Light Bringer than make love to one. Cadmus, stop touching me.”
“No, Ellie. Don’t forget what we once shared. I don’t.”
Before she could protest again, he kissed her. Possession. Inhumanly hot, dark possession. She could barely think as he buried her in feeling. His hands clenched her shoulders, spearing through her thin nightshirt so she could feel his callused palms as if on her naked flesh. Her breasts pushed against him, her nipples prodding through cotton to feel the hard wall of muscle under sprigs of dark, silky chest hair.
“By the Light, Ellie,” Cadmus breathed as he pulled from her lips to stare down at her. “I can’t stop thinking about this. About you,” he admitted and kissed the curve of her cheek.
His hands slid down her shoulders, caressing and stroking before moving towards her breasts. Ellie wanted to stop him, but he found her nipples and toyed with them until she could barely think.
She could feel his erection straining at his jeans. With every squeeze, every touch of his lips and tongue, he thrust against her, his urgency increasing. She gripped his thick hair to hold him close. Slanting her mouth under his, she slowly took control of the kiss, causing him to groan her name.
“Ellie, baby, more,” he gasped when her mouth left his to trail down his throat.
Unfortunately, his words and the way he’d said them sparked a memory.
“More,” he’d said, before grabbing her and pulling her on top of him. She’d slowly eased down, encasing his hot cock inside her. Riding him as he’d teased her breasts, she’d stared into dark brown eyes filled with heat, with power, and with affection she returned far more than was good for her.
Another image. His eyes clouded, darkened with rage when he’d learned her father’s identity and Ellie’s real reason for being at Outpour. He’d refused to listen to her after that, refused to hear the painful truth she’d been a heartbeat from declaring. Instead he’d shouted, insulting and shocking her with words that turned her world upside-down.
“No,” she rasped and pushed away from him. What the hell did she think she was doing, letting Cadmus Storm back into her graces?
“Ellie,” he cajoled. “We’re just getting started.”
Oh no, not that slumberous look that made her melt into a puddle at his feet. She deliberately focused on the pulse beating at his neck.
“I’m not doing this again. Not with you.” I refuse to let you hurt me like you did before. She kept her thoughts to herself, deliberately shielding from him.
“Ellie, I hate to break it to you,” his soft voice lured her into looking back at him, “but you can no more deny this than I can.”
“You’re wrong.” She took a deep breath, aware the movement created a delicious friction against her taut nipples.
“Am I? You want me, Ellie.” He flashed a dimple that made him all the more enticing. Rubbing his chest with deliberate strokes, he seduced her with word and sight and sound. “I remember how much you like my touch.” He studied her body, fixating between her thighs. “You get so wet for me, so sweet. Remember how I teased your clit? How I licked you all over, then made my way back up your body to suck your nipples into hard little points? How I brought you to orgasm over and over again with just my mouth and hands?”
She wished she could forget. As it was, her breasts ached to feel him touch her once more.
His eyes wandered to her navel. “Still wearing it?”
He’d been fascinated by her belly ring and apparently still was. She had no intention of telling or showing him she never took it off.
“Look, Cadmus,” she said, trying to catch her breath. Her hands itched. She could still feel him beneath her palms. “It’s way too early for this.”
“I’m not moving until you’re under me, or we go out and do something.”
The way her body reacted, she knew she was too close to the first option. Ellie cleared her throat. “I’m letting you stay in my home. Hell, I’ll even spend some time with you to ease your princely boredom,” she conceded. Anything to get him out of here before I jump him and lose all self-respect. “But I won’t make lo— I won’t fuck you again.”
His good humour left him, and he stepped closer. “Oh honey, we’ll make love again.” Shocks of elemental power yanked her into his waiting arms. “Don’t worry, my little Djinn.” He infuriated her with his sheer strength, his presumption and how easily he made her want him. “I won’t force you. The next time we fuck…” he bit out, “…you’ll be begging me for it.” He kissed her hard, then let her go and turned on his heel, slamming the door shut behind him.
Ellie fingered her throbbing lips, staring at the closed door with alarm. She wanted him more now than she ever had, and she’d just agreed to spend time with him. Crap. Since she couldn’t stay away from him physically, she’d have to emotionally distance herself. If she could think with her head instead of her hormones.