“Um…Maelea…”
His voice, dark, raspy, so damn sexy, slid over her skin with his breath, bringing to life places inside she hadn’t known were dead. She closed her eyes, moved into him, and knew she was about to lose the battle.
Chapter Six
Gryphon went still as stone, unsure what to say or do.
The voice that had been taunting him again as he’d searched for a way out was suddenly gone. Replaced by only that low buzz, the one that was irritating as hell but manageable. And oh, gods, right now he didn’t even mind the buzz, because Maelea’s hot body was pressing into his, lighting up his groin, distracting him from everything but her.
Skata, he didn’t dare move, because then it’d be painfully obvious he had a hard-on the size of Mount Etna—not that she couldn’t already feel that damn thing pushing into her stomach—but he also knew if he moved right now, the friction against his dick might just be too much. He swallowed hard. Tried like hell to fight the need. But only one thought prevailed.
Bloody hell, he wanted her. Any way he could get her. Wanted to shove her up against the rock wall at her back and ravage every inch of her body until she screamed. Then he wanted to do it all over again.
Fantasies swam in his head. Followed by the harsh slap of reality.
This was not a good idea. She was afraid of him, dammit, had wanted nothing but to get away from him earlier. He wasn’t stupid. There was something about her that was interfering with that voice. Anytime she got close, it dimmed, gave him the chance to think. Except, man, when she was this close, there was only one thing he could think about.
He told himself to stop thinking with his dick. She could be the key to his finding Atalanta. He could use her to keep his sanity while he hunted. But the only way he was going to get her to cooperate was to give her the impression she was safe with him, even if that wasn’t the truth.
He stepped back, intent on putting distance between them, but her hand slid from his chest to his abdomen, and he froze again. Her fingers were warm, her touch sure. And as she trailed a hot, needy line down his stomach, lighting up ever nerve ending in his body, all that “common sense” shit flew out of his head.
Need circumvented control. He grasped her hand at the wrist, pushed her back until her spine hit the rocks. Her eyes flew wide. Her breath hitched. But there was no fear in her features, only excitement. The same blinding excitement consuming him. A dim voice in his head yelled No! but he ignored it. He was dying to know what she tasted like. Needed to know if she was as good as she smelled.
He lowered his mouth to hers. Felt her draw in a surprised breath. But she didn’t push him away as he expected. Her lips were soft. Her heat, intoxicating. He kissed her, feeling that pressure in his chest ease for the first time in months. Kissed her again, this time more insistent. And then she opened her mouth to his, slipped her tongue along his, moaned against him—something he never in a million years would have expected.
Whatever restraint he’d had snapped just that fast.
Her tongue was slick and wet and tangling with his before he could find his footing on the rocks. Her nipples brushed his chest. Hard, stiff, begging for attention. Her fingers dug into his biceps, pulling him closer. He answered by shifting into her, pressing her against the rocks, pushing his already hard dick against her stomach.
A clatter echoed through the cave. He pulled away from her mouth and looked down to see the blackened skull rolling across the rocks, where he’d accidentally kicked it with his boot.
She went rigid against him, stared at the skull with wide eyes as her chest rose and fell with her quick breaths. Then muttered, “Oh gods.”
Her face paled. She lifted a hand to her mouth as if she were about to be sick.
And his stomach rolled. Shit, what was he doing?
He let go of her. Immediately stepped back. Swiped the sweat from his forehead and tried to calm his racing pulse. Skata, he’d been about to take her against the rocks, just as he’d imagined. Just as he’d promised he wouldn’t do. He turned away, gripped his hair, pulled hard with both hands until the burn was all he felt. Until it killed whatever asinine desire had been toying with him and he was no longer tempted to touch her.
“Wh-what was that?” she asked in a quiet voice.
Stupidity. Lack of self-control. The monster he’d become not caring whom he hurt, so long as he got what he wanted.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure. I didn’t plan to—”
“No,” she said quickly, her boots clicking on the rocks at his back. “The skeleton. Was it…? Is it human?”
Her question cut through the self-deprecating thoughts. Wondering what the hell he’d missed, he turned, studied her from a good five feet back. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring down at the remains, her dark hair falling across her shoulder to partially shield her face. But she didn’t look scared—at least not of him. If anything, she looked…wigged-out at what they’d found.
“Yeah, it’s human,” he said, still watching her for any indication he’d scared the living daylights out of her. Couldn’t see it.
She knelt, one hand on her knee, and studied the charred remains, careful, he noticed, not to touch them. “They look…burned. But down here? How is that possible?”
He didn’t have an answer that made sense. Only knew the poor guy had been more unlucky than them.
“He probably wound up here the same way we did.” Happy she wasn’t going to bring up the kiss that was still ringing in his toes, he leaned over and lifted the sword he’d dropped. “I found the remains earlier, when I was looking around. It’s where I got this.”
She glanced over her shoulder, eyed the sword in his hand. Her hair was a dark, wild tangle around her face, her lips still swollen and pink from his mouth, and her eyes were clear. Clear and mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic, teasing him to slip close all over again.
“There’s a satchel. Did you look inside?”
His gaze slid from her eyes to her straight, regal nose, then to her mouth. Plump, soft, so damn erotic. He imagined that mouth making a trek down his body, kissing his belly button, sliding lower to open and—
“Gryphon?”
He blinked. Realized his mind was getting away from him again. Skata, if he wasn’t hearing voices, he was living in a freakin’ fantasy world. He gave his head a swift shake. Slammed the heel of his hand against his forehead, hoping to knock something loose. He needed to get a grip, like now. “No, I heard you scream and went back for you.”
She eyed him as if he had a third eye. But that was okay. That he could deal with. That, at least, was normal for him. It was when she looked at him as if he were a real person that things went straight into the shitter.
Her gaze skipped past him to the darkness of the cavern they’d come through, and she shuddered. When she turned back to the remains and reached for the satchel hanging off one side of the skeleton, he saw her hand shake. “Do you think they’re gone?”
She was talking about the kobaloi. He looked behind him, didn’t see any sign they’d been followed. But that didn’t mean they were safe. “Yeah,” he lied, not entirely sure why he cared if she was scared or not. She was not his problem. “I think we proved they shouldn’t mess with us. They’re tricksy gnome-elves. They like to cause trouble, taunt people, but that’s it. I doubt they’re violent.”
She didn’t look so convinced, but as she turned to glance over the remains, he noticed the way she tucked her dark hair behind her ear, the way the light caught the delicate line of her jaw, the way—even dressed in all that black and those ridiculous boots—she was soft and feminine and tempting as hell.