She gazed unflinchingly at him. “I guess neither of us has reason to trust the other.”
“And yet here you are with the proverbial olive branch,” he murmured.
“Maybe I just think our energies are better spent as a team rather than at odds.”
“And I couldn’t agree more.” He bent and licked gently at the cut at the corner of her lip.
She jerked away, her eyes blazing with fury. She cast a sidelong glance at Gabe and frowned even harder. Eli laughed.
“He heard our entire conversation, sugar. Don’t go getting all shy on me now.”
It was probably the wrong thing to do, remind her that Gabe had been privy to her bloodletting. And he had a feeling that any time Tyana got in touch with her innermost thoughts it was the equivalent of shedding blood.
She turned and stalked out of the kitchen, and Eli turned on Gabe. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
Gabe gave him a bored look. “You seem to forget she was sent here to kill at least some of us. Quit thinking with your dick, Eli. Get rid of her and fast.”
Eli sighed. “To quote a saying that has become increasingly more common around here lately, if she had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want, Gabe? Want me to go slit her throat? How does that help us? She has information we need. We now have the name of the jerk-off who gassed us to begin with. He wants us out of the picture. I think we ought to be a little more concerned with taking this asshole out than pissing off the entire Falcon Mercenary Group by killing their little sister.”
Gabe shrugged. “I’m with you, man. You know that. I just don’t agree with her being here. And I’d hate to think your judgment was clouded because of your desire to get into her pants.”
“I believe you’ve made yourself abundantly clear.”
Gabe turned and went the opposite direction toward the stairs, and Eli went in search of Tyana.
He found her in his study, pacing.
It was interesting, the myriad of reactions she elicited in him. Yeah, he wanted to fuck her. But when he looked at her, all hard edges with just a hint of vulnerability that he got the barest glimpses of, he had the strange desire to shelter her. To protect her, though God knew she could take care of herself.
And it was that urge that had him crossing the room.
He slid his hand over her shoulder, cautiously, not wanting to spook her. When she didn’t react, he added his other hand, cupping her arms and pulling her back against his chest.
She trembled in his arms, and he slowly turned her around.
“So what do we do with this thing between us, Tyana? Do we ignore it? Make it all business, keep trying to kick each other’s asses and forge an uneasy alliance? Or do we stop fighting the inevitable, give in, spend the night in each other’s arms and figure out what the fuck we’re going to do tomorrow?”
Chapter Sixteen
Tyana didn’t try to pull out of Eli’s arms, though the feeling of being this close to someone was alien. It felt…right, and that should scare her to death.
She crooked her mouth up into a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “I’m too tired to fuck.”
He leaned in close, his mouth hovering precariously close to hers. Their noses did a subtle dance as they moved to allow their mouths access.
“I’m more than willing to do all the work,” he murmured. “All you have to do is lie back and enjoy the ride, sugar. Let me love you, touch you, kiss you, stroke that beautiful body of yours.”
She shivered uncontrollably. A low throb, warm and steady, settled into her stomach and spread through her groin until her pussy strained and ached. How could such simple words do such a number on her?
He touched his lips to hers. Soft. It was an offering, not a taking. There was a gentleness to his movements she wasn’t used to. Fear fluttered, distant, in her chest, but she pushed it aside. She wanted this. She wanted him.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
She heard his sudden intake of breath as his hands came up to frame her face. His thumbs brushed across her cheekbones, like a feather, light, sensual.
He kissed her. Harder this time. Their mouths melded together, melting like ice on fire.
His teeth caught at her bottom lip and pulled outward until he sucked it into his mouth. His tongue licked over the full flesh, tasting before he released it again.
Then he reached down and took her hand, twining their fingers together. He took a step back, still holding her hand. Like a lover. Like someone who cared about her.
Her confidence fled.
Fucking she could handle, but she felt in her bones that this was not the sort of sex she was accustomed to. When she indulged—bad choice of words. When she had sex, it was out of necessity, done mechanically like a job, a necessary task. This…this was different, and she wondered if this was what it was like to be made love to. To be cherished by a man whose interest went beyond a quick lay and an orgasm.
He pulled her toward him as he simply turned and walked toward a doorway at the back of his study. When they entered, she realized this was his bedroom. It was dark and masculine, like him. A bit of wild and exotic mixed in.
He stopped a few feet away from the bed and fingered the strap of her rifle.
“Undressing you should be fun. Brings me back to my boyhood days of playing with GI Joe action figures,” he quipped.
She smiled and allowed him to divest her of her weapons one by one. They landed with a clatter, one after another on the floor, and finally he reached for her jacket, slipping it over her shoulders and letting it also fall to the floor.
“I thought we’d start with a hot shower,” he said. “I kinda like you all dirty and bloody. It’s a serious turn on. But there’s my sheets to consider.”
A low chuckle escaped from her throat. It felt good to laugh, to escape for a moment into lightness.
She trembled as he undid her pants. Instead of pulling them off, he guided her back until the backs of her knees met the bed. He gently pushed her down, and when she was sitting, he knelt and began unlacing her boots.
“You know when I knew I was a goner?” he asked.
She cocked her head in question.
“When you walked into that Singapore nightclub like you fucking owned it, and I looked down and saw those combat boots.”
“You’re a sick puppy,” she muttered.
He took the boots off and let them fall with a clunk. Then he stood and pulled her up again. His hands circled her waist, and his fingers dug into the waistband of her pants, skirting down into her panties.
He tugged downward, letting his hands glide across her bare ass as her clothing worked lower. When the material pooled at her ankles, she stepped out, disentangling herself from the pant legs.
His hands skimmed back up her legs, over her hips and then tunneled under her shirt, pushing upward.
“Raise your arms, sugar,” he whispered, a sexy, husky catch to his voice.
Slowly, she moved her arms up and over her head. A twinge of pain nipped at her arm from the still-fresh cut, but she didn’t lower her arms. He pulled the shirt the rest of the way off, and she was left standing there naked.
It made her feel horribly vulnerable. Unprotected.
She was cognizant of every scrape, every bruise, every bit of dried blood. Of the dirt and sweat and of her lithe, boyish figure.
She didn’t have the curves other women had. Her hips barely made a mark outside her waistline, and her breasts were small, not plump and soft.
With shaking hands, she lowered her arms to cover herself, no longer able to bear what Eli was seeing.
He pried her hands away from her body then reached up to cup her face.
“You’re beautiful, Tyana.”