The sensual power flowing from Todd in waves wrapped around her.
The man sure had some kind of potent sexual energy.
And she was the one who was supposed to be dangerous.
He ripped his mouth from hers, breath rasping out. He freed her hands, only to raise his arms and slap his palms on the wall behind her head, effectively caging her.
She tasted him on her tongue—and wanted more. “A-aren’t you nervous?” She asked, wetting her lips and watching his gaze drop with a helpless surge of pleasure. “I mean, you’re all alone here with a demon. There’s really no telling what I could do to you.” He’d sure gone running fast enough this morning.
“And you’re all alone with a man who wants you so badly he can hardly think.” His mouth hovered over her lips. “Are you nervous?” The question was whispered right back to her.
Yes.
His scent surrounded her, just as she knew the tempting lure of her pheromones surrounded him.
“Is any of it real?” He asked, and there was a spark of unmistakable anger in his eyes. “The lust, the need…is it all a trick?”
“I told you before.” She hadn’t lied then, wouldn’t lie now. Screw her pride. “I want you. Have from the moment I opened my door to you.” Her head shook, a little sadly. “That’s no trick.”
“But what about how I feel?” His right hand dropped to capture her jaw. His thumb brushed over her lip. Pushed just past the edge of her teeth. “Are you making me want you?”
Her sex clenched with hunger just from his touch. He stood so close to her that she could feel the hard ridge of his aroused cock pressing against her.
His hand moved, drifting down her neck until his fingers rested lightly over the pounding pulse in her throat. She tried to answer him as honestly as she could, saying, “My pheromones, my scent, they’re designed to lure…”
“You mean the way you smell like sex and paradise? Yeah, baby, that’s a damn big lure.”
“I don’t release the full scent with you. I mean, I have, when we were making love, there was no way to stop it then, but now, and before, I’ve tried to control it.” Okay, she’d let it slip in the interrogation room—but he’d pushed her too far. And he’d certainly caught the scent plenty of other times—but not the full onslaught.
“Just the scent of you arouses men.” His voice was thick with tension.
“It can.”
“You said you weren’t using your magic on me.”
“Not to hypnotize you.” She hadn’t.
Damn, but she wanted the man to kiss her. That mouth of his was so close—
“What about the dreams, Cara? Those sweet, wild-as-hell dreams I had?” His fingers eased over her collarbone. Slid down the vee at the top of her shirt and paused in the valley between her breasts.
“I-I didn’t mean to—”
He brushed open the edges of her shirt. Slid his fingertips under the lace of her black bra. Her flesh was so sensitive that when he found her nipple, she gasped with the pleasure that arched through her.
Even as she realized that the seductress was being seduced.
“Didn’t mean to what?” he whispered, then his mouth finally took hers. Lips touched. Pressed. His tongue thrust deep. Tangled with hers.
Only to withdraw too soon.
He gazed down at her, and there was no mistaking his need. Or her own.
“What didn’t you mean to do?” His voice was gravel rough.
She could still taste him on her tongue. “Come to you, that way. I-I…in the past, I’ve had to focus my power. Project.” Hunt. “When I closed my eyes, I just went to you.” And it had been wonderful.
“It was all real then?” His fingers strummed her tight nipple.
“Yes, in a-a sense.” She licked her lips. “The pleasure was real, but it was just a dream.” She hadn’t actually been in his room. Hadn’t felt the warm, naked contours of his body.
Well, until last night, anyway.
His fingers stilled on her breast. “How many other men have dreamed of you?” He growled the question at her.
Anger was in his tone. But so was…hurt? Cara lifted her hands. Curled her fingers over the hard muscles in his arms. “They don’t matter. The only one that matters now is you.” She meant that.
Dreams, fantasies, they were like wisps of smoke. Being with Todd, it was real, he was real, and the way he made her feel—
Like a real woman.
Not just a demon.
It was her turn to stroke his jaw. The faint sting of stubble rasped along her palm. “I want to be with you. Not the cop and the demon.” She was tired of the allegations. Suspicions. “Just the man and the woman.” Maybe it wasn’t possible, but, damn it, something was between them.
And she wanted to find out just what it was.
Could be hard, hot lust. A lust that would burn out with the pounding mating of their bodies.
But maybe it would be more than lust. That elusive something more she’d searched for so long.
Cara rose just a bit on her tiptoes. Wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and urged his face closer to her. Their lips met, mouths open. Need burning. She kissed him with all the raging passion in her, and he met her, kissing back, full force.
When the elevator lurched, she didn’t pay it any attention. She ignored the soft ding of a bell and enjoyed the slow thrust of his tongue and the skilled play of his fingers on her nipple.
There was a soft swish, and Todd hurriedly stepped back from her, pulling his hand and mouth away with a muffled curse.
Cara realized then that they’d made it to the basement. The elevator had started moving on its own. Damn it.
Todd glanced out of the elevator. His back was ramrod straight. “No one’s here.”
She didn’t particularly care.
But when he stepped from the elevator, her eyes narrowed and she followed him. “Todd—”
His eyes burned down at her. “I’m always a cop.”
The intensity in his voice made her stomach knot.
“The cop and the man, they aren’t separate for me. I do my job, twenty-four-seven. I live this job—and I want to trust you, but—”
But. She felt the word hit her like a slap. “I thought we were past this. You said you didn’t think I was a killer.”
“I want to trust you.” The words seemed to be ripped from him. “But you didn’t tell me the truth about yourself until just hours ago—and even then, you didn’t tell me everything. I had to get the details from Gyth.”
Because she’d been afraid he’d turn away from her. “You don’t understand.” She had to swallow to ease the dryness in her throat. “You don’t know what it’s like—”
“You’re damned right I don’t—and you haven’t told me.” A door opened near the end of the hallway, and from the corner of her eye, Cara saw Gyth exit what she figured was a stairwell. The words snapped out fast as Todd demanded, “Tell me this, baby, are the demon and the woman really separate for you?”
No.
Her expression must have answered for her because he nodded. “I didn’t think so.” Todd wasn’t touching her now. Not at all. “We are who we are, Cara. No changing it.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to change.” She’d never longed to be human.
Not really.
“Take me as I am, and that’s the way I’ll take you.”
The grated words had her blinking in surprise. Was he saying—
He kissed her, hard. “And stay the hell out of anyone else’s dreams, baby.”
Before she could respond, Gyth was there. Glaring at her and Todd, with his nostrils flaring. A moment later, another door opened, one that brought her the scent of death and decay, mixed with bleach and the harsh stench of chemicals.