Demon Bait: Children of the Undying, Book 1 (12 page)

“Yeah, I guess I do.” She gestured to a chair. “May I?” He nodded blindly, still uncertain what she intended.

She sat and folded her hands in her lap. “I met Jai
and
Bran. I met a lot of your friends.”

“I didn’t know that.” Which made sense in Jai’s case—Jai was always tight-lipped to the point of taciturn. But Bran was easygoing, for a warrior, and had stopped by the previous night without giving so much as a hint that he’d met Marci. “I didn’t ask them to bother you. If they were.”

“I know that.” She smiled. “You have so many of them. Friends, I mean. I never really did. My mother didn’t encourage those sorts of ties. She was trying to protect me, I know that now, but it was hard.” Gabe’s heart ached at the thought of her, young and alone, cut off from something as simple as friendship. “You’ll have a lot of friends here. You don’t need to hide.” Marci rose, as if she couldn’t bear to sit still. “You surprised everyone. Nobody came out and said it, but I could tell they were curious about me because of it.” That he could believe. “I’m considered pretty even-tempered for a halfblood. That’s why Zel trusts me to infiltrate human settlements. I don’t give myself away.” He winced. “Usually.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “So why me?”

This time, the words had to be the right ones. Not the prettiest, not the most seductive. Heartfelt and true. “You didn’t leave me in the hallway,” he said finally. “One look at you, and I knew you spent every second making sure you didn’t stand out. But while everyone else was running, you stopped. For me.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and stepped closer. “The whole thing gets so twisted up. I knew you were a good man, but how could I believe my own mind when you were so careful to lead me where you wanted me to go?”

Gabe closed his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry. I was scared. Being scared made me stupid.”

“I don’t want you to apologize. You already did that. It’s just—” She touched his arm, his face. “If you weren’t a good man, really
good
, then all those people wouldn’t love you. I wouldn’t love you.” His heart skipped a beat. Two. Maybe it had stopped altogether, and that was why his chest felt tight and achy as he blinked at her. “You were always different. Halfbloods like me, we fall in and out of love all the time. But I’ve never—” He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. “It’s not healing without you.” Marci hitched a breath that sounded like a sob. “You’re going to have to trust me, Gabe. No games, and no nudging. Can you?”

Just the truth, all of it. “I can try with everything in me.”

“Me too.” Her hand trembled under his. “Mostly? It’s been one damn miserable week without you.”

“Fuck.” His self-control broke, and he folded her against him, one hand curling in the loose strands of her hair. “Fuck, I missed you. I haven’t known you long enough to miss you this hard.”

“Maybe not.” The words were muffled against his shirt. “Does it matter, though?”

“Never did to me. I knew. Magic or instinct or demon blood, whatever it was…” He eased her head back. Met her eyes. “I knew. I belong with you.”

Smiling, Marci blinked away tears. “Will you show me?”

“Kiss me?”

Her smile softened, and she slid her arms around his neck. “Always.” She was tiny, but she was willing. Gabe slid his hands under her ass and boosted her up, catching her mouth with a groan. So soft, so
perfect
, like a favorite memory, like something he’d missed.

She locked her legs around his hips and kissed him hungrily, already tugging at his shirt.

A smart man might have taken his time. Seduced her with words and touches, bound her with desire.

Instead he gave her the truth,
his
truth, desperation so frantic he tore the hem of her shirt trying to guide it up. Two stumbling steps crashed them sideways into the wall, and he turned, pressed her back against it and bit her lip with a possessive, hungry snarl.

Marci panted against his mouth and bit him back with more force, then broke away to strip off her shirt.

He had to set her down, but only long enough to strip away her shoes and pants. Their clothes ended up tangled together and flung wildly about, his shirt over the chair, hers covering his small desk.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered until he had her naked and then against the wall, her legs around his hips and his shaft grinding against the wet heat of her. He found her ear with his lips. “You have to tell me to slow down. You have to draw the lines. Is this sex, or is it everything?” She buried her hands in his hair and laughed, low and husky and
happy
. “It’s a beginning.” The words thrilled and humbled him. He licked her earlobe and rocked against her again. “Someday, when we’re not in a compromising position, I’m going to ask you to accept my mark. The right way, this time.”

Marci pulled his head back and stared at him, affection and desire sparkling in her eyes. “Someday, I’m going to say yes.”

A promise, judging by the tone of her voice, and it was enough. He eased her higher, braced her body and sank home, pressing into her in a long, slow thrust that made him whole.

She breathed his name and bent her head to whisper against his shoulder. “I need you, Gabe. So much—”

“All of me.” As frantic as he’d been, now he savored a slow thrust, and the feeling of her body trembling against him. “I’ll do anything for you, Marci.” Another thrust, and the clenching heat around his cock drove him halfway to crazy. “Anything.”

“Hold me.” A plea, simple and raw. “Love me.”

“Forever,” he promised, and gave himself over to the pleasure of making love to her. He focused on the way she bit her lip against a helpless moan, and the way she clutched him closer with every thrust until her head fell back and she started to beg.

The begging gave way to his name—a desperate, rhythmic chant that still somehow sounded like a plea, until that too broke with a cry. She tensed,
came
, her body convulsing around his.

He could send her over the edge a thousand times and it wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t even be a start. But now he’d have that chance, to touch her and love her, and the knowledge undid him like nothing else. He buried himself in her body one final time and whispered her name as climax tore through him.

This was where he belonged. A dangerous weapon sheathed, his halfblood temper and unreasoning hunger bound by her touch. Her love.

He’d never miss the peace of the ocean again.

Marci reclined on the beach, shading her eyes against the midday sun. “I can see why you like this place. Warm breezes, cool water…” She grinned as she rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand. “Clothing’s optional.”

His gaze drifted down her body, taking in the tiny bikini she’d designed just to tease him. “I don’t know. I like what you’re wearing.”

It had taken her six hours to code, even working from a base model, and it was worth every second.

“This old thing? It’s just something I had lying around.”

“Liar.” Gabe reached out and trailed his fingers over her hip. “You wouldn’t have blended in very well in this.”

He was beautiful, especially when he looked at her like that. “According to some people, I didn’t blend in very well, anyway.”

“It’s in the eyes.” His hand reached her shoulder. “Yours are alive.” He was biased, but it would do no good to point that out, even though Marci’s relationship with Gabe was the one thing about her defection from Gold Mills that hadn’t shocked her old friend Asha in the slightest.

She’d contacted Asha with a message and then a meeting. Apparently, mill administration had covered up her escape, and the official word was that Marci had been transferred after accepting a more lucrative position. Her Global identification status was now classified, and God only knew what would happen to her if she tried to return to Nicollet.

She didn’t care either way, really—if they wanted to maintain their illusions of security and resident satisfaction, they were welcome to. She had something better.

Gabe smiled at her and brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “Ready for a swim?” The heat in his gaze made it clear he’d be equally happy to do other things with her, instead. “Didn’t you bring me here for a reason?”

“Being here is the reason.” His expression melted into something a little more serious. “This is my place. I traded credits for it so it would be private. No one else has ever been here. Not even Jai and Bran.” Just her. She eased closer and nestled against his shoulder. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

“You’re the reason I don’t need it anymore.” Her hair stirred as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “This is where I came to get perspective. To float in the ocean and listen to the waves and feel like my rough edges weren’t so rough. Now I just…go to you.” What he spoke of was something she’d never known—belonging, holding someone’s heart and giving him yours in return. “And I’m glad you don’t let me disappear, even when I try to.” Gabe’s arms tightened around her. “No hiding necessary, ever again.” A lovely sentiment because it was true. “I think Zel’s ready to rename a sector in my honor. Trip told him how much server space I could save by optimizing people’s avatars.”

“Everyone will love you, then. More server space means more resources for recreation. Personalized applications. Simulators.” He eased back to smile at her. “You’ve made life better for everyone.”

“A ragingly biased overstatement.”

“And why would I be biased?”

“A simple matter of deduction, given the fact that your hand is on my ass.”

“It is?” He pulled a shocked face and rolled her beneath him, pressing her down into the sand. “I guess I shouldn’t blame the bikini, if I ever want you to wear it again.”

“I’ll have to think about—” He cut her off with a blistering kiss, one that curled her toes and heated her body in a way the manufactured sunlight could never hope to equal.

It went on and on, until he finally eased back just enough to whisper a hoarse invitation.

“Swimming?”

“Swimming,” she echoed blankly, then blinked and laughed as a little of her sense returned. “Yes. Take me swimming.”

He rose to his feet and pulled her up with him, backing toward crashing waves. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

In his arms, in his bed. In his heart. Marci tightened her hands around his and brought them to her lips for a kiss. “You already have.”

How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, visit their webpage at
www.moirarogers.com
, or drop them an email at
[email protected]
. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)

Now Available:

Red Rock Pass

Cry Sanctuary

Sanctuary Lost

Sanctuary’s Price

Sanctuary Unbound

Southern Arcana

Crux

Crossroads

Deadlock

Cipher

Building Sanctuary

A Safe Harbor

Undertow

…and the Beast

Sabine

Kisri

Wilder’s Mate

Coming Soon:

Hammer Down

Hunter’s Prey

Their desire could be their destruction...or their greatest strength.

Cipher

© 2011 Moira Rogers

Southern Arcana
,
Book 4

Fourteen months ago, Kat Gabriel learned a brutal truth. Under the wrong circumstances, her empathic ability is no gift. It’s a deadly weapon. Now her soul bears the inescapable weight of those deaths—and it aches for the loss of the easy relationship she once shared with Andrew Callaghan.

Unleashing her power saved his life, but she couldn’t save his humanity.

Since the attack that turned him into a werewolf, Andrew’s sole focus has been to make himself stronger. Pushing her away hurt like hell, but Kat doesn’t need a friend. She needs a protector strong enough to shield her from the supernatural world that forced her to kill. Strong enough to resist their volatile connection.

As Kat’s quest to understand the violent legacy of her past leads her into the darkest underbelly of the psychic world, Andrew is at her side. Yet every step forward rips open old emotional wounds and shakes their control. Where they’re headed, distractions of any kind can be fatal—especially when the greatest threat they pose is to each other.

Warning: This book contains a dangerous shapeshifter who could kill you with his bare hands, an
empathic hacker who could kill you with her mind, a psychic cult determined to kill everyone, a lot of
violence, a little bit of hope, and a happily-ever-after seven years in the making.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Cipher:

She did what he’d done. Reached up and framed his face with her hands, and shivered at the texture of his beard against her palms. “I will never be afraid of you, Andrew Callaghan.” His chest heaved with shaking breaths, and he groaned as he grabbed her wrists. “It’s dangerous, Kat.
I’m
dangerous.”

“So am I.” She swiped her thumbs over his cheeks and willed him to believe the same words he’d told her the day before. “Andrew, I’m still mostly burned out, and you’ve got strong shields for someone who’s not a psychic. But I couldn’t just hurt you—I could destroy you. I could drive you to your knees and make you crawl for me. I could take away everything you are.” He closed his eyes, but he didn’t release her. “Then that makes this a doubly bad idea.” Andrew was going to walk away from her again, and the tense parts of her that had started to unwind over the last few days would shatter. The only way to save anything was to let him go before he came up with a polite, stilted reason. “I understand.”

“No. No, you really don’t.”