She was tiny, delicate, not as strong as Venge’s mother, and she tempted him more than any female he had ever encountered. Could she even survive the full force of his passion? Lost in his lust, could he control the beast that lived within him?
Kara’s free leg inched up his thigh, over his hip until she clung to him, her body pressing tightly against his chest, stomach and groin. She moaned again, then lowered her mouth to nibble the rough line of his jaw.
A tremor rocked through Risk. He closed his eyes, fighting the building lust. She seized his earlobe between her teeth and suckled the trapped flesh.
He turned his head, capturing her eager lips with his own. As he did, her eyes rounded, then flashed an intense, almost fluorescent violet. She was losing control, too.
Risk groaned, his tongue delving into her mouth, even as his brain told him he had to stop. He knew the cost of losing control. She didn’t. Didn’t know the power she held.
She didn’t know. He repeated the thought in his head. He believed that. She might have drawn the circle, but it wasn’t with intent. Somehow she’d stumbled across the magic and got caught by it herself. She was innocent — unlike him.
Unable to resist, he stroked the inside of her mouth with his tongue. She responded by running her fingers down his sides, her fingernails blazing a trail to the tops of his low-riding jeans.
He was hard under the denim, ready. Beyond ready. Almost spilling just at the thought of melding with his little witch.
His little witch. What kind of spell had she cast on him?
With a muttered curse, he grasped her arms and pulled his mouth free. Her chest heaving with short, hard breaths, her eyes radiating violet, Kara looked up at him, confusion and hurt coloring her face.
Kara stared at Risk, her mind clouded with passion. Excitement she’d never known before. Rubbing against Risk, daring herself to lose control and have sex with him here on the cold concrete floor, had filled her with a sense of power she hadn’t known she possessed.
Why had he stopped?
He pulled her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head. His chest moved up and down with his breath, and his heart pounded loudly in her ear. Then, abruptly, he pushed her aside and strode to the other side of the room. He stood for a moment, his back to her, his palm pressed against the wall.
“What is all this?” His voice rough, almost harsh, he gestured to the plastic tub that had held Kelly’s things. Now it lay on one side, its contents scattered across the floor.
Kara blinked. Her heart was still racing, and her lips still swollen from his kisses. What had just happened?
“Uh, those are Kelly’s…” The words came out weak, unsure, and she hated it, wanted to feel strong, as she had when lost in Risk’s arms. She took a slight step toward him.
His face angled away from her, he knelt, picking up the statue Kara had noticed earlier and holding it in his hands.
“Freya,” he said, his thumbs rubbing the stone in smooth hard circles.
“What?” Kara stared at the statue, her brows lowering.
“Nothing.” He shoved the statue into the box. “Did you learn anything here?”
That was it? She’d appeared mysteriously in his home, then he’d disappeared in front of her eyes, and finally, they’d almost devoured each other in a passion she hadn’t known she possessed, and he could only ask what she had learned?
“Why don’t you tell me something?” she replied.
At the edge in her voice, he looked up, surprise in his eyes. To be honest, Kara was surprised, too. Best not to analyze her sudden courage.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He straightened, the silver chain he wore at his neck shifting to fall over his collarbone, right where the wound he’d had yesterday should have been. But it wasn’t. The skin was as tan and unmarred as the rest of his bare chest.
“What happened to your wound?” The words spilled out.
Risk paused, a dagger in his hand. One brow curved, he replied, “Risk Leidolf and wounds heal.” He turned the knife, watching the light glint off its length. “Some wounds.”
“But…” It had been less than twenty-four hours ago when his injury had looked red and ragged. No one healed that quickly.
A wave of exhaustion swept over Kara. She pressed two fingers against the bridge of her nose. There was too much happening that she didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure how to deal with it — analyze it and maybe lose whatever was left of her mind in the process, or just go with whatever happened and hope in the end everything turned out all right?
“Risk Leidolf?” she asked. “That’s what? Swedish?”
“Norwegian,” he replied, not looking up as he dropped the knife into the box with the statue.
“Oh.” She licked her lips, then paused, not sure what to say or do next. “And, the other night, you…saved me?”
He glanced up for a second, then back down, reaching for a handful of spilled stones. “I guess you could say that.”
“The dog.” Kara rubbed her damp palms on the legs of her jeans. “Did you see it, them? Were they real?”
“I saw him.”
Kara sighed. At least part of this nightmare/dream, she hadn’t decided which yet, was real. “And you took me back to your cabin…because…?”
He looked back up, his eyes unwavering. “I did.”
Well, that answered that — kind of. Kara shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “And last night…?”
“Last night?” He arched a brow.
“You, uh, disappeared…”
He picked up a wooden bowl, flipped it over, then tossed it into the bin. “Yes, sorry. Not my choice.”
A flare of anger lit inside Kara. “Not your choice? You disappeared.”
He ran his hand along the floor, scooping up a handful of polished stones, then let them fall from his fingers one by one into the rubber bin.
Kara frowned. What to say now? He acted as if he’d just popped out the door when she hadn’t been looking. Rude, but not occasion to call the paranormal press. The pounding she’d felt earlier returned. Damn. She couldn’t deal with this. Maybe the pretending-all-was-normal route was the wiser, at least until she was alone and able to think.
Glancing around, her gaze lit on a small black object almost hidden under a toppled stack of old school books. She sighed, happy to have a reason to change the course of conversation.
“I did find this.” She walked across the room, her gait a bit unsteady, to the small black notebook she’d found in Kelly’s box earlier.
She flipped open the cover and scanned the first page for the fiftieth time. “It looks like a list of names.”
“Really?” Risk shifted on the balls of his feet until he faced her. “What kind of names?”
Kara walked toward him, the notebook held out in front of her. “I don’t know. Names.” Her gaze flicked from his bare feet to his equally bare chest. Where were his clothes?
He glanced from the page to her face, his gaze intense, simmering. Kara licked her lips again. A vein at the base of Risk’s neck began to pulse, and Kara suddenly didn’t care about his strange answers or lack of shirt and shoes, she just longed to press her lips against the thrumming vein, to taste the saltiness of his skin.
“Do you want to see?” she asked.
He held out his hand. Kara started to slip her own into his grip, before remembering the notebook. “Oh.” A small nervous sound in the quiet room. “Here.”
The vein at his neck throbbing harder, he shifted his gaze to the paper. “Humans?”
