scanned the crowd as they walked the cracked sidewalk paralleling the main street. Seeing his scowl, and the pistol he now carried openly, Elementals gave them a wide berth.
He booked them into a single room in a small hotel in a private cul-de-sac. Frying peppers and onions from the little restaurant downstairs scented the air as they climbed the narrow staircase. Inside the room, he set down their packs. Kelly gazed at the sapphire-and-emerald-embroidered quilt on the wide bed.
“Planning to sleep on the floor again, Sam?”
“We’ll see,” he said softly.
Downstairs, he found the corner table by the wall gave a wide view of the restaurant as he sat facing the front. Other Elementals nodded respectfully to Sam but gave Kelly cool looks of disdain. Lust flared in the gazes of a few males. Kelly hunched her shoulders, hating the tight blouse.
Sackcloth would suffice.
“Those guys keep staring as if I’m your toy and they’re next at the sandbox,” she murmured, reaching for a corn chip from the bowl their waitress placed on the table.
His gaze a warning blade, Sam scowled until the interested Mages looked away. He leaned back and took a long pull of beer. “I don’t share.”
“And I’m not a plaything.”
“But you are fun in the sandbox. I always enjoyed the times we played together.” A corner of his mouth pulled upward as he winked.
Blushing, she glanced away. He was accustomed to women tumbling into his bed. Flirting came naturally to Sam, but not to her. Work came first, an effective barrier between her and a potentially hurtful world.
“You look so pretty when you blush. Your cheeks don’t turn pink like other redheads. More like fire, a passionate, living flame,” he murmured.
It hurt so much to hear his seductive whispers, just like those that came from the man she’d known, that Kelly put up a hand. “Stop. This is too much like old times. I can’t do this.”
Sam drew his brows together. “Do what?”
Pain wrenched her insides. Did he truly forget what they’d shared, the passion and the heated desire? Kelly swallowed hard. “Pretend I’m normal, and you’re acting as if you want me.”
“You
Like an addict craving a drug, she hungered for more. Sam still held her hand, his caressing gaze turning her nipples hard as pearls. He stared at her mouth with such intensity, she had to squeeze her thighs together to stop squirming.
She knew if she surrendered, she’d end up sprawled naked in bed, those same clenched thighs spilling open as he settled between them...
A wiry metrosexual Elemental in a lavender polo shirt stared at her. He elbowed his male friend and laughed. She couldn’t hear the words but discerned their meaning. Flicking his tongue in a crude manner, the Mage formed an O with one hand, licked his other finger and then plunged it rapidly in and out.
Heat crawled up her cheeks. Shame and humiliation replaced sexual arousal. As she prepared to deliver the bastard a stinging insult, Sam glanced over. Seeing the obscene gesture, he narrowed his eyes.
It happened so quickly, she didn’t see Sam move. And then he was shoving Polo Shirt against the wall hard enough to make the picture frames rattle.
He gave the young Mage’s throat a powerful squeeze. “Got a problem?”
At the gasping head shake, Sam gave a dangerous smile. “Good. Because next time you insult my lady like that, I’ll crush your windpipe, cut out your wagging tongue and shove it up your...”
“Sam!” Kelly hissed.
He glanced over, his gaze softening. “Okay.”
As he released the Mage, the man rubbed his throat and wheezed. “Chill out, man. She’s just an Arcane. Don’t know why they let scum in here.”
Sam gave a thoughtful look. “Right. Scum shouldn’t be allowed in here.”
Wincing, Kelly watched Sam drag Polo Shirt through the restaurant and toss him onto the street. “Adios! I’d leave town now. If I see you again, I’ll rearrange your face.”
Then he swept his hard gaze over the onlookers, suddenly absorbed in their meals except for a few women, who sighed in apparent admiration, and Polo Shirt’s companion, who dropped money on the table and ran after his friend.
When he resumed his seat, Kelly shook her head. “Was that necessary?”
Sam gave a mild look. “What? Taking out the trash?”
“You didn’t have to make a scene.”
Rolling his muscular shoulders, Sam shrugged. “If I didn’t, others would take his place. They won’t bother you anymore, Kel. I always protect my own.”
Barely leashing her temper, she scowled as Sam bit into a crunchy taco. “You’re acting and sounding like a bad B-movie hero.”
He swallowed a mouthful of taco, his expression mild. “Funny. I always thought I was more the A-list type.”
“I fight my own battles. I don’t need your protection. I’m not a spineless coward they can push around.”
Speculation in those hazel eyes now flared with intent. “You never were a spineless coward. But you were naive and sweetly innocent in the ways of men.”
He’d taken that innocence and turned it into experience in taking her to the heights of pleasure. Tension steeled her spine as she leaned forward, feeling the electricity spark between them.
“Sexually inexperienced before, but not now. I can handle guys like that.”
“When you’re with me, you won’t have to. When I saw how that bastard was humiliating you, I had to teach him a lesson.”
“Dial down the testosterone, Sam. I never enjoyed domineering males.”
“Once the bedroom door was closed, you did.”
His satisfied smile made her flush. Deep inside, her feminine side felt aroused at the memory of Sam, insatiable, sexually aggressive, uncontrollable. Dominating her thoroughly in the bedroom. Sam responding to the sheer desire in her eyes, fisting a hand in her hair as he bent her over the bed’s edge and took her from behind like a wolf.
Sam, his ragged breath echoing in her ear as he pushed her from one shattering climax to another, refusing to stop, making love to her until they both lay exhausted.
Sam, the sexually dominant male turning tender and endearing as he pulled her into his strong arms afterward, stroking her cheek as they shared their hopes and dreams.
That was in the past. A fantasy.
Fantasies aside, she resented him playing the shining knight. She could take care of herself. “I’m not the girl you once knew, who’d fall into your arms if you snapped your fingers.”
“No, you’re not,” he murmured. “But can you handle what I want to give you now?”
She locked gazes like a bull touching horns. “I can take whatever you want to give. Are you willing?”
A dangerous smile touched his wide, full mouth. The kind of smile that lured women into opening their thighs. “Maybe you couldn’t in the past, when you were innocent.” Sam’s voice deepened. “But now...you’re more exciting, spirited, stronger. The kind of sensually mature woman who makes a man wonder what she’d feel like splayed naked beneath him.”
Kelly choked past a sip of beer. “Try it. Not going to work.”
“I enjoy a challenge.”
The husky intent in his voice stroked over her shivering skin. Once he’d whispered words of passion, his big hands caressing and coaxing her until her shyness and control fractured. Daring her to reach beyond her inhibitions, coaxing her into the heights of unbridled sexuality.
Sam leaned forward, flames dancing in his darkened eyes. “Do you? Because I won’t lie, Kel. I want you so badly right now, it’s hard to breathe. You think that asshole turned me aggressive? No. It’s being around you and
