knew.”
The door opened and another man came in. Zayd. She remembered his name immediately.
“Our guest wants to kill me,” Vadim said in a matter-of-fact tone.
The other man chuckled, apparently unconcerned at the prospect. “There’s gratitude for you,” he said, leaning back with arms folded across an impressive chest, obviously content to watch the show.
His assumption that she wouldn’t succeed angered Talia, and also made her incautious. She went for an axe kick, forgetting Vadim’s astonishing reflexes. He caught her leg before it got anywhere near his body and they both crashed to the ground, him on top of her. The breath left her lungs as his weight crushed her. So, too, did the desire to fight. Why was she doing this? Talia shook her head but it didn’t help to explain her motivation. Her attention was caught by his eyes. They smoldered as they bore into hers, but when his lips slowly turned up at the corners she was curious about how it would feel to be kissed by those lips. Get real, she told herself. She’d just tried to kill the guy. The last thing he’d want to do would be to kiss her.
Even so, the thought persisted.
The hardness of his body pressing her to the floor, the strength in the one wrist that held both of hers above her head, sent a thrill ricocheting through her entire body. She ought to be afraid after what she’d tried to do to him. Instead she felt safe. The voices inside her head had gone and the desire to kiss him intensified. Her gaze lingered on his lips and she moistened her own with the tip of her tongue.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked in the deep, gravelly voice that so compelled her.
She was about to say she didn’t know when she had another flashback that made her gasp.
“What is it?” he asked.
She glanced up at Vadim, then Zayd. “Oh shit, you’re shifters,” she said in a hollow voice. “That’s why I was sent here.”
Chapter Four
Vadim and Zayd shared a loaded glance.
“She knows what we are,” Vadim pheromoned.
“ Looks that way.”
“Shit!”
“Yeah, I know. In spite of the fact that she just tried to crush your balls, you thought she was ‘the’ one.”
Vadim ground his jaw. “Guess I was wrong about that.”
“Do you think she remembers who she is yet?”
“Not sure. That mention of shifters seemed spontaneous, but that doesn’t help much.”
“Just because she knows shifters exist, that doesn’t make her one.”
“Now who’s clutching at straws?”
Talia’s breath came in shorter and shorter gasps as Vadim kept her pinned to the floor. As their gazes locked, something inside Vadim lurched. Liquid fire illuminated eyes as clear, blue, and sparkling as the sunlit water of the Gulf just beyond the window, but even more enticing. A silent “oh” slipped past her lips as he continued to straddle her, like she’d just discovered something about herself that she hadn’t previously known.
Damn it, why did she have to be involved with shifters? In spite of his suspicions about her, something made Vadim want to go that extra mile for her. The future of the colony he’d spent his entire adult life protecting was in jeopardy thanks to her, but it no longer seemed important. She had somehow slipped past the rigid guard he kept over his emotions and homed straight in on his heart. Vadim didn’t try to figure out how that had happened. He didn’t even stop to consider that she might be using powers of her own to get close enough to finish what she’d started. Vadim’s professionalism took a hike and he simply went with his instincts.
“You’ve had your fun, babe,” he said softly. “Now it’s my turn.”
He lowered his head and, still pinning her arms above her head, kissed her like he meant business. Her response was instantaneous, and the second her lips parted beneath his, he delved with his tongue, filling her mouth in a way he’d never be able to fill the rest of her. Passion hit him