Sweet Temptation Read online

  Damn it. Focus. We’re not finished working on her aura.

  Hiding emotions is much more difficult in real terms. I need to see how she handles disguising her feelings under duress. I need to rattle her. Naturally, lust is the first thing that comes to mind, so I let my instincts take over.

  “You know, for the record, Anna, I won’t think any less of you if you change your mind about doing the things my father expects.”

  Please change your mind, I silently beg. Let me train you and have your body just once. Then maybe this ridiculous craving for her will go away.

  I touch her ankle and let my fingers and palm slide up the back of her smooth calf. She is frozen under my touch, trying not to let it affect her. I can see the concentration on her face when her small throat flexes with a swallow. I watch her chest heave in shallow gasps as my fingers meet the bend at the back of her knee, running across the soft crevice. Words pour out of me, an insatiable need growing like a live thing inside me.

  “It’s just you and me right now, Anna. I felt you come alive when we kissed, and I know you’re afraid of that. Afraid to unleash that other side of yourself.” I don’t realize how true the words are until they’re out of me. Her eyes are wide. “But you needn’t worry. I can handle her.”

  I can and I want to. I’m not interested in taming her. Together we could be a wildfire, out of control, feeding off each other’s breaths. Wanting, needing, taking, consuming. God, it could be so good.

  My hand moves farther up, cupping the muscle of her thigh. I want to keep going, but her hand firmly locks around my wrist to stop me.

  I search the aura around her, desperate to see a shock of red. I lean in, ready to devour her mouth the moment her lust shows, but it never does, and the disappointment I feel is palpable. It’s a kick to the sack, physically, but mentally I’m torn between being proud of her acquired skills and yet dying to see her colors again. I need to know what she’s feeling.

  “No,” she says. I marvel at how her voice can be soft and firm at the same time. Our eyes lock, and there’s so much stirring in her depths. Her long, blond ponytail hangs lazily over one shoulder, untamed wisps of hair escaping. That hair, the way she always ties it back, it’s like a symbol of her wild beauty kept under wraps. I want to let it loose. I want Anna to come undone in my hands.

  It’s only lust, I tell myself. But seducing Anna is proving to be a different sensation—something foreign and distinctly dangerous.

  It’s because she’s Neph, I reason.

  It’s because she’s your most difficult conquest yet.

  It’s because her angel voodoo is fucking with your head.

  Yes. All of it.

  I break away from her and bend a knee to block my body’s reaction to the lust test. She watches my face closely, always searching.

  “Sorry, I had to play dirty,” I tell her, and she sort of nibbles her lip. “Some people work better under pressure. Now, if you don’t mind, I should probably walk it off.”

  Yeah, I need to get away from her. I jump down from the rocks and pace, breathing in the night air. When my body is finally under control, I find Anna waiting patiently atop the rock. My stomach stirs with a strange feeling at the sight of her, and I want to stab myself for being so weak.

  I reach up to help her down, saying, “Come on.” She takes my hand without hesitation, and we walk silently to the hotel.

  I’m relieved she’s learned to hide her emotions. We’re one step closer to having her trained. Now all I have to do is bang the innocence out of her, deliver her to her demon father, and find out what that nun lady wants with her. Then I can deliver her back to the world in good conscience, and never have to see her again.

  I’m halfway through my shower when it becomes glaringly obvious that I cannot go an entire day without being sated by another willing person. There is no way around it. I was careful tonight not to lose myself to the beast, but it’s always there, under the surface, starving for another fix no matter how well I tamp it down. I’ve always simply accepted it, and for the first time ever, I’m resenting this urge.

  What I really want to do is go into that room and claim my place directly between Anna’s lovely legs. But I know she’s not having any of it. Yet. And I don’t have time for a long seduction. I cannot focus. The painful ache is returning to my abdomen, a dense tugging, and I need sex now.

  I come out of the restroom in cargo shorts, and Anna’s eyes flicker over my bare chest. I look for her aura before remembering she can hide it now. But her eyes say enough. She likes what she sees. If only she’d act on it.

  I pull a shirt from my bag and finish dressing. It’s time to go. I clear my throat, suddenly nervous, which is shite. I cannot possibly care what she thinks. I’m being an idiot.

  “Right, then,” I say. “I’ll just, um, be out for a bit.”

  Her entire being slumps with disappointment, and I feel as if she’s kicked my chest.

  “Don’t go,” she says. Another kick. Where is this coming from?

  This is who I am, and I refuse to let her make me feel guilty. Anger rises instead, and I grasp it, feeling more at home in its prickly embrace. Where I really want to be is here, tangled with her, but I know that’s not going to happen, which pisses me off.

  “I have to work, Anna. Either out there or in here.”

  Tell me to stay, little Ann. Crook your finger and beckon me over.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to take a night off,” she says, jutting out her tiny chin.

  It’s kick number three, and anger is giving over to a strong flood of fury.

  “Is that so?” I tell myself to relax, but her self-control and judgment and lack of understanding make me want to shake her. Words drip from my mouth like venom. “Says the little doll who’s never had to work a day in her life?” She is not being what she’s supposed to be. I am. She doesn’t know that once you give in to the beast there’s no going back. You must feed it.

  But she keeps pushing me—keeps talking about shite she can’t comprehend—keeps trying to make me feel bad for what I am.

  “It’s not like demons are monitoring your behavior,” Anna says.

  She cannot see the demons, the whisperers. She does not know how they network, how quickly I can be spotted “not working,” how they’d rush to turn me in. She doesn’t know what it means to live in fear of them showing up at any given minute. But I’m too enraged to communicate any of this.

  “Don’t push me, Anna,” I warn, grasping for control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Nobody has ever made me feel this way. I can see she’s worked up, too, her face pink and her eyes intense. I have to leave. As I turn to go, she shouts, “You can make it one night without sex!”

  Rage blinds me like a white flash, and my body reacts. Her next words are drowned out as a need to destroy something bears down on me, and I swing at the nearest lamp, sending it flying. It smashes against the wall with a satisfying crash, leaving my ears ringing. I point hard at Anna, who needs to get a bloody clue and stop pushing my buttons.

  “You. Don’t. Understand!” I am panting with an overflow of emotion. She appears ashen, staring at me like I’ve kicked a kitten, and it’s all too much. I drop my arm. I’m out of here. “Don’t wait up this time.”

  I nearly steamroll an ancient couple when I burst into the hallway. I leave them tottering there as I take the stairs down to the first floor. The hotel has a bar and it’s hopping with a dance area.

  Ah, bloody hell. They’re square dancing to country music.

  My eyes dart to a bored-looking woman at the end of the packed bar, nursing a margarita. Early thirties. Gray business suit. Black hair waving to her shoulders. No time to waste. I sidle up next to her, waiting to catch the bartender’s attention. I feel the woman watching me, so I glance over. She quickly looks away, a fizz of orange excitement in her aura. My eyes drift to the cleft of cleavage exposed at the top of her blouse. I check out her ring finger. Bare
. Possibly divorced? Her nails are manicured and she takes good care of herself.

  I give a nonchalant nod. “Hallo.”

  She smiles and confidently brushes her hair from her shoulder. “London?”

  I nod, sweep my eyes over her. She looks away again, and her body language says she’s not interested, but her aura says otherwise. I hope she’ll not play hard to get.

  “I’m Kaidan.”

  “Celeste. And I’m way too old for you,” she says, as if that will put an end to my interest. I laugh at her openness and stick out my hand. She eyes it a moment before shaking it, and turns her attention back to her drink.

  The bartender finally comes over. I hand him my fake ID and say, “Jack on the rocks.”

  I feel her perk next to me as she takes in the exchange; hopefully she believes I’m twenty-one now.

  “Celeste. Mind if I sit?” I motion to the stool next to her.

  “Free country. Do as you like.” She absently stirs her margarita as I sit. Methinks Celeste is a tad jaded. But I can work with that. I can work with anything.

  “Staying at the hotel?” I ask.

  “Real estate conference. You?”

  “I’m here for the night. Headed to L.A.” A blast of pain in my gut urges me on. Keep her talking.

  She takes a long drink. “What’s in L.A.?”

  “My band,” I lie.

  “Let me guess,” she says sarcastically. “Lead singer.”

  I laugh and throw back half my drink, relishing the burn, before setting it down and looking at her again. “Drums.”

  “Mmm.” A flash of red trots into her aura. She finishes off the margarita. I order her another.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she says.

  “I know.”

  She sips her margarita, licking a touch of salt from the rim. I watch her tongue, the beast growling inside me.

  “How old are you, Kaidan?”

  I’ll never understand why women are so obsessed with age. I level her with my gaze, getting serious. “Old enough to bring you more pleasure than you ever thought imaginable.”

  Celeste’s eyes widen a fraction, her aura blazing red before returning to a gray of distrust. “Those are big words,” she says.

  I chuckle. “Good thing I can back them up.” I throw back the rest of my drink and set the glass down hard.

  “Look, you’re wasting your time here. There’s a girl over there with her eye on you,” Celeste says, nodding across the dance floor. “Maybe you should go talk to her.”

  I don’t even glance where she’s pointing, because I’m invested now. I love a challenge.

  Without looking at Celeste, I say, “I prefer women to girls,” signaling to the bartender. He pours a new drink and slides it in front of me.

  The music gets louder, and if possible twangier, making people cheer. I send my hearing up to our room and find only silence, then a rustle as Anna turns over in the bed. Her breathing is even, slow. Is she asleep already? She’s not upset about my show of temper? Isn’t she at all curious what I’m up to?

  Beside me, Celeste lets out a small laugh, shaking her head.

  “Do you know how long it’s been for me?”

  The margaritas are catching up with her.

  “No idea, but I’d be happy to remedy that for you.”

  She shakes her head like I’m full of shite and asks, “Why?”

  “Because you’re sexy.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Like I said, you’re wasting your time.”

  “I don’t think I am, actually.”

  We nurse our drinks in silence. After a few minutes of this, she sighs. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

  “No, Celeste. I’m not.” I turn to her.

  She thrums the bar top, staring at her hand. “I don’t have condoms.”

  My insides jump, but my face stays passive and confident. “I do.”

  Her face turns up to me and we stare. The beast claws at the ground in anticipation.

  “Fine.” Celeste tries to look bored, unaffected, but her aura is a dazzling display of the opposite. “We can go to my room. . . .”

  I nearly close my eyes and sigh with relief. That was the longest forty minutes of my life. I praise the forwardness of older women who know exactly what they want. I throw money on the bar and lean forward, my face inches from hers.

  “Brilliant, Celeste. You’re an angel.”

  The word angel catches on my tongue. The relief I’d been feeling suddenly wavers and I curse Anna as guilt shoves its way back into my consciousness. For a fleeting moment I imagine telling this woman I’ve changed my mind. I imagine what it would be like to ignore the throb of pain and go back up to my room to be near Anna.

  It’s a completely pointless and idiotic thing for me to ponder. There is absolutely no reason not to do this. I place my hand on the small of Celeste’s back and lead her out of the bar. I want what I want, and I’m going to get it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sold

  “I’m starting to want you, more than I want to . . .

  I just want to make you go away, but you taste like sugar.”

  —“Like Sugar” by Matchbox Twenty

  Anna doesn’t stir when I slip back into the room in the dead of night and take another shower. Her heavy sleeping is a sign of her overly trusting nature. She is never on guard, never listening, completely unaware of her surroundings. It’s infuriating. I don’t want to have to worry about her safety once this trip is over. I don’t want to have to think about her at all.

  And yet, as I fall asleep she fills my dreams.

  We begin to square dance together to that horrid badonkadonk song, and we’re both quite good. But it’s one of those dreams that’s so fucking weird you wish you couldn’t remember it. In my dream, Celeste cuts in on our dance. This angers Anna, who slides over to the bartender, snogging him to make me jealous. I wake early, flustered and frustrated, and I realize I’ve been going about this all wrong.

  I’ve been trying to have my cake and eat it, too. I’m not doing myself any favors by letting Anna know I’m sleeping with other chicks. Jealousy often helps get girls right where you want them, but not Anna. She’s not going to offer herself up just to keep me from going to another. I vow to be nicer for the rest of the trip. And when I leave to work at night, I will pretend I’m doing something else. What a bloody knobhead I’ve been.

  I’m feeling bright and chipper at breakfast after my revelation, especially after I realize Anna has long since forgiven me for my Hulk Smash moment with the lamp. I flirt with her, teasing her, giving her every bit of my attention. I watch her blush and listen to her giggle. I’m determined to win that body over if it’s the last bleedin’ thing I do. I even let her drive.

  I don’t expect Anna to have such a lead foot, and naturally her need for speed turns me on. I play game after game on my mobile to distract myself.

  “Do you mind if we stop?” she asks.

  I look up at the small Native American reservation, which piques my interest. “Not at all.”

  New Mexico is hot as hell—a dry heat that reminds me of the western Cape of South Africa. The reservation has an old-world feel that gives me a false sense of ease. Anna is in her element, flitting around like a butterfly and smiling at everyone.

  I watch her examine jewelry, spending an especially long time staring at a turquoise necklace. It’s the perfect piece for her, shaped like a heart. She turns it over, holds it up, practically pets it, then looks at the price tag. She quickly sets it down and steps away. Curiosity tugs me to her side. She obviously adores it—why doesn’t she buy it? Then I recall her and her mum’s money problems, which are unheard of for a Neph. I catch sight of the price tag and feel indignant on Anna’s behalf. She should be able to have whatever she wants.

  “See anything you like?” I ask.

  I think I startle her because she jumps a little and moves even farther away from the necklace.

  “Yeah. It’
s all beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Strange feelings wrestle around inside me. She won’t admit she likes the necklace, as if she feels shameful for coveting it.

  “Can I . . . get you something?”

  Her neck and cheeks turn bright pink. “Oh. No. I don’t need anything, but thank you.”

  It’s baffling. She’d probably rather die than ask me to buy it for her. But I really want her to have it.

  Whoa. I blink, desperately needing to examine the reasons behind this feeling.

  Girls like gifts.

  It will make her think I care.

  This little gem could get me laid.

  Those are my only reasons. Right? Right.

  Sold.

  But not in front of her. I don’t think she’ll allow it, and I don’t want a scene. So I send her out to cool off the car while I buy drinks. The old whittling bloke gives me a knowing nod as I present the necklace and drinks.

  “For your love,” he says in a dry, crackly voice.

  My stomach swoops in an arc. I let out a dry laugh. “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  He gives another knowing nod, accompanied by a grin this time. I want to tell the old fool to take back his cursed words. Now I feel jumpy. I pay and get out of there as fast as I can. I hope Anna wasn’t listening.

  She’s clueless when I climb in and hand her a drink. My brain is a flurry of blurred activity as Anna drives away, chatting merrily. I feel like smiling for no good reason when I think of the stupid necklace in my pocket. I want to punch myself in the face and remind myself this is all part of the plan. I needn’t have so much fun with it. The fun will come when she’s finally naked.

  “Will we be passing the Grand Canyon?” Anna asks. “I’ve always wanted to see it.”

  That’d be brilliant. I pull up the map on my mobile, but the search leaves me disappointed. We can’t afford the extra time.

  “It’s a bit out of the way. More than an hour.” Her father’s not going anywhere, but the nun she needs to see is apparently on her deathbed. We can’t waste too much time. “But how about this? We can go on the way back, since we won’t have a time crunch.”