Her lips thinned. “Tell me what you want from me.” “What I want?” The bronze eyes darkened with raw desire. “I want that hard, sculpted body spread na**d on my bed so I can taste every perfect inch.”
Her nails dug deeper, the blood running down her palm. “Never.”
“Fine.” His low voice brushed over her sensitive skin like a caress. “Then I’ll be na**d and you can use those lovely lips to wrap around my ...”
“Is your bargain that I trade sex for my release?” she sharply interrupted.
His gaze briefly shifted down to the small curve of her br**sts outlined by the tight spandex.
“Oh, I intend to give you release.” His gaze lifted to meet her frigid stare. “But you’ll have to earn your freedom.”
She snorted. “Do males of all species possess a juvenile need to use sexual innuendoes rather than rational conversation when they’re in the company of women?”
“Those weren’t innuendoes, poppet,” he drawled. “They were a promise.”
She forced herself to meet his taunting gaze with a cold indifference that she could only wish was genuine. Dammit, she was a Hunter, not a wilting virgin who was terrified of a man’s touch. Even if it did make her shiver with need.
Her duty was to use whatever method necessary to get free and complete her mission.
Period.
“I asked a specific question. Will you allow me to leave if I give you sex?”
He stilled, caught off guard by her blunt demand. “And if I say yes?”
“It’s against the rules. But ...”
“What rules?”
“Hunters aren’t permitted to be intimate with their prey.”
“Sensible, I suppose.” He folded his arms over his broad chest, acting like he was more curious than excited by her proposal. Rude, conceited fairy. “What if I weren’t your prey?”
“Intimacy is generally discouraged.”
His unnerving gaze searched her icy expression, as if sensing the dark, punishing memories that fluttered at the edge of her mind.
“Discouraged?”
“Sex is an unnecessary distraction at best and a lethal mistake at worse.”
He tilted his head to the side at her practiced words, the light from the candles glowing with a rich shade of chestnut in the loose strands of his hair. Jaelyn clenched her teeth, struck by a sharp need to run her fingers through the satin length.
His lip curled into a slow, wicked smile. “I can scent your hunger.”
“Of course you can. It’s been days since I fed.” Her arctic dismissal salved her pride, but it did nothing to disguise her body’s annoying response. “Although, I’m more likely to die of boredom than starvation if you don’t release me soon. Are we going to bargain or not?”
Ariyal chuckled, not deceived for a moment. Bastard.
“We are.”
“For sex?”
He shook his head, his gaze taking a slow, intimate survey of her rigid body.
“When I claim you as my lover, Jaelyn, you won’t be able to hide behind the pretense that it’s to fulfill some damned bargain.”
His silky warning slid through her like warm honey, melting another layer of her icy defenses. Ah, it would be so easy to close her eyes and imagine his slender fingers skimming over her na**d skin, his muscled body pressing her into the nearby mattress as his mouth sought those erogenous spots she tried to pretend didn’t exist.