His gaze followed her hand as it slid into the back pocket of her leather pants to pull out her cell phone, lingering on the lush curve of her ass before it was abruptly jerking up to meet her taunting smile.
“A male,” he said, his voice frigid although Tonya didn’t miss the color that stained the pale honey of his skin. The prince had been sneaking a peek. “And I didn’t see him at all.”
Tonya’s brief flare of amusement was forgotten as she studied him in confusion. “Then how do you know there’s someone out there?”
“I can sense them.”
She blinked in shock. “Even through the layers of magic?”
He shrugged. “It is my talent.”
Her first thought was that he was lying. No one had the ability to detect an imp that was several hundred yards away and on the opposite side of the thick shields that protected the estate.
Then she realized that he had no reason to make up a story.
Not when he could so easily be proved wrong.
“I’ll let Styx know.” Tapping a brief text to the vampire who was no doubt just rising, she lifted her head to meet the cognac gaze that was studying her with an unnerving intensity. “Is there anything else?”
“Are all imp females so—” Words seemed to fail him.
“What?” She tilted her chin, her expression warning that she wasn’t opposed to planting another punch to his nose. “Beautiful? Clever? Sexy?”
“Outspoken.”
Tonya shrugged. “We’re all different, but most have no difficulty in sharing their opinion. Does that bother you?”
“True ladies—”
“Careful,” she drawled, hiding her stupid reaction to his barely concealed disdain behind a façade of mocking indifference.
She was intelligent, capable, and most men found her sexy as hell. What did it matter if this prissy prince found her less than a woman?
“It is no wonder Sariel wished to separate us from this world.”
Stepping forward, Tonya allowed her fingers to lightly stroke over his chest. “Are you afraid of a real woman?”
He stiffened, but he made no effort to slap away her hand. Instead his nose flared. Anger? Or was he breathing in her scent?
“The Chatri women are trained to be elegant, well-mannered companions who honor their mates,” he muttered.
Tonya shivered as her fingers continued to trace the chiseled muscles beneath the silk shirt. She’d intended to torment Magnus the Magnificent, but suddenly her body was no longer connected to her brain.
Instead her thoughts were being fogged by the sensuous pleasure of at last touching him.
“They sound like schmucks to me.”
His hands lifted to grasp her wrists, but he didn’t pull her hands away. Instead his thumb absently stroked over her pulse that throbbed beneath the skin of her inner wrist.
“That word is unfamiliar.”
Her gaze moved to linger on his lips. They weren’t as lushly curved as most fey, but Tonya discovered a sharp-edged hunger to feel those hard, sculpted lines pressed against hers.
“Idiots,” she said, speaking more to herself than explaining the meaning of the word.
His fingers tightened on her wrists, covertly tugging her closer to the enticing heat of his body.
“Because they appreciate a strong mate?”