- From the encrypted personal files of Ashaya Aleine
Dorian walked around to sit beside Ashaya. When she made no move to acknowledge him, he growled low in his throat and tugged back her head using her braid.
"Dorian!" she snapped, her shell cracking. "Faith's information means I have to maintain - "
"Shut up, Shaya." He wrapped her braid around one hand, gripping her jaw with the fingers of the other. "Yeah, your sister sounds like a serious problem, but fuck it, she's going to come after you sooner or later. Let it be sooner because I refuse to let you bury yourself for her. We stand and we fight."
Ashaya didn't reply, didn't say a word. If he hadn't already begun to sense her with a part of him he'd never thought would awaken for a Psy, he wouldn't have picked up the distress behind her implacable mask. "What is it?"
She pressed her lips together. Damn, stubborn woman. Eyes narrowed, he thought over what he'd said, coupled it with her vulnerabilities. I refuse to let you bury yourself for her.
"You were buried in a quake." Close, he thought when her lashes fluttered down for an instant before rising resolutely. "But you dealt with that. Hell, you worked in an underground lab for months. So it's not the idea of burial that scares you... it's the idea of being buried by Amara."
"Stop it." A harsh whisper. "Let me go and stop it."
"Oh, no, Shaya." He released her chin but maintained his hold on her braid. He was careful of his strength, but implacable. He knew she'd refuse to talk unless he made her. "This is how it's going to work," he said. "You tell me what the hell your crazy sister did to you, or every time you try to flick me off - or tell a lie - I'm going to kiss you."
Her eyes widened, then grew hot with the blinding fury of a temper she'd never before shown. "Dorian, despite what the Psy Council likes to release via its propaganda machine, you're not an animal. You're a civilized being who understands the rule of law."
He'd already given her a warning. So now he just kissed her. Her mouth was open and he was oh-so-tempted to sweep his tongue inside, to savor what he craved with every hard inch of him. But, though she might not believe it, he was trying to be good. She had no idea how good he was being.
The second their lips parted, she took a deep, shuddering breath that did all sorts of interesting things to her breasts. He looked down and realized he had plans for those breasts, such sinful plans. "Talk," he ordered.
"Even the Councilors couldn't make me talk," she taunted. "What makes you think you can break me?"
He smiled, slow, sensual, pleased. Finally, she was playing with him. "I don't want to break you, sugar." Giving a chuckle, he dipped his head and licked at the jumping beat of her pulse. "Hurting women isn't my style. But I do want to handle you" - free hand smoothing down her arm - "pet you" - the slightest brush of his knuckles against her generous breasts - "devour you." He closed his teeth over the fullness of her lower lip and nearly forgot about his good intentions.
Color rode high on her cheekbones when he released her after a stolen kiss, but she met him eye to eye. "You pointed a gun at me. You told me you'd kill me if necessary."
"You weren't a woman then, you were a Psy scientist." A feline answer, full of a cunning Ashaya realized could get her into very hot water very fast if she wasn't careful.
She could feel her breath coming quicker as he began to place suckling kisses along the bared line of her neck. "That's against your own rules." She didn't know why she'd said that. It was blatant encouragement, no two ways about it.
His teeth grazed her pulse as he spoke against her neck. "I said I would kiss you. I never said where I would kiss you."
Of course Ashaya knew about the mechanics of sex, though it was an act the Psy had phased out as soon as technology allowed. But, she now realized, there was a giant hole in her knowledge - practical application. "A kiss between two people is, by definition, on the lips," she argued.
He chuckled and she swore she could feel the sound across her skin. "But this isn't about two people kissing. It's me kissing you." He opened his mouth on her neck and sucked. Hard.
Heat exploded from that point outward, devastating her defenses even as that strange layer of chaos went up between her and her twin, shutting Amara out of this intimacy. "Dorian, please." An ambiguous plea.
He released her heated flesh, but only after a final, warning bite. "Talk."
Bright blue eyes clashed into hers, demanding a form of surrender she didn't know how to give - she'd spent her entire life protecting herself from someone who should've been her one point of safety. Trust didn't come easily. "What if Amara - "
"Let her try to hurt Keenan." Another kiss, this one pressed to her parted lips. The dark taste of male fury entered her mouth. "Let her fucking try."
"You're so arrogant you don't even realize she could kill you," she snapped. "She might be an M-Psy, she might be my twin, but she's got the calculating mind of a sociopath. She won't worry about honor or courage. She'll stab you in the back, shoot you with a gun, poison you, whatever it takes!"
"I know exactly what Psy killers are capable of." He tugged her head farther back.
"She's not a killer!"
"Fine." He didn't know whether to be infuriated or impressed by her loyalty. "I know how sociopaths think."
When he ran his knuckles over her arched neck, she reached up with both hands and gripped his wrist. "You think of her as a woman, like me. She's not."
"So tell me what she is like." A face that was a warrior's, ruthless, without mercy. "Or would you like me to kiss you... elsewhere?"