he found it—even to me—then I know this came from her tomb. Just as much as I know that my father found the tomb, and was robbed of his discovery! And that tomb is about to be destroyed if we don’t put a stop to the opening of that dam. They moved Abu Simbel when they built Aswan; they can move the contents of Cleo’s tomb before they flood the Valley of the Scorpions!”
“In less than a week?” he pointed out reasonably.
Her cheeks were flushed, her nose pink, and her eyes looked enormous magnified by tears behind her glasses. “Yes. Whatever it takes.”
Thorne leaned back, crossing one leg over his knee and stretching his arms out along the seat back. Bloody hell. This was already a clusterfuck without her trying to stop a massive decade-long project. “That takes years of planning. Particularly if this really is her tomb. The national spotlight will be glaring. Thousands of lives and billions of dollars are at stake. No one is going to be willing to risk so much on so little.”
“Are you kidding me? The discovery of this tomb will be monumental. Bigger than the discovery of King Tutankhamen! We have to stop them from flooding the valley. That’s all we have to do. Stop the flooding. Look. Find if it really is her. We can go from there, right?”
Thorne reached out to snag her wrist, tugging her back to sit beside him. In a well-orchestrated move he stripped her T-shirt over her head and crowded her down against the pillows. “We can’t do anything until morning.” He breathed in the scent of her skin as he kissed his way down her throat. Her pulse was rapid because of her agitation, but he was about to change that to a different kind of stimulation. “We have hours to kill before then.”
“Hmm,” she murmured indistinctly, lifting her mouth for his kiss. “And you weren’t planning on sleeping much, were you?”
“How about not sleeping at all?”
LACING HIS FINGERS WITH hers, Thorne held them above her head so they were palm to palm, his hard chest pressed against her breasts. “You drive me mad, woman.” His breath fanned her face.
“It’s purely intentional.” Isis bit his lower lip and felt a curl of satisfaction as he growled low in his throat and his mouth crushed hers.
Lifting his head, he stared into her eyes as if he was reading her mind. The naked hunger on his face stole her breath and made her heart beat even faster. “Are you absolutely, positively sure? Because this time I’m not backing up.”
Isis met his intense gaze inches from her own. Heart hammering hard against her rib cage, she combed her fingers through the short, velvety-soft pelt of his hair above his ears. “Absolutely, positively.”
He reached out and plucked off her glasses, setting them somewhere behind him. A prickle of anticipation mixed with hot need as his head lowered the last few inches. His sensual mouth didn’t need to coax hers open; she wanted him inside. She met his bold, eager tongue with her own, craving more, wanting to crawl inside his skin.
The hot, devouring kiss was unlike any she’d known or even imagined. She loved kissing, but this—locking lips with Thorne was more than she could’ve fantasized. She fell into it headlong, intoxicated by his heat and the rich, heady taste of the strong coffee he’d been drinking at dinner.
Isis glided her fingers up his sides but kept getting distracted by hot satin skin and the kiss that was soul-eating and delicious.
Tangling his fingers in her hair, he used one large hand to hold her head exactly where he wanted it, and the other to skim under her T-shirt and glide up her body. His fingers were hot, slightly rough, and in a hurry.
He smelled so good—soap and starch, and man. And his own unique dizzying smell that was part all of those, and part the natural musk of his skin.
He rolled off her without warning, leaving Isis blinking and bewildered as he toed off his shoes. Maintaining eye contact, he yanked his T-shirt over his head, tossing it on the floor. She’d wondered forever what his body would look like, and here he was, in living, spectacular 3-D. Tall, lean, muscular, and a hard ass, he was her every fantasy rolled into one delicious package.
She drank him in. Tough guy. The dark stubble on his stubborn jaw made him look like a pirate. How was it possible for a mouth