a series of memories and half-formed fantasies. His hands trailed up her arms and gently pulled her hands away.
Her pulse jumped again as he held her arms above her head, moving his kiss from her lips to her neck. Fangs grazed her scar and she moaned from a combination of anticipation and anxiety. Lips sealed over the slick mark, and his tongue danced along its edges. She inhaled and muscles tensed along her shoulders, her body’s way of preparing for the bite to come.
Cool air rushed over her, jolting her to reality and the awareness Varik no longer held her. She stood in darkness with her back to a wall, her arms still over her head, and her pulse racing.
“Find me,” Varik whispered from somewhere to her left.
“What kind of sick game are you playing?”
“No game. Now find me.”
“I can’t fucking see,” she snarled.
“That doesn’t matter.” His words drifted up from her right. “You have other senses. Use them.”
She opened the bond and winced as he slammed the connection closed.
“That’s cheating,” he taunted, his voice and breath inches from her face.
Alex jerked away, startled. “Goddamn it, Varik! You said you’d help me.”
He pinned her against the wall once more. “I am.”
“How is this helping me?”
His fingers trailed along her arm and left prickled flesh in their wake. “Consider it motivation.”
“Seems like foreplay to me.”
A grin lay behind his words as he spoke, moving away again. “You know what they say—all work and no play makes for really boring sex.”
She pushed off from the wall, following the soft sounds of his footsteps on carpet. “What makes you think I’m going to sleep with you?”
“Sleeping isn’t what I had in mind.”
Alex spun as his voice issued from behind. She was certain he’d been in front of her. How was he moving around her so quickly and without her hearing him move?
Arms wrapped around her waist and his body molded to her back so she felt all of him. “You’re thinking too much, ma poule. Stop thinking and trust your instincts.”
“Right now my instincts are to turn around and beat the shit out of you.”
“It’s a start.” He laughed and released her with a playful swat on her butt cheeks.
She yelped, whirled, and reached for him but found only emptiness. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that.”
More laughter followed another smack to her backside. “I eagerly await your reprimand, if you can catch me.”
Alex inhaled the familiar scent of sandalwood and cinnamon that permeated the room. Another quick breath and she noticed a fresh waft to her right. She moved in that direction and was rewarded with the faint sound of retreating footsteps.
“You may be better at this than I initially estimated.”
She smiled, following the stronger trails of his scent. “Don’t tell me the big bad Hunter is afraid of a blind woman?”
No taunt answered her as she crept along, using the wall as a guide. Her hand brushed against a doorjamb and the sense of a yawning void opened to her left. The trail of Varik’s scent was strongest here. Envisioning that he’d moved into what could only be the bathroom, Alex crouched beside the jamb, listening.
Only her own heartbeat and the soft whir-ka-thunk of the fifth floor’s ice machine in the distance filled the silence.
She rushed into the void and ripped through a soft barrier before crashing into a hard vertical surface. The force of the impact rocked her and made her stumble back.
“You’re still thinking too much,” Varik chastised to her right. “You’re also assuming I’m playing fairly.”
She rubbed the sore spot on her forehead where it had hit the wall of what she now knew to be the closet. The soft barrier she’d encountered became his discarded shirt, still warm from his body’s heat. Alex snarled and threw the shirt to the floor. “You’re being an ass. That much I know for certain.”
Thinking of the room’s layout as she faced the closet, she knew the exit would be to her left and the bathroom behind her. She extended her arm along the wall opposite the closet, following the surface until she reached the bathroom door and discovered it closed. She pressed her ear to the door and heard only the soft crunching sounds of Dweezil enjoying his nightly meal.
She followed the wall until she reached a corner. The sensation of open space stretching before her told her she’d come to the bedroom portion of the room. Waving both arms in front of her and taking tentative steps, she located