Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,91

thousand problems, most of which I had no idea what to do about, and those were just the ones I knew of. I needed to . . . I needed to . . .

I yawned again, and a hand smoothed my hair. “Sleep,” someone said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And then the tide was carrying me under.

* * *

* * *

I awoke to sunlight flooding over an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, with an unfamiliar guy bending over me.

Because it was Pritkin, but it wasn’t.

I blinked up at him, sleep blurring my vision, pretty sure I was still half-under. Because the man I knew was starched, buttoned-down, and as proper as it was possible to be in his usual uniform of a T-shirt and jeans. He wasn’t stiff exactly, or stuck-up. But he was . . . careful. Guarded. Watchful.

He didn’t smile easily, or at all most of the time. He didn’t trust. He didn’t volunteer. Getting personal information out of him was like trying to break into Fort Knox. It had come as a surprise that he was half-demon. It had come as a surprise that he was highly ranked in the Corps. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the accent, it would have come as a surprise that he was British.

And then there were our interactions, where he went out of his way not to touch me, not to notice me, not to even look at me some days. For a long time, I’d just thought I wasn’t his type. There was a chance I’d been wrong about that, I thought dizzily, as his eyes swept over me.

They were different eyes than I was used to: hot, possessive, and more black than green. He moved differently, too, more unconsciously graceful, more fluid, almost predatory. And he felt different in some way I couldn’t quite define. I knew what my Pritkin would do, at least in most circumstances.

I wasn’t so sure about this one.

But that bottom lip was too tempting to resist. I arched up, taking it between mine, felt it give between my teeth, a swollen heat. My body reacted, but the desperate, almost painful desire of last night was gone. In its place was a languid heat, a dreamy sort of craving, a lazy, satiated kind of feeling, like staring at a dessert cart after a generous meal. You’re no longer hungry, but still . . .

You could eat.

“I’ve had fantasies that began this way,” he told me, smoothing a callused hand over a breast, watching the nipple peak excitedly under his touch. A liquid pulse went through me.

“What way?”

“You. Sprawled in my bed. Of course, you were wearing the slave girl costume at the time.”

It took me a moment, and then I remembered that awful I Dream of Jeannie ensemble I’d worn when Caleb, a war mage friend of Pritkin’s, and I had gone on a rescue mission into hell. Not one of the nastier hells, but the desert world where Rosier had his main court.

“Is that what it was?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. Because that damned callused thumb was stroking, stroking, stroking, even though my nipple was already as hard as it was going to get. Leaving the other feeling strangely cold and neglected—until a warm mouth closed over it. “It was . . . the only thing . . . they had in my size.”

He raised his head for a moment, the green eyes half-drunk, half-sardonic. “It was not in your size. It was not close to your size.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No.” He went back to his former occupation, feasting on my breasts until I swear he’d mapped, licked, and sucked every inch of them. Until I was squirming underneath him, and panting slightly, failing the half-hearted attempt I’d been making to act cool and collected.

I wasn’t cool. I was definitely not collected. Especially not when he moved over top of me with obvious intent.

But then he just stayed there, motionless except for the faster rise and fall of his chest. Letting me look, letting me touch. Letting me run my hands over hard muscles and soft hair until they grew a little rough, stroking possessively over the big, firm body as I’d never been able to do before.

Pritkin didn’t check me out, so I’d never been able to do it to him. Well, not often. We’d even switched bodies once, through the kind of universal joke that only seems to happen to me, and I’d still behaved. Partly because I