Powerful Moves [L.U.S.T.] (Siren Publishing Classic) (17 page)

“Tasting you.” She leaned in and nipped his jaw as he had done to her moments before. “All of you.” The tip of her tongue tickled a path down his throat and neck, over his collarbone. She attempted to sink down as her tongue painted a fiery path over his upper chest, but he held her steady. “I want my mouth on your cock, Tavius. I want to feel you hard and strong in my mouth. I want to drink from you as you did from me.”

“Sweet Gods.” The eroticism of her words spoken in her sultry, desire-filled voice proved his undoing. His cock perfectly positioned, Tavius pushed inside her awaiting channel.

His shout rivaled hers as he slid into her in one vicious thrust all the way to the root. Sparks exploded around them, white-hot lights of power and pleasure converging to create a paradise that sent them both spiraling to the edge.

Tavius felt his fingers dig into the tender flesh of her thigh and knew he would likely leave bruises, but couldn’t force himself to ease his grip. He couldn’t force himself to ease his hold on this woman in any way, not with his hands, not with his mind, and certainly not with his heart.

“Please, Tavius. Harder. Faster. Now.”

He gave her exactly what she asked for, using the wall behind her for leverage as he pounded his cock inside her sodden pussy harder, faster, without an ounce of hesitation. Her bent leg locked around his waist, her heel digging into the top of his ass, in an effort to draw him even more deeply inside her. He widened his stance, effectively spreading her legs even farther and giving her what she wanted. Impossibly deep, mind-altering penetration turned the sparks to flames and the air to the consistency of molten lava.

Tavius felt her release as she came apart in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder, sank her teeth into his flesh, and muffled her pleasured cries. Her channel convulsed as hot juices bathed his cock. He couldn’t hold off his own release a second longer. He gritted his teeth on the animalistic growl that tried to escape as he came inside her.

Spent, he nuzzled his face in the bend of her neck as he fought to catch his breath. “Gods, Elena.”

“Hmm?” Her fingers played in the hairs at his nape, caressing with a passion that stole his soul.

“Nothing,” he said against her flesh. “Just, Elena.”

“Ah, that works. Feeling better now?”

Tavius felt her heart beating in a rhythmic tempo with his. He felt her ragged breaths against his ear. The evenness with which she spoke came in direct contrast with the exhaustion he felt in her still-quivering body.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I want more.” He skimmed his hand up the back of her thigh as he lowered her leg to the floor, slipping his hand around to cup her butt cheek.

She pulled back to look at him, a realm of emotions twisting in her gaze, and she smiled. “Power junky.” She gave his shoulder a playful slap and then winced. “Sorry about that.” Her thumb grazed the spot where she bit him as she came. “I got a little carried away.”

Tavius stared at her, unblinking. Did she really think that was all this had been, sex for the sake of his power? So what if he’d tried to convince himself of that very thing when he first yanked her inside this closet. He knew it was more. She knew it was more. Damn it, what was happening between them had become so much more than anything he needed right now. She couldn’t be the one. The passion, the sheer magic that sucked the oxygen from the room when they were together was simply a matter of happenstance. They’d been thrown together by fate but only to achieve the common goal of killing off Le Mort.

“I like that you got carried away.” Hurt for reasons he didn’t want to fathom, he let her go and bent to pull up his jeans. “And, yes, it worked. The power is back.” He felt it with a strength that pushed at his skull as if threatening to break through bone if not used soon. “For as long as it lasts.”

“An hour, maybe more.” Elena nodded. “I don’t think we’re far from the museum, ten minutes tops. We better get moving.”

Tavius threw a hand across the doorway, channeling his augmented hearing. The passage outside the door still seemed deserted. He broadened his sense a little more, not knowing why exactly but feeling as if there was something he should be hearing and missed. He caught the word “museu” spoken in the clipped Portuguese of a news anchor, and he knew.

“Do you speak Portuguese?” He noticed Elena hadn’t seemed to have a problem on the flight reading the tourist manual or checking out the maps the stewardess gave her to look for the H. Stern Museum.

“Enough to get by. Why?”

She gave a startled yelp as Tavius grabbed her wrist and briskly led her back down the passageway in the direction of the television voice. “Tavius, what are you—” She stopped abruptly as the neared enough that she could hear the voice, too.

On the screen suspended in the far corner of one of the waiting rooms, a dark-haired craggy-looking man gestured to an on-screen photo of a museum and rattled on in words Tavius couldn’t understand. He didn’t need to. One look at Elena told him enough.

“That’s it, isn’t it? He got there first.”

Elena nodded, her wide-eyed gaze transfixed on the television. “Hours ago. Just before daylight.”

“Let’s go.” Tavius tightened his grip on her hand and called on his teleportation. He felt the energy rise, experienced the tingle that always came when he shimmered from one place to another, then felt the strength fizzle as if someone turned a switch until none of it remained.

“Forget it.” Elena started to run for the nearest exit, dragging him along with her. “We should be less than a few blocks away. We’ll catch a cab outside.”

* * * *

“This place is still crawling with cops,” Tavius muttered as they exited the cab and made their way through the crowd of gathered news reporters and spectators outside the H. Stern Museum. “Did the report on television say when the bodies were discovered?”

“Around eight-thirty this morning when the first of the employees started showing up for work.” Elena suppressed a shudder, thinking how awful it would be to report to work as if it were any other day only to walk into what was no doubt a bloodbath of horrid proportions. “Time to do your magic, Ace,” she told Tavius as they closed the distance between themselves and the first officer.

She listened with half an ear as Tavius relayed the same story to Rio’s finest that he had given the officer in New Orleans. She felt the power heavy on the air between them and was able to distinguish between the evocative mind play he called on his own and the still-undetermined energy that enveloped them.

Cedric dominated the bulk of her thoughts. Where could he be? Why didn’t he call her? Was he inside right now?

She pulled her cell from her pocket, speed-dialing his number for the umpteenth time and stifling a curse when she got his voice mail yet again. She turned to Tavius and found he had the strangest expression on his face. Before she could question him, the officer tugged them aside and began speaking to them in English and hushed tones. She gave him her full attention.

“Two guards were on duty last night, one manning the front and the other assigned to walk the premises at alternating intervals.” The officer’s English was fluent and easy to understand despite his thick Portuguese accent. He wore a pressed, black uniform with leather belted boots. The lines around his mouth and eyes made him appear to be approaching fifty, but Elena guessed he topped out at about forty-two. “Security tapes show a man walking through the front door as if the damned thing didn’t even exist just before dawn. I tell you, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“The man was alone?”

Elena barely heard Tavius’s question above the ringing in her ears.

The officer shook his head. “He had some kind of animal with him, a dog or a wolf. Huge, whatever it was, and vicious.” The officer raked a hand down his face. “It tore the guards apart, ripped them to shreds.” He gulped. “I was one of the first on scene, but I couldn’t stay in there. I came out here to get some air and took over crowd control. I’d rather deal with the vultures in the media than see what happened to those poor men in there.”

“Do you mind if we go in now and see for ourselves?” Tavius asked, already backing away.

“Suit yourself, agent, though if she were my partner, I would make her wait out here.”

“Thank you for your help, officer.” Elena knew her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she turned her back on him and walked with Tavius to the museum entrance.

“I would agree with him if I didn’t think you needed to be in there.” Tavius stopped at the first step leading up to the front doors. “That song your phone plays when Cedric calls, does he use the same one for you?”

Elena blinked at him. “Unless he changed it recently, yes.”

“The phone is inside this building, Elena. I heard it ringing when you tried to call him while I was talking with the cop.”

“Then Cedric is here.” Relief so acute it made her light-headed hit her with a supreme force, but the guarded shadow in Tavius’s eyes brought fear racing on its heels. “Why didn’t he answer when I called?” If Tavius heard Cedric’s cell ring from out here, surly Cedric heard it singing in his own pocket.

“I’m thinking he can’t, muirnin.” Tavius touched her so softly she would’ve thought she imagined it if she hadn’t watched his hand near her face, seen his thumb turn inward to glide along her cheek. “You still can’t tap into his mind, can you?”

“No, but the officer said there were only two bodies, two guards.” She refused to consider what Tavius was thinking. The fear turned to stone in her throat, coiling like a snake ready to strike in her belly.

She saw Tavius’s answer in his gaze. The officer believed that there should’ve only been two bodies inside. He assumed two because they were the employees on duty and the place had been closed for the night. He could easily be wrong. If the bodies were mutilated as they had been in New Orleans, it would be hard to tell how many bodies were inside.

Elena whirled away from him, stomped up the four steps to the double doors, and walked inside. Dimly she saw the officer approach at her left, caught the attention of two others on her right. She ignored them all and continued to move forward and up the set of winding stairs to the second floor.

She sensed more than heard Tavius scrambling to catch up behind her. She didn’t stop until she reached a display case in the center of the second-story floor.

“It would be nice if you would warn me before you do that.” Tavius came up beside her, muttering out of the side of his mouth. “I don’t know how much longer my powers are going to hold, especially if I have to keep using it.”

Elena glanced at him and figured her expression must have appeared quizzical because he said, “Why do you think none of them are following you? They would want to know what you’re up to as much as I do if I didn’t plant a suggestion for them otherwise.”

“Thanks,” Elena said absently. She didn’t look at him but reached out to grasp his forearm as she held a hand over the display case before her. If this worked, he’d see what she saw. Taking a deep breath, she touched the case.

The vision slammed into her with the force of a freight train, bringing along with it revulsion and terror. In that moment, she saw the scene that transpired in this room in super-fast speed. She saw Le Mort striding with as much elegance as Michael always walked with across the marble floor of the museum on a direct path for the jewel. She saw his servant, the wolf the officer spoke of, intercept the patrol guard and move in for the kill. She saw Cedric, dear Gods, step out of the shadows.

The rest of the images flashed, blurred by her own fear for Cedric and the power streaming through the room. Vampire and man went to blows, and all she saw before the vision abruptly cut itself off was Cedric flying through the air to land in a heap at the snarling wolf’s feet.

“No!” Elena gasped and tried to recall the vision, but it was gone.

“Geezus.” Beside her, Tavius had gone pale. He covered her hand on his forearm with his free hand and squeezed. “Is that what happened in this room, Elena? Did the room show you that?”

Elena nodded, feeling the warmth of the tears as they slid down her cheek in rivers. “He’s not dead. There’s not a trace of him left here.” She spun around, her gaze searching the room. Much of the carnage had been removed by the investigators on the scene. Still, she didn’t need to see body parts to know none of them had belonged to Cedric. She just knew.

Why in Terra hadn’t she told him she could pick up the energies of a room, see the horrors that happened within its walls?

Everything inside Tavius wanted to demand an answer. He’d taken her inside The Morrigan Museum for crying out loud. The carnage there had been far worse than what occurred here. Yet she hadn’t said a word about the visions then.

“Elena.” The biggest part of him wanted to comfort her, to hold her and assure her everything would be okay. Stupid, he supposed, since he knew nothing of the sort. That didn’t stop the want.

She opened her mouth but cut off whatever she started to say and closed her eyes. Her free hand went to her temple, and he realized she was talking to someone telepathically. Cedric?

Tavius glanced around to be sure none of the officers had closed in on them. His initial suggestion worked on the lot of them as it had in New Orleans. It hadn’t, however, explained an agent who would walk into a crime scene, ignore all other officers present, and track straight to an empty jewel case. He’d had to plant several more suggestions to explain her behavior. Apparently his suggestions worked. The officers on the second floor seemed to have forgotten Tavius and Elena were even in the room.