The Dark-Hunters (573 page)

I won’t do it.

She reached down and cut a small bit of the eggs off before she brought the fork up to his lips. “Would you please take one bite?”

His instincts were to shove her away from him as his teeth receded. Instead, he found his lips parting so that she could place the eggs on his tongue. The taste stunned him. He hadn’t tasted food since before he’d died.

But even better than the food was the satisfied smile on Tory’s face. She reached out and stroked his jaw with the backs of her fingers.

Closing his eyes, he savored the tenderness of that touch as his cock hardened forcefully. In that moment, it took every ounce of strength he had not to pull her to him and kiss her. Or more to the point, strip her naked and sate the hollow ache inside him.

Never in all of his existence had he tasted lust like this. It was more than a mere craving, it was a raw, demanding need.

She broke off a piece of toast and held it up to his mouth. Dutifully, he parted his lips and let her feed him again.

Tory couldn’t explain the peculiar sense of satisfaction she had from feeding him, but there was no denying it. She felt as if she were taming a feral lion. And when she fed him a piece of bacon, he gently nipped her fingers.

A shiver went over her.

“It’s not so bad, is it?”

He shook his head.

She gave him another bite of the eggs. He swallowed them, then took a swig of beer. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel the weight of his gaze on her and it made her entire body hot.

“Now that I’ve placated
you
…” He pulled her against him and captured her lips.

Tory moaned as his tongue touched hers. Never in her life had a man kissed her like this—as if he were breathing her in. Possessing her. His kiss was hot and demanding as he cupped her face in his hands.

Ash was on fire from the taste of her, of the feeling of her tongue against his. Over and over, he could imagine himself buried deep inside her. Feel her hands on his back, stroking him with the same tenderness she’d used to touch his cheek.

Unable to stand it, he trailed one hand down her arm, and around her hips to press her closer to him.

Tory’s body throbbed with an unbelievable demand. She wanted to strip those jeans off and taste every inch of his body until she was blind from ecstasy, but at the end of the day, she wasn’t stupid.

A man like this didn’t date a woman like her. It just didn’t happen.

“Whoa, boy,” she said, pulling back. “Down. We just met. For that matter, I don’t even know what your eye color is.”

Ash wanted to whimper as she stepped away from him. His gaze dropped to her nipples that were plainly visible beneath the tank top she wore. All he wanted was to shove her shirt up and take one of them into his mouth.

Would she hold him like he mattered?

Or would she slap him after he’d pleased her and kick him out of her bed?

That last thought went over him like ice water. He didn’t want to feel used anymore. Not to mention he had one large, redheaded problem who would beat him until he had no skin left on his body if she ever found out he’d kissed another woman.

Damn it. His life had never been his own.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You’re just extremely irresistible.”

“Strange, men have been resisting me for years.”

“Yeah, well, they were idiots.”

Smiling, she reached up for his glasses. “Can I take these off?”

Ash swallowed as fear tore through him. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll make you uncomfortable. No one likes to look at my eyes.”

She scowled at him. “What are you? Rosemary’s baby?”

“Kind of.”

She shook her head at his fear. “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not most people.”

No, she wasn’t. But not even the gods could look at his eyes without curling their lips in disgust. “Just remember, when you do this, there’s no going back.”

Tory froze at those dire words. Now she had to know what they looked like. Reaching up slowly, she pulled the sunglasses off his eyes.

Ash looked down at the floor, preventing her from seeing their color. But dayam, the man was even more gorgeous without the sunglasses on. Never had she seen a more perfect set of features.

“Look at me, Ash.”

Ash ground his teeth as he remembered Artemis telling him the same thing. Back then, he’d been afraid of her hurting him over them. Now, there was no fear of Tory doing him harm, but even after all these centuries he knew how seldom people met his gaze without curling their lips or cringing. He hated for anyone to see the evidence of his godhood.

Tory stroked his brow with a light, gentle touch. “Please, Ash?”

Bracing himself for her horror and fear, he looked up and met her gaze levelly.

Tory stared in shock at the swirling silver color. Never in her life had she seen anything like them. The color was so pale and pure. They reminded her of mercury. “Are you blind?” Even as the question left her lips, she knew it was absurd. He could see plainly.

His features were stoic. “No, I’m not blind. It’s just an unfortunate birth defect.”

She saw the shame in his eyes as he spoke and it made her chest tight that something so beautiful would hurt him so much. “It’s not a defect. Your eyes are beautiful. Unique … like you. I think they’re very cool.”

He glanced away.

She caught his chin and forced him to look at her again. “Who hurt you?”

His gaze was guarded. “What?”

Tory stroked his jaw as she realized how shrewish that must have sounded. “I’m so sorry, that was so nosy of me. It’s just, you’re so guarded and private about even the most innocuous thing. Like you’re afraid to let anything out for fear of it being turned against you. And it’s everything, right down to your eye color. I’ll bet black isn’t even your natural hair color, is it?”

Ash swallowed at her question. She was eerily perceptive. “Like you said, we barely know each other.”

She brushed his hair back from his face. “Have you ever been intimate with anyone?”

“Of course I have.”

“I don’t mean sexually intimate. I’ve no doubt you’ve been with countless women, even at your age. What I’m talking about is having someone who knows your most intimate thoughts. Someone you can be yourself with without fear of them judging you or thinking less of you?”

Ash laughed bitterly at the mere thought of being so open with another person. “It’s in the nature of people to hurt each other. No one really cares about your thoughts or your feelings.”

Tory ached for him. He was so closed off that it made her want to weep. “I care about your thoughts, Ash.”

“You? You’ve misjudged everything about me from the very beginning. I’m nothing but another asshole you have to deal with.”

“Because you haven’t given me anything other than your worst to judge you by. Why did you come to Nashville? Huh? Why was ruining my reputation so important to you?”

She saw the light fade from his eyes as he withdrew further into himself. But it was the pain in them that made her ache for him and in that moment she knew he’d had a very personal reason for what he’d done.

“Why, Ash?”

Her hall clock chimed.

He pulled back. “It’s nine o’clock. I have a date.”

Bemused, she frowned as he left the kitchen with his beer and headed to her living room where he’d set up an Xbox 360 to her TV. At least that’s what she thought it was, but instead of being white it was covered with black hacker/pwn3d stickers.

Ignoring her, he pulled a T-shirt out of his backpack, put it on, then sat on her sofa and attached an earpiece to his head.

She sat on the arm of the couch. “What does pwn3d mean? I see that all over the Internet.”

“It’s a gamer’s term that means you’ve been owned or defeated badly.” He turned everything on.

“You do this a lot?”

“Every Saturday morning.”

She rolled her eyes, waiting to see something like Halo or Gears of War or some other macho male game come up. So when it started out with pink dancing animals, she scowled. “Viva Piñata?” It looked like a young kid’s game.

“Yeah,” he said as he signed in under his own name. “Hey, Tobe.”

She realized he was talking to someone on the earpiece.

“Yeah, I know I’m a little late. Sorry.”

Confused, she saw Ash pick a fox character while someone named Tobinator was a bear. Then JadeNX joined in and Toki-san.

Ash glanced at her, then turned all his attention to the game. “Toby, watch Jaden. I heard he had a bad night and is in the mood for annihilation.” He laughed. “End of the world’s not on me today, bud. Hey, Takeshi, get your fat butt off me. You’re squishing the fox.” He skidded his character sideways in the race. “There is no honor in sacrificing the fox, you ugly hedgehog.”

Completely baffled by the fact that a grown man was playing a small kid’s game, she went to bathe and dress.

She came back thirty minutes later to find him still at war with his opponents.

“Where’s a friggin’ rocket when you need it? Ah, crap, Jaden, stop with the pollen. I hate that.” Screwing his face up, he hit a button. “Yeah, taste honey, you punk.”

She heard the sound of a little boy’s loud laughter through the earpiece.

Ash’s phone rang. He glanced at it before he muted his earpiece and answered. “Hey, Trish. Yeah, I understand.” He hung up the phone and returned to the game. “Guys, I think we have to declare Toby the de facto winner. His mom says he has to get out of his pajamas and get cleaned up to meet the world.” There was an audible cry of protest. “I know, Tobe. PT sucks, but I’ll see you later, right?”

Ash smiled sadly. “Listen to Takeshi, buddy. He’s right.” He paused to listen. “Good game, gentlemen. Thanks for the competition. Jade, me and you are going to rematch on this later. Peace, my brothers.” He hung up and turned the game off.

Tory watched as he packed everything up. “Toby is how old?”

“Eight.”

“And the other two?”

“Older than eight.”

“So you grown men get online to beat an eight-year-old kid every Saturday morning?”

He laughed. “Nah, Toby always wins.”

Tory let out an irritated sigh. “You see, you’re doing it again. Telling me nothing.”

Ash turned to look at her. “You know, trust is always a good idea … for someone else. Every time I’ve ever made the mistake of trusting someone … it was a mistake that I regretted and paid for dearly. I’m really happy that no one has ever hurt you badly. I haven’t been so lucky, okay?”

“I would never betray you, Ash.”

He shook his head bitterly. “I’ve had people I’ve known a lot better than you tell me that. In the end, they lied and I was screwed over by them. No offense, but I don’t want a repeat.”

Tory wanted to weep at that. How badly had he been burned that he couldn’t even tell her if the people on the other end of the game were friends, family or other?

“I’m going to go grab a shower.” He picked up his backpack and took it with him.

Damn, she’d never seen anyone so mistrusting. He probably didn’t have anything in that backpack except for dirty underwear. But God forbid someone should ever see his undies—they might learn something personal about him like his clothing size. Call the feds! Such a thing could jeopardize national security.

Sighing, she picked up the black controller from the coffee table and paused as another thought occurred to her.

Don’t do it.

She couldn’t help herself. Turning the system back on, she signed in under Ash’s profile. JadeNX was offline, but Toki-san was still there.

She messaged him. “Are you a friend of Acheron’s?”

He came back with, “Are you?”

Dang, was everyone Ash knew defensive like that? “Yes. My name is Tory, would you please call me? 204-555-9862.”

Her phone rang a few seconds later. Tory turned the game and TV off before she answered it. “This is Tory.”

“Takeshi,” he answered in a voice thick with a Japanese accent. “What do you want with me?”

She suddenly felt ridiculous and prying. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you. Forgive me.” She started to hang up.

“Wait. You wouldn’t have contacted me without it being important. Is Acheron in trouble?”

“No. I’m an archaeologist and he’s staying with me because we think someone might be trying to steal some Atlantean artifacts my team has found.” She had no idea why she was telling him all this. “Ash is so quiet about everything that I just … I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t tell him that you spoke to me. He’s very closed about such things and would take this angrily.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have contacted you. I just needed to know that he’s … not insane or something.”

Takeshi laughed. “You’re safer with him than with your own family. He holds his honor above all things, even his own life.”

That made her feel better. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.” He paused before he spoke again. “Take care of him, Soteria. And remember it takes great courage and heart for a man who knows no kindness to show it to another. Even the wildest of beasts can be tamed by a patient and gentle hand.” He hung up.

Tory stood there, digesting that last bit when it hit her … he’d called her Soteria.

How on earth had he known her real name when she hadn’t given it to him?

CHAPTER NINE

“What did you do?”

Tory jumped at the sound of Ash’s deep, accented voice behind her. Guilty about contacting his friend, she turned around to face him and froze. Dressed in black pants and boots, he’d left his damp hair to hang freely around his broad shoulders. Good night, the man was unbelievably delectable. But it was the faded gray T-shirt that had a pile of skeletons on it that really caught her off-guard and made her wonder if his propensity for that wouldn’t have him kill her over what she’d done behind his back.

She cleared her throat and tried her best not to look too nervous. “What?”

“You turned something on while I was in the shower and froze the crap out of me.”

Relieved that was all that had him ticked off, she laughed. “Sorry. Dishwasher. I won’t do it again.”