The Dark-Hunters (87 page)

They made love on her bed, on the floor, on her sofa. He took her in so many different positions that she felt as if he were reenacting the entire
Kama Sutra.

Finally, they ended up in the kitchen where he set her up on the counter and then made slow, tender love to her.

Oh heaven, the man felt incredible! He had more stamina than an entire team of athletes and was completely shameless when it came to making love to her. She’d never been with a man and felt so at ease with her body and his expectations.

A man like this was all too hard to come by.

After they had finished with the counter, which she would never be able to look at again without blushing, Talon stood naked, looking into her refrigerator with his two braids tucked behind his ear as he searched for food.

He was still breathing heavily from their last go-round and Sunshine wondered idly if she’d gone bow-legged at some point from this afternoon’s marathon.

Still, he looked scrumptious as he moved containers around in his quest for nourishment. His bare backside was a feast for the eyes and when he bent over to look into her bottom drawer, she couldn’t resist running her hand up his muscular thigh, between his legs, to cup and fondle him.

He sucked his breath in sharply between his teeth and straightened.

Sunshine gave him a mischievous grin that garnered her a quick kiss before he returned to searching her fridge.

“My lady, do you own anything made of meat?”

Sunshine ran her hand across his back, smoothing down the red marks where she’d sunk her nails in during her last orgasm. “I have soy burgers, and I did pick up some granola bars, wheat germ, and oatmeal while I was out.”

He actually whimpered.

“Sorry. I’m a strict vegetarian.”

He sighed. “And I’m a strict carnivore.”

She licked her lips and smiled as she remembered his playful nips and bites on her flesh. “I noticed.”

He turned toward her and gathered her naked body against his. He kissed her lips as if he were still able to savor her even after all they had done this afternoon. Then, he pulled back. “As much as I want you again, I have got to have something more to nourish me than your hot, lush body.”

He grabbed her soy cheese from the top shelf and the whole wheat crackers she had on the counter.

Sunshine started to warn him about the cheese, but thought better of it. He did need something other than her to nibble on, though to be honest, she liked being his chew toy.

The man was insatiable, and best of all, he was the champion at what he did.

She watched curiously as he grabbed his Snoopy Pez dispenser from her counter, then went back to the living room.

Sunshine picked up their glasses of water and followed him to the Art Deco coffee table.

Talon sat down before it and sliced the cheese, then placed it on the crackers. He fed her one. “So tell me, if I wasn’t here, what would you be doing today?”

She laughed. “I’m sure I would probably be sitting more comfortably, for one thing.”

His face amused, he dipped his head to nuzzle at her neck. “Can I rub anything to make it feel better?”

She hissed at his deep, sensuous voice. “Your rubbing it is what got me into trouble.”

He ran his tongue over her collarbone, then he pulled back and ate a cracker.

He choked.

Sunshine handed him the water.

Talon drank it down fast and scowled at her. “How old is this stuff?” He checked the expiration date on the cheese and his scowl deepened. “Soy?” he said as he finally recognized the package. “You let me eat
soy
cheese?”

“It’s good for you.”

“It’s nasty.”

“Oh,” she said, as if she were talking to a child. “You poor baby. I’m so sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Not true. I
am
sorry I don’t have anything a big he-man like you can stand.”

Talon sat back and shook his head at her. He should have had Kyrian bring him a burger along with his clothes. Even so, he had thoroughly enjoyed the day with her.

Even if it did mean eating things that should be classified as toxic waste products.

Cringing, he reached for another cracker, more prepared this time for the disgusting taste of it. By sheer force of will, he downed six crackers with cheese, though they barely took the edge off his hunger.

Thank the gods he had his Pez. Grabbing Snoopy, he quickly popped three Pez cubes into his mouth to kill the taste.

“How can you eat that?” she asked. “It’s nothing but flavored sugar.”

“Yes, but it’s
good
sugar.”

She wrinkled her nose at him.

Talon gave her a wicked grin. “You know the best way to eat these, don’t you?”

She shook her head.

He pulled Snoopy’s head back and took the small square out with his fingers. He held it up to her lips. “Bite down gently on it and hold it between your teeth.”

She hesitated, then obeyed.

For a full second, Talon watched her sitting there naked with the cube between her teeth. Then, he leaned forward and used his tongue to pry it loose.

Sunshine moaned at the taste of him combined with the sugar. Opening her mouth, she gave him a long, hot kiss. “Now, that was nice.”

“Worth polluting your system for?”

“Umm-hmm,” she breathed, running her fingertip along his jaw.

Once all the Pez were gone, she picked up the Snoopy dispenser and looked at it. “This seems so out of character for you, Mr. Tough Man. I find it hard to believe a guy who can fight off six criminals single-handedly would haul around a Peanuts Pez.”

He brushed her black hair back from her shoulder and let his hand linger in the strands. “Actually, I collect the dispensers. This one is a vintage 1969 one.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

She looked at it again. “Is it worth much?”

“A couple hundred dollars.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

“Wow. And I almost fed it to the washing machine.”

He laughed at that. “I’m glad you didn’t. Me and Snoopy go way back.”

He took Snoopy from her hands and set it on the coffee table. When he turned back to face her, the gleam in his eye was one she’d become quite familiar with.

“Are you really sore?” he asked.

All things considered, she should be, but his touch was so gentle that she wasn’t. “I’m not. You?”

“Never better.”

He leaned back on the floor and pulled her across him. Sunshine straddled him and moaned at how good his steely abs felt against her.

To her amazement, he was already hard again. “You don’t ever wear out, do you?”

He cupped her face in his hands and gave her a dark, serious stare. “It’s you, love. Definitely you. With anyone else, I would have been curled up and sleeping hours ago.”

“You mean that?”

He led her hand to his swollen shaft. “What do you think?”

“I think I should have taken more vitamins this morning.”

“And I’m thinking there are still several positions we haven’t tried.”

*   *   *

Talon woke up in Sunshine’s bed just as the sun set. He smiled in sleepy pleasure as he smelled the scent of turpentine and patchouli on his skin.

Sunshine.

She was still nestled in his arms, sound asleep. To his amazement, he felt his body starting to harden again.

After this afternoon, he should be sated for at least a day or two, if not for a full week.

For that matter, he shouldn’t be able to move.

Yet he wanted to take her again. Right now. He wanted to feel her arms and legs wrapped around him, holding him close as he lost himself to the sensation of her flesh sliding against his.

Only Nynia had ever made him feel like this. He had been completely insatiable with her. To look at her was to burn for her.

He’d never thought to find another woman so appealing. And yet all he wanted to do was spend the rest of the night inside Sunshine. To feel her breath against his neck as he buried himself in her moist heat over and over again.

But he couldn’t. He was supposed to meet Acheron at Jackson Square.

Not to mention that there were Daimons on the street ready to kill, and he had innocent people to protect.

“Talon?”

Inwardly, he cringed at the sound of her sleepy voice. He’d hoped to make a quiet exit while she slept.

How he hated messy exits.

“Evening, love,” he murmured, kissing her brow.

She smiled a smile that dazzled him. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, I have to go meet someone.”

“Okay,” she said.

She got up from the bed, and wrapped a sheet around herself. “It was really great meeting you, Talon. Thanks for a wonderful day.”

She left him alone then.

Talon frowned. This was normally the part where his lovers begged him to stay, at least for a little while longer. Where they told him he was the best lover they had ever known and then cried at the thought of never having him again.

But Sunshine seemed completely fine with his leaving. She didn’t seem to be the tiniest bit sad.

What was this?

He scooted out of bed and left the room to find her in the kitchen, holding a rice cake between her teeth while she poured herself a cup of pink juice.

“Sunshine, are you okay?”

She took the rice cake out of her mouth and looked at him. “I’m fine.”

Her face paled a degree. “Oh Lord, you’re not going to get possessive or weird on me now, are you? Please tell me you’re not one of those guys Trina told me about who gets a little sex from a woman and then thinks he owns her.”

A
little
sex?

A little sex!

Talon was dumbstruck. He was used to leaving his lovers, but this had to be the easiest time he’d ever experienced, and he found it strangely disconcerting.

Unsettling.

Humbling.

Especially given the way the two of them had carried on. This had been the best marathon of sex he’d ever had. She had met his passion and stamina in a way that was unbelievable.

Now she was fine with him just walking out the door?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

“Look, it’s cool, okay? I knew when I agreed to this that you wouldn’t be hanging around afterward. I’m not stupid, you know. I’m a big girl. You’re a really big guy and I’m sure you have a life to get back to.” Panic drifted through her eyes. “Oh God, you’re not married, are you?”

“No, I’m not married.”

She let out a relieved breath. “Then, no harm, no foul.”

She crossed the short distance to her fridge to return the juice jug.

“Sunshine?”

She paused to give him a peeved stare. “What, Talon? You’re not having separation anxiety, are you? Today was fun and it was worth it, but I’ve got to get back to work. I have a ton of stuff that I need to do tonight.”

“Yeah, but…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He refused to.

“But?”

He clamped his jaw shut. Fine, if she wanted him gone, he was gone.

He shouldn’t have spent the day with her anyway.

This close to Mardi Gras, he couldn’t afford
any
distractions. Never mind one that came in the form of a dark-haired temptress.

“Nothing,” he said.

She looked relieved. “Since you have to meet someone, you go ahead and shower and I’ll make us some dinner.”

Talon took her up on the shower, but when he was finished, he declined eating her tofu salad and soy steaks.

“Thanks again, Sunshine,” he said as he shrugged his leather jacket on over his T-shirt. “I had a really good day.”

“Me too,” she said with a smile while she nibbled her salad and flipped through an art magazine.

He still couldn’t believe how well she was taking his leaving her. Damn.

A part of him continued to expect her to at least beg him to call her.

Ask for his e-mail.

Something.

But she didn’t.

Man, how he hated the twenty-first century.

She looked up as he headed for the door. “You take care of yourself, Talon. And in the future, please try and stay out of the way of runaway Mardi Gras floats, okay?”

Talon lifted both brows in stunned shock. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t you remember last night when you got mowed down?”

Talon nodded hesitantly, unable to believe that that was what had slammed into him. “I was hit by a Mardi Gras float?”

“Yeah, it was Bacchus.”

Now that was adding insult to injury. Jeez. He only hoped Nick didn’t find out about it. Ever.

*   *   *

Nicholas Ambrosius Gautier had come into this world with not a lot of prospects. Born the bastard son of a career felon and a teenage Bourbon Street stripper, he wasn’t exactly the most law-abiding of folks. In fact, his junior high guidance counselor had once voted him Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty.

But one night when Nick had made a stand against the gang he ran with, fate had changed his life and sent in a Dark-Hunter guardian angel who had taken a smart-mouthed kid, cleaned him up, and given him a real future.

Now, nine years later, he was a pre-law student, and instead of playing penal roulette like his father, he was almost a respectable citizen.
Almost
being the operative word.

All thanks to Kyrian of Thrace and Acheron Parthenopaeus.

There was nothing he wouldn’t do for them and that was why he was sitting in his car, parked in a vacant field just after sunset, instead of being off with his latest girlfriend, putting a really big smile on her face.

Even with the car running, it was cold out here. That damp, frigid cold that could go deep into the bones and make them ache. His thermos of coffee all gone, Nick just wanted to get back home and thaw out.

Instead, he was waiting for Talon’s Mardi Gras reinforcement to be delivered, because Zarek, having spent the last nine hundred years in Alaska, had no idea how to drive a car. Apparently, cars weren’t the transportation of choice for snowbound Dark-Hunters.

Yee-freakin’-haw. This was one event he could have waited his lifetime for.

“Nick, you there?”

“Yeah,” he said into the portable radio he had in the passenger seat of his Jaguar that kept him in touch with the incoming helicopter. “What’s your ETA?”