Page 18 of Beneath My Skin

CHAPTER 5

Dax and I spent the next however long talking strategy. He was right about time working differently. I wasn’t sure how it worked in the outside world, but it felt like we spent hours talking.

I admit, I was ridiculously inept in an emergency. Inept, yet intrigued. Intrigued by the man, the djinn himself. He spoke with animation and with sharp clarity and intelligence I hadn’t thought him capable of possessing.

Once again, I was seeing a different side of him. Beyond the all-powerful supernatural being, beyond the charmer, beyond the lackey and the slave and the betrayer.

“Pretty soon,” he said, steepling his fingers and shooting me a long, heated look, “she’s going to wake up and realize we aren’t there. We don’t have much time left.”

“And here I thought when we got out everyone I knew and loved would be dead.” I couldn’t help but smirk.

“I’m just saying be prepared to run.”

“I can take care of myself,” I snapped.

He rolled his eyes. “I have no doubt. I saw you in action, remember? It’s not a scene I’m likely to forget anytime in the next millennia.”

“What—” I stopped, not sure if I wanted the answer or not. “What was I like? When Cer took over.”

Dax bit the inside of his lip. Searching for an acceptable answer. At once I was afraid to hear what he said. “It happened almost immediately. Your head lolled back, and when you opened your eyes, and looked at me…it wasn’t you anymore. Your pupils were slits. You were fast. An animal. You bloodied the clerk within seconds and would have ripped my head off had I not managed an enchantment to protect myself in time. I’m not sure how Jacqueline escaped certain death. She was on her way out the door when you let loose this blast of power. It’s like we were trapped in a void.”

“You probably protected her.” I paused to study him. He studied me back, his lashes lowering as he took me in. I wondered if he understood, on the simplest atomic level, what he did to women.

At last he sighed. “Look. I work for Jacqueline, but it doesn’t mean I enjoy what I do.”

“What, exactly, do you do?” My eyes widened. “Oh my God, are you her sex slave?”

He blanched. “No. Are you fucking insane?”

I shrugged and tried to ignore the pit opening up in my gut. “It makes sense. You look like a fantasy straight out of Arabian Nights. If she doesn’t use you for physical pleasure…what does she use you for?”

“It’s like a contract,” he explained, clearly not happy to be having this talk. “She holds my bottle, so I’m indebted to her. Subject to her every whim.”

The next question was asked hesitantly. “And when she tells you to kidnap other paranormal creatures?”

“Then I do it,” he answered. It was matter-of-fact and severe.

I tried to nod in an open and entirely nonjudgmental way even as rage wanted to choke me. She had no right, I thought. No right to bend someone’s will to hers. And this was coming from a person with a doomsday clock ticking down inside of her. “I’m sorry,” I told Dax. “For whatever she makes you do. I didn’t understand before.”

“And you do now?”

I was trying to. He was sitting next to me and I felt the heat coming off of him. Potential stirred in the space between us. A flutter of nerves beat in my chest. Nerves and excitement with nowhere to go. Despite everything, I had the crazy desire to lean over and touch him. As if touch alone could put the smile back on his face.

Instead, I shoved my hair over my shoulders and swallowed, looking in the opposite direction. “Maybe I do.”

“I hate to interrupt our bonding, but it’s time.” Dax reached out a hand and drew me to my feet. “I can feel her fury. She’s awake.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Good. You should be scared. But before we go—” He gave me one hard tug that brought me up to the tips of my toes and had me sucking in a breath.

“What are you doing?” I had time to ask.

Then his mouth was on mine. Hot and hungry and hard enough to blur reality. I recognized the small sound of shock I made. I didn’t care.

Dax kissed like a man who didn’t think he’d see tomorrow. Like he had to take what he could and with ruthless skill. The way his teeth worked my lips, the way his tongue lashed against mine had my pulse pumping and my chest aching with desire. How I could feel such lust with my death warrant surely signed, I didn’t know. Though the reaction confused and terrified me, I felt my bones turn to mush.

He tasted as delicious as he smelled.

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