True, his subconscious whispered, as her gaze caught and held his. Her eyes captured him. Not merely their shape and color, but what swirled within them. Something unidentifiable, but familiar. Like a window not only into her soul, but into himself as well. Except that he had no way to decipher their contents, no context for the messages they might send. He knew little of her except that she was brave and brash—a cocky mercenary who took no prisoners and asked questions later.
“I want any hot pieces of ass that I see.” His tone was harsh, the words a lie. Such a ridiculous lie, but pushing her away was the only way to keep himself sane.
Esha was the one he thought about at night.
“Maybe,” she said, and leaned back in her chair.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I already told you that.”
“No, you dinna. You changed the subject. Why are you here at my table? You were mad as hell last time we spoke.” He’d been an arse then, for the same reason he was being one now.
“How insightful of you to notice.”
“Just being honest.”
She laughed. “Honest that you don’t like what I am. Here’s the thing, though, that doesn’t bother me since I know that you want me. No Mythean likes my species, so why should you be any different? And it’s not like I want much from you. Just a distraction.”
The smile she gave him told him exactly what kind of distraction she was looking for, and gods, he was tempted. Though her tone was confident, he thought he could see a shadow of something in her eyes that belied the claim that she didn’t care. He hated that she expected so little of others. So little for herself.
Gods, she was probably as fucked up as he was. It made him feel less alone.
These were dangerous thoughts. He surged to his feet and skirted the table toward the door. “I’m leaving. Have a good night.”
“Good idea.” Her voice came from behind him.
She was following him outside.
The pub was small, and they were out the door in seconds. Wind and rain pelted them as he grabbed her arm and swung her into the small alley to the left of the entrance.
He pressed her up against the wall in the darkness and growled, “Why are you following me?”
“How do you know I wasn’t heading home?” She pushed at him, then clutched at his sweater, as if she couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted from him.
The darkly sensual scent of her pushed through the wet stone smell of the city and coiled around him, reached inside of him, and tugged. So foreign, the smell of a woman this close. Dim street light glinted off coal-black hair and amber eyes. She laced a spell around him. It was the only explanation for his obsession.
He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that he should look away. Walk away. But he couldn’t. The unfamiliar touch of another, something he’d gone without for so long, kept him still. He wanted her touch, her softness, her warmth, so badly that he ached.
In the darkness behind his closed lids, he felt her finger drag over his lips. His cock swelled until it was achingly hard and he barely stopped himself from sucking her finger into his mouth, so desperate was he to taste her.
He hadn’t had a woman in so long he’d forgotten how they felt. But that was the point. The forgetting. The simplicity of a life that helped him forget the things that he’d done and that had been done to him. She offered a release from the self-imposed iron cage of control that kept his demons at bay. But he shouldn’t want that release.
“I doona want you.” His voice was ragged, his shaft thrusting painfully against his fly.
He opened his eyes to see her smiling at him, a devious grin that indicated she recognized his lie.
/>
“No, you don’t want to want me because of what I am. That’s very different from not wanting me.”
One of her kind had stolen his soul and made him a monster. He shouldn’t want her. He shouldn’t like her. He shouldn’t feel at all, not if he wanted to keep the demons of his past from howling until his mind cracked.
Good feelings—like those associated with being near her—gave context for bad. His rigidly self-enforced control led to its own kind of peace, which he desperately needed.
Esha fucked with all of that. He should turn around and walk away. Now.
Instead, he leaned closer, his mouth hovering a hairsbreadth from hers. He wanted to be close to her, just for a second. Just long enough to know what it would feel like to be with her. So that he could pull out the memory in the dark loneliness of the night.