“Do go on.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I enjoy watching you argue with yourself.”
“FYI, you were tossing a few sentences back there yourself, Judgy McJudgerson.”
He shook his head and frowned. “I’m sorry? I am not a magistrate?”
Nyx opened her mouth. Closed it. “Have you ever heard of a meme?”
“Of course. A performer in black and white who doesn’t speak.”
“That’s a mime. A meme is . . .” As she seemed to let her thought recede, her temper appeared to deflate. “You don’t know anything about the Internet, do you. Social media. Microsoft. Apple.”
“Small and supple, you mean? And the latter is a fruit I have long missed the acquaintance of. As for the rest, I’m afraid you have me at a loss.” As they stared at each other, he knew she was tallying his deficiencies with regard to the modern world. “You can stop that right now. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I don’t need or desire your sympathy.”
She looked to the swirling water again. “I just can’t imagine being down here for so long, that’s all.”
As she struggled, the Jackal cursed under his breath. “I have missed much then?”
“In a hundred years, yes.” She cleared her throat. Looked back at him. “By the way, is it okay if I just call you Jack? The ‘the’ thing is a little weird.”
He had to smile. “You may call me whatever you wish.”
“Even if it’s a curse word?”
“Rest assured you would not be the first.”
“That I can believe.”
He found himself wanting to smile. “Tell me, what would you pick?”
“Out of the full catalogue of bad words?” She regarded him with grave seriousness. “I think I would go with . . . ‘boneheaded chauvinistic throwback boomer.’ ”
The Jackal blinked a number of times. “I don’t recognize those words as curses. And I’m not sure what this backwards-pitched boomer is?”
Ducking her head, she hid a smile he was desperate to see. “I guess I’m more of a lady than I thought. ‘Twat-waffle’ and ‘fucktard’ just seemed below the belt and inappropriate.”
“Twat-waffle? What is that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not good.”
They fell silent again, but the tension was gone—although not the heat. Therefore, he felt compelled to say, “I would kiss you the now, if it would not offend.”
It was out of an obligation to all that was rational that Nyx tried on a bunch of responses to the kiss question in her head, making a deep cognitive dive. Into Netflix and Spotify.
Emma Thompson, ca. Sense and Sensibility: You must cease and desist all such lustful thoughts, you beast.
Emma Stone, ca. Zombieland: Over your dead body.
Julia Roberts, ca. Pretty Woman: Big mistake. Huge.
Cardi B, in any situation: Bitch, please.
All of those worked. Unfortunately, what was more likely to come out of her mouth was straight-up Jennifer Lawrence: I volunteer as tribute.
Eight hours, Nyx thought. Wasn’t that what the gentlemale in the prison clothes had said? Maybe ten.
So it was going to be a very long time until she and Jack could get going to the Wall.
And talking was overrated, wasn’t it.
“I’ll do the kissing,” she muttered. “Thank you very much.”
With that, she crossed the space between them with her lips, putting them on his. And as the softness of his mouth registered, she was surprised, but that made no sense. All mouths were soft, even if they came attached to big, strong bodies. And what do you know. In spite of his obvious arousal, he didn’t jump her. Instead, Jack stayed where he was, reclining against the smooth rock, letting her set the pace as she explored and . . . enjoyed.
Tilting her head, she deepened things, running her tongue along his lower lip. Then she licked inside of him.
The shaking that rose up from his body was erotic. The way his breath caught was hotter than hell. The taste of him and the scent of him and—
He pulled back sharply, his glittering blue eyes finding hers. There was a flush on his face and the cords in his neck were straining, like he was forcing himself to stay put.
“You do not disappoint,” he said roughly. “Not in the slightest.”
That was when he grabbed her and pulled her onto his chest. His kiss was nothing like hers. It was not tentative. It wasn’t a caress of lips. It wasn’t soft, lilting, a polite exploration that was a prelude to passion.
He was a full-blooded, fully aroused male and he took what he wanted, his hands biting into her upper arms, his mouth hard on hers, catching . . . owning. And she told herself that she felt it all so acutely because her senses were alive in this dangerous, strange prison.
But that was bullshit. She would have felt the same up above, in the real world, if they were out on a date and he was kissing her up against a car in a restaurant’s parking lot. Her body was alive because of him, not where they were.
“Will you let me inside,” he asked against her mouth.
“Yes,” she breathed. Even as she told herself to stay quiet.
Her need for him was something she felt like she should hide. It gave him power over her, the kind that had nothing to do with the dead lift thing or the bullcrap that came with his antiquated view of females.
But like her response was a secret? Especially as she split her legs and sat on his hard, muscled thigh, her core rubbing against him, creating delicious friction. And as if he knew what she was doing, he purred, deep in his throat, one of his hands coming up to cup the back of her neck. When her hair tie was pulled out, she knew that was the prelude to him taking her clothes off, and she was ready for the naked, starved for the next level to all this—
Just as Jack had overtaken her when she’d first entered the prison’s labyrinth, he again moved so fast, she couldn’t track him. One moment, he was underneath her and their mouths were fused. The next, he was all the way on the far side of the pool.
As he began to pace back and forth, he put one of his hands to his forehead. Meanwhile, she was stuck on the stone sofa, wondering what the hell had happened.
What the hell had gone wrong.
But he’d been feeling her. She knew it.
Hell, she could see it, in that bulge in the front of his loose pants.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he snapped. “I am perfectly well.”
“Well, that’s good. You know, you look fine. You look totally, completely fine. I mean, honestly, the poster child for fine.”
“Will you please stop talking,” he muttered.
“You could make me. If you kissed me again.”
At that, he stopped and looked over at her. She braced herself to be called a hussy, or some other old-fashioned word. Instead, the full force of his sexual arousal sizzled across the warm, humid space.
“You’re afraid of me,” she said. “Aren’t you.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. You started a game and now you’re afraid of finishing it.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why is that.”
“I am not afraid of anything.” His tone was dead. “This place has taught me to know no fear.”
Nyx opened her mouth to argue with him, but she didn’t follow through on the knee-jerk impulse as all of the life drained out of him. No more light behind those beautiful blue eyes. No more arousal in his magnificent body. No more connection to anything around him, even her.
“What did they do to you,” she said through a tight throat.
He looked away, and she studied his handsome face in the candlelight. When she wasn’t busy being irritated with him, his male beauty captivated her. He had perfect bone structure, and sensuous lips that she now knew all too well, and that torso of his, so strong and wide at the shoulders, so narrow at the hips, was the kind of thing males up above went to the gym to try to get.
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “After the damage is done, the cause of it is no longer relevant. All you have is what has been broken.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Your commiseration is unnecessary and unwelcome—”
“—that I haven’t taken this as seriously as I should.” She lowered her eyes from him. “You’re right. I don’t think I have any idea how bad this place is.”
After all, if they could break a male like him?
And that was what had happened. She didn’t need the details, like he said, the loss of spirit was enough, and the center of her chest ached for him—and for Janelle. Dear God, what had they done to Janelle?
“Would you like to take a bath?” he said roughly.
“Yes.” Anything to stop thinking.
He turned his back to her and sat down on the ground in a random place—and she was willing to bet he had no clue where he was in the cave. He was like a star in a strange orbit, outside of the galaxy. Outside of reality.
“I can give you more privacy,” he said. As if he were offering her something tangible, something he could hold in his palm and put out toward her. “I can leave.”
“Stay,” she replied. “So I know I have backup.”
His head nodded. “All right.”
She waited a moment, although she wasn’t sure what she expected to happen or change in the pause, and she spent the time looking at the ponytail that ran down his spine. It was very long. Then again, he’d been growing hair for a hundred years.
What would it look like, free of that tie, spilling over his naked chest?
On that Fabio note, she turned her back to his back and quickly got out of her clothes. Covering her breasts with one of her arms, she went to the water, her skin goose bumping both from an awareness of how naked she was and also from the temperature drop. Fortunately, as she stood over the pool, the rising heat eased the chill, although it did nothing for her sense of vulnerability—which, to be fair, wasn’t that big a deal.