When I finished, I moved to retrieve my knives, but he walked over and pulled them from the target, where they were embedded up to the hilt.
“I’m not overexerting myself,” I said to his back.
“I know.” He faced me, the corner of his mouth tilted up. “I feel safer talking to you when you’re not holding weapons.”
“Smart man.” I bit back a smile.
He lost his teasing tone. “Can’t sleep?”
I nodded, because I couldn’t pretend with him. He’d spent enough time with me by now to know my sleep habits.
“Anything I can do?”
“No. A sedentary lifestyle doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve been pent up here a little too long. I’ll be okay once I can get back to a normal routine.”
His eyes grew troubled. “I’m sorry. I should have known how hard this would be for you.”
“Stop.” I held up a hand. “If anyone should apologize, it’s me. I’ve been in a foul mood, and I took it out on you today.”
Hamid hefted one of the knives. “Does throwing these help you sleep?”
“Not really. But it’s better than staring at my bedroom ceiling.”
“Then we need to make it more interesting.” He came to stand beside me. “Closest to the center wins.”
“What do I win?” I asked, taking the knife he offered me.
“You can name your prize if you win,” he said with a cocky lift of his eyebrows.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Fine. But no engaging our Mori. That way the playing field will be a little more even.”
“I accept your terms.” He stepped aside and waved me over. “Ladies first.”
I moved into position, took aim, and threw. As soon as the knife left my hand, I knew it was one of my best shots. It hit the target almost dead center, and I had to resist the urge to let out a whoop.
“Not bad,” he said as he took my place.
“Not bad? That was a nearly perfect throw.”
He drew back his arm and released his knife without stopping to take aim. I could hear the scrape of metal on metal as the tip of his blade sank into the target next to mine. I didn’t need to walk over to the target to know he’d beaten me by a fraction of an inch.
“Show-off,” I muttered.
He handed me another knife. “Best two out of three?”
We threw three knives each. I could have thrown two dozen knives, and I still wouldn’t have bested Hamid. The man was a machine, never missing his mark once.
I slanted a look at him. “Are you sure you’re not engaging your Mori?”
“Are you calling me a cheater?”
“No,” I grudgingly admitted. “Will you show me how you can throw so well without even aiming?”
He chuckled. “I was waiting for you to ask.”
Over the next hour, Hamid patiently demonstrated his knife throwing technique, and I practiced until I felt comfortable with it. When we finished, I challenged him to another contest, and this time, it was my knife that took the center spot.
“Yes! Do you see that?” I jumped up and down. “I could kiss you right now.”
I turned to face him and stumbled into his hard chest. His arms wrapped around me, and I tilted my head up to give him a sheepish smile.
“Sorry, I –”
My words were cut off when his mouth came down over mine. Every nerve ending in my body fired when his tongue swept possessively across the seam of my lips, demanding entry. I opened to him eagerly as my hands went to the back of his head, holding him against me. There was nothing gentle about this kiss. It was hungry and hard, and it stoked my desire for him into an inferno.
Without breaking the kiss, I pushed him, and he moved backward until he came up against the weight bench. He sat, and my lips stayed fused with his as I climbed onto his lap to straddle him. His arousal pressed against me through our clothes, and I moaned into his mouth. Needing more, I rocked against him, and he growled deep in his chest. Dear God, that was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.
My hands slid down his back to slip beneath his shirt and glide over his hot skin. His breath hitched, and he made a tortured sound when my fingers traced the muscles of his abdomen. I’d seen him shirtless, but nothing compared to the feel of his hard body under my hands. He was perfection.
One of his large hands moved under my top to cup my breast, and I moaned at the heat of his touch through my bra. I shifted restlessly on his lap, aching to feel all of him without the barrier of clothes between us.
The sound of the outside door opening vaguely registered in my lust-drunk mind. It wasn’t until I heard footsteps coming toward us that I came to my senses and broke the kiss. I stared into Hamid’s eyes, which were drugged with desire, and reality hit me like a bucket of ice water.
What am I doing? I started to climb off his lap, but his arms tightened around my waist like a vise.
“Stay,” he said in a gravelly voice that made me want to do whatever he asked of me. And that realization terrified me more than anything ever had.
“I can’t,” I whispered hoarsely. “Let me go.”
Frustration crossed his face, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to release me. But then his arms loosened, and I was able to move away from him.
I couldn’t look at him. He’d made the first move, but it was I who had been all over him, getting both of us worked up and so close to losing control. If someone hadn’t come along, how far would I have gone? Would I have stopped at all?
A weak “I’m sorry” was all I could manage before I ran from the gym and fled to my room.
Chapter 13
“Hey, there you are.” Beth looked up from the computer she was working on as I entered the control room two days later. “I was just about to go look for you.”
“It’s a little early for patrol,” I joked, excitement rippling through me. I had finally been cleared to go back to work, and tonight I was going out with Chris, Beth, and Rory. Something told me Chris was going to be keeping an eye on me for my first day back, but I didn’t care. I was so full of energy after my convalescence that it felt like I would burst out of my skin if I didn’t see some action soon.
She smiled. “Nikolas asked me to find you. He said to send you to his office.”
I made a face. “Called to the office on my first day at work. This can’t be good.”
Nikolas’s door was closed, which was my first clue that something was up. He never closed it unless he was on a call with Tristan or someone else equally important.
I knocked, and he called for me to enter. My smile disappeared when I opened the door to see that Nikolas was not alone. Hamid was seated in one of the visitor chairs.
It was the first time I’d seen Hamid since that night in the gym, mainly because I’d been doing everything I could to avoid being in the same room with him. Call me a coward, but I didn’t know how to face him after that kiss.
Holy Mother, that kiss. My skin heated just remembering the taste of his lips, the feel of his body under my exploring fingers.
My eyes briefly met his stoic gaze before I looked at Nikolas. “You wanted to see me?”
“We did. Come in.”
My stomach knotted as I took the chair next to Hamid’s. I did not have a good feeling about this.
I gave Nikolas an expectant look, but it was Hamid who spoke.
“The team and I are needed in Atlanta. We leave in two hours.”
I wasn’t sure why he felt the need to tell me this when we weren’t even on speaking terms these days. But I was curious all the same. “Is it another summoning?”
“No. Ciro contacted us an hour ago to say he uncovered something and he needs us to go there immediately. He said it was related to our investigation and of the utmost importance. That is all I know.” Hamid’s eyes were unreadable, betraying nothing of what he felt about me now. It was almost as if the kiss had never happened and we were nothing more than two warriors working on the same job.
“Oh.” I rubbed my palms on my thighs, not sure what to say next. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
He looked confused for a few seconds. “We will be several days at least. You will want to pack enough clothes for that.”
“Me?” I looked from him to Nikolas, who seemed happy to sit back and let us talk. “I don’t think Ciro needs me there.”
Hamid nodded. “I am needed there, and where I go, you go.”
“But…” I started to say I wanted to stay here where I would be useful, but nothing was more important than this investigation. My wants did not matter as long as the person responsible for all of this was still out there.
I nodded and stood. “I’ll go pack.”
Ten minutes later, I sat on my bed staring at the packed duffle bag on the floor and wondering how I was going to be around Hamid for several days after what had happened between us. He appeared to have moved past it, but I couldn’t put it out of my mind. I was starting to think the spell had messed with our bond. How else could I explain why I was obsessing over him while he was composed and indifferent? Had it only been a heat-of-the-moment thing for him?
I let out a pitiful groan and flopped back on my bed. Why me?
I stayed there until Beth knocked on my door to tell me it was time to go to the airport. I picked up my bag and set my shoulders before I went to join the others.
One good thing about traveling with the team was that I didn’t have to be alone with Hamid or talk to him unless it was necessary. I couldn’t get out of riding in the same vehicle as him, but I took the seat farthest from his on the plane. When we landed in Atlanta, he was so focused on the job that he barely looked at me as we piled into the waiting SUVs.
We found Ciro at a modest two-story house in Edgewood. From the outside, the house looked like any other on the street, but as soon as I passed through the front door, my skin prickled almost painfully from the magic inside. I rubbed my arms as I walked down a short hallway, trying to get rid of the pins and needles sensation.
“It’s a ward,” said Bastien, who had followed me in. “The effects will fade soon.”
Ciro was waiting for us in the living room, and his grave expression told me whatever he’d found was not good. Dread coiled in my stomach as I waited for everyone to join us. For him to call the whole team here instead of telling them this over the phone, his discovery had to be huge.
“Thank you for getting here so quickly,” he said as soon as the last person entered the room. “This is the home of my protégé, Kai. I came here to check in with him because I haven’t heard from him in two months, but he wasn’t here. It’s not like Kai to go off for this long without telling me.”
“You suspect foul play?” Hamid asked, his eyes already scanning the room for clues.
My gaze followed Hamid’s and landed on a framed photo of Ciro with a thin man with dirty blond hair, who looked to be in his mid-thirties.