LITMIR.BIZ

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      “What is it?”

      “I want your word that you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you.”

      He laughed, a sound that would have been pleasant under other circumstances. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, running his warm, calloused hand down her arm, his skin caressing where it brushed over the hole in her uniform blouse.

      Oh, God, she thought, feeling all the heat in her body rushing to a very precise location between her thighs. “Until you...until you have a good reason to believe me,” she stammered, “you’ll continue to wonder if what I’m offering is worth your help. Just give me a chance to...prove myself.”

      “And what will you do once you’re free of the Enclave?”

      Phoenix found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the conversation. “What do the other emigrants do?” she asked, her heart beginning to race. “Make a life somewhere in the Zone?”

      “Where they may starve or be picked up by bloodsuckers,” he said.

      “Obviously, that’s a chance they’re willing to take.” She steadied her voice. “If my choices are blood-slavery, execution or a very unlikely chance at life and freedom, I’ll take the last, thank you very much.”

      “No matter how slim the odds?”

      “Yes. Will you give me a chance?”

      It didn’t seem possible that he could move any closer, but he did. “There is no question of your leaving the Hold until your background story is thoroughly checked, your initial information proves genuine and all risks have been carefully weighed.”

      She bit her lip. She might as well bring the subject out into the open.

      “You mean you think I’m leading the Enforcers into the Fringe,” she said.

      He met her gaze sharply. “Are you?”

      “You’re thinking that I was out to find Bosses and expose them, aren’t you?”

      “A good guess,” he said grimly. “It’s been tried before.”

      “I was looking for The Preacher, but there was no guarantee I’d find him. And the only reason I’d do anything like that is if I were some kind of spy.” She laughed. “I can’t believe you’d think that for a moment. Not about someone like me, a humble govrat.”

      “I don’t know you.”

      “You’re right.” She frowned. “So what are you going to do to check out my story?”

      “That doesn’t concern you. I’ll make the decision about whether or not you stay. My crew will abide by my decision once the situation has been explained to them.”

      “What if they don’t?”

      His voice dropped to a low growl. “If you’re afraid any of them might hurt you, you can stop worrying. You’re under my protection.”

      Another silence fell, seething with sexual awareness. Use it, she told herself. Distract him. Bind him to you. Give him a reason to take this situation personally. Very personally.

      She knew she wasn’t at any risk that he might take her blood and learn what she really was. He’d be giving himself away. And she couldn’t think of any sane reason he’d do so, just as he knew he couldn’t be taking blood from his crew.

      But where he obtained his blood was a disturbing question she had to set aside for now. Deliberately striking a pose she knew would emphasize the curve of her breasts under her shirt, she turned her head toward him, sensing without sight how close his lips were to hers.

      “Perhaps you’d like a more immediate gesture of goodwill,” she said. “I’m prepared to give you something I know you want.”

      “And what is that, Lark?” he said, though Phoenix knew very well that this was only a kind of formality between them. A maneuver with only one possible ending.

      She licked her lips. “Me,” she said. “Right here, right now.”

      Chapter 4

      Sammael’s weight shifted as he drew back. “You would sell yourself, then,” he said roughly.

      “Isn’t that what you were hinting at all along?” she asked. “Isn’t it possible I want you, too?” She reached out blindly and touched his jaw. The muscles bunched under her fingertips. “Even if I can’t see your face right now, I seem to remember you’re not hard on the eyes.” Her fingers skated down his chest and ridged stomach and came to rest on his cock, straining against the confinement of his pants. “But you’re certainly hard in other ways.”

      Sammael didn’t so much as twitch. “You expect to manipulate me with sex. You must have a very low opinion of my intelligence.”

      With an effort, Phoenix kept herself from flinching. His body certainly wasn’t faking its interest, and yet he seemed almost offended by her offer. After putting the moves on her with his caresses and insinuating voice.

      Was this a game to him? Did he think he was manipulating her?

      She outlined his cock with the palm of her hand. “You seem to have a very ‘high’ opinion of my physical assets,” she said.

      “I can find women who have a better reason to share my bed.”

      “You said my life is yours. My life includes my body.”

      He slipped out of her grasp. “I don’t take advantage of powerless women.”

      “So you said.” She laughed. “Which is the true Boss, I wonder? The one who makes clear he wants a woman in his bed, or the gallant protector who treats a fugitive like a virgin princess?” She stretched, feeling her nipples aching under her thin bra. “I want you. There’s no reason not to mix business with pleasure.”

      “Do you make a habit of sleeping with men you don’t know, especially criminals?”

      “I’m a criminal now, too. As you pointed out.” She pressed against him again, wrapping her arms around his neck, straddling him so her thighs were clasped around his waist.

      Suddenly, he was kissing her, pushing his tongue inside her mouth and cupping her bottom as he ground into her.

      And she enjoyed it. This wasn’t some sacrifice she had to brace herself to endure. Heaven help her, these feelings of attraction—desire—hadn’t been imaginary. He was an Opir, and she was ready...eager...to have sex with him.

      She hated herself for it. She was too close to stepping over the line, forgetting that this was all part of the job—and the minute she did, all objectivity would be gone. It had happened before, and it had started the same way. With passionate, heedless sex.

      This wouldn’t be heedless. All she had to do was unzip his pants and her own, drag him back to the bed, pull him on top of her, inside her...

      It almost worked. She had his zipper down and his cock in her hand. He slipped his palms under her shirt to cup her breasts and kissed her again, spreading her thighs with his knees.

      An instant later his heat was gone, and she was alone again.

      “Your method needs refining,” he said. “You know you’re desirable, and you pretend to be willing. But no man or woman attains power in the Fringe without the ability to separate truth from lies.”

      “Was my body lying?” she asked, pulling her legs together as she sat up on the bed.

      “It was your test,” he said. “You wanted to see if I’d lied about taking advantage of you. I’m not playing along. You won’t buy my trust that way.”

      He was angry. Very angry. And there was contempt in his voice, as if he didn’t believe a woman had as much a right as any man to freely express her desires.

      That’s

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