wore. It smelled like overripe passion fruit and candy and he reacted as if she were just a confection—one little taste wouldn’t hurt. His teeth grazed her neck beneath her choker where a glowing peridot stone hung like a tiny lantern in the dead of night. She tilted her head for him and felt him go hot all over.
“You’re shameless,” he finally whispered, the scent of expensive alcohol on his breath.
But I’m not shameless, she thought. There were many shameful things in this modern world, but her sexuality wasn’t one of them. How was it her fault that men were so easy to arouse? “I’m shameless? What about you? You look guilty of something.”
He let the cool glass in his hand slide wetly over her shoulder. “And what do you think I’m guilty of, Angel? Give it a shot.”
Angel? Oh, she was going to enjoy killing him. “Are you telling me to guess?”
“No,” he said, his mouth finding the soft spot behind her ear. Then his voice lowered. “Unless you want me to tell you what to do.”
Her stomach fell away with arousal. Yes. Absurdly, she did want that. Just for a few minutes. It wasn’t sex with mortals that was dangerous for nymphs, after all. Just all the emotions that came after. Still, best not to let him get the upper hand. “If you tried to tell me what to do, we’d only end up engaged in a fierce battle of wills.”
She felt him smirk against her neck. “Mine is hard as iron.”
His will. He meant his will was hard as iron. Trying to steady herself, Kyra fanned her fingers over the bar. They came to rest on an unopened pack of cigarettes. Marlboro Reds. Old school. “Yours?” she asked, and when he nodded, her lips curled in mock disapproval. “Bad addiction to have.”
“I’m not addicted,” he countered, one hand stroking her arm. She loved the callused feel of his fingertips on her smooth skin. “I only smoke when I’m trying to come to terms with something.” Kyra almost asked him what he was struggling with. But she didn’t dare. She shouldn’t care. Couldn’t care. It’d only make it harder for her to kill him. “I can quit anytime,” he said.
“How about now?”
He paused, then crushed the whole pack in his fist, tossing it behind the bar like so much trash. He looked smug at her openmouthed stare of astonishment. “Like I said. Iron will.”
He might think so, but he couldn’t resist her. She was sure of it.
Marco called to the bartender. “A drink for the lady.”
“And what if I’m not a lady?” Kyra asked, with a provocative smile.
“That’s okay,” Marco murmured, grasping the nape of her neck. “I don’t plan to be a gentleman tonight.”
She let him bring her back to his penthouse; even from the marbled foyer she glimpsed just how well the monster was living off his ill-gotten fortune. If he’d chosen any of the artwork here, he had exquisite taste. But this probably wasn’t his penthouse, just like the face he wore wasn’t his own. He was a hydra of a thousand faces—an impostor—which made it all the more remarkable that he didn’t seem suspicious of her; he apparently brought women home with him all the time.
No, Kyra thought. Killing him wasn’t going to be difficult at all.
The only problem was that he was an astonishingly good kisser. His mouth was on hers, dizzyingly warm. It surprised her how much she actually liked the way his stubble scratched her cheeks and the animal way he bit her lower lip every time she pulled away for breath. He wasn’t shy about touching her, and he wasn’t taking his time.
He pushed her back against the door, a rapid strike, all strength and speed. Caged in by his strong arms, she saw that his eyes were stormy with challenge. She felt her insides quicken in response. Oh, he so didn’t know who he was dealing with.
Kyra gripped a thick handful of his dark hair and when his hands snaked up under her top, thumbs brushing over her nipples, she thought he was rather daring for a creature that could be killed; he’d been wary in the bar, but now that he’d committed himself to having her, there was no hesitation in him at all.
The heat of him delighted her. The roughness of his touch. The bestial sounds he made, as if he meant to devour her. Kyra’s heartbeat crashed in her ears, as if the thumping roar of the club music had followed them here. She told herself it was just the allure of his mortal energy, the dangerous deception of a man’s desire. But had it felt this good the last time she’d taken a mortal lover?
Maybe Marco was different. The clues in the file she’d stolen led her to believe that in addition to being an arms trafficker, Marco Kaisaris was a war-forged hydra, a mortal man, a monster that could be killed. Now she wondered if he was actually some shape-shifting trickster god, which would excuse her attraction to him and relieve her of guilt for what she was about to do. Stabbing an immortal, after all, wouldn’t cause any lasting harm.
His scent—somewhere between man and musk—drove her crazy. Meanwhile, his kisses had become frenzied as if pleasure was such a fleeting thing in his world he had to consume it before anyone took it away from him. As Marco nipped at her neck, his mouth moving over the luminous gemstone she wore, her own gasps cut through the stillness of the penthouse apartment. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he was rocking her world.
But Kyra prided herself on not being one of those silly nymphs who dallied with mortal men and fell helplessly under their spell. She’d taken plenty of lovers and cast them aside when she was done. After all, she was built for carnal passions, for stolen pleasures in the dark. So, it wasn’t Marco’s all-consuming sexual prowess that was giving her second thoughts about killing him. It was what she saw inside him, beyond the surface. A looming shape of almost unfathomable grief. Beyond the veils of darkness in which he wrapped himself, she glimpsed a forlorn desperation to know and be known, to understand and be understood.
This, she hadn’t expected. Sincerity, pain, need. His vulnerability was subtle but potent sex magic. It made her curious; there was a longing in her to let her eyes open wide and illuminate everything inside him. Unfortunately, that would drive him mad, and that was one thing Kyra would never do to a mortal again. Besides, there’d been a reason she’d tracked him down for months, a reason she’d slipped into his lap tonight, and it wasn’t to satisfy her curiosity or to enjoy herself with a sexy stranger.
Like her father, Marco Kaisaris made a profit selling weapons. He was a merchant of death. The underworld was filled with victims of the bullets Marco sold. No matter what her lust-soaked mind wanted to see inside him, he was an evil man and if she wanted to make up for all the pain and chaos her father had caused in the world, Kyra had no choice but to kill him.
The hydra had to be the reason Kyra still had her powers while so many of the old immortals had lost theirs. This was her destiny. Still, it was with true regret that she realized Marco’s groping fingers would soon discover her hidden knife. With a long-suffering sigh, Kyra stopped him. Marco pulled back, a slow and frustrated tilt to his lips. “Am I going too fast?”
Gods above and below, his voice just wrecked her. The heat of it seared a path from her belly down to the quivering place between her legs. Oh, how she wanted him to touch her. But when he tried to put his hand under her skirt again, she didn’t let him. “Wait. I’ve got something for you.”
She turned slightly and, with one hand,
