The Fire Within Read online

  “Tell me, Samantha,” Darius said again in a firm but quiet voice.

  She sighed. “Fine. But I warn you it sounds crazy.” She described her ability haltingly, then the dream in detail, leaving nothing out. He remained silent throughout her tale, merely stared at her with his fathomless gaze. “And right when he was about to kiss me,” she paused and shuddered, “you knocked on the door. I honestly don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”

  She frowned then. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he sat down beside her on the bed and reached out to stroke her throat. His fingers felt overly warm, brushing her skin like the fluttering of butterfly wings, simultaneously easing the constriction on her throat while stoking the flames of desire he’d so easily stirred last night.

  Her face flamed and she thought she saw an answering heat flare in his eyes. How easy it would be to lean forward and kiss that skilled mouth of his.

  God, had it only been last night?

  Swallowing hard, she forced herself to move back, needing to preserve what small sense of self she had left. In just moments he was going to tell her she was nuts, or worse, call the men in white coats to pay her a visit.

  He frowned when she withdrew, and opened his mouth as if to say something. Here it comes, she thought.

  “Samantha,” he paused, “it isn’t safe for you here.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” She eyed him shrewdly. “What is it you’re not telling me, Darius?”

  He stood and stared down at her with a familiar gleam of impatience. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but the end result will be the same.”

  She stood, absently noting the pain in her throat had completely vanished. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re an arrogant bastard, you know that?”

  “It isn’t arrogance that makes you feel this.” And in an instant he sealed her protest with a soul-shattering kiss.

  Lips like silk slid over hers, hot and supple with promise. Like catching a flaming tiger by the tail, she was well and truly snared. Much as she wanted to deny what he did to her, she couldn’t resist him.

  “Tell me I am alone in this,” he muttered as he trailed his mouth over her neck, his hands roaming lower. He undressed her before she understood his intent. And by then, she was too far gone to care. “Is it my touch alone that makes us burn? I am consumed with need, on fire to have you, no matter the cost.”

  So saying he sought her mouth again, showing her with his lips and tongue the passion he claimed. His hands found her thighs, rubbing and pressing her closer to him, to the steely length prodding her core.

  He slid one hand between her legs and groaned when he met bare skin. Then he plunged a finger inside her, making her arch into him despite her irritation that he could so easily control her.

  “You’re so hot, so wet,” he said thickly and began thrusting his long finger in and out of her, mimicking the action with his tongue in her mouth.

  Need welled within her, her desire so strong it bordered on pain. With trembling hands she reached for the fly of his jeans and reached inside. At her touch he groaned and swelled, his shaft like iron, a burning testament to the passion between them.

  She quickly freed him from his jeans, briefly enjoying the velvety steel of his erection before he took control of the moment. Almost desperately, he shoved her hands away and threw her to the bed, immediately following. He landed between her thighs, his focus intent and unbreakable.

  Sealing his mouth to hers, he drove deep inside her, sliding through her welcoming warmth with a moan. Then he began pumping, harder and harder, until they were one heartbeat. Over and over he plunged, riding her with a fierceness that fuelled the animal heat roaring for release within her.

  “Samantha,” he rasped and stared into her eyes, his body pounding hers. “I need you. I can’t stop…” His loss of control pulled her deeper into the abyss until her heart felt as if would explode.

  “Now, affai.” He rotated his hips, the friction on her clit unbearable, and thrust so hard she saw stars. She cried out his name as she climaxed, dimly aware he found his own release.

  When she could catch her breath, she realised this time had been better than the last, that she hadn’t imagined his sexual potency. Her one irresponsible fling had turned into two flings, and irresponsible or not, she felt too limp, too sated to regret it.

  “Good. Regrets are futile since we can’t undo what’s been done.” He flexed and she bit her lip, the feeling of him inside her deeply satisfying.

  Unfortunately, he sighed with regret and withdrew. “But we do need to get moving. You’re hell on my discipline, woman.” Standing, he waited while she threw on the clothes she’d set aside to wear for the day, then helped her to her feet like a gentleman.

  Surprised at his manners after his aggressive, sexual behaviour, she opened her mouth to tease him but shut it when the peculiarity of his comments dawned. She watched him in awe as one dark eyebrow quirked in an arrogant gesture he seemed to have perfected. Have you finally figured it out?

  Her temples throbbed and her dry mouth made it difficult to swallow. As if dreams of demons and hearing voices weren’t enough, she’d just made love to a mind reader, one with blazing red eyes that couldn’t possibly be human.

  Chapter Six

  Darius could feel his eyes sparking with heat. Making love to Samantha hadn’t been smart, not at all. It had done nothing to sate him, and everything to make him want her again. Not a good time, considering what she’d recently been through.

  Swearing under his breath, he brought his power under control, enough so that he knew his eyes cooled under the uncomfortable dark contacts he was forced to wear. Samantha simply continued to stare and he thought maybe he’d pushed her too far.

  Sighing, he took her by the shoulders and looked down into her wide, stunned green gaze. “Look, I know all this is hard to believe. Trust me, I know the feeling all too well.” He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.

  Maybe ordering her to come with him had been harsh. His eyes lingered on her vulnerable neck. After what she’d been through, not only with ’Sin Garu but also with the combustible chemistry they seemed to share, she had a right to be wary.

  “Samantha, I’m asking you to please come with me. I promise, once we’re at my house, I’ll answer all your questions and tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know.”

  She stared at him, her gaze deep and assessing. “I’ll go with you,” she said slowly. “But I want you to promise you’ll stay out of my mind.”

  He nodded, though it would take no small effort on his part to give her the space she desired. For some reason, his mind tuned to hers naturally, and the more he was around her, the less he was able to remain distant, both mentally and physically.

  He didn’t feel comfortable with this sudden need for a constant ‘mental touch’, and the desire he felt when around her had not abated. Not at all. No, the orgasm he’d just experienced hadn’t sated him, merely made him hungry for more of Samantha’s delectable body.

  As he watched her throw her things together into a bag, he wondered at the lack of spark in the crystal embedded in his skin. If Samantha was his true affai, the crystal should have been pulsating or doing, well, something. But it did nothing, merely sat like a scar on his chest.

  Samantha finished packing her clothes in record time and he gratefully grabbed her bag, using the motion to take his mind off anything related to the word ‘affai’.

  They walked to his truck in silence, his attention on the dark world around them, conscious now of the Djinn threat. Samantha, he imagined, was trying to come to grips with what had happened in her hotel room.

  He had driven halfway to his house before she spoke.

  “What is an affai?”

  He turned to her in shock. “What?”

&nbs
p; “Watch the road!”

  He barely managed to avoid the car in front of him. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From you.”

  “When?” He didn’t remember mentioning anything about an affai to her. Hell, he had planned to avoid explaining that part of the story until he absolutely had to clarify it. The thought of marriage still made his stomach roll.

  “When we were making love. You called me affai.”

  His gaze remained on the road but he could see her blush out of the corner of his eye.

  “It’s a term of affection, nothing more.” Why had he called her that? Granted, making love with her was better than anything he’d ever experienced, but great sex was a far cry from a lifetime of commitment.

  The stupid crystal around his neck seemed no help. Despite not wanting an affai—not in the slightest, he told himself—he was disappointed the stone hadn’t reacted to Samantha.

  Silently cursing the vexing stone burned into his skin, he knew it was best to keep any talk of a bride and permanence to himself, at least until he knew just what his connection with Samantha truly meant. Better to gauge her reaction to his explanation of Tanselm and the Storm Lords. No need to overwhelm her with talk of a binding future, especially if there wasn’t one.

  For her part, Samantha seemed to accept his explanation and remained quiet the rest of the drive. Thirty minutes later he escorted her into his home, more than curious to see how she would react to his brothers. In Tanselm, a place where the Royal Four existed and were accepted, people continually stopped and stared when he and his brothers grouped together.

  His mother liked to think it was ‘the sheer beauty of her four handsome sons’ clustered in one place that caused such awe, but Arim speculated the brothers’ energies bonded, charging the space around them with a powerful presence impossible to ignore.

  Since entering this realm a year ago, Darius had brought only three other women to his home to meet his brothers. One of the women had been so intimidated she’d immediately broken off with him. The other two, he grimaced remembering, had boldly hinted at an open sexual relationship with him and his brothers, even after he’d tested the waters promising a more permanent relationship.

  Disturbed by their greed, he’d ended their association without a qualm. As a general rule, he and his brothers didn’t share women, not about to allow a female to come between them. The women he’d brought home, however, he couldn’t have cared less about sharing. Their lack of principles disgusted him.

  But now, with Samantha… He didn’t like the possessiveness he felt. He didn’t want to think of his reaction should she prove as fickle and shallow as the women he’d brought home. But more than that, he didn’t want to face the secret desire building within him should she prove a false hope.

  * * * *

  The minute Samantha walked through the door of his fabulously expensive house and faced Darius’ family, she froze in what she hoped was the last shock of the day.

  Darius had said little on the drive home. After being stunned by her mention of an ‘affai’, whatever that was, he’d made a short phone call. Apparently he hadn’t intended to bring her home until he saw her injury in the hotel room, for he made a rather vague explanation to whoever he talked to on the cell phone before grunting and hanging up.

  When she’d questioned him about his home, he evaded her enquiry about his family and grew stiffly silent. Not that she expected small talk from Darius, but even a comment about the weather might have eased the tension in his rickety truck. Tired, she accepted the quiet. She might have reacted differently had she not still been recovering from the nightmare from hell and from her astonishing lack of control when it came to Darius.

  Now, however, she wished she’d pressed him. Darius Storm was one of four identical quadruplets. Identical. Quadruplets. Good Lord, that a man as good-looking as Darius existed boggled the mind. But to see four of him, all standing together, well, it was all she could do to keep from drooling.

  She stood inside the foyer staring at all of them, unsure of what to say. They possessed a magnetism she found irresistible, and as she adjusted to their presence, her eyes drifted automatically to the annoyed man next to her.

  Darius eyed her like a cat about to pounce, and she was aware she stood on a precipice of some kind, that her response to his unique family would answer some test she’d unwittingly been assigned.

  “Please tell me this is the last surprise of the day,” she muttered wearily, not able to think of anything witty at the moment. “I’ve got a massive headache, and the cause of said headache drove me here. I can’t handle three more of him, not on four hours of sleep and no caffeine.” Listening to her inane comments, she scowled at Darius. It was all his fault she sounded like a blithering idiot.

  Three of the four men smiled, Darius’ grin slower to appear. “Well said,” one of them replied and shook her hand. All four of them stood the same height and possessed the same brawny handsomeness that made her mouth water. And as she studied them trying to find a way to tell them apart, Darius gruffly introduced them.

  “Marcus, Cadmus and Aerolus, meet Samantha Brooks. Samantha, my brothers.”

  She nodded politely, surprised to note each brother had a different eye colour. Marcus had blue eyes—he must have been the man she saw outside the restaurant yesterday. She frowned at him, then turned to the man who’d shaken her hand, the brown-eyed Cadmus, and finally settled a tight smile on the grey-eyed Aerolus.

  Darius stepped closer to her and placed his arm around her shoulders looking strangely satisfied. “Welcome to my home, Samantha.” He led her further inside to the living room couch and sat down next to her. Way too close. She was extremely aware of his body heat bleeding into her everywhere they touched.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” she said to the room at large, the three mirror images of Darius dwarfing the open space as they sat around her. She aimed a glare at the stubborn man beside her. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “No worries,” Cadmus said with a twinkle in his gaze. “Trust us, we know what a jackass Darius is. We live with him.”

  “Yes,” Aerolus parroted his brother with a straight face. “He’s a complete jackass.”

  His words sounded funny, spoken with a strangely exotic accent and murmured from a stoic face.

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “We’re all in agreement as to what a pain Darius can be. Now Darius, tell us exactly what’s going on. Samantha obviously doesn’t want to be here, so why did you drag her here? I thought the plan was to stay with her at the hotel.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be here, specifically, but… What do you mean the plan was to stay with me at the hotel?” She jerked away from Darius’ heavy arm.

  The others grew silent but Samantha had eyes only for Darius. He looked faintly uncomfortable, more so surrounded by his brothers.

  “Samantha,” he began in a low voice meant to soften her. She didn’t blink, refusing to bend, and he sighed. “I told you I’d explain.”

  Silence.

  “Well?” she prodded, her arms crossed, her posture screaming at him to give her the answers she wanted or she’d explode.

  “Fine.” He cursed, his brows knit in irritation. “You want answers? How’s this? We four,” he paused as he motioned to his brothers, “are known as the Royal Four, the next in line to lead Tanselm, a world you’ve never heard of that’s under attack from the same evil you experienced this morning.”

  “What?” Aerolus shot off the couch, Marcus and Cadmus both stunned as well.

  Samantha’s head throbbed. “Say that again?”

  “By the Light, Darius.” Marcus shook his head. “I think a decent explanation is in order here, for Samantha and for us.”

  Cadmus nodded, his frown clearly disapproving. “Yeah. You really have no sense of tact.” He turned to Samantha. “Though your taste in women is definitely improving.”

  Darius growled and Samantha held up a hand to stop the
insanity. “Everyone just shut up.” Her voice rose over the brotherly discourse. “You, Aerolus, you’ve been fairly quiet. Why don’t you explain this to me?”

  The calmest of the four, and the one with the most mysterious eyes, sighed. “With the way my brother acts, it’s a wonder you’re still here.” He shot Darius an accusing glance, one that wounded him into silence.

  “Samantha, what Darius has said is all true. It may be hard to accept, but we four are from another world, a place in which magic exists and evil and the Light are fighting a battle for control.”

  “Of course you’re from another world. I should have guessed that from the start.” She thought she’d said that quite calmly, but Marcus snickered.

  “Take out your contacts, Darius,” Aerolus said. “That might help.”

  With a sinking feeling, she watched Darius remove his lenses. His dark eyes turned a startling red, as they had in the hotel room. Well, so much for the ’I must have imagined that‘ theory. Then the sudden remembrance of her erotic dream in the hotel room became vibrantly significant. Red eyes. Affai. She hastily visualised a mental barrier when his brows drew in puzzlement, then in heat. So much for not reading my thoughts.

  “Here, in Seattle, all of us but Darius could pass for your kind, though I’ve yet to see identical quadruplets.” Aerolus appeared thoughtful and Darius groaned.

  “Just get on with it.”

  “Yes, well,” Aerolus coughed as if to hide his amusement. “We are the sons of a mighty Storm Lord, a man born of elemental magic who ruled the western portion of Tanselm, our world. Specifically, our father commanded the winds. He died over a year ago.”

  Samantha clearly felt their pain, and without thinking she reached for Darius’ large hand. Warmth unfurled through her at his touch, and she gripped his palm before trying to ease free. He wouldn’t let her. Why this pleased her she couldn’t say, but unwilling to show it and give him the upper hand, she sat quietly, waiting for Aerolus to continue.