Leather. She definitely liked leather.
He knew what he would see on her, once he'd smoothed that bristly spine of hers.
Nothing.
Her nipples hard and wet, glistening from his tongue. Her bare ass cupped in his hands as he raised her to his mouth. That same ass flipped over and raised for—
A low growl built in his throat. Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to step away from her bed. Not yet.
She would soon come to understand that he was not what she thought of him. That there was much more to Adam Black than the bloody, blasphemous, idiotic Book of the Sin Siriche Du downstairs alleged. He'd spent several hours today rewriting it, crossing out entire sections, simply ripping out other pages and insetting new ones.
It occurred to him as he slipped from her room that, supposing Circenn never came back, seducing Gabrielle O'Callaghan might not be a half-bad way to pass a mortal life.
At least until Aoibheal returned for him and made him immortal again.
Before he left, he turned off her alarm clock. He had no intention of letting her go to work tomorrow.
9
"Stay away! Don't touch me!"
Gabby woke hard, in a full panic, scrambling up and back, plastering herself against the headboard of her bed, eyes wild.
Adam stood a few feet away, one dark brow arched, a tray balanced on one hand. ''Easy, ka-lyrra, I but brought you breakfast. I was about to put it on the edge of your bed and shake you awake."
Gabby pressed a hand to her chest, trying to slow the pounding of her heart. "You scared me! Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing in my bedroom? Get out of my bedroom."
"I didn't 'sneak.' I said 'good morning' three times. Louder each time. I practically bellowed it at the last. You sleep like the dead, Irish. Be easy. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not going to hurt you? If I'd wanted to, I would have done my worst by now." He placed the tray on the edge of the bed and picked up a cup, offering it to her. "Double-shot espresso. I've noticed you like to kick yourself awake in the morning." He smiled lazily. Sexily.
Gabby blinked slowly. Life was so not fair. Her heart had begun to slow but was now speeding back up all over again, for entirely different reasons.
There Adam Black stood, nearly six and a half feet of sleek hard body, wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans slung low on his hips, gold armbands, and a torque. The jeans lent him the air of a modem man, but the arm cuffs and neckpiece, coupled with his strange dual-colored eyes, reminded her that he was a being whose origins predated Christ. Probably by thousands of years. He probably even predated Newgrange. For that matter, maybe he'd built it.
And, oh, but he took her breath away. His wide shoulders and hard chest were sinfully sculpted, his abs rippled and lean. He had those twin ropes of muscle ripping the sides of a six-pack that led straight down to his groin, disappearing into those low-slung jeans, advertising the fact that he could no doubt move said groin for hours without stopping and in ways that could make a woman whimper in ecstasy.
And all of it was covered with that luscious gold-velvet fairy skin. She curled her hands into little fists, battling the overwhelming impulse to cop that eternally denied fairy-feel.
Knowing that he would let her pet him, that in fact he would strip off those jeans in a heartbeat and stretch that hard body over hers and drive into her, made it all the more difficult. With immense effort, she dragged her gaze up to his face.
But looking at his face was no better. His hair was a fall of sleep-tangled midnight silk, his eyes were half-awake, sensually hooded. His face was unshaven, dusted with black stubble; he was a beautiful, rough-around-the-edges, early-morning-sexed man.
"Exactly how old are you?" she asked grumpily, trying to put him back into the perspective of an inhuman being. He looked about thirty, with tiny faint laugh lines at the comers of his eyes.
He shrugged "Somewhere between five and six thousand. It's a bit difficult to keep track of when one moves about in time as frequently as I have. Aoibheal is nearly sixty thousand. I am a mere child by my race's standards."
"I see." Whuh. Definitely inhuman. Unfortunately, discovering his age didn't seem to have diminished her attraction to him in the least. In fact, it seemed somehow, perversely, to have heightened it.
He waved a hand at the breakfast tray. "A croissant perhaps? No? How about some fruit?" He proffered a bowl of freshly cut strawberries, mangoes, and kiwi. "Aren't you hungry? I wake up starved." He sounded mildly offended by the fact.
Oh, she was hungry, all right. Unfortunately, the only thing in her bedroom that she wanted to eat was him.
Suddenly she was fourteen again. And there he was, her fantasy fairy, in her bedroom, no less, saving her breakfast in bed. Her gaze fixed on his gold torque and she had to know. "What are you. anyway?" she demanded irritably.