Ignoring her, he continued. “I want some truthful answers. You’ve dodged my questions long enough.”
“Says the prince of secrets,” she muttered.
“Tell me about the sister with the drug problem.”
She stilled for a moment before looking up at him with anger. “I don’t have a sister, I told you that.”
Jaral watched her closely. He believed her. Not a sister, then, but someone with a large influence on her life. Who was it?
“Going to tell me about your life in the demon courts?” she asked.
“It’s your debt we are evening.”
“You share, I share,” she said with a wicked grin that said she knew damn well he wasn’t about to open up.
“How did you end up with Blake?” he asked instead.
“What’s your relationship like with Abaddon?”
He nearly grinned. There was so much he wanted to know about her, but she was going to make it as hard as possible. Perhaps he should focus on the basics.
He grabbed the duvet and pulled before she realized what he was about. She slid over the bed, riding the cover straight into his waiting arms.
“What the—” she said, struggling against him.
Jaral rolled her backward onto the bed, rising over her. “Okay,” he told her. “Then answer me this, hunter, and we’ll be even. Did you mean what you said back in my hotel room before I kissed you?”
He felt her pulse leap as the memory of admitting she wanted him returned to her. Despite his anger at her when he’d woken, he would never forget the way she’d looked up at him with beautiful, conflicted eyes and confessed how she wanted him and hated him. A sentiment he could relate to without any difficulty. He remembered thinking her words were probably the first truthful ones they’d ever shared.
And then she’d doused him with her potion.
“Tell me,” he whispered, wanting to get them back to that moment before their loyalties had pulled them apart again. “Tell me the truth.”
* * *
She swallowed hard. Never before had she wanted to run away from a conversation as much as this one.
Jaral leaned over her, a knowing look in his eyes. His body pressed against hers, their legs entwined. She was on a slippery slope here.
As her silence dragged on, the demon smiled. He leaned down and drew his lips lightly over her cheek. “Is it so hard to admit?” he whispered in her ear.
“Yes,” she murmured as he pulled back. “It is. What good does it do, demon, to hear your enemy has some scandalous thoughts? It changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
“Why?”
“Because then perhaps you would see we are more than our backgrounds. Perhaps you’d see me as a man, one who wants you more than he has ever wanted another. You are messing with all my plans, human. Since I met you, nothing has made sense.”
She knew the feeling all too well.
“Tell me we’re in this together.”
Darcy shook her head. There were some things that should never be spoken aloud. Lusting after a demon was one of them.
“Hunter,” he said, running his lips along her jaw. “Darcy.”
She stiffened at the sound of her name. He used it so sparingly. Usually she was just hunter or Snow. Looking up at him, she admitted she liked the sound of her name on his lips.
He paused for a moment, meeting her gaze. “Please.”
Twice now Jaral had used that word with her. Demons were supposed to be incapable of yielding to others, of bending, but he had proven more than once that he’d bend for her.
Couldn’t she bend a little in return?
“I want you,” she breathed before she could think it through and call back the words. “And I shouldn’t.”
His grin was so beautiful it took her breath away. For a second she wasn’t staring up at an ancient demon but at a man, content in the arms of his lover. She blinked, knowing this was an image she never wanted to forget.
“Thank you.”
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she looked up at a side of Jaral she’d never seen before. This one was gentle and charming. The type of man she’d have no defense against.
“That’s as far as this goes. We can’t do anything about it.”
“No?” His grin turned decidedly naughty.
“I might want you but I’m never going to act on it.”
“Why not?” He lowered his head and drew his lips down the soft skin of her throat.
“Because,” she whispered.
“Because why?” A hand glided over her hip, shifting her closer to him.
“I’m a hunter. I can’t want a demon. Not to mention a freaking prince.”
He looked up at her then, catching her gaze with his mocking eyes. “And yet here we are.”