On a low growl, Nicolai pushed away from the front porch railing and strode through the empty house toward the backyard. He could sense Adon’s presence on the perimeter, keeping watch. Lukas and Dorian were out hunting Evander and would return shortly to switch shifts.
For months now, Nicolai’s main goal had been to run Evander to ground and kill the sick son of a bitch. Yet since the night of Tamar’s attack, his priorities had altered. BT—better known as Before Tamar—nothing could have kept him from searching for the traitor hours on end. Now he resented every second spent away from the mysterious woman who hissed at him like an asp, challenged his patience like the toughest crossword puzzle and made love like the most talented hetaera.
Lust clenched his gut and twisted viciously. Just last night he’d fantasized of her kneeling between his spread thighs and lowering her mouth over his rigid cock. The thick width had stretched her lips wide and the groan she’d emitted had vibrated down his flesh and hummed in his balls. Shit. He swallowed hard and his fingers fisted as the memory played across the screen of his mind like a porno. The soft glide of her tongue under his cock head and the tight suck of her mouth had his hips surging from the mattress, his dick trying to breach her throat.
Nicolai placed his palm against the storm door that led to the back porch. Instead of pushing it open, he paused, bent his head and inhaled. Closing his eyes, he could almost feel the instinctive contraction of her gag reflex against his dick before her throat relaxed and he’d slid a couple of precious inches into that smooth tunnel.
He exhaled, lifted his lashes. Arousal that danced on the fine edge of pain throbbed in his cock. It would take one stroke to find release. Just one. The sensory image was that powerful.
But he kept his hands to himself—or not to himself.
Hell, if a person could die from blue balls, he might need to get his affairs in order.
It worried him, the consuming need, the voracious hunger that refused to stay in the realm of sleep. Control was imperative. It meant the difference between success and failure, life and death. Nothing had jeopardized that tight rein. Even when Pria had died, he’d channeled his anger, grief and guilt into the hunt, into taking down those who endangered his people.
Discipline hadn’t been an issue…until Tamar. Until she’d crouched in that corner brandishing an iron poker, prepared to fight like the fiercest cruxim. It was her Amazon spirit that endangered his control. It was endearing, sexy…valiant.
His main concern should be protecting her from Evander. Instead he wondered if someone should protect him from her. Her courage, beauty of heart and spirit haunted a part of his soul that would make it impossible to walk away from her at the end of this.
Willing his flesh to behave, he shoved the door open and stepped out on the back porch. The covered deck extended the length of the cabin and was surrounded by a wooden railing and several posts. He notched a shoulder against the nearest post and studied the woman exercising in the large expanse of yard.
Except for those startling moments on the sidewalk and then in the hospital, Nicolai didn’t see Pria when he gazed at Tamar. Of course it was impossible not to notice the resemblance, but the two women were so different.
Where Pria had been a sweet kitten, Tamar was a fierce lioness.
Since their arrival, Tamar had spent at least two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon back here, putting her body through a cardio and strength-training regimen. With a determined expression on her face and buds plugged in her ears, she worked her body without mercy.
The first day she’d worn a long-sleeved shirt over her sports bra. As she hit her stride and the sun rose higher in the sky, it hadn’t been long before she’d stripped the top off. The mottled, scarred flesh on her left arm, shoulder, torso and leg gleamed dully under the perspiration coating her body.
In his head, Nico had caught Adon’s sharp intake of breath.
“What happened to her?” he had asked along their telepathic link.
“Plane crash,” Nicolai responded. “Three years ago.”
Awe and admiration coasted down their bond several seconds before Adon’s solemn “warrior” echoed in Nicolai’s mind.
Nicolai agreed. In their society, strength and valor didn’t always equal muscle or heroic deeds. It entailed sacrifice, courage in the face of insurmountable odds, a toughness of spirit as well as body. Tamar embodied all these worthy traits—prized more in a soldier than skill and power.
After discovering Tamar’s name, he’d researched her. There had been plenty of information available. The crash made national news as well as the extent of her injuries and the hard, painstaking recovery that had lain ahead. Years later, she’d recuperated and salvaged the life that had almost been taken from her. The pain she must have suffered grieved him, made him wish he could have been there to comfort and care for her. But to Nicolai, each scar and ridge of puckered flesh represented her tenacity and bravery.