Aequitas - Hope Anika (i like reading books txt) 📗

veins simmered. She grew too warm. And she became aware, in a way she’d never before experienced, that she was female.

A woman.

Red-blooded and alive and—

“Good Christ, look at you,” he muttered and took a step toward her, too close. Clothed entirely in black, from the fine, ebony cashmere sweater and tailored woolen coat he wore to the tips of the leather boots that peeked out from beneath black chinos; glints of dark, blood red winked in his close-cropped, auburn hair. “You’re bloody beautiful.”

Honor only blinked at him. She knew what he saw: a short, round redhead with green eyes, a big mouth and an even bigger butt. Pale skin dappled with freckles, her father’s dimpled cheeks. Nothing special. Certainly nothing to garner the look with which he was studying her.

A look that was—

She halted that thought. She didn’t want to speculate on what the man before her was thinking or feeling.

Because she didn’t care.

Liar.

Yes, yes. So what?

“Are you ready?” she asked him coolly, lodging her bag firmly over her shoulder.

“Aye,” he murmured. “I’ve never been more ready.”

Which sounded ominous, but, again, she would not hypothesize. Because it simply didn’t matter, what he meant. Or how he looked at her. Or how ridiculously seductive that Irish accent was.

Superfluous and unimportant.

Eye on the ball, girlfriend. No matter the happy dance her hormones were currently doing. She wasn’t dead. That she was capable of reacting to a man was a matter of biology, not fate.

Not destiny.

“Lead the way,” she said with a regal nod of her head.

But he didn’t move, looming over her, a small, satisfied smile curving his mouth. His gaze was piercingly direct, intense, and when she took a small step back, he immediately followed. “What makes you think I want you behind me?”

Her brows arched. “You don’t trust me?”

“Aye, I do.” His voice roughened; he stepped even closer, which made her step back—again, damn it—and she bumped into the cool glass of the window behind her. She glared at him, her heart beating double-time. He was just…too much. The jerk. “But I’d prefer you walk beside me.”

He stared at her, and Honor saw a challenge, one she didn’t understand or care to interpret. No matter that something within her came to attention at that look, painfully still and…hopeful.

Fucking hope.

She stiffened her spine and gripped her bag and opened her mouth to—

“Shite,” he muttered before she could speak, and in her peripheral vision a man materialized, clad in a dark blue uniform, complete with shiny brass buttons and a badge that winked in the sunlight.

Airport security.

But before she could ascertain the threat, Lazarus was hauling her toward him with strong arms that wrapped her waist and trapped her against him. Her body slammed into his; his hands slid down over the globes of her bottom and squeezed.

White heat shot through her, electric, unexpected. Her knees went weak. Her breasts pooled against the hard, warm, unyielding plane of his chest, and the shock of the connection made a violent tremor move through her. He was tensile and strong and real.

Far too real.

His scent filled her lungs; his body heat wrapped her like a glove. His strength was unyielding, and there was nowhere to go.

“Och, I’ve missed you, lass,” he growled loudly and leaned down to nuzzle the tender place where her neck and shoulder met, shoving aside the neckline of her t-shirt with his chin, and the faint scrape of his bristle against her skin made another tremor shake her.

“Stop it,” she hissed into his ear, her free hand clenched into the fine cashmere of his coat. But he only pulled her closer, until there was nothing between them but the clothes that separated them, and squeezed her butt again.

Goddamn him. As if he had every right to touch her! Possessive, greedy; aggressive.

And part of her responded. Without permission; some idiotic, stupid sliver of self wanted to arch into him and surrender to the façade.

Shite was right.

“Just a couple of reunited lovers.” Another scrape of whiskers up the line of her throat. His breath filled her ear; his accent beguiled. “Give him a show, and he’ll never remember our faces.”

His fingers tightened on her butt, and she snarled at him in her throat, and he laughed, a low, husky sound that made a second wave of heat sizzle through her. Sharp teeth nipped at her earlobe. “You smell delicious. I could eat you whole, one sweet, luscious bite.”

“I’m going to knee your balls into your nostrils,” she whispered furiously, squirming against him.

He laughed again. His hands squeezed. And liquid heat pooled in her joints and threatened to drown her. The arms around her tightened into unyielding bands, as dense and strong as steel.

“Now, you don’t mean that, love,” he chastised, his voice raised enough to carry, but he’d made sure, locking her into place against him. “We’ve too many babies to make.”

She growled; he nuzzled her jaw, her cheek, her temple. Gentle, loving, his mouth tender.

It was such a lie that pain suddenly knifed through her.

“No,” she whispered, almost choking on her fury.

And something of that fury must have gotten through, because he pulled back, and turned them both toward the concourse, dragging her beside him. When she tried to escape, he only hauled her closer, his strength obdurate.

“This was not our agreement,” she said through her teeth and heroically fought the urge to bash him in the face with her bag.

“There was no agreement, lass,” he replied, tugging her from the oncoming path of a teen engrossed in his phone.

“I told you not to make this into something it isn’t,” she told him. Her entire body was shaking, her skin was flushed with color, and she could still feel the rasp of his chin, the soft press of his mouth.

“I remember,” he said.

“Let me go,” she demanded, trying to wriggle from his grip.

“Don’t draw attention,” he murmured and leaned down to nuzzle her ear again. “We’re lovers. Best that we look it.”

“Not lovers,” she snarled.

“Well, we can’t be siblings, a rứnsearc.” He drew back to arch a brow at her. “We look nothing alike.”

“I’m going to gut you like a trout,” she promised.

But he only smiled down at her, and the excitement—the anticipation—she saw in him made her breath lock in her throat. “I’d expect no less.”