Otherworld Renegade. Jane Godman

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       Chapter 6

      Lorcan woke in the middle of the night with a feeling of well-being, which was soon explained when he realized his arms were full of Tanzi. It was a situation that did nothing for someone with an overactive imagination and a currently underactive cock. Ascertaining that they were both fully clothed and, from his memory of the previous night, being fairly certain that nothing had happened between them, he eased himself regretfully away from her. She gave a soft little murmur of protest in her sleep, and his erection responded to the sound by jackhammering uncomfortably against the restraining cloth of his jeans.

      Why couldn’t he do the uncomplicated thing for once in his life and lust after a nice, straightforward girl? Someone he could actually have? The troublesome thing was, he was fairly certain he could have Tanzi. He sensed that the intense physical attraction he felt for her was mutual. But that wouldn’t make it right. It was wrong on so many levels. His internal mantra started to kick in... Moncoya’s daughter, sidhe princess, Valkyrie warrior. The words had become tired and meaningless so he silenced them. Yes, she was still all of those things. This rift with her father didn’t change what she was, it only made her vulnerable. A sweet, vulnerable killing machine. You don’t want to mess with one of them, Malone.

      He thought of all the things he’d heard about Tanzi and her sister, Vashti, over the years. Setting aside their reputation as Moncoya’s ruthless weapons, it was said that the King of the Faeries viewed his daughters as his stepping-stone to even greater power. He boasted that through them he would forge alliances to make the faerie dynasty invincible. In order for that to happen, the sidhe princesses must remain pure until such time as their father would choose a mate for them. Woe betide the man who touched one of Moncoya’s daughters before she reached her marriage bed. I’m not afraid of yon faerie feller, but I’ll not put his daughter at risk from his wrath. Not for the sake of a one-night stand.

      Because that was all it would ever be. A one-night stand. Or maybe a series of them. A brief fling. I haven’t got it in me to offer her more. The thought brought with it a pang of regret. Lorcan made jokes about being a wanderer, the implication being he never settled. Love ’em and leave ’em Malone. It was a myth he didn’t deny. On the contrary, he cultivated it. Only Lorcan himself knew the truth. Something in his heart had been damaged beyond repair way back in the dim and distant past. That capacity others had for sustained emotion—he supposed it was called commitment these days—wasn’t part of his makeup. It had burned at the stake, while he had sobbed and pleaded for help that never came.

      Why was he thinking of commitment in relation to Tanzi, anyway? Just because she happened to be bloody gorgeous and, at this precise moment, deliciously inviting. His inner nice guy—and, yes, he did have one—was attempting to justify the crushing desire he felt to draw her back into his arms, wake her with a kiss and then let his fingertips glide up between the silken flesh of those slender thighs. Stop being such a bloody hypocrite. You’re not fooling anyone. You are trying to defend the fact that you want to fuck this gorgeous girl by making it into something more than mere lust. It didn’t help that Tanzi was wearing some sort of elongated T-shirt that had rucked up as she slept, revealing the very thighs that were fueling his imagination in an erotic and interesting way. Determinedly, Lorcan gritted his teeth. Sliding from the bed, he pulled a blanket over Tanzi’s prone form. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the theory.

      Feeling very virtuous—but oddly bereft—he tiptoed out the door and made his way to his own room. Despite his tiredness, he was unable to sleep. The dawn light saw him pulling on his clothes and taking out his frustrations by jogging the length of the Ramblas before following the harbor toward the Barceloneta Beach. He ran until the ache in his muscles drove every other thought from his mind. This was better. He couldn’t afford any distractions.

      The house was still quiet when he returned. He headed for the shower, then spent a long time letting the jets of cool water drive any lingering traces of heat and temptation from his body. He stayed there so long that the ancient pipes creaked and groaned and threatened to tear the old house apart. When he emerged, drying his hair on a towel, Tanzi was standing framed in the open door of her room, blinking sleepily in the early-morning sunlight. The elongated T-shirt skimmed her thighs and the bright mass of her hair tumbled wildly about her shoulders. She smiled when she saw him and then stretched her arms lazily above her head. The T-shirt rose precariously higher.

      “I was disturbed by strange clanking noises,” she explained.

      Shit. The run and the shower hadn’t worked one bit. Her presence hit him like an injection of carnal longing direct into his bloodstream. It fizzed into his nerve endings, making him feel alive in a way he couldn’t remember ever having felt before. Whatever Tanzi was, she wasn’t a mere distraction. She was something far more dangerous and disturbing, and it was going to take more than physical exertion and cold water to flush her out of his system.

      * * *

      “This is definitely the house where the girls are being held.” Aydan had been the one to survey the building identified by Pedro as the most likely place СКАЧАТЬ