Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(16)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Most enemies couldn’t brave the heat of the fire long enough to kill a phoenix.

Another of your kind could do it. Phoenixes could—and had—killed each other before.

“You’re the oldest phoenix that has ever been discovered,” Cassie said, voice quiet. “According to my father’s journals, you are the first.”

Dante simply stared at her.

His stare made her nervous and shaky and so she kept talking. “I took a tear from one of the other phoenixes and tried to synthesize a cure. It didn’t work.” She stepped toward him. “You are the key to the cure. If you’re the first, I can study your DNA. I can analyze your tears. They could be a more pure form than—”

“I’m not your damn experiment.”

She flinched at his fury. “I didn’t say that you were.”

“But you want to put me in your lab, right? Want to run your tests . . . cut me open . . . just like they did.”

“I’m not like them.” She forced the words through numb lips.

“Aren’t you?”

Damn him. She’d worked hard to save lives. To help those who’d been injured by her father and Genesis. “Why are you even here with me?” Cassie demanded. “If you don’t trust me”—she closed the space between them and angrily grabbed on to him as she jumped up those bottom steps—“why are you here?”

“Because I can’t walk away.”

Her laugh was bitter. “You didn’t seem to have that trouble in Chicago.”

His nostrils flared. The banked flames in his eyes lit. “When I breathe in your scent, I ache.”

Her lips parted in surprise.

“When I kissed you, your taste had me maddened.”

“Dante . . .”

“I look at you, and I think . . . mine.”

Could he hear the drumbeat of her heart? It felt like it was about to race right out of her chest.

“You say we aren’t lovers, but in my dreams, I’ve seen you naked.”

She dropped his hands. He wasn’t supposed to—

His hand rose. Touched her just over the curve of her right breast. “There’s a freckle here. I’ve licked it. I’ve kissed it.” His gaze swept down her body. “In my dreams, I’ve kissed you everywhere.”

Her memory was absolutely fine and that had not happened. “Just dreams,” she breathed out. “Not reality. That hasn’t happened!”

“I’m not leaving you because I can still taste you. I’m not leaving you because I f**king want you under me. I want to be buried so far inside of you that I stop caring about what’s real and what’s a dream.”

“Th-that’s why you’re with me? Sex?” He wanted her to sleep with him? Like that was some kind of hardship.

“Possession.”

She didn’t understand what that rough growl meant. “I don’t—”

“I feel like you’re mine. I’m here . . . f**king here . . . because I can’t let you go.” Then his mouth was on hers. He’d wrapped his arms around her. Lifted her up against him, and just taken her mouth.

He didn’t kiss her softly. She was sure that he’d known little of softness in his long life. No tentative hunger. Just an avalanche of need that should have frightened her.

It didn’t.

Cassie wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. Her lips parted beneath his, her tongue met his. The electric surge of lust seemed to pulse between their bodies wherever they touched.

She wanted to touch him everywhere.

There were no monitors to watch them. No guards. No fear of pain or retribution. For once, they were alone. They had a bed upstairs. They had time.

She could have him.

He could have anything he wanted from her.

His hands were trailing over her body. Curling around her hips. His fingers spanned her ass, and he pushed her up higher against the hard length of his cock.

Her phoenix was aroused. Definitely aroused.

“Why?” He pulled his mouth from hers, but he didn’t let her go. He just started to kiss her neck, and, oh, the skin was so sensitive there.

She felt the rasp of his tongue on her, and quivered. Yes, quivered. She’d never done that in her whole life.

But then, she’d never been with Dante like that.

“Why do you want me?” He growled the words, and they seemed to vibrate against her skin. “You know what I am.”

Didn’t he realize that was why she wanted him?

“I’ve wanted you for a long time,” Cassie confessed.

He’d been her first crush. The star of too many fantasies. He’d talked about dreams. She’d sure had her share of them.

Dante’s hold tightened on her. Then he pulled back. Glared down at her. “You think if you f**k me, I’ll do what you want.”

Wow. Talk about being able to kill a mood. Her cheeks went ice cold, then she felt them heat with her embarrassment and fury. “No, I thought if I f**ked you,” she tossed right back at him, “then maybe the constant need I feel for you would go away.” She pushed past him. “But right now, maybe we both just need to cool down.”

No, she needed to get away from him before the jerk saw that he’d made her cry.

A phoenix didn’t cry easily.

But she wasn’t a phoenix. And she’d sure shed plenty of tears for him over the years.

“Cassie!”

She didn’t stop. She stomped up the stairs. “Give me space, Dante. Just, dammit, give me some pride.” She was swiping away her tears.

She’d forgotten how easily he could hurt her. Just a few careless words.

Cassie reached the landing and didn’t glance back at him. She’d looked back at him before, other times just like this, when he’d wound up rejecting her in some way, and there had never been regret on his face.

He might lust for her—she’d felt the strength of that need—but Dante had never loved her.

Sometimes, she wondered if he could love anyone.

He dreamed of her again. Dreamed of a room with a silver ceiling, silver walls, and a silver floor.

A bright hell.

“You shouldn’t have come back.” Her voice.

His Cassandra.

He turned and realized . . . one of the walls was actually a mirror. When he focused just right, he could see through that mirror.

He could see her.

“You were safe. You should have stayed away.” Her voice was sad.

He strode toward that mirror. He could see his own image staring back at him. But, through that image . . .