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  “And what makes you know better?”

  He arched a brow. “Are you?”

  Had to venture down that road, did you? If she assured him she wasn’t Bait, she would seem to be admitting that she knew what Bait was. She thought she knew him well enough to know that, in his eyes, the acknowledgment would negate the claim that she wasn’t. He would then feel obligated to kill her. If she claimed that she was Bait, well, he would still feel obligated to kill her.

  Total lose-lose.

  “Do you want me to be?” she said in her most seductive tone. “’Cause I’ll be anything you want, lover.”

  “Stop,” he growled, that ever-calm mask loosening its hold on his features for the briefest of moments and revealing a stunningly intense fire. Oh, to be burned. “I do not like this game you are playing.”

  “No game, Flowers. I promise you.”

  “What do you want from me? And do not dare lie.”

  Now, there was a loaded question. She wanted all of his masculinity focused on her. She wanted hours to strip and explore him. She wanted him to strip and explore her. She wanted him to smile at her. She wanted his tongue in her mouth.

  At this point, only the last seemed achievable. And only by playing unfairly. Good thing Devious was her middle name.

  “I’ll take a kiss,” she said, gazing at his soft, pink mouth. “Actually, I insist on a kiss.”

  “I didn’t find any Hunters nearby,” Reyes said, suddenly standing beside Lucien.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Sabin replied.

  “She’s not a Hunter and she is not working with them.” Lucien’s attention never wavered from her as he waved his friends back. “I need a moment alone with her.”

  His assurance stunned her. And he wanted to be alone with her? Yes! Except his friends stayed put. Jerks.

  “We are strangers,” Lucien told her, continuing their conversation as if it had never ceased.

  “So? Strangers hook up all the time.” She arched her back, pressing the core of her into his erection. Mmm, erection. He hadn’t lost it, was still aroused. “There’s no harm in a little bittie kiss, is there?”

  His fingers sank into the curve of her waist, holding her still. “You will leave? After?”

  His words should have offended her, but she was too caught up in the tide of pleasure that simple embrace elicited to care. All of her pulse points began a wild dance. A strange, luscious warmth fluttered inside her stomach.

  “Yes.” That’s all she could have from him, anyway, no matter how much she desired more. And she’d take it any way she could get it: coercion, force, trickery. She was tired of imagining his kiss and craved the reality of it. Had to have the reality of it. Finally. Surely he would not taste as amazing as she dreamed.

  “I do not understand this,” he muttered, eyes closing to half-mast. Dark lashes cast shadows over his jagged cheeks, making him appear more dangerous than ever.

  “That’s okay. I don’t, either.”

  He leaned into her, hot, floral-scented breath scorching her skin. “What will a single kiss accomplish?”

  Everything. Anticipation beating through her, she traced the tip of her tongue along the seam of her lips. “Are you always this talkative?”

  “No.”

  “Kiss her, Lucien, before I do. Bait or not,” Paris called with a laugh. Good-natured as the laugh was, it was still edged with steel.

  Lucien continued to resist. She could feel his heart beating against his ribs. Was he embarrassed by their audience? Too bad. She’d risked everything for this, and she wasn’t about to let him back out now.

  “This is futile,” he said.

  “So what. Futile can be fun. Now, no more stalling. Only doing.” Anya jerked his head down to hers and smashed her lips against his. His mouth instantly opened, and their tongues met in a deep, wet thrust. There was an intense rush of heat through her as the addictive flavor of roses and mint bombarded her.

  She pressed deeper, needing more of him. All of him. Plumes of fire infused her entire body. She rubbed against his cock, unable to stop herself. He fisted her hair, taking complete control of her mouth. Just like that, she was caught in a whirlwind of passion and thirst only Lucien could quench. She’d entered the gates of heaven without taking a single step.

  Someone cheered. Someone whistled.

  For a moment, she felt as if her feet were swept off the ground and she was without any kind of anchor. A moment later, her back was shoved against a cold wall. The cheers had somehow suddenly died. Frigid air nipped at her skin.

  Outside? she wondered. Then she was moaning, unconcerned, and winding her legs around Lucien’s waist as his tongue conquered hers. One of his hands crushed her hip in a bruising grip—gods, she loved it—and the other tunneled through her hair, fingers once again curling tightly around the thick mass and angling her head to the side for deeper contact.

  “You are—you are—” he whispered fiercely.

  “Desperate. No talking. More kissing.”

  His control vanished. His tongue thrust back inside her mouth, their teeth banging together. Passion and arousal were a hot blaze between them, a raging inferno. Truly, she was on fire. Frantic. Achy. He was all over her, already a part of her.

  She never wanted it to end.

  “More,” he said roughly, palming her breast.

  “Yes.” Her nipples tightened, throbbing for his touch. “More, more, more.”

  “So good.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Touch me,” he growled.

  “Am.”

  “No. Me.”

  Understanding dawned, and with it an intensification of her desire. Maybe he did want her. After all, he yearned to have her hands on his skin, which meant he longed for more than just a kiss.

  “My pleasure.” With one hand, she gripped the hem of his shirt and lifted. With the other, she caressed the ropes of his stomach. Scars. She felt scars and shivered, the jagged tissue wonderfully hot.

  His muscles clenched against each stroke, and he bit her bottom lip. “Yes, like that.”

  She almost came, his reaction like fuel to an already blazing fire. She did moan.

  Her fingers traced the circle of his nipples before dabbling at the tips. Each time she grazed them, her clitoris throbbed as if she were touching herself. “I love the feel of you.”

  Lucien licked his way down the column of her throat, his tongue leaving a trail of sensual lightning. Her eyelids cracked open, and she nearly gasped when she realized they were indeed outside, leaning against the club’s exterior in a shadowed corner. He must have flashed them there, the naughty boy.

  He was the only Lord capable of transporting himself from one location to another with only a thought. A skill she possessed, as well. She only wished he’d flashed them to a bedroom.

  No, she forced herself to add, fighting a wave of despair. Bedroom bad. Bad, bad, bad. Bad Anya for thinking otherwise, even for a second. Other women could enjoy the electric press of skin against skin and naked bodies straining for release, but not Anya. Never Anya.

  “I want you,” he bit out roughly.

  “About time,” she whispered.

  He raised his darkly haloed head, blue and brown irises intense, before pinning her with another scorching kiss. On and on it continued, until she was willingly, blissfully drowning in him. Branded to her very soul, where she was no longer Anya but Lucien’s woman. Lucien’s slave. She might never get enough of him, would have allowed him to penetrate her then and there if she’d been able. Gods, reality was so much better than fantasy.

  “I need to feel more of you. I need your hands on me.” She dropped her legs from him, standing, and was just reaching for his fly, wanting to free his cock and wrap her fingers around its swollen thickness, when she heard a nearby echo of footsteps.

  Lucien must have heard them, too. He stiffened and jerked away from her.

  He was panting. So was she. Her knees almost buckled as their gazes locked
together, time momentarily suspended. Passion-lightning still sparked between them; never would she have guessed a kiss could be that combustible.

  “Right your clothing,” he commanded.

  “But…but…” She wasn’t ready to stop, audience or not. If he’d just give her a moment, she could flash them someplace else.

  “Do it. Now.”

  No, there would be no flashing, she realized with disappointment. His hard expression proclaimed he was done. With the kiss, with her.

  Tearing her gaze from him, she looked down at herself. Her top had been anchored underneath her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, so the hardened pink tips of her nipples were visible, two little beacons in the night. Her skirt was around her waist, showing off the front of that barely-there thong.

  She smoothed her outfit, blushing for the first time in hundreds of years. Why now? Does it matter? Her hands were shaking, an embarrassing weakness. She tried to will them to stop, but the only command her body wanted to hear was to jump back into Lucien’s arms.

  Several of the Lords rounded the corner, each glaring and sullen.

  “I love it when you disappear like that,” the one called Gideon said, his irritated tone making it clear he didn’t love it at all. He was possessed by the spirit of Lies, Anya knew, so he wasn’t capable of uttering a single truth.

  “Shut up,” Reyes snapped. Poor, tortured Reyes, keeper of Pain. He liked to cut himself. Once, she’d even seen him jump from the top of the warriors’ fortress and luxuriate in the feel of his broken bones. “She might appear innocent, Lucien, but you failed to check her for weapons before you swallowed her tongue.”

  “I’m practically naked,” she pointed out, exasperated. Not that anyone paid her any heed. “What weapon could I possibly be hiding?” Okay, so she was hiding a few. Big deal. A girl had to protect herself.

  “I had everything under control,” Lucien said in that unaffected voice of his. “I think I can handle one lone female, armed or not.”

  Anya had always been fascinated by his calmness. Until now. Where was his lingering passion? Wasn’t fair that he’d recovered so quickly while she still struggled for breath. Her limbs hadn’t even stopped trembling. Worse, her heart pounded like a war drum in her chest.

  “So who is she?” Reyes asked.

  “She might not be Bait, but she’s something,” Paris said. “You flashed her, but she isn’t screaming.”

  That’s when all of their narrowed gazes finally shifted to Anya. She’d never felt more raw, more vulnerable, in all the centuries of her life. Kissing Lucien had been worth the risk of capture, but that didn’t mean she had to endure an interrogation. “All of you can just shut it. I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

  “I didn’t invite you, and Reyes told me no one here claims you as a friend,” Paris said. “Why did you attempt to seduce Lucien?”

  Because no one would freely consort with the scarred warrior, his tone proclaimed. That irritated her, even though she knew he hadn’t meant it to be rude or hurtful, was probably just stating what all of them considered fact.

  “What’s up with the third degree?” One by one, she glared at them. Everyone but Lucien. Him, she avoided. She might crumble if his features were still cold and emotionless. “I saw him, he appealed to me, so I went after him. Big deal. End of story.”

  Each of the Lords crossed their arms over their chests, a yeah-right action. They’d formed a semicircle around her, she realized then, though she’d never seen them move. She barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

  “You don’t really want him,” Reyes said. “We all know that. So tell us what you do want before we force you to tell us.”

  Force her? Please. She, too, crossed her arms. A short while ago, they’d cheered for Lucien to kiss her. Hadn’t they? Maybe she had cheered for herself. But now they wanted a play-by-play of her thought process? Now they acted as if Lucien could not tempt a blind woman? “I wanted his cock inside me. You get it now, asshole?”

  There was a shocked pause.

  Lucien stepped in front of her, blocking her from the men. Was he…protecting her? How utterly sweet. Unnecessary, but sweet. Some of her anger evaporated. She wanted to hug him.

  “Leave her alone,” Lucien said. “She doesn’t matter. She’s unimportant.”

  Anya’s happy buzz evaporated, too. Doesn’t matter? Unimportant? He’d just held her breast in his hand and rubbed his erection between her legs. How dare he say something like that?

  A red haze winked over her vision. This must be how my mother always felt. Nearly all the men Dysnomia had taken to bed had hurled insults at the woman when their pleasure had been sated. Easy, they’d said. Not good for anything else.

  Anya knew her mother well, knew Dysnomia had been slave to her lawless nature, as well as simply looking for love. Mated gods, single gods, it hadn’t mattered. If they had desired her, she had given herself to them. Probably because for those few hours in her lovers’ arms, she had been accepted, cherished, her darker urges sated.

  Which made the betrayal afterward all the more painful, Anya thought, eyeing Lucien. Of all the things she’d expected and yearned for him to say, unimportant hadn’t been close. She’s mine, maybe. I need her, perhaps. Don’t touch my property, definitely.

  She hadn’t wanted the same life as her mother, much as she loved her, and had vowed long ago never to let herself be used. But look at me now. I begged and pleaded for Lucien’s kiss, and he never saw me as anything more than unimportant.

  Growling, channeling all of her considerable strength, fury and hurt, she shoved him. He propelled forward like a bullet from a gun and slammed into Paris. Both men hmphed before ricocheting apart.

  When Lucien righted himself, he whipped around to face her. “There will be none of that.”

  “Actually, there’s going to be a lot more of that.” She stalked toward him, fist raised. Soon he would be swallowing his perfect white teeth.

  “Anya,” he said, her name a husky entreaty. “Stop.”

  She froze, shock thickening every drop of blood in her veins. “You know who I am.” A statement, not a question. “How?” They’d spoken once, weeks ago, but he’d never seen her before today. She’d made sure of it.

  “You have been following me. I recognized your scent.”

  Strawberries and cream, he’d said earlier, accusation in his voice. Her eyes widened. Pleasure and mortification blended, spearing her all the way to the bone. All along, he’d known she was watching him.

  “Why did I get the third degree if you knew who I was? And why, if you knew I was following you, didn’t you ask me to show myself?” The questions lashed from her with stinging force.

  “One,” he said, “I did not realize who you were until after the discussion about Hunters had taken place. Two, I did not wish to scare you away until I learned your purpose.” He paused, waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he added, “What is your purpose?”

  “I—you—” Damn it! What should she tell him? “You owe me a favor! I saved your friend, freed you from his curse.” There. Rational and true and hopefully would move the conversation away from her motives.

  “Ah.” He nodded, his shoulders stiffening. “Everything makes sense now. You’ve come for payment.”

  “Well, no.” Much as it would have saved her pride, she suddenly realized she didn’t want him thinking she gave her kisses away so easily. “Not yet.”

  His brow furrowed. “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said.”

  “Why have you come, then? Why stalk my every waking moment?”

  She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, her frustration renewed. There was no time to reply, however, as Reyes, Paris and Gideon closed in on her. All three were scowling. Did they think to grab her and keep her still?

  Rather than answer Lucien, she snapped at the men, “What? I don’t recall inviting you into the conversation.”

  “You are Anya?” R
eyes eyed her up and down, his revulsion clear.

  Revulsion? He should be grateful! Hadn’t she liberated him from the curse that had forced him to stab his BFF every night? Yes, damn it. She had. But his look was one she knew well, and one that never failed to raise her hackles. Because of her mother’s amorous past and the widespread expectation that she, with her free-spirited ways, would follow suit, every Greek god in Olympus had projected that same sort of revulsion at her at one time or another.

  At first, Anya had been hurt by their smug disdain. And for several hundred years, she’d tried the good-girl thing: dressing like a freaking nun, speaking only when spoken to, keeping her gaze downcast. Somehow she’d even squelched her desperate need for disaster. All to earn the respect of beings who would never see her as anything more than a whore.

  One fateful day, when she’d come home from stupid goddess training, crying because she’d smiled at Ares and that bitch Artemis had called her ta ma de, Dysnomia had pulled her aside. Whatever you do, however you act, they are going to judge you harshly, the goddess had said. But we all must be true to our own nature. Acting as anyone other than yourself merely brings you pain and makes you appear ashamed of who and what you are. Others will feed off that shame, and soon it will be all that you are. You are a wonderful being, Anya. Be proud of who you are. I am.

  From then on, Anya had dressed as sexily as she pleased, talked whenever and however she wanted and refused to look at her feet for any reason other than admiring her strappy stilettos. No longer had she denied her need for disorder. An offhand way of saying “fuck you” to the ones who rejected her, yes, but more importantly, she liked who she was.

  She would never be ashamed again.

  “It is…interesting to see you in the flesh after all the research I’ve done on you lately. You are the daughter of Dysnomia,” Reyes continued. “You are the minor goddess of Anarchy.”

  “There’s nothing minor about me.” Minor meant unimportant, and she was just as important as the other, “higher” beings, damn it. But because no one knew who her father was—well, she did, now—she had been relegated as such. “But yeah. I am a goddess.” She raised her chin, showing him no emotion.