Hanna Martine - Drowning in Fire

“You must be my ride.”

Turning around, she screwed off the Coke cap with a hiss. The guy who stood halfway between her and the car wore jeans and boots and a fitted black coat with all sorts of zippers and pockets. His hair was very short and nearly as dark as hers. Thick, straight, low-set eyebrows were the most prominent feature on his face and made him seem intense and serious.

She glanced around the otherwise empty garage corner. “Don’t think I am.”

He nudged his chin toward her car. “Two E,” he said. “Where I’m supposed to meet you. You must be Kekona.”

To trust him or not? He wasn’t anything like the pampered, self-important Ofarian she’d pictured. Not this militaristic-looking guy who couldn’t be more than a few years older than she.

The man stood impossibly straight, as though someone had shoved a pole up his ass. “You’re Secondary and I’m Griffin Aames.” There was absolutely no intonation to his voice.

Oh, this guy was going to be a bag of fun.

“And what brings you to the lovely state of Utah?” she asked.

He had a really good check on his emotions. Only a slight shift of his feet gave away his frustration. “For the Senatus gathering. Was there a secret code somewhere I missed?”

And just like that, the first spark of attraction lit an unexpected flame inside her. To be fair, it didn’t take much for her. For him though, there was nothing. Just a patient stare as he waited to be chauffeured to his fancy feather bed.

“No code. You just have to get past me.” She lifted the Coke to her lips and took a swig, never taking her eyes off his.

A gust of wind barreled through the garage, opening one side of her sweatshirt and folding it back from her body.

Bingo. Griffin’s brown eyes—lighter than a Chimeran’s but still pretty dark—flicked to her chest. Flicked. Nothing more. She never wore one of those bra things—no Chimeran woman did—and she knew very well how she looked. The thin white tank top stretched over brown skin and even darker nipples. There wasn’t much of her to be left to the imagination, and modesty had never been one of her strong suits.

It had been a long time. For her, at least. Maybe a month since she’d had any sort of physical contact, let alone full-on sex. And right then she was looking at the most wonderful sort of challenge, wrapped up in an olive-skinned package: the guy she’d been tasked with shadowing for the next seven days. The Ofarian with the one-note expression whose business-only walls were so thick not even hard nipples could noticeably break through them. The very opposite of who she was. The water to her fire.

He was not Chimeran. He was kapu . Forbidden.

But then, wasn’t she supposed to find out things about him that he didn’t reveal to the Senatus? Sex always seemed to bring out the hidden, no matter who was involved. She was willing to bet Griffin Aames wasn’t any different. He was locked up so airtight she guessed that once those walls came down, there would be no stopping the onslaught of everything he’d tried to hold back. She couldn’t wait to discover what that was.

But that was enough teasing the unsuspecting Ofarian for one day, especially since they’d just met minutes ago. There was an art to seduction, to the chase, and applying it to someone who was not a Chimeran slathered on an extra layer of excitement. Getting around what her clan had declared to be kapu would be a fantastic, fun challenge. Keko folded closed the Gophers sweatshirt.

Griffin carried a structured black duffel with barely a travel scratch, and with a clearing of his throat, he swung it around to dangle off the back of one shoulder. He was an inch or two above six feet, not that much taller than her.

“I’m not carrying that for you,” she said.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and she found she liked the tiny movement of his thick eyebrows. It was easy to hide expression under those things, so when they actually twitched she knew there was something going on in his gorgeous head.

“Wasn’t expecting you to,” he replied.

“Good. Now that we’re clear on that.” She circled around him to get to the car, wondering the whole time—the whole ten seconds—if his eyes had tracked the back of her head . . . or her ass.

With one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her drink and potato chips, she swept a good long look around the parking garage. No one else was around.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked as he went around to the other side of the car, threw open the passenger side door, and tossed his bag in the backseat.

“San Francisco. But of course you already knew that.”

“I did.”

His door still open, he planted one hand on the top of it. “Where are you from?”

She laughed, because the Chimerans had never revealed their home to anyone not born with fire. “Nice try.”

When he shrugged, she found herself intrigued by the fluidity of his shoulders, how he’d suddenly broken out of his rigid mold. The straight face remained, however, along with the severe line of those eyebrows.

She folded her arms on top of the car. “How’d you know I was Secondary?”

Without hesitation, “Your signature. I can tell you have magic, that you’re not a Primary human. I can feel you.”

This man was infuriating, in the best possible way. She had no idea if he knew what his doublespeak implied or if he was doing it on purpose. And she found that she loved it, that ambiguity. So did the fire inside.

“Must be nice,” she said, overly casually. “I wish I had that.”

He cocked his head, looking genuinely interested. “Why?”

“So I can tell when I come across a Primary. I’d know who to avoid.”

He looked at her for a long, long moment before saying, “Right. Of course.”

He made no move to get into the car so she asked, “What do you mean by ‘signature’?”

His stance relaxed some as he considered her.

“You’re going to be asked a lot of questions while you’re here,” she added. “Might as well get used to it.”

Another few moments of consideration, then he inhaled and glanced around the garage. “Hard to explain. It’s a feeling in my head. Like a smell, but not really. I know you’re Secondary. I just don’t know what you can do.”

Time for a real test. Tilting back her head, throwing him a challenging smile, she asked, “What can you do?”

He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen once. “Adine? Yeah. Salt Lake City airport, parking garage, row 2E.” Griffin stood stock still. So did Keko, waiting. Intrigued. “You got ’em? Great, thanks.”

Hanging up the phone, he threw a look into the corner, where Keko had previously noticed the telltale black ceiling bubble of a security camera. She’d heard the Ofarians had some reach, some pretty impressive technological skills, but to access international airport security at such quick notice?

“Okay, then. If you’re looking for proof.” Griffin was looking straight at her, his body never so much as twitching, as foreign, whispered words escaped his barely parted lips. Movement to her right caught her eye.

A pile of gray, crunchy snow piled up against the side of the open parking garage melted without a touch, without heat. In a slow, glittering stream, it snaked its way toward her, rolling across the black asphalt and the yellow parking dividing lines. The water coiled around her legs, up toward her hips. Once, twice, a third time around her body. Reaching, reaching, but never quite touching. A brilliant dance of water and light in the cold grayness of the garage. Then the coil of magic water receded, sinking slowly back down to the dirty surface under her feet.

The word that came to mind was . . . sensual.