Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

“Do you ever make sense?” Jonquille asked. “Because I’m pretty sure nothing that just came out of your mouth made any sense at all.” She watched Rubin eating the cobbler. “Are you really going to eat all that by yourself?”

“Yes,” Rubin said.

“No,” Diego said.

“You both suck,” Jonquille complained. “There was a reason I never went around people. I thought it was because I was a human lightning bolt. Now I know it’s because people are annoying.”

“Face it, woman,” Diego said. “We make you laugh. You find us hilarious.”

“I did until Rubin decided to eat all the cobbler.”

“I’ll share it with you if you kiss me.”

“I have to kiss you in order to get more cobbler? I made it.”

“In the interest of science and to prove I’m right,” Rubin said. “This cobbler is extra delicious. You are my future wife as well, and wives need to kiss their husbands. Those are all good reasons to decide once and for all whether or not we can kiss.”

“If we try it and you burn up, is Diego going to shoot me?”

“Depends on whether or not you agree to share that cobbler with me,” Diego said. “Maybe I should hold it while you two try the kissing thing.”

Jonquille studied his innocent features. “Not a chance. You don’t touch that cobbler.”

“Last chance, honey. Make up your mind,” Rubin prompted.

“If I kiss you, I’m not agreeing in any way that you’re my future husband. That’s just going too far. It would be for science and the cobbler.”

“I’m your future husband,” Rubin said complacently. “I expect when I kiss you, we’ll light up the night. Come over here.” He put the cobbler on the small table beside his chair and beckoned with one finger.

Jonquille hesitated. Diego gave an exaggerated sigh and held out his hand for her empty dish. “Just go. You know you’re going to, and it would be a shame if he ate all the cobbler. He would too. He’s not nearly as nice as he pretends to be.”

Jonquille slid off the rocker and padded on bare feet across the short distance to Rubin. She looked startled when he stood up, towering over her. Very gently, he framed her face with both palms, looking down into her eyes. Rubin found her eyes sexy, ethereal, intriguing. She seemed mysterious, like the fairies who moved between worlds in the stories he told his sisters.

He leaned his head down slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away from him. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. Jonquille didn’t seem to be the kind of woman who scared easily. She might not reduce him to ash with a lightning bolt, but she could stab him through the heart with any one of the weapons she had on her. Her eyes searched his, and then her lashes lowered as he continued to lower his head.

He brushed a kiss across along the corner of her mouth and licked off the berry on the sweet curve of her lower lip. He lingered there, rubbing gently, coaxing with his lips on hers. Sparks flew, lighting up her skin. His. Arcing between them just as he’d predicted. His energy found and fed the little forks of jagged energy building in her body. He slid his tongue along the seam of her lips, coaxing. Teasing. She didn’t comply at first, so he used his teeth to nip at her lower lip.

She gasped and he swept in, feeling the building flames, pure fire burning between them. It was just the way he knew it would be. Her body leaned into his and a blaze rushed through his veins. Vaguely, behind his eyelids, he saw a flash of light and heard a sizzle of electricity, but the thunder in his ears drowned out everything but the wealth of flames rising in her like the tide. Her body, against his, was red hot. Fiery hot.

Electricity sparked over his skin. Over hers. A maelstrom of charging electrons poured down his throat. Down hers. Ice and fire bumping together, going apart, raging, the friction producing that flash-fire so intense the world faded away.

Something crept stealthily behind them, setting off a prickling of awareness. Rubin gently kissed Jonquille’s velvet-soft lips one last time. He half turned, his hand sliding into his shirt. As Diego’s hand inched toward the bowl sitting on the table beside the chair, Rubin’s hand flicked out and a knife embedded deep into the tabletop between Diego’s thumb and finger.

“I wouldn’t touch that bowl if I were you. The next one won’t miss,” Rubin advised.

“What is the matter with you?” Diego demanded, removing his hand from harm’s way. “When you’re kissing a girl, you’re supposed to be completely engaged, not looking with eyes in the back of your head at what anyone else in the room is doing. I was in stealth mode.”