Aden made a noise like an abbreviated chuckle, and Sid’s eyes flashed up to meet his lazy stare. He did a quick head to toe scan before meeting her glare with a small smile of amusement. He gestured with one hand at the matching loveseat opposite his chair, and his smile only grew broader when she stubbornly remained standing.

“Sidonie,” he repeated, his voice flowing over her skin like the finest silk. “I wouldn’t have thought criminal activity was your thing.”

“Very funny,” she said, feeling the blush to the roots of her messy hair. “But as long as we’re talking criminals, I wouldn’t have thought slavery was your thing.”

Something changed behind his eyes. Every shred of humor was gone in an instant, replaced by something much colder and angrier. He dropped the papers to the table and stood, towering over her just as she’d known he would despite the fact his feet, too, were bare.

He reached out and twisted a lock of her hair around one long finger, then leaned in close, as if to share a secret.

“You don’t know me, Sidonie Reid,” he purred. “So I will forgive you this once. But never again accuse me of tolerating slavery. I won’t forgive it a second time.” He tugged her hair until the curl slipped away from his fingers, and started to turn away. But then he stopped. As if it was an afterthought—although she doubted Aden did anything without thinking about it first—he said, “And for the record, I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me what’s going on in my city.”

“Your city?” she managed to say.

Aden’s lip curled into a crooked smile. “My city. My territory. It’s only a matter of time. And not much more of that.”

Sid thought privately that his arrogance knew no bounds, but she kept that to herself, saying instead, “So, that vampire Elias, the one who brought me here, he’s one of yours?”

Aden regarded her skeptically, clearly deciding whether to answer her question or not. “Elias belonged to Klemens,” he said, still studying her as if trying to figure out what angle she was working. “Klemens’s people now belong to no one, other than Lucas who holds their lives until a new lord claims the territory. Elias knows who’s going to win this battle and is being useful in hopes of gaining favor. Eventually, he will be mine.”

“You already knew about the slaves when I talked to you the other night, didn’t you?”

“I suspected, which is why Elias was there tonight. Fortunately for you.”

“Why didn’t you saying something? You know how important this is to me.”

“Do I?” he asked archly.

She felt suddenly foolish in having assumed he would have found out about Janey, and that he’d know what she’d been doing since her friend’s death and why. “I’ve spent the last several months trying to—”

“I know what you’ve been doing.”

She glared at him angrily. Why couldn’t he ever be up front with her? Why was he always with the games? “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Aden gave her a devastating smile. “That may be,” he said, closing the fingers of one hand over her hip and drawing her closer. “But you want me.” He glanced over her head, and she started to turn, thinking someone was there, but then she heard the door close and lock with a quiet snick of sound. She looked up and met his eyes in surprise.

“Magic,” he whispered against her ear, his breath a fan of warm air against her skin.

“I don’t want you,” she insisted. “I only—”

“Do you know,” he began, depositing a row of butterfly soft kisses along her brow and down to her cheek, “that when you lie, your heart beats faster?”

Sid’s heart was pounding against her ribs.

“Your pulse speeds up.”

Her pulse was throbbing like a tiny creature trapped inside her artery.

“Your breathing grows shallow.”

She was going to faint if she didn’t manage to draw more oxygen soon.

“And you sweat.” Sid’s gaze flashed up to meet his. “Just a tiny bit,” he amended, and his tongue darted out to taste her skin.

“Altogether—” He kissed each corner of her mouth, then touched his lips to hers. “It tells me you just lied when you said you don’t want me.”

Sid swallowed hard. “Okay,” she said, still fighting for breath, “you’re attractive, maybe unusually so, but I don’t want to want you, and that means—”

His arm slipped around her waist, pulling her flush against his hard body. And, oh God, it was so very hard. Everywhere. Her hands ached to touch, to stroke her fingers over the ridges of muscle she could feel pressed against her stomach, to squeeze the thick pads of his chest and shoulders that were straining the soft cotton of the long-sleeved black T-shirt he was wearing. She bit her lower lip, her eyes closing of their own volition as she imagined slipping her hand beneath the zipper of his low-slung jeans, her fingers wrapping around the solid length of him, imagined the velvet glide of his skin as she pumped—

“Some women,” he murmured, his dark voice a burr of sound that rubbed along her every nerve, “want what’s not good for them.”

“I don’t—”

“Sidonie,” he growled in warning.

She looked up at him and found his nearly-black eyes limned in deep blue, the color more of a light than a tint. They were so beautiful, and his face was so very handsome, that she reached up without thinking and touched his cheek. It was softer than she’d expected. Rough where his beard was already stubbled, but silky smooth above that. He blinked slowly, long, black lashes coming down to shadow his eyes.

“Why me?” she whispered. “You could have any woman in the city. Why me?”

His eyes filled with heat and something else . . . victory. “I like redheads.”

Sidonie started to pull away, pissed that her only attraction to him was something so shallow. He laughed at her efforts, holding her fast and not letting go.

“You don’t like that?” he asked. “Then answer the same question. Why me?”

Sid looked up at him in surprise. This arrogant, confident, powerful creature . . . and he needed to ask her that? She stared at his perfect face with its sensuous mouth and chiseled cheekbones. His extraordinary eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” she said honestly.

“And so are you,” he crooned, and then he was kissing her. There were no more teasing brushes of his lips. His mouth came down hard, crushing her lips against his. It was passionate and sensuous, a demand and a claiming all at once. Sid lost herself for a moment in the force of that kiss. She clung to him, her fingers clenched in the fabric of his T-shirt, and she felt . . . things. Emotions and desires she’d never experienced with any other man. Things she’d read about, but never thought to feel for herself.

His hand slipped from her waist to cup the curve of her butt, lifting her up until the thick bulge of his erection was nestled in the vee of her thighs, taunting her with its presence so close to where she wanted him, where she needed him. Sid moaned softly, rubbing the unaccustomed ache between her legs against the temptation of his cock.

As if her soft moan had been the trigger he was waiting for, Aden swung her up into his arms, and, holding her tightly, his fingers tangled in her hair and tugging her head back to make her mouth available to his kiss, he strode across the room to a closed door she hadn’t noticed before.

She felt the magic this time—maybe because he was holding her so close to his chest—but she felt the frisson of energy as he exerted his will, as the door swung open at his command. He walked through without stopping, the door slamming behind them, sealing her inside with this dangerous, sexy vampire. Sid shivered in equal parts fear and excitement, her eyes going wide when Aden looked down at her with fangs bared for the first time since she’d met him.

“Are you afraid of me, Sidonie?” he asked, though he didn’t seem bothered by the prospect.

She nodded, not admitting that what she felt was nothing as simple as fear.

“Excellent,” he growled. “Now tell me the rest.”

Sid closed her eyes, unwilling to admit she was more aroused than she’d ever been in her life. He was already too damn arrogant by half. He didn’t need any more ego stroking. But then he bent his head and kissed her once again, his tongue exploring every inch of her mouth. She couldn’t stifle the groan of desire that started somewhere in her gut and rolled out of her throat. She’d never wanted anyone as much as she wanted him.

“Tell me,” he demanded, nipping at her lower lip sharply enough that she was certain he’d drawn blood. “Or I’ll take you back out there and tell Trav to drive you home.”

Her eyes flashed open. He wouldn’t. But his expression said very clearly that he most certainly would.

Sid wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck and tugged hard on the ends of his hair, trying to gain some small measure of control. He bared his teeth at her in a snarl and started to turn back toward the door to the sitting room.

“I want you!” she said before she could stop herself and felt her entire body heat with embarrassment. At least the parts that weren’t already burning up with lust. “I want . . .” Sid didn’t know how to say what she wanted him to do to her, or couldn’t say it out loud. “I want you,” she repeated.

Aden tugged her head back, baring her neck. He lowered his head, and his lips skimmed along the curve of her jaw and lower, until she felt the kiss of his teeth on her neck, his breath warm and moist, his voice a rumble of sound when he said, “I’m going to fuck you.”

Sid felt herself falling then gasped in surprise when he dropped her onto a bed she hadn’t even noticed. She sat up, trying to take it all in, when Aden yanked off his T-shirt, and she suddenly couldn’t look at anything else. There was nothing in this room, nothing in her lifetime of experience, that was more beautiful than the magnificent male standing in front of her and stripping away his clothes.