He felt her release the light hold she had on the elium. Immediately, her eyes fluttered closed and she collapsed backward onto the bed. Adam's thread of power snapped back into him like a rubber band and he was over her in a flash, holding her in his arms.

She lay, shaking and cold. Her shallow breath made his heart beat fast in his chest. "Claire, can you hear me?"

After a moment she nodded, licked her dry, white lips. "Give me a moment."

He stroked her hair. It tickled his nose and he breathed in the scent of her gratefully. "You're scaring me, baby."

She gave a shallow laugh. "I'm scaring myself." She swallowed hard. "It's taking little chunks of my life from me."

"It's not," Adam said in a fierce voice. If it was, he'd kick its ass.

He lay down beside her, spooning against her—her back to his chest—and wrapped his arms around her, trying to get her warmed up. He pulled a thread of power and wrapped her in it, but all the heat he poured into her seemed to just evaporate.

She shivered. "I feel so cold, so dead."

Her words made fingers of dread crawl slowly up his spine. He held her closer and increased the amount of heat in his embrace. She shivered once and then went still.

"Claire?" He sat up, trying to look at her face.

In answer, she rolled to her back, lifted up, and kissed him. But it wasn't just any kiss. This was a full-on fuck-me kiss with all the trimmings.

Her tongue meshed to his, mouth slanted and aggressively pressed to his lips. His body responded like a shot. What had been fear for her only moments ago melted easily into passion.

"Damn it, Claire. You're going to make me crazy with a kiss like that," he whispered against her mouth. "Stop it. You're playing with fire."

"I know I am. I'm trying to make a spark." She studied his face for a moment. "Make me feel alive again, Adam."

Whoa.

"Baby, as much as I want you, now is not the time. We have no idea when the Atrika might show up and—"

She kissed him again, cutting off the rest of his sentence. Finally, she set her forehead to his. "Exactly."

Claire nipped at his lower lip and slipped her hand between their bodies to fondle his already hard cock.

There really was only so much one man could take. Especially, Adam was chagrined to admit, when it came to Claire. She was already like some dark, magickical addiction. When she went after him like this, so aggressively, kissing him this way…

The demons could fucking wait.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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He came down over her body, kissing her back with even more heat and pressing her against the mattress.

If she wanted him, he was hers.

With his free hand he undid the button and snap of her jeans, pulled them down and off her legs, along with her underwear. Her flesh was pale and cold everywhere.