The Pale Waters (#1 Reclaimed Souls) by Della Roth Page A

vulgar
and insulting. If permission is given, I will issue a Palace
voucher.”
    I roll my eyes.
    “Open the goddamn door, Rahda,” Roland yells
from the other side.
    “A Palace voucher is worthless where I’m
going,” I say in response to Cat’s statement.
    “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Cat
says quietly. “All of this is highly irregular.” She looks again at
the six stacks of the former research assistants’ work. I am
nothing like them, her gaze seems to say. Her tablet beeps again,
and its glow brightens her lovely face. “He isn’t happy.” Cat,
however, doesn’t seem unhappy. She’s curious. She’s wondering. And
she knows that I am not to be trusted.
    I feel the same about her.
    Moving around her, I reach for the door, and
it glides open before I touch it. It knows my intent, I think, just
as Roland’s hulking shadow lingers there in the dimly lit hallway.
The light from my lab reaches his chest as he barks an order to his
chief of staff.
    “Cat, out!”
    As Cat leaves, her long fingers brush up
against mine and she presses something cold into my hand, and as
gentle as a whisper, she disappears through the doorway. The moment
she’s through the threshold, the lights go out, the room pitches in
darkness, and Roland steps in.
    ***
    He is inches away as the door hisses
shut.
    His breathing is ragged, and I can almost
feel the anger radiating from him. Did he run here?
    I rub the object Cat shoved into my hand: a
coin, a silver ten bedallion coin. Enough currency to buy a dozen
of what I need from Dorni’s shoppe. I drop it into my trouser
pocket as Roland finds his voice.
    “You cannot leave the Palace—”
    “You have no right to detain me. I am not your prisoner,” I say, poking a finger into his chest.
“Do you or do you not want a working prototype by five o’clock this
afternoon?”
    He doesn’t answer immediately, but then he
says, “You should have asked me, not my chief of staff.” His voice
is lower, warmer.
    Roland moves closer, and everything inside
of me wants to jump on him and devour him. Even his anger is sexy.
I breathe him in.
    “I will go about my business in the method I
feel is best, Roland. Your chief of staff was here. You were not.
End of story. But if that is your only objection, only show me the
way out.”
    “It’s no longer safe in the city, Rahda,” he
says in low timbered notes. “Dear Goddess,” he mutters out loud,
mostly to himself, before he utters desperately, “You’re not safe
around me .”
    Then, like a possessed man, Roland’s hands
are on me and it literally feels like his fingers are burning a
hole right through me.
    His lips crash into mine and I, equally as
possessed, kiss him hungrily. I bite his lips. I suck on his
tongue. All I know, feel, see, hear is Roland Rexus. His heat
matches my own and I swear that in any minute, I’ll erupt, burn up,
and take him with me in a cloud of smoke.
    He pushes me against an empty table, scoops
me up, and deposits my bottom there. His delicious erection presses
firmly against the inside of my leg. Wrapping my legs around him, I
pull him into me.
    My hands get lost in this hair and before I
know it, I’ve pulled his longish locks out of the ribbon at the
base of his neck. I grab a fistful of hair, tilt his head back, and
lick his neck, savoring the different sensations of stubble, raised
scars, and smooth skin against my lips, tongue, and teeth. I want
to explore every inch of him, and I tell him as much.
    “Oh, Goddess,” he moans, and his whole body
shivers. His shaking fingers unbutton my shirt, and, at the last
button, he flings it open and a small rush of cold air kisses my
skin.
    My stomach does a little flip when touches
my bare skin. This feels right, and then it feels so wrong.
    “Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “I
feel like need you like I need oxygen but…” I hesitate. “You must
know that it won’t work out. It feels explosive. Needy. Sinful.
Like you will burn me