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Rounding a bend in the brick walkway, she sighted one of the enclosed shelters and hurried toward it. The sound of whispers took a moment to register, though. Not until she was at the entrance of the arbor did she come to a stop, certain she wasn’t seeing what she was seeing.
Just as she tried to step back, the female pressed between the two tall males gave an outraged gasp.
“How dare you!” she exclaimed.
“Because you asked?” Dark, amused laughter spilled into the night along with the faint foreign accent.
“You obviously misunderstood.” The false outrage was familiar, Alyssa thought, peeking around the evergreen branches that grew slightly over the walk.
Ah yes. Millicent Raye. She should have recognized the other woman’s voice instantly. Recently divorced and looking for her next wealthy meal ticket, the socialite was known for her promiscuity as well as her displays of innocence.
The divorcée rushed from the shelter without attempting to see who had glimpsed her in the rather scandalous position. Alyssa had no doubt the other woman hadn’t seen enough of her to know who she was. Millicent was too concerned with the innocent act and escaping the fact that she had been caught.
“You can come out now.” The Texas accent was a lazy, amused drawl.
“I wasn’t hiding.” Alyssa stepped from the cover of the branches. “I was merely giving you a chance to escape as well before I borrow the warmth of that fire.” She nodded to the gas flames flickering over fake logs behind them.
“Escape? From an elf?” the darker of the two, the Texan, questioned her curiously, the sound of his voice like a whisper of velvet. “Where are the rest of your kind, little thing?”
“Ha-ha. Aren’t I so very amused,” she stated, stepping slowly toward them and into the arbor. Some days it just sucked being short. Even in heels, she still didn’t gain the height she was trying for. Her delicate build and short stature did very little to convince anyone that she wasn’t a pushover.
She’d put up with these two for a moment, though, she decided, amused by them. They were interesting. She liked interesting people. Her mother called it her reckless streak, the habit her daughter had of finding the very people a parent didn’t want their child involved with, such as the southern belle with an affinity for knives.
With a rather teasing grin she pushed between them, then stepped to the fire before facing them again.
They were rather handsome as well, she thought. Both about six two or so. The Texan with his pitch-black hair and deep blue eyes, his features chiseled with a rough-hewn appearance and infused with arrogance. The other, with the Spanish accent, had surprisingly dark blond hair that lay long against the back of his tuxedo collar, black eyes, with tempered aristocratic features. There was nothing soft about either man. They were tall, muscular, and far too masculine.
“That isn’t an elf, Cousin.” The faintly foreign accent stroked over her senses like a verbal caress. It was damned freaky how much her entire body seemed to like their voices. “She’s not quite tall enough, I don’t believe. Perhaps a wingless fairy of some sort?”
Alyssa gave them a forgiving smile. “You should try for more originality, gentlemen. The elf and fairy jokes were boring by age ten. Would you like to try again?”
*
She was completely enchanting.
Shane Connor was mesmerized and he fully admitted it. For the first time since he’d realized how exceptional females were, there was one he simply couldn’t imagine taking his eyes from or allowing out of his life.
The night had begun as a simple drop from the lovely divorcée, a particularly adept agent with a talent for acquiring information others couldn’t. The flash drive with all the information a particular Middle Eastern diplomat carried on his laptop now rested safely in Shane’s pocket where Milly had deposited it as she was pressed between them.
“On second thought,” he drawled to his cousin, wondering if he sounded as shell-shocked as he felt. “Perhaps not an elf or wingless fairy, ’Bastian. I believe we may have within our sights the sweetest of all fairy creatures. A rare, mesmerizing siren. One that comes out to play in the snow rather than the seas.”
Damn, he was getting as good at the poetic descriptions as his cousin.
“Can we keep her?” Sebastian’s voice was low and filled with a dark, pulsing hunger Shane could feel invading his own body. “Hurry, grab her. We’ll hide her in our pocket and slip out with her.”
“Goofy.” She laughed, believing Sebastian’s demand to be a joke.
Damn, there was nothing more Shane wanted to do than run away with her right now. The urge was so damned strange he made himself ignore it. Kidnapping came with penalties, he’d heard. His bosses, not to mention his family, wouldn’t like that.
“Sadly,” she answered for him, her gaze sparkling with the laughter still lingering on her lips. “No. I fear the dark queen would have far too much to say about that one.” There was a hint of regret in her tone, though. As though she were as fascinated as they were.
“We’ll slay her,” Sebastian promised instantly, but Shane was watching her eyes, and he had a feeling she wasn’t talking about some imagined fantasy figure.
“Unfortunately, I’m still rather fond of her.” The impish little thing gave them a rueful smile. “Too bad it was here you found me. Perhaps, in another lifetime where the rules of this land no longer exist.” She gave a little shrug.
Where the rules of her world didn’t exist, Shane thought as denial raged through him. Yet the thought of letting her go before he knew her, before he could claim her, clear to her soul, had his entire body tight with denial.
“These rules don’t exist in every land,” Sebastian assured her then, stepping closer until he could lean against the post supporting the arbor, less than a foot from her. “We could find a land where the rules don’t apply, little siren.”
