If You Live Until Morning

Dane let a languid smile slip free as he filled his glass again, but only after his gaze had swept the CCTV cameras set into every corner of the high ceiling.

He spent so much of his time away that the only way to be sure of Jude's safety was to see it with his own eyes. A woman who claimed to have lost her memory could not be trusted completely. So he watched Zena and Jude together.

Jude craved her attention and her gaze the way a plant gone dry craves water. As if she had read that longing, Zena seemed to pour every nerve she possessed into the child. Where a body that slight found such strength, he could not say. She carried the boy on one arm, hip braced beneath his weight, fetching snacks and delighting him with games no one would have thought of.

A free hour might have made her want nothing more than to rest, light and unburdened, yet she kept herself busy disinfecting toys and preparing his meals. When he came home from his lessons she opened both arms as if she had been waiting, then kissed the laughing child's small forehead and the crown of his head again and again. Anyone who did not know the truth would have taken her, without a flicker of doubt, for the boy's mother. Caring for Jude, Zena was simply natural.

Through eyes gone slack with languor, Dane traced the slow curves of her body.

Zena was a woman who satisfied his exacting eye in a way he could not account for. Doll-faced women with figures to shame a model had never stirred him, yet in front of this one his body answered with a heat that embarrassed him. A hunger for her still clung, three years on, and would not let go. He wanted to set his teeth in that nape this instant and chew until he had swallowed her whole.

To want that flesh even while he hated her, dregs and all. Dane laughed under his breath, as if at the absurdity of it. An impulse that seized his entire body was never a good sign.

He had already tasted how vicious this woman could be. All that remained in him was anger. It would be wiser not to risk binding himself to her through any feeling beyond that.

Then why hold it down?

Unfortunately, the alcohol he had been putting away for hours after the business gathering made it easy to throw complicated thoughts aside.

Had it not always been the truth, then and now, that the mere sight of that body put him in heat? If he wanted her, he could take her. If it went wrong, he could cast her off. That was all.

Dane looked at the nape of Zena's neck with the eyes of a starving bird of prey.

"The truth is, I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Hunter."

Zena's voice came out calm, though she clenched her trembling hands tight.

"Go on."

With the short reply, the corner of Dane's mouth lifted. Unlike other days, the smile was wrapped in something softer.

"I know you find this sort of talk unpleasant."

Zena bit her lip for a moment. A smile he did not give freely unsettled her and disarmed her at the same time.

"Our relationship."

She let her lip go and stole a look into his eyes. If he seemed to be in a good mood, as he did today, she might draw more out of him than she had dared to hope.

"Could you tell me what we were to each other?"

"And why do you want to know."

His eyes narrowed as he brought the glass to his mouth.

"We... we slept together, didn't we?"

Dane emptied the glass, then let out a laugh that broke apart.

"What makes you think that?"

The question came back to her in another shape.

"I had a dream."

Zena dropped her gaze, her voice shrinking small.

The corner of his mouth twisted. Did she even know that saying a thing like that, with a face that innocent, set a man's imagination on fire? Then and now, this woman had a remarkable gift for snapping his patience clean in two.

He set the glass down with a sharp crack and rose. As the distance closed, Zena's chin lifted. Her unsteady gaze tangled with his steady one. Eyes lowered and fixed on her, Dane parted his lips.

"Tell me. What kind of dream."

The sleek bridge of his nose came down and touched the tip of hers. Breath as warm as her flushed cheeks settled, whole, in the hollow above her lip.

"Did I tear your clothes off, spread your legs, and put my mouth on you until I'd had my fill?"

"...!"

She had never expected anything so blunt, so obscene, to come out of Dane Hunter's mouth. Her heart was beating too hard to hold her composure.

"Mr. Hunter...?"

Her voice shook, then cracked. Her mind registered the insult. Her body did not. Heat climbed through her, and a shiver circled between her thighs.

"You want to know what we were?"

Eyes gone heavy and dark swept the length of her as if they meant to pierce her. A sexual tension thick enough to choke hung in the air. Before the strange light in them, she found herself looking away.

"Confirming it with your body would be more effective than words."

Zena held her breath.

"You... you call that talking."

He laughed. Arrogant confidence sat in the curve of his mouth.

"And why shouldn't I?"

He wiped the smile from his lips without a trace of embarrassment.

She ought to have found it unpleasant, and yet Zena was startled to realize his teasing did not bother her. Had she been drunk on the sensual air pouring off him? Stranger still, something in her was rising.

"Who knows. You might get your old memories back."

He seemed to read the wreck of her as if it lay open in his palm. For a brief instant, her hesitation deepened.

The words circled in her head. She had no gift for reading hearts, but she was not so naive that she missed the nuance in his.

"If you don't want it, say so."

The low, unhurried voice wound around her ear like a caress.

Zena lifted her head and looked at him. As the woman looking after his child, she ought to draw a clean line with Dane Hunter and keep things professional. But this man was also the only thread that might tie her to the past she had lost.

How she had become entangled with a man whose path she could not even begin to trace, and why his feelings toward her were so twisted—surely that was worth confirming.

"...If I did, would you answer my questions?"

She barely got the words out. Dane gave a short laugh and drew the tip of his nose along the line of her shoulder.

"If you don't... answer me..."

He turned his head aside, and she could not finish. A little closer and their mouths would lock.

"Questions later."

The voice that spread low against her earlobe was sweet. Her heart began to race past anything she could bear.

"Wait—just a moment. I'm thirsty..."

Zena turned and got to her feet. She did not have the courage to look back, but she knew his gaze was following her.

Flustered, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out another can of beer. She popped the tab with a sharp crack and took several hasty swallows. The cold liquor went down and soon turned to a warm heat that seared her from the inside. Was she allowed to do this? She had no way to hide how tangled she felt.

She wanted to leave the uncomfortable room at once, and at the same time she wanted to ease the strange heat swirling through her chest—desires that contradicted each other. Awkwardly, she bit her lip, then let it go, and drained the can in her hand as if something were chasing her.

Maybe the answer is already there.

A single sentence from Dane Hunter had given her an identity she had not known in three years. Without this man's help, the vanished memories would be hard to recover. She dressed the choice in the most plausible excuse she could find.

Then hot breath touched the nape of her neck.

Her whole body went taut, the fine hairs rising. She turned her head, and he was already standing before her.

Under a gaze so keen it seemed to stroke her from head to foot, Zena steadied her breathing once more. Her heart raced with a feeling she could not name. Heat had climbed to the crown of her head and left her dizzy. It had to be the alcohol she had thrown back in a hurry, even if there had not been that much of it.

"Mr. Hunter..."

The sound of his exhalation, tickling her ear, scattered what was left of her mind.

Zena forced strength into knees that had begun to tremble. She had persuaded herself she would do anything to get the information she wanted, but if her body answered like this, it was a serious problem.

"If I sleep with you, will you tell me what we were?"

"You're better off not knowing."

A warning, perhaps. The flat voice carried a negative weight she could almost feel against her skin.

What on earth had she done, for him to be like this? The shrinking lasted only a moment. She lifted her eyes straight to his.

It was not fair to be blamed for a past she could not even remember. She knew nothing, so she could neither defend herself nor offer an apology that meant anything.

"I'll be the judge of that."

Unlike her trembling lips, the voice that came out was firm. If there was a chance of getting her memory back, she had to try.

"Is that so?"

He wanted to seize that fine, fair face and kiss her this instant.

Then and now, whenever Zena tipped her chin and gave him that look, half challenge and half provocation, desire boiled up and swallowed him whole. Enough that if he could only have her, he would listen to whatever came out of that impudent mouth.

Right. She was the sort who would do anything to get what she wanted. What was there to expect from a woman who could cast even a mother's love aside? The corner of Dane's mouth rose, cold.

"In return, promise me at least three chances to ask."

"You talk as if you'd throw your body at anyone, so long as you got your memory back."

Her hesitation lasted only a moment. Zena rose onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his in place of an answer. It was fairer to say some force beyond her will had moved her that way.

At the sudden, brazen thing she had done, Dane laughed inwardly. Fine, then.

A cry tore from between her lips. He bit hard enough to hurt. The moan that followed was swallowed between mouths that met again.

"Mm—hn..."

Her struggling nape was caught and forced down. A savage tongue pushed past her teeth, swept roughly over the soft inside of her mouth, and poured blatant breath into her.

"Fine. I'll answer your questions tomorrow."

After a long while their lips parted. A murderous gaze traveled over her as she struggled to catch her breath.

"...!"

Zena wondered if she had misheard.

Alive until tomorrow? Fear closed in. Had what this man wanted not been simple sex after all? Maybe she had taken his offer too naively, on nothing but the wish to recover her memory.

"Wait, I—"

"Bend over."

Dane dropped his eyes with arrogant leisure and spoke like a command.

This could not be real. He meant to take her here? The doubt in her head was confirmed the moment he turned her by the shoulders. He locked her wrists behind her and pressed her upper body down onto the counter.

"Wait a minute!"

Before she could gather herself, the underwear beneath the nightgown she wore was dragged down. Instinctively she drew her legs together, trying to stop him.

"Doing this here is not a good idea."

"That's your opinion."

"No. If Jude wakes up and comes looking—"

"Refuse, and the deal is off. You really want to stop?"

Unfortunately, Dane Hunter was stubborn. He seemed to enjoy the sight of her flustered.

Giving her body to a man whose tie to her she did not even clearly understand was bad enough. Doing it bent over in the kitchen was a thing she had never imagined. She swallowed the bitter taste that came with how pathetic her position was, and then she let the strength out of the legs she had drawn together. With so much she still needed to learn, she seemed to have no choice.

"Be clever about it. I'm not the one who needs this."

"Then... finish as quickly as you can."

"Since when is that your call."

With a sneer, Dane came down on her from behind.

"Ah—wait, nnh—H-Hunter!"