Angel Thief by Jenny Schwartz Page B

infractions.
    “No.”
    Hope surged. Her hands came out and up. “I can explain—”
    “Not to me.” Flat, inflexible, three syllables like a cell door clanging shut.
    “Please.”
    His chest muscles rippled as he reached out and touched her face. “Never grovel to fate, angel. Work around it.”
    As if anyone could work around Michael or Anthea. Sara jerked away from the enforcer’s touch. Let him flirt and flex his muscles with someone who’d be impressed.
    “Uh huh.” He grabbed her wrist. “You are not vanishing on me again.”
    “Why would I try? You’d just follow me.”
    “Would that I could.” His thumb stroked the sensitive inner skin of her wrist. It feathered over her racing pulse point. “Funny how assumptions mislead us. I thought the library intruder had to be a demon. I never considered the dematerialising thief could be a rule-breaking angel.”
    Sara flushed.
    He smiled. “But no demon blushes like an innocent.” He put the back of his hand against her hot face. Its slow withdrawal was a caress. “I think you’ve made some false assumptions yourself, angel. I guard this library, but I don’t need to run to your Michael or Anthea to deal with an intruder.”
    “You’re not a Guild enforcer?” It was hard to concentrate on his words when he was studying her so closely.
    “No.”
    “But you have to be an angel. A human couldn’t have caught me.” And he couldn’t be a demon. If he were, then her body was betraying her in the worst way. It was heating and tingling, excitingly aware of the shackle of his hand on her wrist.
    “I’m no angel.” The stranger’s amused drawl made the admission an invitation.
    Sara tried to refuse it. She stiffened her wobbly knees.
    “You’re not a demon.” Please, please, please, she begged mentally. Break one pettifogging rule and disaster followed. She couldn’t be attracted to a demon. “You can’t be.”
    “I’m not.”
    Relief flooded her, then froze as realisation dawned. Not an angel. Not a demon. Her eyes widened. Something far less conventional. Something that upped the potential for disaster a thousandfold.   “You’re a djinni.”
    He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
    “Let me go.” Sara kicked his ankle.
    “Dear heart, even if I could, I wouldn’t.” He evaded her second kick, tipped her off balance and toppled them both onto a chesterfield.
    Beneath Sara was the cool embrace of leather. The djinni’s imprisoning weight pressed her deeper. She squirmed.
    The djinni obliged by shifting his weight. Now each squirm rubbed her directly against…
    “You’re enjoying this,” she accused. She could feel the evidence.
    “Aren’t you?” As she stilled, he rocked against her. “Aren’t you, angel?”
    “No.”
    “Liar.” He touched a pebbled nipple, outlined by her ribbed silk shirt.
    “I am not responsible for my body’s— You pinched me. You pinched my nipple.”
    “Should I kiss it better?”
    “Just get off me.” She pushed unavailingly against his chest.
    “I like your hands on me.”
    She snatched them away, but then, where was there for them to go? She placed first her left hand then her right on his back. She could always curl them into fists and pound him, although she suspected the effect would be rather like a moth fluttering at a lamp.
    His skin was warm and smooth over the bumps of his spine.
    “You could try to seduce me into letting you go,” he suggested.
    She closed her eyes against the blue challenge of his and the glare of the overhead lights. Through her lids, she sensed the lights dim. She took his remote control of electricity as a warning of his power and ignored it.
    “If you’re guarding Vince Ablett’s library, then he must hold your djinni bottle. You aren’t free to release me. Vince’s three wishes constrain you. So seducing you would be pointless.” Her body clamoured to disagree. But what did it know? “Did Vince use a wish to have you guard the