Ice-Cold Lover Read online

  Ice-Cold Lover

  Mel Teshco

  Book two in the Winged and Dangerous series.

  Celeste has been having vivid sexual dreams starring Pascal Daniels. The son of a mobster, he is every woman’s most dangerous fantasy. Pascal leads a charmed life and can have any woman he wants, any time he wants her. Celeste is determined to have him—but just once. Because she has a secret she will fight tooth and nail to protect. She is human in every way but one—hideous bat-like wings, a permanent legacy from her once-cursed gargoyle father, Cray.

  Pascal is used to attention from women, but he’s looking for someone special. He’s interested in the ice queen, Celeste Diamond. He thinks hers is the perfect female form, one he’d do anything to possess. Pascal has decided it’s way past time to warm up the mysterious, elusive Celeste.

  And perhaps he’ll share some secrets of his own.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Ice-Cold Lover

  ISBN 9781419928703

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Ice-Cold Lover Copyright © 2010 Mel Teshco

  Edited by Pamela Campbell

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication May 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Ice-Cold Lover

  Mel Teshco

  Chapter One

  The smell of money, and lots of it, permeated the air of the Sydney casino as Celeste Diamond stepped out of the elevator and onto its lavish third floor. Booked exclusively for invitation-only guests, it was here the rich and powerful, the famous and not-so-famous, came to flaunt their splendor.

  She scarcely noticed. Instead, every one of her senses isolated the man who’d gone to great lengths this last month—with little success—to get to know her.

  Pascal Daniels was a name synonymous to power and wealth, with murky undercurrents linking him to the seedy underworld of organized crime. Add notorious playboy to the mix and he was one black sheep she’d do well to avoid—if only she wasn’t a heartbeat away from tearing the clothes right off his magnificent body!

  Heat crept up her throat as high-voltage lust zapped straight between her thighs. Her nipples pebbled beneath her white sheath dress and the corset bra under the many layers of gauzy material encircling her torso.

  Pascal would never see the physical evidence puckering just for him. The corset disguised more than just her gargoyle wings.

  She watched him push to his feet in one smooth, fluid movement. He towered above the blackjack table and a pair of scantily clad women who’d been hanging over him. He ignored them both. Instead, his hot stare feasted on her, swept her up and down like a lover’s caress, his attention hers alone.

  She swallowed convulsively. When he abandoned his chips with a careless wave, the breath wedged somewhere low in her throat.

  Oh, dear god. Am I ready for this?

  Her spine snapped tight, subduing the hideous, bat-like appendages quivering beneath their bonds. And for just one moment self-doubt iced the carnal heat flowing like lava in her veins. Would this man be so fascinated if he saw her in all her naked glory, with her unbound wings stretched high and wide?

  She’d never give him the chance to find out.

  Oh, they’d be intimate this night, except it would be strictly on her terms, when she was ready and not before. She would never be one of his easy conquests.

  With slow provocation, she turned her back on him, a gesture that made her shiver even as she burned. Had anyone ever had the nerve to snub this man?

  Snatching a flute of champagne from a passing tray, she sipped the bubbles of decadence while dancing her way around the milling crowd of glitterati. She needn’t look behind to see if he followed—her every molecule screamed that he did. A gurgle of laughter spilled free, a dizzy excitement from the thrill of the hunt. She hadn’t felt so alive, so utterly aroused…ever!

  Pascal had awakened something deep inside her, unleashed needs that weren’t just physical. He’d stimulated her mentally too. Though she’d kept any dialogue between them brief, she’d discovered a man incredibly complex and intelligent.

  A man wholly in control.

  “Celeste!” Over the buzz of conversation, the throaty voice of her friend, Lexie, was unmistakable. The dark-haired woman motioned her over to where she was placing bets at a roulette wheel. “I wondered if you would make it,” she said with a mock glower, leaning toward her and air kissing each cheek.

  Celeste inwardly grimaced, her joy evaporating. Even acquaintances knew better than to touch her. It hurt to know they all imagined her “no-touch policy” was used solely to cultivate her ice-queen image.

  They couldn’t be more wrong.

  “I couldn’t resist,” she conceded wryly. Then sweeping a look at Lexie’s double stack of chips, she murmured, “You’re on a winning streak.”

  Her friend grinned, shamelessly blasé as she swept out a languid, heavily bejeweled hand. “Not at all. I’ve lost almost everything I came here with.”

  With Lexie’s family owning shipping lines and major foreign media shares, Celeste supposed her friend could afford to be careless. Her lips pursed. One day she’d have that conversation with her about using money in a more altruistic way. Sudden heat prickled along her nape, blasting philosophical thoughts clean away. Her pulse thudded, every one of her muscles tensing in reaction. Pascal had come to claim her.

  Lexie’s grin widened, and then became predatory as she peered past her and arched a thinly-plucked brow. “Well, Little Miss Secretive,” Lexie turned a speculative gaze her way, “I suspect you won’t be going home a loser tonight.”

  Celeste recognized thinly veiled jealousy when she heard it but didn’t rise to the bait. Still, she couldn’t help but turn to face the man who’d invaded her dreams and morphed them into something deliciously wicked for twenty-six nights straight.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Pascal murmured, his husky voice as smooth and fine as a long sip of aged malt whiskey.

  Lexie preened, unmistakably a pushover for this man with his handsome face, athlete’s body and a charisma that beckoned at twenty paces. Add to his repertoire oodles of charm, power and wealth, and Celeste could almost empathize.

  “Mind if I steal your friend?” Pascal asked the dark-haired woman.

  “Oh, I’m sure she won’t mind,” Lexie purred. “It’s not as if she’s here to gamble.”

  Pascal quirked a black-as-sin brow and directed a glint of amusement toward Celeste. “Is that so?”

  Celeste scowled, and he grinned as if he were the recipient of some fabulous joke. “I believe we make our own luc
k,” she said tightly, “and not by some throw of the dice.”

  He shrugged, his grin widening. “You may be right.” He swept a hand around the room, his jacket cracking open, drawing her gaze to his tanned throat and white dress shirt that hugged the faint ripple of his abs. “Just don’t go letting everyone know, hmm? Not everyone shares your obvious…passion.”

  Breath lodged in her throat. Oh, she felt passion all right. And never before had it burned so fever bright! “I’ll keep that in mind,” she managed, all too aware of his spicy male scent, his intoxicating nearness.

  Lexie winked broadly at Pascal, before turning to her friend with a smirk. “Why did you come tonight? I’m betting it isn’t for my scintillating company.”

  Celeste had learned to despise probing questions almost as much as she did unwanted physical contact. But she’d adapted, outmaneuvering most queries and becoming ambiguous with others. “You’re right.” She lifted her glass. “I come solely for the pink champagne.”

  As she swallowed the last of her drink, Pascal’s eyes danced with mirth. One corner of his lips tilted. “I imagine you’d come for something more gratifying than that.”

  Lexie guffawed at the smoothly delivered double entendre, her mind evidently no longer on her friend or the roulette wheel as she raked a suggestive look over his black-suited body. “She mightn’t, but I would.”

  Something toxic and nasty seared Celeste’s belly, an emotion she didn’t want to examine too closely. Pascal was a hot body, a man to satisfy her insatiable urges—nothing more. Lexie was welcome to him, after she’d fucked him.

  Her pussy seeped with anticipation at the mere thought of Pascal’s cock buried deep inside her. Then her chest constricted as another image flashed—Lexie entwined with Pascal, her abundant breasts filling his hands, her silken hair wrapped around him like a midnight cloak.

  Pascal held out a crooked elbow, pointedly ignoring the other woman’s come-on. “May I?”

  Placing her empty glass onto a passing waiter’s tray, Celeste considered him, faking indecision she certainly didn’t feel.

  Pascal was obviously familiar with her hands-off rule. She wasn’t the infamous “ice queen” for nothing. Then again, had this man ever observed convention? Her pulse kicked into top gear. He was high-risk, dangerous. And she’d never been more tempted!

  She slowly nodded and stepped toward him, repressing a shiver when she clasped the crook of his arm as though her hand belonged there. She could almost feel the sparks shooting from Lexie’s narrowed stare as Pascal escorted her through the crowd of high-stakes gamblers.

  There was no need to ask where they were headed. The sexual heat hung like an aura between them, conveying more than any words their destination.

  She saw his nostrils flare and wondered absently if he’d scented the musky bouquet at the juncture of her thighs, caught the whiff of her arousal.

  Their reflections became visible as they approached the mirrored double doors of a private elevator. They truly were light and shade, fire and ice. Together they looked…perfect.

  Her upswept blonde hair shone silver-bright next to the styled blue black of Pascal’s. Her slender body encased in unrelenting white was sharp contrast to his powerful frame in a sleek, dark, tailored suit.

  Even in stilettos she barely reached Pascal’s dark-stubbled jaw and she wished, not for the first time, that she hadn’t inherited her mother’s petite gene. She shook her head. It was such an inane concern in comparison to the grotesque, leathery wings sprouting from her spine.

  Perhaps her deformity would have been easier to bear if she’d also inherited her gargoyle father’s enhanced senses and strength. Instead, she was nothing more than a human with a deformity. Only time would tell if she’d age as a human, as her mother did, or stay immortal like her father.

  Security men stepped aside from their positions on either side of the elevator doors and Pascal murmured a greeting before guiding her inside.

  The doors pinged shut and they shot upward. When Pascal moved to face her, she dropped his arm with a shocked gasp, only to have him clasp her chin for an infinitesimal second and look into her eyes.

  She felt oddly weak-kneed, powerless to prevent his touching her. She was aware that her pulse thundered in her ears as he said huskily, “I’ve watched you, wanted you, ached for you, from the moment I first saw you.”

  Her eyelids drifted shut as she recalled that day, almost one month previous, as though it were just yesterday.

  She’d attended a charity auction that had secured a real coup. Yves Carrington-Moore, a highly sought after but zealously secretive artist, had donated a small collection of some of the most amazing bronze sculptures she’d ever seen. She’d been unable to stop herself from bidding on a slender, life-sized female gargoyle figure. Its subtle ugliness had also conveyed a fragile beauty that was captivating and, for her, somehow tender.

  With the bids around her quickly escalating, she’d raised the offer to a staggering amount. Then the unthinkable had happened, and from across the room a sexy, deep voice far surpassed her bid.

  She’d searched the crowd for the man behind the voice. And her stare had clashed with eyes the color of brilliant amber. Tiger’s eyes.

  All sounds had faded until only they’d existed. She’d been filled to the brim with a need impossible to ignore, a burning heat yet to be ignited. Her pussy might have cramped almost painfully with lust, but panic had also soared. The self-control she’d prided herself on was slipping irrevocably from her grasp.

  She’d managed to put one more offer on the sculpture. Pascal hadn’t bothered, he’d clearly achieved what he wanted—her undivided attention. The moment she’d sealed the deal, she’d fled the auction, from Pascal and his intense, smoldering stare. And from her own confused emotions.

  The gargoyle sculpture in her huge loft apartment was now a constant, perverse reminder of a man she was unable to forget, no matter how hard she tried.

  “Celeste.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Her name sounded exotic on his tongue. And so very, very possessive.

  “I know you feel the same,” he murmured, the ridiculously long sweep of his lashes dropping low, “despite the frigid act you try so hard to maintain.”

  She slipped free from his grasp, the moist heat pooling between her thighs something no bona-fide ice queen should experience. “So assured,” she said. “Tell me, are the two women you left at the blackjack table happy to share?”

  He quirked a brow. “They don’t have a choice.”

  As the elevator doors slid soundlessly apart, they stayed put, caught by the ever-increasing heat thickening the air.

  Her throat burned. “You fucked them both?”

  He lifted a hand to her mouth, his fingertips smoothing across her lips. “Such a harsh word from such soft, pretty lips.”

  “Answer me.” Damn you.

  His stare turned thoughtful, never once leaving hers. “They pleasured me, just as I pleasured them.” His hand dropped and he shrugged. “It’s not uncommon for more than one woman at a time to warm my sheets.”

  His blunt honesty should have seen her turn tail and run in the opposite direction. Instead, a deep, aching restlessness burst into something deliciously hot and forbidden.

  Pascal blew out a breath before tunneling a hand through his hair. “I’ve never leashed my desires, never had reason to pledge a woman my commitment. Just as I never gave any lover a reason to believe they were more than a passing diversion.”

  He cocked his head to the side and she felt as if all her thoughts were exposed as he studied her with his tiger eyes. “I’m certain you wouldn’t have stepped into my private elevator, come to my penthouse suite with me, if you weren’t ready and willing—”

  She stood on tiptoe, leaning forward to slant her lips across his in an action that spoke so much louder than words. She sighed, savoring the fullness of his mouth, the decadent taste of spice and scotch.

  With an almost soundless gr
oan, he returned the kiss, deepened it, his skill all too apparent as his tongue skated across her lower lip before sliding inside her mouth with an ease that screamed bedroom prowess.

  When his hands spanned her waist, she jerked free, gasping for breath and wishing desperately that she had nothing to hide…nothing to fear. “No,” she uttered. “If we’re intimate tonight, it will be under my conditions, or not at all.”

  Pascal’s expression bore no hint of disapproval or surprise, just a fleeting curiosity. “No touching, hmm?”

  Her heart fluttered like a moth beating itself against a light bulb. “Something like that.” Gathering her composure, she swept past him, out of the elevator and onto a gleaming expanse of white tiles.

  Motion sensors triggered a series of down-lights to illuminate the huge penthouse suite and she shivered under their glare as Pascal followed her, close behind. Even without the clack-clack of her stilettos, she wouldn’t have heard his tread. He moved with the stealth of a predator. Only a fixated awareness of him allowed her to perceive the moment he released her from his sights.

  She turned, watching as he strode over to a well-stocked bar. His jacket pulled taut across his broad shoulders as he bent and opened the door to a mini-fridge. Retrieving a chilled bottle of champagne, he uncorked it with deft hands and filled two glasses.

  She looked away, suddenly nervous and inexplicably afraid. What had she been thinking? Pascal was a man who took control, shaped his destiny and commanded his lot in life. He was a man who, she had no doubt, yearned to touch, to feel, to caress and possess the woman in his bed.

  She swallowed hard. Heaven help her, she wanted to be that woman!

  With jerky steps she made her way toward a huge floor-to-ceiling window, barely seeing the velvet night with its vista of city lights spread out as far as the eye could see. She stilled and the clamoring jumble of her emotions also stilled, frozen, numb, until outwardly at least, she was no longer a quivering mass of jelly.