Gift of Fire

ferociously. Her hand moved suddenly, and before Jonas realized her intention, the second manacle closed around his free wrist. She stepped quickly away from him, her eyes glittering with a new kind of fire.
    “For Christ’s sake, Verity, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” He glanced at his tethered wrists. There wasn’t enough play in the chains to allow him to bring his hands together. He was anchored to the wall. Jonas’s mood of amused, indulgent understanding began to evaporate rapidly.
    “I’m going to teach you a lesson, Jonas Quarrel.” Verity turned away from him to survey the collection of leather and velvet whips arranged on the wall. “If you want to hang around in torture chambers playing with psychic groupies, then it’s time you learned the risks.” She selected a whip, a long-handled one with soft, delicate tassels on the end.
    Jonas eyed her with a new wariness. Verity was as unpredictable as dynamite under normal circumstances. He’d never dealt with her when she was in a jealous rage before. Things promised to get interesting. “Put that back, Verity,” he said. “This has gone far enough.”
    “I don’t think so, Jonas.” She walked to the chamber door and closed it. Then she slid the bolt home. The dull
ker-chunk
sounded ominous. She moved slowly back toward Jonas, watching him through narrowed eyes. The tassled whip waved in her hand. “You want to play games in torture chambers? I’ll see if I can teach you a few tricks.”
    Jonas was torn between laughter and a hot, sizzling excitement. He’d been aroused since Verity had arrived looking like an avenging queen. He’d taken a violent satisfaction in the knowledge that she wanted him enough to fight for him. It had given him an undeniable, heady thrill to see the possessiveness in her eyes.
    But he didn’t know what to make of her now. He wondered just how much of this was serious anger and how much was nothing more than a passionate game.
    “Verity,” Jonas said with quiet forcefulness, “the game’s gone far enough. Where are the keys to these manacles?”
    She took them out of her pocket and tossed them aside. They landed with a faint tinkling sound, well out of his reach. Jonas frowned. Verity moved slowly toward him, an odd smile on her lips.
    “Lesson number one,” she said as she stuck the handle of the whip into the back pocket of her jeans. “You don’t need to wear so many clothes in a torture chamber.” She began unbuttoning his shirt. “Torture chambers are hot places.”
    Jonas stared down at her fingers, fascinated. His throat was suddenly dry. “Verity?” The shirt parted and she ran her slender fingers through the hair on his chest. She flicked one flat nipple and Jonas sucked in his breath. His jeans began to feel far too snug.
    “Lesson number two,” Verity murmured as she knelt in front of him and yanked off first one scuffed boot and then the other. “You don’t hang around places like this with twenty-thousand-year-old prostitutes. Is that clear?”
    “Believe me,” Jonas said tightly, “it won’t happen again.” He was getting turned on so fast that he was afraid he might become the world’s first documented case of human spontaneous combustion. Verity was back on her feet now, her hands busy at the zipper of his jeans. “Honey, you’re not really going to go through with this, are you?”
    “I believe in teaching a very thorough lesson.” The zipper hissed in her hands. She let her fingers trail inside the opening and smiled approvingly at what she found there. Jonas inhaled deeply. Then she slid her palms under the waistband and shoved the jeans down over Jonas’s hips.
    Jonas groaned under the touch of her soft warm hands on his bare thighs. He looked down and saw his manhood straining against the fabric of his tight briefs. It didn’t take much urging from Verity for him to kick off the jeans. Then he glanced at the door.
    “Verity, I don’t think this is such a good idea. Let’s go upstairs to our room. Anyone might come by and wonder what’s going on in here.”
    “Oh, lord.” Jonas closed his eyes as he felt her take him into her hands. Her nails scraped exquisitely along the heavy, throbbing length of him. “Verity, this is crazy.”
    “Torture. Think of it as torture.”
    “It’s torture all right. I’m not sure I’ll survive.” He took a few deep breaths trying to regain some self-control. She had such good hands, he thought dazedly. She