I glanced at the others, especially Hannah. She seemed nervous and shy, but had somehow avoided picking up on the darkly erotic vibe that seemed to perme
ate the room. Dru, Kyle, and Sonja were either immune or oblivious. They were also walking away from me, so I hurried to catch up. I bit back a moan as I moved my thighs, my clit throbbing from every bit of motion. Whatever this was, it was becoming a problem. It was becoming hard to focus, hard to keep my breath even.
Was it the light? The air itself?
No, I realized. It was a scent.
My nostrils flared, and my eyes went wide as I spun my head toward the source. How the fuck I knew which person was responsible for the incredible scent in a room full of people, I wasn’t sure. But I knew, beyond any question or doubt, that it came from a man standing across the room.
He smelled like some insanely erotic combination of money and sunlight and boredom. He was tall and slender, with an aristocratic sharpness to his pale face. His eyes burned like green fire, and his perfectly manicured brown hair shone softly in the light. He whispered something to the man on his left, who chuckled. I couldn’t tell what the other man looked like.
Oh, but what’s this?
Sea-foam and sandalwood and joy.
The scent tore me violently away from the green-eyed guy and redirected my focus. The new object of my attention stood several yards away from the first man, and he looked like a California god, tan and muscular. Wavy blond hair fell haphazardly over his cobalt blue eyes, which matched the stone in the center of the hemp necklace he wore. He grinned at me openly and winked. As if the wink had been a physical touch, a lick against my throbbing clit, a shudder of pleasure made my vision hazy.
When it cleared, it was only because another scent had caught my attention. This one was spicy and rich and sweet, like sharp ginger stewing in coconut milk. The man attached to it didn’t project his emotions as much as the other two had; he looked more bored and aloof than the rich moneybags guy, but as I came closer, I could taste his fury.
And strangely, it tasted good. I was wholly enticed. I needed to know more about this dark-eyed man with the toffee skin and so much controlled anger.
His eyelids flickered as he glanced toward me. Our gazes locked, and I felt a sudden pull rising up in me, the same way it had when I had persuaded Sonja to let me go. Something deep and powerful and completely out of my control.
But as the feeling reached my eyes, the beautiful, sharp-featured man snapped his gaze away. I gasped. The broken connection was almost physically painful.
I was growing more and more aroused as we walked. I wanted to turn around and corral those men, play the numbers and get one of them into bed. I wanted to stop Dru, to beg for a breather to collect myself before we continued. Or strip off my clothes and run down the hallway until somebody, anybody—
“Ow!” Hannah’s voice cut through my wild fantasies. “Piper, are you okay?”
“Hm?”
She lifted her hand, the one clasped in mine, to show me the purpling tips of her fingers.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” I let go of her hand and rubbed my sweaty palm on my thigh. Ohhh, God. That was a mistake. It felt too damn good for public viewing, and I had an almost uncontrollable urge to rub my hand over an entirely different part of my anatomy. I bit my lip until I tasted blood and took a breath so deep my lungs threatened to meld with my spine.
Hannah watched me worriedly. “It’s all right. Are you okay though?”
“I—I don’t really know,” I muttered quietly, my voice low and rough. “Don’t you feel that?”
She looked around, brow furrowing. “Feel… what?”
Liquid sex in the air.
But I couldn’t say that without explaining, and I couldn’t explain, so I just shook my head. As I did, though, I was nearly knocked off my feet by the most enticing scent yet. Fire. Not smoke or sulfur, but fire itself. The man responsible for that amazing aroma stood head and shoulders above the people around him, with skin like dark coffee and eyes like midnight. His dark hair was shaved close to his head, his hairline perfectly contoured, and I wanted to run my fingers over every strand. When he met my gaze, I noticed little honeyed flecks in his irises, like campfires on twin hillsides.
He narrowed those eyes at me suspiciously, as if I were responsible for this overwhelming feeling of sex vibrating the molecules of the air around us.
That certainly couldn’t be the case, could it? But no one else seemed to have noticed it. Just me and those four guys. Why those four? They hadn’t been standing anywhere near each other. Hell, they probably didn’t even know one another. But I knew them.
At least—something in me recognized something in them. Somehow.
“Ugh, I need a nap,” I muttered. “I think I knocked something loose in my brain.”
“That jump or teleportation or whatever was pretty rough,” Hannah agreed in a low voice. “I hope we won’t have to do that a lot.”
Sonja glanced over her shoulder with a sneer. “If you’d rather travel like a human, I’m sure we have a yak sitting around here somewhere.”
“What?” Hannah shot a bewildered glance at me. I shrugged.