Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana, #1)

by Jacquelyn Benson

Ellie still wasn’t certain how much of Constance’s interest in the struggle for women’s rights was inspired by her passion for the cause… and how much lay in the possible illegality and potential for danger. Constance had a rather terrifying taste for adventure.

He was soaking wet, his shirt and trousers plastered to his body. He had the sort of male form Ellie had only previously seen in statues at the British Museum. It was admittedly distracting.

She was having a difficult time removing her eyes from his pectorals.

The lady from the bath looked different with all of her clothes on… not that she’d looked at all bad in that soaking wet dressing gown. Adam was fairly certain she wouldn’t appreciate him noticing that—but last time he’d checked, he still had a pulse.

Had he actually just offered to take this woman into the mountains? She’d get them both eaten by a jaguar in five minutes. She had that jaguar bait air about her.

Ellie’s gaze locked onto the place where the curve of his well-muscled forearm was revealed by the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. There was something deeply, wildly appealing about that forearm.

Everything the temperance people said about drink was true. Here Ellie was, just partway through that bottle of liquid gold, and she had turned from a rational, modern woman into a savage beast. If she climbed onto Adam’s lap and kissed him right now, he would taste like more of that rum. It was abominable. These were not the thoughts of a rational mind. Adam’s spiritus was transforming her into an animal… and there was nothing to stop her from acting on her terrible impulses.

“What happens now?” she asked, pitching her voice louder to be heard over the rapids. For just a moment before Adam responded, it felt as though the answer drifted to her through the warm air and the droplets of water that danced on her skin. Now you kiss him. The impulse rang through her like a bell. Ellie caught her breath against it.

There was a new scrape on Ellie’s cheek. Her hair was tumbling from the perpetually messy bun in which she kept it. The knife in her hand—Adam’s knife, he realized with a bolt of joy—was steady as a rock. She looked gloriously furious.

as though somehow your person is expendable whereas mine has to be cherished and coddled like a… a prize Pomeranian!” “You’re nothing like a Pomeranian,” Adam countered. “Oh? Then what precious, oh-so-vulnerable creature that is completely incapable of taking care of itself do I resemble?” Ellie demanded with a hiss. “How about a wolverine?” he offered.

She put a hand to Adam’s chest. The hand decided it wanted to glide along his hot, gorgeously contoured skin

“You are distracting me,” Ellie grumbled with her eyes on the pencil. “Not as much as I could be,” Adam returned with a wicked grin. Ellie ignored him. It was more difficult than it should have been, since Adam’s threat had done exactly what it was supposed to do, filling her mind with all kinds of delicious notions of exactly how distracting he could be.

And stay calm,” he added pointedly. She fixed him with a glare. “Have I ever given you any reason to think I am the type to react irrationally?” she demanded. “You jumped off a balcony with your hands tied,” Adam replied. “I was taking the most direct route away from a pursuer,” Ellie retorted. “You were planning to blow up a boat to get me to listen to you.” “But I didn’t!” “And you tried to set Mendez’s pants on fire,” Adam finished. Ellie opened her mouth to reply, and then closed it. “How did you know about that?” she demanded cannily. “I saw the burn marks on his trousers,” Adam said.

He looked battered, muddy, and beautiful.

“I have become inordinately fond of you, you know,” Ellie abruptly admitted. “Well, then, we’re gonna have to do our damnedest not to die,” Adam replied as he gazed down at her warmly—very warmly.

Ellie had lost a pair of buttons in the cenote, so the one he touched was already indecently low. She might lose all her buttons down here, she thought thickly as her eyes dropped to the sweat-slicked muscle on Adam’s chest. What did she really need them for anyway? Bothersome things, buttons…

Ellie found that she had a greater respect for indecency laws as her eyes dropped involuntarily to Adam’s chest. Even when still slightly filthy and moderately bruised, that torso could cause a riot.

“If Neil is tangled up in it, he can’t possibly understand the real implications,” she insisted. “He hasn’t the imagination for that. And even if he figures it out, he’s not remotely equipped to handle this sort of thing. This is Neil we’re talking about. He gets lost in libraries!”

Adam’s arms were holding her close, and his mouth tasted like rum, waterfalls, and campfires—and thank god nobody had bothered to find the man a shirt, because Ellie was wildly certain that she had never been so happy before in her life.