Soul Thief (Dark Souls) (14 page)

Her other hand rose to bracket his face. “You already have.” She kissed him again, her tongue tracing his lips, her hot body clinging to his, and his entire universe spun out of focus. Even if he’d been made of steel, he wouldn’t have been able to resist the sweet lure of her mouth.

He deepened the kiss, surprised when her life-force failed to react to the assault. Usually, a soul responded to his presence like a magnet, fighting to free itself from the body housing it and spear into him. Angie’s didn’t.

Maybe Marcus was right. Maybe her soul possessed some kind of resistance to him. If that was true, then he could love her fully, without fear or restraint. The thought emboldened him and slowly stripped away his doubts.

Still plundering her mouth, he yanked her off her feet and gathered her in his arms. She made a soft rasping sound against his lips and snuggled against him. Tenderness clogged his windpipe until it hurt to breathe. He ached to protect her, to cherish and shelter her. Right there and then he made a vow to himself. Nothing would take her from him. Not Kyros, not illness, not fate. Nothing. She was his, the part of himself that had been missing all these years, and he intended to keep her.

He carried her to the isolated nook that served as his bedroom and gently deposited her on the bed. Taking a moment, he absorbed the sight of her spread over his sheets. Golden-brown hair formed a delicate web across his white pillow as she watched him with nervous anticipation, her lips swollen from his kisses. Low lighting cast a yellow glow over her, gilding her skin and making her eyes shimmer.

He could’ve stood there forever watching her. In all his existence, he’d never seen anything as beautiful as Angie. He’d collected priceless works of art, furniture that had once graced the walls of palaces, carpets of the finest silk, but none of these things had brought him any joy or fulfillment.

And yet the image of Angie lying on his bed waiting for him made his whole world tilt on its axis.

She shifted uncomfortably. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Her hand shot to her head in an attempt to tame her wild curls. “It’s my hair, isn’t it?”

Adrian gripped her wrist and pinned her arm to the bed, startling her. “Don’t touch it. It’s perfect.” He caressed her scalp with his other hand until she relaxed beneath him. Her eyes drifted shut, and she angled her chin, exposing her throat.

Something urgent and feral shot through him. He lowered his mouth to her neck. Her pulse drummed a frantic beat against his lips as he kissed her delicate flesh. She sighed, her body loosening, her anxiety easing.

Arching her back, she buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer. Adrian’s body lurched in response. The need to conquer, to both please and dominate, blinded him. How would he love her the way she deserved to be loved, when all he wanted to do was rip her clothing to shreds and claim her?

She moved beneath him, her leg rubbing him in ways that threatened to snap the thin thread of his self-control.

“Easy there,” he grunted. “We have to take things slow.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

He chuckled against the enticing column of her throat. “Believe me. You want to.”

His fingers slowly undid the buttons of her pink silk shirt, one that was covered with a wild sprinkle of flowers and was far sexier when it fell open to reveal her white cotton bra. His hand itched to close over the gentle swell of her breast, but he held back. Instead, he continued kissing her, gliding his mouth over her skin, tasting and exploring every delicious inch of her.

Angie shuddered beneath him. “Do what you did to me last night. Touch me everywhere at once.”

Adrian’s breath came fast and hard at her words. He remembered how it had felt to invade her mind, to merge his consciousness with hers, to feel everything she felt in addition to the medley of sensations already running rampant through his veins.

Even from across the street, he’d had trouble controlling his baser impulses. It had taken an inhuman amount of self-discipline not to go to her, not to climb through her window and slide into bed beside her. If he were to breach her mind now, with her so close, he could lose what little restraint he had. Resisting temptation was hard enough without her mouth skimming his jawbone, the peaks of her breasts digging enticingly into his chest and her hips doing dangerous things to the lower part of his anatomy.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse her. Fortifying himself against the inevitable onslaught of sensation, he penetrated the walls of her psyche and proceeded to stimulate every forgotten nerve in her body.

The moment his power took hold, she inhaled sharply and bucked beneath him. “Oh, God.”

Something wild and animalistic clawed at his gut. His own nerve endings throbbed with heated awareness. Before he could stop himself, he tugged at her parted shirt, freeing her from it. Next he yanked off her bra and drew her hard nipple into his mouth. She made a startled hissing sound, her fingers tightening their grip on his hair. The gesture should’ve been painful, but it wasn’t. All it did was fuel the fire ravaging his system. His hand traveled down the length of her side, over her belly, toward the clasp of her pants. A few skillful moves and she lay naked beneath him, bathed in flickering yellow light.

He sensed a wave of self-consciousness struggling to break through the haze of desire in her mind, but he beat it into submission, replacing it with another surge of molten pleasure. Her body tensed beneath his, her chest rising and falling with each violent breath she inhaled, her tight, round breast finding shelter in his mouth.

Adrian was more than happy to accommodate. He lavished kisses on her, his hand seeking out the damp heat between her legs. With one fluid thrust, he entered her with his finger. He needed to know if she was ready for him.

She stiffened at the invasion. “What are you doing?” Shyness fought to reassert itself.

“Preparing you.” He stroked her intimately, and her breath caught in her throat.

“For what?” She inclined her hips and rocked against him despite herself.

“For me.”

She pressed her thighs together, her body shuddering around him, and he chuckled. This was going to be easier than he’d thought. The more ready she was for him, the less chance there was that he’d hurt her. Not that he’d had much experience with virgins.

He drew himself up and claimed her mouth again. He continued stroking her as he feathered worshipping kisses over her body, not stopping until he felt her burning beneath him, until all her inhibitions melted away and all that was left was the shattering need for completion.

When he was convinced her body was ready for him, he stood and stripped off his clothing, got the necessary precautions, then joined her on the bed again. The last thing he wanted was to impregnate her. Raising a Hybrid child could be a dangerous proposition for a human, and Angie had enough to deal with as it was.

For a few tension-filled seconds, he lay beside her, as exposed as she, savoring the feel of her skin against his. Energy flared wherever their flesh touched, a current so powerful it robbed him of both thought and speech.

She pulled him to her, forcing him to blanket her body with his. He felt awkward, vulnerable, as if he were the virgin. In a way he was. He’d had his fair share of women, but Angie was different.
This
was different. Being with her was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

Her legs parted to receive him, and any qualms he had evaporated. This was where he was meant to be, where he needed to be. Nothing else mattered. He entered her slowly, willing her to relax, his mind caressing hers. As he gently rocked against her, their psyches merged along with their bodies.

Even though he’d been expecting the heated rush of sensation that claimed him, it still took him by surprise, nearly freeing the animal he fought so hard to cage.

He felt everything she did—her eagerness, her desire, her sense of wonder. It was like making love for the first time, and the last. Nothing existed but the two of them and this one electrifying moment. If the world continued to turn around them, Adrian wasn’t aware of it, nor did he care.

She was doing this, he realized. In her mind, she was stopping time and trapping him there with her. It was as though they existed on a different plane altogether.

His heartbeat—or was it hers?—pounded in his chest, his head, his limbs. Every nerve ending in his body vibrated with energy. Never before had he felt so alive.

“Adrian.” Her fingernails dug into his back. Her legs looped around his hips, pulling him deeper. “What’s happening?”

She was breathless, as frightened and amazed as he was. Even if he knew the answer, he couldn’t have uttered a word. His voice was buried beneath the weight of everything he was feeling.

Pleasure exploded within her, eliciting a similar response in him. Their minds were so intricately linked, they were like one person. They rode the tide together, clutching each other, as violent need gave way to electric bliss.

When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, his skin thrumming. He couldn’t speak. All he could do was hold her. After a few steadying breaths, he finally found the strength to lift himself up and gaze down at her, and what he saw froze him solid.

Her face was streaked with tears.

Guilt slammed into him. Running brutal fingers through his hair, he cursed himself for his carelessness. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, swiped at her damp eyes. “No. You did something far worse.”

Everything inside him shriveled at the tortured look she gave him.

“You showed me what it feels like to be alive. Now I want to live. I want to live so bad it hurts.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

They spent the morning and most of the afternoon together. They ate lunch by candlelight, kissed beneath the soft glow of flickering chandeliers and made love to the low purr of the trains passing overhead. Way down here, cocooned in Adrian’s arms, it was all too easy to forget that a world existed outside this place, that time continued to inch forward, that hordes of people bustled in the city above.

Angie felt like she was lost in a dream.

And like all dreams, it couldn’t last. Eventually, she had to wake up. “We have to get back to Reach,” she whispered against his bare shoulder. “They’ll be wondering what happened to us.”

“Let them.” He nuzzled her neck, planted a featherlight kiss in the hollow of her throat.

“I can’t. I’m supposed to work at the soup kitchen tonight. They need me.”

His disgruntled sigh tickled her flesh. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”

Before she could stifle it, a girlish giggle escaped her lips. How did he always manage to make her feel so giddy? She placed her palm on the hard wall of his chest. He had a beautiful chest, smooth and bronze and carved in all the right places. She was tempted to trace the muscular ridges that spanned his torso, but she fought the urge, pushing him away instead.

“I need to get dressed.” She left him lying alone on the bed and hastened to put on her clothes.

Once he realized she couldn’t be dissuaded, he stood and donned his clothing as well. “Come on. I’ll take you back. But if I had my way, I’d keep you down here forever.”

“You know, some girls would think that was creepy,” she teased.

“Do
you
?”

She was tempted to have a little fun with him, but the deadpan expression on his face stopped her. He looked so intense, so troubled, her heart squeezed in response. “I’m not afraid of you, Adrian,” she reassured him. “In fact, I’ve never felt safer.”

The tension leached from his shoulders, and a hesitant grin tugged at his mouth, dimpling his cheek. Angie’s pulse fluttered out of control. How could a man look so darn cute and so frigging sexy at the same time?

He took her hand, and that familiar warmth traveled through her, making her blood hum. As they walked toward the steel staircase that would lead them back to the surface, Angie angled a final glance at Adrian’s home. She wanted to commit this place to memory, to bury the image deep inside her, in case she never got to see it again.

She was still gazing over her shoulder when the heavy door clanged shut behind her, blocking Adrian’s haven from her view.

Something was wrong. Adrian felt it in his bones the second they exited the subway station. Dark energy contaminated the atmosphere, warning him that they should steer clear of Reach and its surrounding areas.

Stopping abruptly, he seized Angie’s arm. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to volunteer today.”

She slanted a confused glance his way. “Why not?”

“Not sure. Something doesn’t feel right.” He concentrated, tunneling his vision to see what had set his teeth on edge.

As he’d suspected, the halfway house was in a state of absolute chaos. The entire street had been sealed off, and a handful of police cruisers and news vans bordered the sidewalk. “We need to get out of here.”

“What? Why?”

“There’s some kind of crisis at the halfway house. The place is crawling with cops.”

Confusion creased her brows. “How do you know?”

“There’s no time to explain. I have to get you home, where you’ll be safe.”