Tempting the Enemy (14 page)

Long seconds, sweat forming and dripping down his back 118

Tempting the Enemy

as he willed the claws and the fangs back into human form. Pushed mercilessly until control was his again.

Aaron waited by the door to the underground extra rooms as he finally came down the stairs, eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. Every line of him was tension-filled and he kept flexing his left hand open and shut. Nothing new there, he tended to when he was pensive, a habit he’d developed after it had been crushed in Vayere’s implosion. But it wasn’t a good sign.

“I moved the boy to one of the rooms. He wouldn’t understand—” Aaron gestured at the haze with his open hand, “—
this
.”

Pale didn’t understand
this
either, but he felt it. This power of Jade’s was nothing for a child to deal with. The red light felt like desire coursing over his skin. Pure, feminine need tugging at him, brushing around him in caressing waves, leaving his senses drugged even more than when they first met. The Heat. A studying glance told him his brother wasn’t responding to Jade’s call.

Strange, but so relieving, Pale didn’t question why. He’d have hated fighting Aaron just as much as he would have the others.

“She’s sleeping. Dreaming, I think.” Aaron tipped his head in the direction of the couch before slipping back into the closed bedroom wing, leaving Pale alone with the woman at least one of them should consider protecting.

Then again, the only losing battle Aaron ever fought was the one for their survival.

Circling the couch, Pale found her, legs folded in front of her, her head resting on the arm draping the cushions. She moaned, a low husky sound that strung tight the threads of his hard-won control. He could almost Dee Tenorio

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taste the beads of sweat at her temples, ached to relieve her inky hair of those tight braids forming intricate patterns around her head. That black thing held even more braided hair, coiled tight to the back of her neck. How long would it be, if it were free? To her waist? Longer?

He couldn’t begin to imagine. But he’d find out, he decided then and there. He’d unearth the Wolf she kept buried. Every impulse, every desire she kept held in. Tied down.

But she wasn’t holding back now, not by the look on her face.

Flushed lush lips parted enough that he could see the lengthened points of her fangs. She shuddered in a breath, licked at the white lengths with a curling tongue. Would she sink them into him when he mated her? Would she be afraid when he did the same to her? Or would she climax hard enough to take him with her?

He reached with a fingertip, hand almost shaking with an effort to be his gentlest. Her bottom lip felt like warm silk against the back of his finger. He’d never dared touch anything so soft before her, and now he couldn’t stop himself from grazing it again, not even when he knew he shouldn’t. He traced the jut of her proud chin, scooping back up her cheek with the back of his hand.

She quivered against him, another moan escaping her as she curved into his touch. Her lids lifted, only halfway, her amber eyes glowing with sensual demand.

Much as he wanted her, though, he could tell that she wasn’t truly awake. Her eyes were too glazed, too unfocused. His mouth watered for her, especially as the red haze thickened around him, rippling up and down his body. But taking her now was wrong. Not here. Not now.

“It’s time to wake up, little Wolf.”

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She unfolded, standing on the couch so they were eye to eye. Her hands wound over his shoulders and she rubbed against his chest. Firm breasts flattened against him, rode upward, then dragged his shirt buttons into his skin as she moved downward. Tiny mewls of pleasure escaped her throat while she repeated the action, her small claws clamping onto the flesh of his shoulders. If she’d reached down his pants and gripped his shaft, she couldn’t have aroused him more. Her need was palpable and his was growing to match it.

“Pale.” She breathed into his ear, sounding so damn pleased with the sound of his name, just before sharp little fangs pinched the lobe.

He gripped her hips with his hands, if only to keep her from climbing onto him. Or maybe to help her—he was fast losing hold of why he shouldn’t let her. “Wake up, Jade.”

“I
want
,” she answered, voice rough and drunk with Heat. He leaned into the temptation of her lips, feeling them move against his temple. Her hands shoved at his coat, hooking the open sides at his shoulders so she could tug on his shirt. “Need to touch you.”

“I know you do,” he soothed, allowing his hold to lessen so he could help her. For him, the Heat was an undeniable call. For her, it was a fire, creating a desperation for touch, for sensation, and it had taken her over. His jacket fell to the ground, shrugged away and forgotten. She succeeded in dragging his shirt from his waistband, ripping the buttons open and tearing the undershirt wide, gasping only when he yanked her sweater up as well, baring her belly and a simple black Dee Tenorio

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bra. He didn’t give her any time to fight him, pulling her against him, skin to skin, mouth to mouth.

She groaned into him, her body fevered and quaking while he devoured her. Delving deep into her mouth, an answering groan of his own slipped free when her tongue wrapped around his, sucking him further into the kiss. She met him stroke for stroke, her body straining restlessly against his.

His arm locked around the small of her back, while his hand found the firm mound of her breast. The hard pebbled peak stabbed through the fabric into his palm, turgid and desperate. She jerked, hard, but didn’t push out of his hold. So he squeezed, his claw flicking at the nipple. She broke the kiss, gasping, arching backward and pressing her breast farther into his hand.

She needed more.

Growling, his own hunger nearly unleashed, he pushed the restraining bra upward over the full globes of her breasts, baring them to his sight and touch. Her skin gleamed, the sheen of sweat over the cream-colored flesh tempting him, but not nearly as much as the deep blush of her nipples. Drawing on patience even he didn’t know he had, he slowly lowered his head to blow a breath across one, watching it pucker tighter for him. She mewled again, her claws digging deeper at his shoulders.

His first lick was gentle, a light lap, but she jumped as if he’d hit her with electricity. She was close. He could smell the release rising, feel it in the tightness of her muscles. She needed and he was only too pleased to give.

To mark her, even if only temporarily, as his own. Giving in, he sucked one into his mouth, laving it and drawing tight.

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Tempting the Enemy

Her legs weakened and he lifted her against him even as he sank into the couch with her on his lap. The sweet heat of her core settled against the hard ridge of his cock, cradling him that close to a heaven he couldn’t enter. Not yet. But soon, he vowed, knowing it was inevitable. As soon as she understood. Until then…

He switched breasts, using one hand to caress the abandoned one. His fingertip slid off the wet nipple as easily as his tongue flicked the other one in his mouth.

Harder he sucked, listening as her gasps became soft cries. With his free hand, he stroked firmly down her back, squeezing her hips still when they twitched wildly against his. Soon, though, he couldn’t stop the rocking motion without hurting her. Then he didn’t want to. He began to meet her and when her breaths shortened into staccato rasps, he knew it was time. He bit down, not hard enough to break the skin, but definitely enough to push her over the screaming edge to oblivion.

He lowered his forehead to her still-burning skin, hearing the galloping pace of her heartbeat begin to slow only after the last spasms of completion were wrung from her. Her breathing took longer to come back to normal, but eventually it did and with it, the last of the red light faded away. Without that, there was no more reason to hold her this way. Regretfully, he pulled the cups of her simple bra back into place, resisting the urge to take a final taste of her. She’d be back to herself now and she wouldn’t appreciate him taking the liberties.

Soon, he promised himself silently, they’d be his rights.

The sweater slid back into place easily as well, but the limp woman spread over his lap had yet to say Dee Tenorio

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anything. She wasn’t even looking at him, her downcast gaze firmly locked on her hands. Or rather, the deep crimson blood on the tips of her claws. He didn’t think the flush to her cheeks was from the Heat this time.

“You didn’t hurt me, Jade.”

Her gaze flickered up, then back down. “I blooded you.”

A satisfying fact his brothers would take as a sign that she’d made her choice. A sign any decent Wolf would have to respect. “It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last.”

That got her to look him in the eye, even if her face was scowling. He pressed a kiss to her swollen lips, one she responded to as if she couldn’t seem to help herself.

When he ended it, she followed his lips hungrily for a millisecond.

Even better. It almost made his lack of completion worthwhile. “Can you stand?”

At the question, he felt her entire body stiffen. “Why wouldn’t I be able to stand?”

She scrambled off him, all but leaping off the erection she only now seemed to realize wasn’t a simple aftereffect of her orgasm. She wavered a little, but that damn Sibile pride of hers kicked in and she went militarily straight.

Much as he’d like to remind her of how soft and pliant she’d been mere seconds ago, his responsibilities were still waiting. Had been waiting too long. Ignoring the discomfort in his groin, he rose from the couch, pulling off his ruined shirts at the same time. He felt her gaze on his skin, tracing muscles and scars he’d long ago stopped noticing. Slash marks and random bites he played off as knife wounds when he had to.

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“So many,” she murmured, her hand lifting as if she were going to touch him, then falling back to her side when she thought the better of it.

Pale clenched his teeth, instinctively angry that she hadn’t completed the motion. He wanted that touch.

Needed it, damn it. Then again, if she had, she’d have been back on those cushions whether she wanted to be or not. And if there was one thing he wouldn’t accept, it was taking her without her being willing. “It’s not an easy world for a shifter.”

“Maybe it’s just not easy being you.” She looked down, busying herself with finding her gloves. Rather than watch her tug them on, he grunted and headed for the door to the cabin’s supply room. They kept spare clothes here, in case they ever had to shift without taking the time to strip; replacing his shirt wouldn’t be a problem.

Less than a minute later, he was yanking on a long-sleeve cotton pullover, striding toward his coat. She was already bundled in his jacket, waiting.

“Detective,” she began, not meeting his gaze again.

“Stop. I don’t want to hear it.” He could see the guilt and apology on her face already and maybe he was too rough, but he’d be damned before he let her say she was sorry for needing him. For wanting him.

She didn’t look up this time, no sparks of temper or grinding of her teeth. She just stood there, looking ten different kinds of miserable. In his head, he knew he should say something. A sheltered, virginal girl, unversed in anything about her own genetic makeup, and her body was going haywire on her. She couldn’t possibly know how to deal with Heat that could take her over. Or him.

But words were not his forte and they weren’t going to Dee Tenorio

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become so anytime soon. So he went with the only thing he could think of.

“We’ve got work to do, Jade.”

Her head lifted, those amber eyes filled with questions he wasn’t ready to decipher.

“I need you for this.”

She flinched, but nodded. “What about the boy?”

“He’s with Aaron.” Of all the shifters he’d grown up with, it was Aaron he trusted most. They had all suffered, all sacrificed, but it was Aaron who would move Heaven and Earth to keep what they were building safe. He’d already given his life for it once. He wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. “Come on. They’re waiting.”

She came without question, a decidedly un-Jade-like thing. She followed him to the car, climbed in and stayed silent all the way to the spot where he finally parked. He itched to push at her. Prod her into her usual confrontational manner, but he kept his itches to himself.

For the time being. Hopefully until he could get this bastard murderer good and dead, then he could take his time claiming her. Teaching her how to claim him in return…

Meanwhile, the distance she was putting between them felt like walls, every brick of which was mortared with haughty reserve. As if that would stop him.

Build away, highness,
he thought, his lips twisting into a near snarl.
It won’t last for long.

Jade kicked at the snow, wishing ever so slightly that it was a certain hulking, bad-tempered Wolf.

“He was here somewhere. I can smell it.”

“No, he wasn’t. If he was, I’d see him.” She trudged, following the blue path alongside the snowy road, her 126

Tempting the Enemy

nerves strung tighter than ever, exhaustion dragging at her every step. In all honesty, she couldn’t be completely sure of that statement. The killer might have followed from the trees, safely out of the sight of his prey as well as her abilities. To check that thoroughly, she’d need Pale. She’d need to wrap herself in his color and let it illuminate the shadows. So far, though she could see it, feel it nearby, it had yet to try to encircle her the way it always did. It almost seemed to be…waiting for something.

“I don’t like being this far from you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she grumbled. She’d insisted he stay at least ten feet back, reminding him his signature was too strong. Since they were walking in the cold night, he’d insisted she keep his coat on, but he hadn’t argued to stay at her side. No, all he’d done was offer her confusing signal after confusing signal. Wanting her, hating her, wanting her, rejecting her.