He released her nipple and turned to place a soft kiss on the other one before looking up at her, his gaze a silvery black, his nostrils flared, and crimson darkening his rugged cheekbones. The warrior in him, the Highlander he’d always be, was in full force and on display.
She could see him. The real him.
“We can’t do this.” His brogue was a low rumble that caressed her aching nipples.
“I know,” she breathed, digging her nails into his skin. “It’s a huge mistake.”
He kissed between her breasts. “Just one taste, Grace. That’s all I ask.”
The words didn’t compute. “I don’t—”
He slid her panties down with one finger, following with his mouth, kissing each hipbone and palming her thigh. Need and want and lust and every other feeling that was possible assaulted her, rioting through every nerve with a demand she couldn’t fight.
He rubbed his five o’clock shadow across her tender thighs, stirring her desire hotter. He lifted up, his eyes pure silver. “Tell me I can have one taste.”
Her mind rioted and her body pulsed. She was exposed to him, vulnerable and needy. She wanted to think of something clever, something flirty, something sophisticated to say. “Okay,” she breathed.
He settled between her legs, driving her thighs apart to make room for his wide shoulders. “One taste,” he murmured, as if to himself. His left hand planted itself on her thigh and he turned his head, striking with the speed of a true predator.
His fangs sliced deep into her thigh, and pain erupted through her lower half. She cried out, crashing both hands down on the bedspread and digging deep with her nails, her mouth opening in shock. Her body froze and then drifted into a warm numbness, followed by acute pleasure, sharp and direct, right to her core.
Oh, God. It was too much.
He drank her blood, and she felt the demanding pull deep in her sex.
Live wires uncoiled and sparked out, throwing her into an orgasm that had her crying out his name this time. In one smooth motion, he retracted his fangs and turned his head, sucking her clit into his heated mouth. The orgasm built in intensity, shooting sparks of pure white light behind her closed eyelids.
She whimpered, swelling and surging through a cyclone of battering pleasure that he increased by sliding one finger through her wetness and curling up, somehow caressing her clit from inside her. Her mind shut down as the ecstasy became too much, and she let it take her, until finally she came down and went limp.
Her breath panted, hard and fast.
He released her and gently pulled her panties back up, kissing her once right above her clit. His rough tongue then scraped over the wound in her thigh. To heal it? She remembered something about how that worked.
Then he looked up and licked a spot of blood off his lip.
She couldn’t speak. Her body was satiated and on fire at the same time, and no words would come. What had just happened?
He reached for her discarded shirt and handed it to her, sliding back on the bed to stand. An obvious erection showed behind his jeans.
“Wh—what about you?” she asked, her voice barely coming out.
His smile was as gentle as it was rueful. “I’m fine—will take a quick run. It has to be this way.” He turned, still shirtless, showing the black shield beneath the skin of his back where his torso had been made impenetrable during the Seven ritual. The words he spoke as he left were quiet but clear. “Thank you, Grace.”
Then he was gone.
Chapter 11
Adare ran shirtless through the softly falling snow, his boots heavy and his head light. The taste of Grace, of her blood, would stay with him forever. Much like her scent, her blood tasted like a combination of sweet and good and pure sassiness. What in the hell had he been thinking to touch her? He was more than likely going to die, leaving her alone in this world, and he shouldn’t have given in to his needs.
The sound of her climaxing, sweet and honest, drummed around in his head until he thought his ears would explode.
Finally, as dawn began to arrive, he ran back to the house. Maybe he could get some planning done in the situation room. Yeah. That was a good idea. He slipped inside quietly and kicked off his boots, brushing snow from his hair.
“You’re a moron,” Benny said, kicking back on the sofa, his boots on the marble coffee table, a protein bar half-eaten in his hands.
Adare wiped snow from his torso and down his jeans, striding in wet socks to stand by the fire. “Why?”
“I heard you earlier. Your lady isn’t exactly quiet.” Ben shoved the rest of the bar in his mouth and chewed with a sense of contentment most immortals never found, even at their happiest times. “Then you leave and go run for hours in the snow. Like I said, moron.”
Adare flicked his temper off as easily as he’d gotten rid of the snow. “All right. How about you calculate our odds of surviving the raid we’re planning?”
Benny steepled his hands together, watching the firelight play between his fingers. “I’d say we’re halfway between screwed and fucked.”
Yeah. That summed up the situation.
Benny looked up, his multi-colored metallic eyes narrowing. “Are you changing your mind?”
“No. We have to get what information we can, and we need to take out as much of their force as possible.” The Cysts were becoming too insistent on gathering enhanced females, and the kidnappings of innocent women had to at least be slowed, if not stopped. “We might find prisoners to save. I still believe the risk is worth the reward on this one, Ben. You?”
Benny clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. “Yep. But I’m not mated, brother. You are.”
“Not really.” Adare could still taste her on his tongue. All of her. “That’s a female who needs love and understanding and softness. She isn’t going to get that from me.” None of those things were in him now, and it was doubtful they’d been there even before he’d lost so many brothers in the Highlands. Hell. He’d dealt with loss his entire life, and that was after his parents and younger brother were slaughtered by the Kurjans in a long-forgotten war. A real connection with any female wasn’t in the cards. Even with Jacki, there had been a sense of business about their courtship, and that had been before he planned to die for the Seven. “I have a path, Benny, and I’m gonna follow it.”
Benny looked toward Adare’s hallway and then back. “Sometimes the path forks on its own, my friend. Just keep that in mind.” He stiffened, amusement glimmering in his eyes, and stood. “Incoming,” he mouthed before turning and heading down the hallway to his room.
Adare looked up to see Jacki emerging from the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. “Still get up at the crack of dawn, I see,” he said.
She nodded, looking as if she’d healed all of her wounds from the night before. “Still go jogging without a shirt when you’re struggling with a difficult situation, I see.”
He kept his back to the fire, letting the heat dry his jeans. “Did you and Benny reach an agreement about a new sale last night?”
“Yes, and I’ve already received confirmation from my people.” She crossed around the sofa and took Benny’s seat, her jeans and shirt torn from the fight but looking freshly cleaned. The female must’ve found the laundry room last night. She never did sleep much.
“How much did said agreement cost me?” he asked.
She took a sip of the water before answering. “Seventeen million, plus half of the explosives you bought from the Bykovs and have stored somewhere in this so-called lair.”
Damn it, Benny. Adare frowned. “Why would the Ladonis want the Bykov explosives?”
“Just half.” She finished the water, her gaze steady on him, filled with a light he barely remembered. “They have some new product, and we need to figure it out.” She shrugged. “It’s part of the business, as you know.”
“Right.” He partially turned to let his left side dry.
She cleared her throat. “I should’ve chosen you, Adare.”
He stilled, watching her. That’s what she wanted to talk to him about? He was never going to understand females. Never. “You chose correctly with the information we had.” Not in a millennium would he have thought Basel would’ve died before him. “My route has been bloody and dark, and it’s going to become even more so very soon.” Should he feel something other than exhaustion right now? He’d loved her once—hadn’t he? Maybe even then he’d been incapable of love, although she’d helped him through the darkest times after the Highlands fell. For that, he’d always be grateful.
She shook her head. “No, I was wrong. I was hoping we could have a second chance.”
His eyebrows rose. There was a time he’d wanted to hear those words from her—before he’d mated. “I’m mated, Jacki.”
Her smile was all feline. “Barely. I’ve watched you two, and you don’t fit. She’s a human, Adare. You’ve always stayed away from weak humans, and you know it.”
That was true. “She’s stronger than you think,” he said quietly. “She rushed right into the fight yesterday.”
“You’re defending her.” Jacki’s smile widened. “She almost got herself and you killed. I can barely smell you on her and vice versa. You can’t tell me you love her.”
He didn’t love anybody.
“That’s what I thought,” Jacki said, twirling the glass in her hands, triumph crossing her angled face. “We were a perfect match. Strong and fierce, and you didn’t have to worry about me constantly. I can take care of myself.” She stood. “I’ve heard the virus to negate mating bonds works—my mate is dead and yours isn’t connected to you. We could take the virus and be free to be together, just like we should’ve been. Just tell me you’ll think about it.” Her directness had always been one of her best assets.
He studied her for a moment, the fire at his back and the female he’d once wanted in front of him. “No.”