The Dark-Hunters, page 165
“Ow!” she said as he almost poked her right eye out. It was a good thing she didn’t wear contacts or she’d be blind.
He looked contrite. “Sorry.”
“No,” she said, looking up at him through her tears. “I’m the one who needs to apologize. I didn’t mean to have a nervous breakdown on you.”
“Is that what this is?”
Was he serious? He definitely appeared so.
She drew in a ragged breath and wiped her eyes with her hands. “No, this is me being stupid. I’m so sorry.”
He offered her a small, seductive grin. “It’s okay. Really. I think.”
Bride stared at him in disbelief. Why was this man in her store being so kind to her? It didn’t make sense.
Was this a dream?
Trying to regain some of her dignity, she pulled his credit slip from the register box. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Oh, come on. No one buys a necklace this expensive for a complete stranger.”
Again he didn’t take it. Instead, he reached inside the bag and took out the box. She watched as he unwrapped it, then placed the choker around her neck again. The contrast between his hot hands and the cool beads made her shiver.
He laced his fingers through the tendrils of her hair while gazing at her like she was some delectable dessert that he was dying to taste.
No one had ever given her such a hot look before. It wasn’t natural for a man this handsome to look at her like that.
“It belongs on you. No other woman could do it justice.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back before he called the psycho ward on her. The heat of his hand against her neck was searing. “What? Did you lose a bet or something?”
“No.”
“Then why are you being so nice to me?”
He cocked his head as if puzzled by her question. “Do I need a reason?”
“Yes.”
Vane was completely baffled. Humans needed a reason to be nice to each other? No wonder his kind avoided them.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “I didn’t know there were rules for giving gifts or for trying to make someone feel better. You looked so sad as I walked by that I only wanted to make you smile.”
He took a deep breath and handed her the credit slip. “Keep the necklace, please. It looks good on you, and I have no one else to give it to. I’m sure my brother wouldn’t want it. He’d probably shove it someplace real uncomfortable if I gave it to him. And if he didn’t, that would scare me even more.”
Finally, she laughed. The sound lightened his heart instantly.
“Is that a smile?” he asked.
She nodded and sniffed delicately before she laughed again.
Returning her smile, Vane reached out and cupped her cool cheek. She was so beautiful when she laughed. Her dark amber eyes sparkled. Before he could stop himself, he leaned down and kissed the tears from her lashes.
Bride couldn’t breathe as she felt the heat of his lips against her skin. No man had ever treated her like this. Not even Taylor, whom she had hoped to marry.
She inhaled the warm scent of Vane’s skin. It was tinged with some sort of aftershave and a rich, masculine scent.
God, it felt so good to be held right now when her whole life was falling apart.
Before she realized what she was doing, she had her arms wrapped around his lean waist and had laid her head against his strong chest. His heart pounded heavily under her ear. She felt strangely safe here. Warm. Most of all, she felt desirable. As if maybe she weren’t a total loser, after all.
He didn’t protest her hold. Instead, he held her there with his hand still on her face while his thumb gently stroked her cheekbone. He leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on the top of her head.
Heat flooded her. A deep-seated need tore through her body. It was one she didn’t understand.
In all her life, Bride McTierney had never done anything other than what she was supposed to. She’d graduated high school and lived at home with her parents while she went to Tulane, where she had seldom dated and had spent more nights than not in the library.
After graduation, she’d gotten a job as a manager at the mall until her grandmother had died and left her the building that now housed her shop. And here she had worked every day without fail. No matter how sick or tired she was.
Bride had never taken a step on the wild side. Fear and responsibility had ruled her life from the moment of her birth.
Yet here she sat, holding a complete stranger in her arms. A gorgeous stranger who had been kinder to her than anyone else.
And she wanted to taste him. To know just once what it was like to actually kiss a man who looked like this.
Lifting her head, she looked up at him and trembled with a deep-seated desire she didn’t comprehend. But she felt it all the way through her.
Don’t …
She squelched the voice of reason, reached up and pulled the band from his hair. Freed, those long dark strands framed the face of heaven.
The heat of his hazel-green eyes scorched her. He dipped his head down until his lips hovered dangerously close to hers, as if he were asking her permission.
Breathless, she closed the distance and laid her lips against his. He growled deep in his throat like some animal before his kiss turned hungry, passionate.
Bride was thrilled and amazed by his reaction. No man had ever seemed to enjoy kissing her as much as this one did. His strong hands cupped her head as he ravished her mouth as if he were starving for her and her alone.
Vane pulled her to him as the animal inside him roared to life. It wanted her with a desperation that bordered on madness. He could taste her own passion on his tongue. Hear her heart beating in rapid time to his.
Most of all, he could smell her desire and he wanted more. The animal inside him wouldn’t be satisfied until it tasted her fully.
In his world, sex had no emotional meaning. It was a biological act between two creatures to ease a female’s fertile time and a male’s urges. If the two wolves weren’t mates, then there was no chance of pregnancy, nor was there any form of sexually transmitted diseases between them.
If Bride were one of his people, he’d already have her naked on the floor.
But she wasn’t a she-wolf …
Human females were different. He’d never made love to one of them and he wasn’t sure how she would react if he took her the way he would one of their females. Her kind was very frail in comparison.
In all honesty, he didn’t know why he was so hot for her now. It wasn’t normal. Not once in all the centuries he had lived had he ever even contemplated taking a human lover.
But this one …
He couldn’t stop himself. Every instinct he possessed demanded he take her.
His wolf’s soul wanted to taste her. It wanted to breathe her in and let her softness ease the loneliness that had filled his heart these past months while he grieved for his sister and brother.
Just for one moment, he wanted to feel unalone again.
Bride shivered as Vane left her lips and trailed his kisses to her throat where he nibbled the sensitive skin there. His whiskers gently scraped her skin, making her burn even more as her breasts tightened with need. Good grief, he was so innately masculine. So incredibly hot. And every lick he delivered to her skin made her stomach contract.
This was so out of character for her. She didn’t usually neck with men she knew like this. Never mind a perfect stranger.
And yet she didn’t want to push him away. Just once in her life, she wanted something out of the ordinary. Deep inside she knew Vane would be spectacular.
Terrified of what she was about to do, she took a deep breath and braced herself for his rejection.
“Would you make love to me?”
Instead of the laughter she expected, he pulled back from nibbling her throat to look at the open windows of her shop. “You don’t mind?”
Heat exploded across her face as she realized it was dark outside and anyone passing by on the street had a perfect view of the two of them necking like horny teenagers.
“Hold on,” she said, scooting out of his arms to lock her door, flip her Open sign around to say Closed, and dim the lights.
She wished she still had an apartment to take him to, but maybe this was better. If they left here together, she would most likely chicken out, which would be the smart thing to do.
Or he might change his mind.
No, she wanted to do this. She wanted him.
Taking his hand, she led him through her shop, toward the door to the back room.
As she opened the door, he pulled her to a stop.
Bride looked back to see him staring into the dressing room that was to her right. A wicked grin spread across his face.
Walking backward, he led her into the room and shut the curtains.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He pulled his T-shirt off, over his head.
Oh, dear heaven! Bride couldn’t breathe as she got her first look at his bared chest. She’d known he had a great body, but this …
It exceeded anything from her dreams. His broad shoulders tapered to a washboard stomach that could do enough laundry for an entire nation. Forget six-pack, this man had eight, and they rippled with every breath he took. His entire torso was lightly covered by hair, making him look even more masculine and raw.
There were several deep scars that curved around his left shoulder and biceps, and one that looked strangely like an animal bite of some kind.
It was all she could do not to drool.
Or faint.
Really, no mere mortal woman should be in the presence of someone this fine and not need oxygen.
He opened the button on his jeans, then pulled her back into his arms.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I’ll be gentle.”
But that wasn’t what she was afraid of. What she feared was his reaction when he saw what she looked like naked. Good grief, he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him and here she was a good, solid size eighteen.
He was going to run screaming for the door any minute.
Instead, he reached up and pulled her hair down around her shoulders. Running his hands through it, he pulled her lips to his so that he could ravage her mouth again.
She moaned in bliss. This man certainly knew how to use his tongue to his advantage. She could have kissed him all day.
Bride ran her hands over the lean muscles of his chest, amazed at how good they felt. She flicked her fingertips over and around his hardened nipples, delighting in the deep moan she heard from him.
He moved to unbutton her dress.
“It’s darker in the back room,” she said.
“Why would I want it darker?”
She shrugged. Taylor had always insisted on absolute darkness whenever they made love.
She shivered as he unbuttoned her dress and dropped it to the ground. She expected him to pull away.
He didn’t. He still wore that hot, hungry look as he stared at her in her underwear. Thank goodness it actually matched and it wasn’t her old stuff.
Vane had never been more unsure of himself than he was at this moment. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her carefully, afraid he might hurt her. Ever since he’d hit puberty, he’d heard stories of wolves who had killed human partners accidentally while mating with them.
Human bones lacked the density of his kind. Their skin bruised much more easily.
Carefully, he pressed her back against the wall so that he could feel every inch of her lush curves against his hardness. The smell of her perfume and skin intoxicated him. It was all he could do not to howl in triumph.
He nibbled his way from her delicate mouth, down her jaw, while he reached behind her and unhooked her bra. He heard her sharp intake of breath as her breasts were freed. They were a lush bounty. Pale and swollen, they overflowed his hands. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. She laced her hands in his hair while he dipped his head down to suckle her.
Closing his eyes, he groaned in pleasure as he ran his tongue around her puckered nipple.
He hadn’t touched a female in almost a year—a record for him. But since the night his sister had died, his life had shot from bad to worse and there hadn’t been anyone who appealed to him.
Not to mention that memories of Bride the one time he had seen her in the Square had haunted him. Midnight fantasies of him taking her in every position known. Of him exploring every single inch of her succulent body.
He’d spent hours damning himself for not leaving Sunshine to her own devices and following after this woman.
Protecting Sunshine had cost him everything, and for what? For a damned Dark-Hunter’s happiness?
No good deed goes unpunished.
It was Fury’s favorite saying. A rogue wolf, Fury was as unreliable and selfish as any, but there were times when the wolf was amazingly astute.
But now as Vane held Bride in his arms and felt her soft, tender body against his, he felt a strange sense of comfort that had eluded him all these past months.
It didn’t erase the pain he felt at the loss of his siblings, but it lightened it.
And that alone made her priceless to him.
Bride couldn’t think straight as she watched Vane savoring her breasts. He looked as if he were tasting divinity. Her body burned in rich desire. He was spectacular.
His eyes were hooded and dark. She stared at his back in the mirror and wondered at the scars that marred his smooth, tanned flesh. She touched the ridges of them while he moved from her right to her left breast.
What had happened to him to cause so many scars? She’d never seen anything like it. Some of the scars were obviously claw and bite marks that looked like he had been mauled by some kind of wild animal. One in particular was deep and large. It went down his shoulder blade, up under his arm.
There was something so deadly about him and yet he held her with a gentle touch. He ran his hand down her stomach, burning a trail over her skin.
Her eyes half-closed, she watched him in the mirror as he dipped his tanned hand under the elastic of her black panties and touched her intimately.
Bride groaned at the sensation of his long, tapered fingers separating the tender folds of her body so that he could caress her. At the sight of his hand playing there in the mirror as he gently sank his fingers deep inside her.
She moaned at the sight and feel of him.
It was so odd to be able to see him from so many different angles. To see herself being loved by him.
She should be embarrassed and yet she wasn’t. She didn’t even feel self-conscious. If anything, she felt strangely empowered by it.
A man like this so hungry for her.
It was unimaginable.
Vane kissed his way down her stomach. Moving his hand, he actually pulled her underwear off with his teeth. He removed her sandals, taking time to rub the arches of her feet before he tossed them over his shoulder.
He crouched on the floor in front of her, looking up with a hot, devouring, intense stare. He still wore his jeans and boots while she was completely naked.
Vane couldn’t breathe as he watched her. There was still a tinge of fear in her, but it was overshadowed by her desire.
He wanted to pull her to him roughly and take her like the animal he was. He wanted to show her how his people mated, forcefully and with dominance.
But he didn’t want to scare her. Most of all, he didn’t want to hurt her.
She was so vulnerable.
A she-wolf would take human form for the mating. She would walk seductively around the available males, making them crazy with lust until they were ready to kill each other to have her.
Sometimes they did.
There was always a battle for the female. Then she would pick whichever male had impressed her most with his beauty and skill. Usually it was the victor who mated with her, but not always. Vane’s first lover had claimed him even though he had lost the fight because she had liked the passion he had shown while trying to win her.
Once her choice was made, the she-wolf would remove her clothes and offer herself to her champion. The male would pin her down and spend the rest of the night showing her just how much stamina and power he had. The female would spend the night testing him. She would try to throw him off or out of her and it was his duty to make sure she didn’t. If he tired before morning or before she was fully sated, another male would be brought in.
It was the greatest shame not to please a she-wolf, to have to call out for a second.
Vane had never been shamed.
And he had never taken a woman like Bride. One who wasn’t biting and clawing at him as she demanded he please her. Something inside him relished the rarity of this.
The gentleness.
In a life where violence and territory and blood wars reigned, it was nice to have a reprieve. A tender lover’s touch.
The human side of him craved this.
It craved her.
Bride bit her bottom lip as Vane nudged her legs apart. His breath scorched her thighs. He closed his eyes and laid his head against her thigh as if he were savoring just being with her. The tenderness of that action brought a lump to her throat.
She ran her fingers down his stubbled cheek, letting the manly feel warm her even more. He nipped her fingers playfully.
She smiled down at him until he nudged her legs farther apart and took her into his mouth. Bride hissed in pleasure as her legs went weak.
It was all she could do not to fall. He devoured her. There was no other word for it. He licked and teased until her head spun, and when she came for him, it was forceful and deep. Bride cried out as her body was turned inside out by his touch.
Vane growled at the sound of her pleasure, at the taste of it. Like all males of his kind, he took pride in her orgasm. There was nothing sweeter than hearing the screams of a lover climaxing. Nothing sweeter than knowing a male could fulfill the female.
He kissed his way up her body slowly until he was again on his feet. She looked up at him with awe shining bright in the amber depths of her eyes. He took her hand into his and led it to his throbbing erection.
