Her body shivered and burned. “Zeeland, please.”
He held her prisoner with her own need as his lips trailed lower, to the sensitive skin of her neck. Teasing, licking. How many times had she dreamed of this? Of Zeeland taking her into his arms as a man does a woman? Of Zeeland wanting her?
“Zee.” On a shuddered sigh, she reached for him, her will crumbling beneath the weight of her longing. Her trembling hands gripped his head where it dipped low against her neck.
He inhaled deeply, as if he would take her inside him and never let her go, then slowly raised his head and met her gaze, probing her secrets.
Fear skittered through her, then vanished at the sight of Zeeland’s beloved face, fierce and gentle, and dark with passion. For her.
“You really are attracted to me,” she breathed, hardly able to believe. Ten years she’d thought him disgusted with her.
He laughed, but the sound was low and strangled. “Attracted doesn’t begin to describe it, Sunshine.” He dipped his face to hers, and this time she didn’t turn away.
The first featherlight brush of his mouth against hers exploded her senses, nearly buckling her knees.
How many years had she dreamed of this? Yet the dream was nothing compared to the reality.
His lips moved over hers, soft as silk, yet warm and demanding, the pressure increasing moment by moment, the kiss becoming more insistent, more desperate.
Gripping her head with gentle fingers, he slanted his mouth over hers and parted her lips with a single stroke of his tongue. Julianne gasped, then moaned as he dove inside her mouth, staking his claim.
Her senses spun at the clean, masculine taste of him. Her body shuddered, heat flowing through her limbs, pooling between her legs. She melted against him, her hands sliding up and around his neck as she gave herself up wholly to the kiss. To Zeeland.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her close enough to feel the beat of his heart, to feel the hard, pulsing length of his erection against her stomach.
He swept the inside of her mouth with his tongue, exploring every surface, every indentation as if he were learning the feel of her. She moaned with pleasure as his hand gripped the back of her head, slanting her head one way, then the other as he sought to deepen the kiss.
If he lifted her dress and spread her thighs, would she push him away? No. Heaven help her, but no.
As if reading her mind, his hand slid down the curve of her back, cupping her rear, then began to pull up the hem of her dress.
Her heart skipped a beat.
The sound of male voices broke through the haze of lust a mere moment before the door opened behind them. Zeeland released her. Julianne whirled away, hiding her mortification as Grayson and two others burst into the room.
“There you are!” Grayson’s voice boomed. “We’re putting together a poker game. You in, Zee?”
Head down, Julianne made her escape, slipping between the men and out of the room, her cheeks flaming, her body shaking with need.
Her life had shattered. Everything she’d ever wanted was finally in reach of the woman she’d once been. But she was that woman no more.
Zeeland met Grayson’s look of expectation with a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair, willing his body to cool the heat that still raged through every cell.
“Yeah. Count me in.”
Dammit, Julianne. He still didn’t know what had put the fear in her eyes. He’d pulled her in here for one reason, to find out what was scaring her. Not to kiss her. Not to force her to admit she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she pretended. Though both had been on his mind from the moment he’d returned, from the moment she’d greeted him, not with a smile and a hug, but with the cool, haunted eyes of a stranger.
He’d brought her in here to finally get at the truth, but the moment he’d had her alone, he’d forgotten everything but the fierce need to touch her, to taste her.
That kiss had been everything he’d known it would be and a hundred things more.
Yet the woman herself had become a mystery to him. A mystery he was determined to solve.
Chapter Six
Julianne paced her bedroom, her silky purple nightgown sliding around her legs as her agitated steps carried her from one end of the small space to the other. Though it was well past midnight, the laughter and loud voices still carried up from the floors below. The party remained in full swing.
But it wasn’t the noise keeping her awake. With nineteen full-time occupants and a regular contingent of guests, the Therian enclave was rarely a quiet place, even in the dead of night.
No, what kept her awake was Zeeland.
Her unsteady fingers touched her lips as her body burned with unfulfilled desire. Never had she felt so confused. Even after her mother died, she hadn’t felt this lost. Because there had always been others around her, watching over her. Protecting her.