“Stop that,” he ground out.
“Screw you.” She bucked harder, and he hissed at the blatantly sexual motion. Behind the fly of his jeans, his rapidly swelling cock rubbed against her smooth slacks, creating a blistering friction that made him
lightheaded with sudden need.
“I mean it, Nicole.” His sexed-up voice was gravelly, rusty from disuse. “Stop thrashing.”
She sank her nails into his chest and tried to push again, but the little pinches of pain only added to the soaring pleasure as lust surged through him, hot and potent.
“Or what?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, she became very clear about what was going on. He saw it in the way her expression went slack and her skin flushed pink, felt it in the sudden taut set of her muscles. “Oh,” she breathed.
God, she was a study of female perfection right now, with her hair fanned out in a messy pool on the ground, her panting breaths, her full lips open and glistening. She looked like a woman who needed a mattress, a lot less clothing, and a male willing to use every dirty trick in the book to make her mindless with ecstasy.
Braced on one elbow, he eased his hand around to the back of her slender neck to where her spine met her skull. With one swift thrust of his fingers into that spot, he could kill her before she knew what happened.
Or he could stroke the soft skin and thread his fingers through her silky hair.
This was stupid. It was completely crazy and inappropriate that his body was responding to her at all, let alone with a powerful rush of desire that had him dipping his head toward that perfect mouth. He wondered how she’d taste, wondered if her kisses were as sweet as the decadent nectar in her veins. The very thought made his body burn.
Without thinking, he brushed his lips across hers.
Beneath him, Nicole stiffened, and when he did it again, this time with an even lighter touch, she let out a gasp. Under his thumb, her pulse ticked madly, and the scent of her anger and fear blended with a subtle note of arousal.
Instantly, his body burned hotter. He needed more.
Much more.
He sealed his mouth over hers, groaning as he tasted his first female since Terese’s death. Her lips parted slightly, and the warm, wet recess of her mouth drew him deep. She was soft all over but firm enough in the right places for him to know instinctively that she could take him at his roughest. His wildest.
He shuddered at the direction his thoughts had taken. They couldn’t do this. He’d never been the type to have sex with a female he didn’t like, no matter how hot she was or how much she revved him up.
Growling with frustration, he kissed her harder, which made no sense, and he knew it. Or maybe it did. The kiss was punishing, brutal, because, dammit, it was her fault he was between her legs in the first place.
Nicole’s breasts pressed into his bare chest as he shifted, moving against her in a primitive surge that made them both moan.
More. He gripped her hip and tucked her more firmly under him.
More. He dragged his mouth along her jaw. She smelled so good, so feminine. He moved his mouth to her neck, and instantly, she went taut and recoiled.
Right. He was a vampire. Worth about as much as a stray dog. And this stray dog was humping her leg. She must be mortified.
Fucking humiliating. He shoved himself off her, averting his gaze so she wouldn’t see the color change in his eyes that signified arousal. She was too aware of his desire as it was, and he was an idiot for letting it go as far as it had.
With a curse, he grabbed up his ruined shirt. It was bloody, dirty, and torn to shit. It wasn’t wearable, but he put it to good use while he waited for his heart rate and breathing to return to pre-hump-the-enemy levels.
After splashing the shirt with the bottle of water, he wiped the dried blood from his chest. His wound had nearly healed. Another couple of days, and there wouldn’t even be a scar.
The scrape of Nicole’s chunky-heeled boots echoed through the cavern as she came to her feet. “Um . . .”
She cleared her throat, because, yeah, this was all kinds of awkward. “Do you need blood? You know, to replen-ish what you lost?”
Yup, he did. He was operating at about half strength right now, but hell if he was going to tell her that.
“Don’t worry, Sunshine. I won’t sink my big, bad fangs into your pretty little throat.” He shrugged into his weapons harness. “Not until you get Neriya back, anyway.”
That particular threat was getting old, but right now, he needed to get his brain functional again, and that would require thinking about something other than sinking anything of his into anything of Nicole’s.
Her huff told him she was just as tired of the threat hanging over her head. “Why is she so important to you, anyway? Who is she?”