The tremor in her voice socked him right in the heart.
“Before I die.” She tried to pull away, to go back to the notepad. The harder he held on, the harder she struggled, until she was fighting him, beating her fists
against his chest, and making sounds that were somewhere between mewls and sobs.
“Nicole.” She didn’t seem to hear. “Nicole.” He captured her wrists, but that only made her use her whole body as one big fist as she rammed herself against him. “Nicole!”
Nothing.
So he did the only thing he could to stop her struggles.
He kissed her.
Chapter 16
Riker lips were firm, his body hard, his tongue demanding as he backed Nicole against the desk. Her rear hit the edge, leaving her slightly off balance and clinging to his shoulders to steady herself.
She’d wanted this, had wondered how she’d react.
Wondered if she’d hate it or like it. Wondered if she’d be disgusted or relieved that he felt the same fi erce, magnetic pull she felt.
And now she knew. She liked it.
And that scared her.
The smart thing to do would be to push him away.
But in a matter of minutes, she’d lost everything, from her company to her hope of returning to a normal life after this ordeal was over. If it ever was over. Right now, all she had to cling to was the male kissing her senseless.
Riker roughly wedged his hips between her legs, forcing them open as he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto the table. His palms slid up her rib cage, his thumbs brushing the swells of her breasts just fi rmly enough to send delicious shocks through her body.
Again, she considered stopping this before it went too far. The thought made a hysterical laugh start to bubble up in her throat, because the truth was that this had already gone too far. And yet, as his tongue tangled with hers, she was sure they hadn’t gone far enough.
“Shit,” he breathed against her lips. “I’ve been wanting to do this since I first tasted you in the prey room.”
The reminder that he’d tossed her into a cold, dank dungeon and then scared her to death should have put a damper on things, but it didn’t. She was so stressed out, so tired of not knowing if she was going to live or die—she couldn’t help but embrace these few precious moments of forgetting the hell that was her life and remembering what it was like to actually live.
Boldly, she ran her hands up Riker’s arms, letting her fingers map the rough scars and thick veins that wound around his biceps. His muscles flexed and twitched under her touch, and when she grew even bolder, shifting her palms to his pecs, a low rumble of approval rolled through his magnificent chest.
“You feel good.” His voice was a husky purr. “You’re so beautiful.” He kissed a trail to her ear and captured her lobe between his teeth.
“Mmm . . . yes.” She gasped, both shocked and pleased by how something as simple as a nibble charged her up. She arched into him, and he answered enthusi— astically, rubbing his arousal against her. She was going to do this with him, wasn’t she?
She was going to have sex with a vampire.
She waited for a panic attack to overwhelm her.
Waited for her brain to kick in and give her a million reasons why she couldn’t do this. Waited for all of her insecurities and prejudices to rise up and give her excuses to stop this thing from happening.
While she waited, Riker’s mouth did wicked things to her ear, and his hands . . . oh, God, his hands . . . they eased under her shirt, one at the small of her back, his fingers resting just below her waistband, the other sliding upward to her breasts.
There was no point in waiting for any of those things that might stop her. All her life, she’d been expected to do what was required to secure her family’s legacy. She’d been raised and groomed to do one thing: run Daedalus. No one, including herself, had ever taken into account her dreams and desires, and even her focus on vampire physiology had been considered a nice little hobby by everyone but her.
But now, just this once, she was going to do something selfish. Something reckless. If she regretted it, she’d deal. So much of her life had been out of her control that she was actually excited to have a regret that was purely her own.
Riker’s hand cupped her breast, and even through the fabric of her bra, his heat scorched her. She gasped as his thumb rasped across her nipple, and as if the sound were a trigger, Riker growled and surged against her. He kissed her in a desperate, hard meeting of mouths, and then his lips were on her throat and his fangs were scraping her skin . . . and his growl turned hungry.
For a split second, anxiety turned her lungs to stone. But no, she wasn’t going to let a single, brutal act from her past undo the progress she’d made over the years, not to mention the greater understanding of vampires that she’d gained in just the last few days.#p#分页标题#e#