The Man Behind the Scars

He forced himself to turn, to leave her standing there, to make for the door. And when he heard her say his name he ignored it, because he wanted it too badly. He knew it couldn’t be real.

“Rafe,” she said again, her voice husky. And definitely not in his head. “Please.”

He stopped walking, though he could not bring himself to turn around and face her again. He wasn’t sure he could keep walking away from her. He wasn’t sure he would, no matter his best intentions. No matter that it would be better for both of them if he did.

“I’m tired of these games,” he said quietly, even bitterly. “I promised you I would wait, and I will. But—”

“I don’t want to play games.” Her voice was still shaky, but there was a certain note in it that seemed to hum in him, like some kind of tuning fork. He turned to look at her. Her pretty face was clear, her eyes a hot flash of blue, and all he could see was hunger. A hunger deep and wild, to match his own.

He hardly dared let himself believe it.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice too quiet. As if he might startle her, and lose her, should he speak too loudly. “If not these endless games?”

Her eyes were so blue. Her face was so pretty, and flushed now with the force of this thing between them, this great wilderness of desire. She blinked, and he thought he’d lost her, but she only raised her chin slightly, as if fighting off attackers he couldn’t see, and met his gaze with that directness that he’d admired in her from the start.

“You,” she said, and he could see the enormity of this move over her, through her, as if she felt it too, these impossible currents that flowed around them. That threatened to suck them both under, and Rafe couldn’t even bring himself to care.

She stepped toward him, closing the distance between them. Rafe was not sure he breathed, and then he knew he did not when she reached over and put her hands on his chest, tilting her head back to gaze up at him, heating up the great hall until there was nothing at all but this shared hunger. This sweet fire.

Her. Angel.

“I want you,” she said, her voice a mere scratch of sound. “I do.”

And then she pushed herself up on her toes, closed the distance between them and kissed him.

CHAPTER NINE

FOR a moment he was still, too still, and Angel only pressed her mouth against the grim, sober line of his, as close as she’d ever come to begging. But it didn’t feel like begging—it felt like some kind of homecoming.

And then everything seemed to burst into color and heat.

Rafe slid his hands into her hair, cradling her head between them even as he angled her mouth against his for a deeper, hotter fit. And just like that, he took control. He demanded. He possessed. He took. He tasted male and enticing and Rafe, and she could not seem to get enough. He kissed her as if they would both die if he stopped, and there was some part of her, Angel knew, that believed they would.

She didn’t care where they were. Some small voice in her head whispered that they were standing in the entry hall, that anyone could walk in and see them—but she shoved it aside. Sensation bloomed into new sensation, and she soaked each one in. The devastating perfection of his mouth on hers. The strength and command in the hands that held her there, while his mouth plundered hers. That lean, hard body of his that was all around her now, right in front of her. Hers to touch. To taste. At last.

She couldn’t seem to get close enough to him. Her clothes felt like impediments. Her breasts ached until she pressed them into the hard wall of his chest, and then they ached again, more, but in a way that made her whole body seem to hum. And melt. And glow.

“More,” she demanded, wrenching her mouth from his.

He made a low noise in the back of his throat, some kind of growl, and then he simply picked her up again, as if she weighed nothing at all. As if there was nothing more natural in the world. His hands were warm on her bottom, holding her steady as she wrapped her legs around his waist, her absurd wedge heels falling from her feet with a dull sort of clatter against the floor. He is so strong, she thought, with a kind of sensual shudder as she imagined what he would look like naked, that powerful body stretched out above her. In her. Claiming her. Changing her. She couldn’t help the small sigh of pleasure, of anticipation, that escaped her lips.

She was finally close to him. She was finally touching him. He started to move, carrying her up the formal stair, cursing under his breath when she leaned into him and started tasting the line of his jaw, then the sweep of scars across his ruined cheek. She felt him stiffen slightly, his breath leaving him in a rasp. He stopped moving, and turned his head, his mouth meeting hers, his kiss something approaching desperate. She met it. She exulted in it, and after a moment he began to move again.