“No, it isn’t. But by Christ, I’m going to protect you, no matter whose job you think it is to keep you safe. Whether you like it or not.”
She didn’t like it. At least that’s what she tried to tell herself as he held her in his strong hands, in his possessive amber-flecked gaze.
She didn’t want to like that flare of raw hunger she saw in his expression. Didn’t want to ache with want to feel his mouth crush down on hers while he kept her captive in his grasp.
Her shallow breaths mingled with the hot gusts that rolled out of him, her heartbeat pounding furiously, frantically, while his thrummed as hard and steady as a drum.
He was saying all the right things, acting as though she mattered to him. Drinking her in just now as though she belonged to him.
But she didn’t belong to him.
She couldn’t belong to him, not if she wanted to keep her heart intact. Their worlds were too different. She saw that last night.
And no matter how much she wanted to believe him now, to trust what he was telling her with his words and hands and eyes, Jordana clung to the tiny shred of sanity that warned her she was looking at the very thing that could hurt her more than any other potential threat of danger.
She dropped her head and let a sigh slip out of her, chagrined to hear it manifest as a pained moan. “You don’t have the right to do this to me, Nathan. You can’t come into my home uninvited and say things to me like that. You don’t have the right to appoint yourself my protector. You’re not my anything.”
“That’s true,” he answered, but instead of drawing back from her, he leaned closer.
To her combined agony and delight, he removed one hand from its loose grasp on her shoulder only to bring the backs of his fingers toward her face in a caress so light it robbed her of both breath and good sense.
His touch drifted lower, along the side of her neck, then down the length of her silk-covered arm. “It’s all true, Jordana. I don’t have any right when it comes to you.”
And yet her veins were throbbing as she stared at him, warmth rising up her throat and into her cheeks, igniting in her core. The heavy beat in her veins was nothing compared to the deep pulse centered between her thighs. Her sex ached with a longing that spread through her limbs, making her legs feel unsteady and boneless.
He leaned closer, his mouth very near to her ear. “Tell me how I tormented you.”
She shook her head, all the response she could muster as his free hand moved around to the silk sash that loosely tied the front of her robe.
“Tell me, Jordana.” A command, not a request, even though his deep voice was pure velvet. “I tormented you. That’s what you said. Now tell me what you meant.”
“No.” The refusal rushed out of her, airless and desperate.
She didn’t want to explain how he’d hurt her last night after giving her so much pleasure. It was too humiliating to admit how easily she’d been wounded. Or that she was too inexperienced to participate in the kind of wicked pursuits he seemed to enjoy.
She didn’t want to be that sheltered, untried girl. Not with him.
And she supposed that made her an even bigger fool.
With one deft hand, he worked the knot of her robe’s sash loose, then coiled the twin lengths of silk around his fist, forcing her to step toward him now, until there was no space left between them at all. Her breasts pressed against the hard muscles of his chest, and lower still, his thick thigh parted her legs to nestle firmly against the molten core of her body.>God, her birthday. Jordana poured a cup of tea and groaned, thinking about the trust that would become hers in less than a couple of weeks. A payoff her father held out to her as incentive to settle down and take a mate—so long as that mate was the Breed male of his choosing.
As much as she loved seeing her father, if she went home tonight, she would never hear the end of how disappointed he was that she’d rejected a fine male like Elliott. At times, his desperation seemed so great, Jordana half expected she might be physically forced into the bond with Elliott. But her father loved her too much to do something so unforgivable, no matter how deep and misguided his belief was that she needed to settle down.
Jordana had to start taking steps on her own path. Walking away from a relationship she didn’t want and couldn’t honor with her whole heart had been a good start to that goal.
Halting her dangerous attraction to Nathan had also been a step in the right direction.
A good, sensible step.
Except telling Nathan tonight that she didn’t want to see him ever again hadn’t done anything to curb how she felt about him.
She couldn’t begin to deny that she was attracted to him. After the pleasure he gave her in the elevator, her traitorous body only wanted more.
But worse than her physical need for him was her interest in him emotionally. He intrigued her. He frustrated and infuriated her.
He confused her, enflamed her, made her crave things she hardly dared think, let alone act on with anyone but him.
And he’d hurt her more than anyone ever had too. A pain that shouldn’t have surprised her so much. Shouldn’t have wounded her so deeply.