His seductive mouth curved in satisfaction and challenge. “Now tell me you want me to leave.” He put his face beside hers, the rough scrape of his cheek and jaw a delicious abrasion that sent a shiver up and down her spine. “Last night, you had the excuse of Elliott Bentley-Squire to keep you from taking what you really wanted. He may have saved you from me then, but I don’t see him here right now.”
With his free hand, Nathan palmed her breast, then splayed his fingers up toward the base of her throat and coaxed her head back onto her shoulders so he could place a hot, deliriously erotic kiss to the pulse point that kicked into a frantic rhythm under his warm, wet tongue.
He growled against her skin, and for the briefest instant, Jordana felt the sharp tips of his fangs dragging over her vein. “Christ,” he hissed. “Even if the son of a bitch walked in the door right now, I wouldn’t take my hands off you, Jordana. I want him to know he’ll never have you.”
“No, he won’t,” she panted. “And he won’t be coming here anytime soon because I ended things with him.”
Nathan stilled. Then his head lifted, his stormy eyes ablaze with crackling heat. “You ended it.”
She gave him a small nod. “Last night. Just before I went after you and found you at La Notte.”
For a long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak a single word.
When his lips parted, his fangs gleamed, the tips as sharp as daggers.
He muttered something dark and hungered.
Then, without warning or excuse, he scooped her up into his arms and headed toward the bedroom.
15
JORDANA WAS LIGHT IN HIS ARMS AS NATHAN BROUGHT HER TO the bedroom at the end of the hallway.
A delicate crystal chandelier hung from the center of the vaulted ceiling, casting soft light in the room. Beneath the elegant fixture sat Jordana’s sumptuous king-size bed, which was heaped with fluffy pillows, frothy white coverlets, and fine, crisp sheets. The walls were painted in an equally snowy hue, the plush area rug just inside the door crushing easily under his black combat boot as he entered the room.
Everything about Jordana’s private sanctuary was soft like her, pure like her.
And he, the invading darkness soon to defile both.
Crossing the threshold into her bedroom, Nathan recognized the moment now was do or die. Jordana could leap out of his arms and barricade herself inside. Or he could set her down on her feet and make his escape.
Run? Hell, yes. That was exactly what he was contemplating—admittedly, not for the first time where this woman was concerned.
The thought perished swiftly, scorched into oblivion, when instead of fighting to get loose from his arms, Jordana turned her head and buried her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder.
Christ, the feel of her so close to him was arresting. It shot through him like a jagged flash of lightning, impossible to ignore.
And bewildering too. He didn’t know what to do with the humid rush of her breath against his throat. The touch was too intimate. Too tender.
Too honest and trusting.
It wasn’t too late to stop this. His intellect was quick to warn him of that, but his body had other ideas. With blood pounding furiously through his veins and to points lower, his cock grew even more demanding behind the confines of his patrol fatigues. His lust was vying for control of the situation now, and it had no intention of backing down.
Jordana nuzzled closer, innocently unaware of the depth of her impact on him. The scent of her swamped his nose, drugging him with the combined fragrance of the vanilla soap that she must have used in her bath and the more intoxicating perfume that was simply Jordana. She smelled warm and soft and innocent, yet heady with the scent of arousal.
How would her body taste against his tongue? And if he pierced the tender vein that fluttered so temptingly in the side of her neck, would her Breedmate’s blood flow down his throat like sweet nectar or boldly exotic spice?
Saliva surged at the mere idea. His fangs were already filling his mouth, but now they ripped farther out of his gums, the long canines pulsing with an even darker need than the one that practically owned him tonight.
Nathan set Jordana down on her feet beside the bed, his entire being vibrating with a barely restrained hunger.
If she were any other woman, he’d already have her naked and spread open wide to receive him—facedown or tied down, his long-standing requirement of anyone he fucked.
No kissing him.
No touching him.
No watching him as he exorcised the weakness of his flesh-and-bone body.