Midnight Untamed (Midnight Breed 14.5)

Defy the Dawn

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“What do you want, Zael?” Brynne frowned, folding her arms militantly across her chest. “And just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, barging into my private quarters like this?”

At the moment, the only thing he was doing was staring at her, slack-jawed and instantly aroused. She stood in front of him half-dressed in just her white button-down shirt she’d worn that night in London. Her long legs were bare, exposing the delicate swirls and flourishes of her Breed dermaglyphs that tracked down her slender thighs. The silky stems with those pretty, feminine glyphs seemed to go on forever.

Beneath the loose hem of her blouse, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of skimpy black panties and more creamy skin. God, she was beautiful. Exotic and strong and exquisitely female.

She was also visibly pissed off. At him?

“What’s going on here, Brynne?”

She stood her ground, glowering at him. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m getting dressed.”

From where he was standing, it looked like she was getting undressed. And there were certain parts of his anatomy that approved of that idea very enthusiastically.

“You said you’re leaving.”

“Yes. I have to go back to London. That’s where I belong.” She turned away and began buttoning her shirt the rest of the way as she stalked to the bed. The pair of dark navy slacks she’d been wearing the other night lay folded there. Her shoes and purse were gathered nearby as well. “I mean to be on that plane with Mathias Rowan and the others later today.”

Zael frowned at the announcement. “Don’t you think we should talk?”

“About what?”

Was she serious? He didn’t even know where to begin. “About this new Opus attack. About where you and I fit into the equation with the Order. We sure as hell need to talk about what’s happening between us.”

“Nothing’s happening between us, Zael.” Sharp words, delivered with a flare of amber in her dark green eyes as she threw a hard glance at him from over her shoulder. “As for the rest of it, you heard Lucan and the other warriors just now. You saw what’s going on all around us. The whole world is going to hell right now.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “And it’s going there regardless of what takes place between you and me.”

She scoffed. “You’ll say anything to get what you want, won’t you? Is that how all the men of your kind operate? I suppose that explains all of the fatherless offspring you and the rest of your Atlantean brothers have left around the world.”

Zael’s jaw hardened at the jab. It wasn’t completely without merit, but he also saw it for what it was. A defensive strike, meant to push him away.

She pivoted away from him again, as if she was finished with their conversation and finished with him. Maybe that ice-cold shoulder had been enough to shut out all of the other men who tried to get close to Brynne, but not him.

He’d seen the desire in her eyes when they had nearly kissed today. He’d felt her soften in his arms in that moment, not only resigned to the need that they both felt, but consumed by it with the same intensity that it owned him.

She flinched when he came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened under his touch, but he could feel the heavy spike of her pulse, and the sudden, rapid rhythm of her breathing. “If you’re so hell-bent on running away, at least be honest about it. You’re running away from me.”

“I’m sure you’d like to think so.”