Stroke of Midnight (Midnight Breed 13.5)

CHAPTER 7

She didn’t know the exact moment when the air between them changed from simply hot and playful to something darker. Something so fierce and powerful, it made all of her nerve endings stand at full attention.

Jehan wanted her.

She’d have to be an idiot not to realize that.

She wanted him too.

And she was too smart to think for one second that he hadn’t picked up on her staggering awareness of him as a man. As a dangerously seductive Breed male who could have her carotid caught in his teeth just as swiftly as he could have her legs parted beneath the driving pound of his muscular body.

Sera swallowed hard, her breath and heart racing as she slowed to a stop before him.

She glanced down, to where she was tethered to his strong hands by the unraveled length of red silk.

Although she was covered where it counted, there wasn’t much of her dress left. Most of it lay on the floor at her feet; yards of scarlet pooled in the scant space between her body and Jehan’s.

She licked her lips as she struggled for words. She should tell him to go, but everything female in her yearned for him to stay. She was no trembling virgin, no stranger to sex. But never with a Breed male. And the electricity that crackled to life between Jehan and her was something she’d never felt before.

It was arresting.

Consuming.

Terrifying in its intensity.

Yet it wasn’t fear of him she felt when she held his piercing light blue eyes. It was fear of herself and of the way he made her feel. Fear of the things he made her want.

“Jehan, I...” She shook her head, unsure what she meant to say to him.

Leave?

Stay?

Forget the fact that neither one of them had come to this place willingly, nor intended to walk away from the archaic tradition with a blood-bonded mate?

But that’s not what this moment was about.

What she saw in Jehan’s amber-swamped gaze right now didn’t have anything to do with their romantic surroundings or the expectation and hopes of their families. The things she was feeling had nothing to do with any of that either.

It was desire, pure and simple.

Immediate and intense.

Her body throbbed with it, longing pounding furiously in her breast and stirring a molten heat in the center of her. She drew a shallow breath—then held it tight as Jehan reached out to caress her cheek. His warm fingers felt hard and strong against her face, but he stroked her with such tenderness, she couldn’t hold back the soft moan that spilled past her lips.

She stood rooted in place while her thoughts and emotions spiraled with rising anticipation.

The cool air of the room made her exposed skin feel even tighter. Her nipples ached behind the gauzy ribbons of silk that barely covered them. Goose bumps rose on her naked shoulders and arms with each second she endured under Jehan’s hot, unwavering stare.

His fingers drifted away from her face slowly, then skated in a scorching trail down the side of her neck and onto the line of her left shoulder. She felt him trace the small red birthmark that rode her bicep—her Breedmate mark. His fingertips caressed the teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol that signified she was something other than simply human.

That mark also meant that if she drank his blood, she would be bound to him and only him, for as long as either of them lived.

As if in answer to his touch, her veins vibrated with a primal quickening, pulse points throbbing in response to each tender stroke.

“You are...so incredibly beautiful.” His deep voice was a growl of sound, tangling through his teeth and fangs. “But we made a deal, Seraphina.”

She knew they had a deal. No looking. No touching. No physical contact of any kind. They had set clear boundaries and established separate corners where they could cohabitate for the week without having to spend any awkward time together. When the handfast was over, they would simply say their good-byes and return to their normal lives.