Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

A muscle at his jaw flexed sharply as she lifted her chin, defying him to retaliate. Storme had learned early on that she wasn't the cowering type, just as she had learned that often her smart-ass perseverance provided the distraction needed for a Coyote or Council soldier to drop his guard. She'd escaped many times using such a strategy.

And though she realize

d it wasn't going to work here, still, it was such an ingrained habit that it was almost natural. What wasn't natural though was the small pinprick of guilt this time.

"Do you think I'll allow you to get away with this much longer?" His head tilted to the side, the long strands of wicked red hair falling around the dark, savagely hewn features like a heavy curtain of flames.

Damn, he was too attractive, but then, all Breeds, male and female, were designed to create the image of sexual allure. There were no plain Breeds.

"I try really hard not to think period while I'm here," she informed him tightly. "If I actually allow myself to think, then I may lose my sanity in the bargain. This isn't exactly my idea of a vacation getaway, Wolf."

Irritation at the name flared in his eyes and pricked at her conscience. She couldn't understand why she felt that flare of guilt though. So what if she managed to strike a tender spot. The Breed who had killed her brother hadn't cared how tender James's neck had been when he sliced it open with his teeth. Nor would these Breeds, supposedly more honorable, lose a moment's sleep over ripping her throat out if they thought she had betrayed them.

"Storme, you're creating a situation for yourself that you may not want to step into so easily," he warned her, his tone darkening. "I'd suggest watching that mouth if I were you."

A sharp, mocking laugh leapt to her lips. "Yeah, I'll get right on that, Wolf. While I'm doing that, why don't you fetch us some food?"

Perhaps she should have heeded his advice. Or left off the word fetch. Either one would have likely worked, she thought, as his hands suddenly gripped her shoulders and jerked her around to him, and his head lowered. He shut her up more effectively than if he had possessed a mute button on a remote control designed just for her.

He kissed her.

He stole her strength, her courage and her ability to protest by the simple act of possessing her lips.

Or maybe this was what she was attempting to find again, rather than face his ire.

His lips covering hers, the feel of his kiss, powerful and dominant as it stroked across her senses and brought to life the dreams she'd had in the past nights of those stolen hours they'd shared. Hours spent in the grip of a heated lust so impossible to deny that she had actually allowed a Wolf Breed to take her.

There was something more there than lust though. As his arms surrounded her, pulling her close to the harder, broader length of his body, she felt that something more wrapping around her.

A warmth, a heated emotion she didn't want to examine or know the cause of. Because looking too deeply into it could undermine everything she had ever believed in, everything she had fought for.

She wanted to live for this moment, for this kiss and the feel of his hands pushing beneath the loose T-shirt she wore, to caress her naked skin. The feel of his palms, roughened and calloused, stroking against her flesh even as he pulled her closer.

He kissed her with heated demand, ate at her lips with a male hunger that struck straight to the heart of the feminine heat building inside her.

The sensual side of her had never been pulled free the way Styx drew it from her. He opened a door inside her that she had never known existed. A part of her that she wished would lie dormant once again rather than awakening for a man she knew she could never truly have.

Except for this moment.

Burying her hands in his hair, she gripped the coarse strands, holding on to them as one hand curled beneath her bottom to lift her to him and the other cupped the side of her swollen, unbound breast. Using the hand at her rear for leverage, Storme lifted her knees to grip his hips and allowed the heavy, hard ridge of his cock to ride against the sensitive mound of her pussy through the thin summer denim she wore.

It was exquisite. Pleasure seared the swollen bud of her clit beneath the borrowed jeans and dampened the sensitive folds of her pussy as a feeling of lush sensuality overcame her.

"I can smell your heat," he groaned against her lips. "Like a soft spring rain, damp and sweet as it washes over me."

Her head fell back as his teeth raked along her neck. There should have been fear, and she couldn't quite figure out why there wasn't. Why didn't the horrifying image of her brother's death haunt her when he nipped at her neck and raked his teeth along the sensitive flesh?

She couldn't figure it out; all she knew was that rather than visions of pain, what she saw was an explosion of light and color behind her closed eyelids, as pleasure flooded her body.

As her knees gripped his hips, she was aware of him walking, moving, until he reached the living room and she felt the smooth, butter-soft leather of the couch beneath her back.

Her knees still gripped his hips, her hands still burrowed in his hair, as his lips moved back to hers. A little nip of his teeth and she opened to him, her tongue meeting his, licking, taking, exhilarating in the rush of sensations that came from it.

That subtle taste of cinnamon and chocolate met her taste buds and had her moaning at the sheer decadence of it. His tongue was heated and warm, licking against hers, spreading the taste of his kiss, teasing her until she surrounded it and fought to hold it in her mouth, sucking at it with greedy draws of her lips as he pumped it between her lips.

God, it was so good. She couldn't stand it, she wondered if she would ever be able to live without the regret of losing the pleasure, the taste and the feel of him once this was over and she left Haven.

Stretching beneath him, Storme felt the moan that vibrated in her own chest, a human counterpoint to the half-animal growl of pleasure that came from his.