Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

Then Quinn began to move, and everything else slipped away, lost to the glory of the moment. All I could do was move with him, savoring and enjoying every tiny sensation flowing through me. I shuddered, writhed, as the sweet pressure built, until it felt as if I was going to tear apart from the sheer force of it. Then it all did tear apart, and his body was slamming into mine so hard the whole bed shook. When his teeth entered my neck, it heightened everything all over again, and I came a second time.

When I finally caught my breath again, I took his face between my palms and kissed him long and slow. "You have no idea just how much of a relief that was."

He rolled to one side and gathered me close. It felt so right in his arms that I just wanted to cry. At least I was still free to enjoy all this. Fate had left me that, if nothing else.

"There's nothing like a good dose of lovemaking to ease a body's tension," he said, a smile in his voice.

"Yes." I hesitated. The cowardly part of me just didn't want to fess up about what had happened and why I'd been so tense, but that wouldn't fair. Besides, he had to know, because we'd no doubt be dealing with the consequences soon enough. "You know those discoveries I mentioned earlier?"

"Yes."

"Well, they weren't exactly work related."

He frowned lightly-something I felt rather than saw. "Then what were they?"

"Personal." I hesitated again. "And huge in so many different ways."

Tension rolled through his limbs, there one moment and gone the next. Quinn was nothing if not controlled. "Whatever it is, just come out with it, Riley."

But I couldn't. I just couldn't force the damn words past my tongue. Not when I knew they were going to hurt him so much. So instead I said, "You remember how Dia once asked me if a person with two souls can have just one soul mate?"

"Yes." His voice was cool, as controlled as the rest of him. But I still felt his trepidation. It felt like a storm cloud gathering power in the distance.

"Well, it appears she was right."

The air suddenly seemed alive with energy and emotion. For one sharp moment, it rolled over me, grabbing at my breath, my body, pummeling it, making it ache as fiercely as if he were hitting me.

Then it was gone, snapped behind his icy control again.

"So you've found your wolf soul mate."

A statement, not a question.

"Yes."

He pulled his arm out from underneath me and rolled off the bed, stalking naked to the window. For several moments he did nothing more than breathe deeply. There was no anger, no emotion, nothing that even hinted at turmoil. Nothing more than that controlled breathing.

Eventually, he asked, voice still as even as his breathing, "Where does that leave us?"

"You haven't even asked who it is, Quinn."

"I don't want to know," he snapped, and just for a moment, the calm broke and his voice became fury. Became death itself. "I told you long ago my being had claimed you, Riley. That being is willing to kill to keep you."

"You kill him, you risk killing me."

He didn't say anything. Maybe he couldn't.

"Quinn, I don't want my soul mate. I don't like him, and I don't want to spend my life with him."

"He's your soul mate. Whether you like him or not is really irrelevant."

"That might be the case normally, but I am not normal. This whole situation is not normal."

Again he didn't answer.

"Damn it," I exploded. "Whatever my wolf feels, she is not the whole of me. And the part of me that is vampire wants you, not him."

He finally turned around to face me. There were tears in his eyes. Goddamn tears. For me. For us.