Page 55 of Marked By Moonlight

“This thing between us. It’s distracting me from what I need to be doing… which is focusing on finding the alpha to break your curse.”

“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.”

His green eyes sparked fire. “I suppose we are. When we’re not fucking. Or when I’m not thinking of fucking you.”

She blinked at his coarse words. Unbidden, the image of them sweaty and tangled in his sheets rose in her mind. Body tingling, she traced the rim of her glass. “What are you saying?”

“If I’m not going to put all my energy and attention into helping you break this curse, then I might as well destroy you now.”

Claire sucked in a deep breath and sank back into the leather bench, tossing her napkin on the table. “So you scratched your itch and now you’re wondering why you’re keeping me around anymore, is that it?” She swallowed down the hot lump rising in her throat.

“Claire, that’s not—”

“What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice shockingly calm. “You think I need to be destroyed. Go ahead, then.”

Their gazes clashed in silent battle. Belatedly, she realized that she’d thrown down one hell of a dare.

She waited for him to say something, to refute her taunt by saying that he couldn’t do that. That he didn’t want to, that what he felt for her would never permit him to do such a thing. Instead, he just stared at her with cold eyes.

Even knowing he could offer no such assurances—that it was unfair to expect him to soothe her with false promises—she felt a flash of anger. She had given more than her body to him. It was not just some curse, some animal instinct that drew her to him. Her hunger forgotten, Claire bolted from the table and fled the restaurant.

She heard him call her name, but didn’t stop.

Pushing the door open, she fled into the rain. She hurriedalong the uneven sidewalk edging the road, enduring the splashing water from passing cars. One stopped. A Jeep. A maroon Jeep. The passenger door flung open. Gideon leaned across the seat, shouting, “Get in!”

“No,” she shouted back and continued walking in stiff strides, hands shielding her face in a feeble effort to ward off the rain. A pointless endeavor. She was already soaked.

With the passenger door swinging open, the Jeep sped ahead and drove up onto the sidewalk, jerking to a stop several feet in front of her and blocking the driveway to her dry cleaner’s. Claire stopped and stared at those red parking lights warily. The driver’s door thrust open and Gideon climbed out. He marched toward her, his lean figure cutting through the rain like a blade, eyes unblinking against the deluge of water sluicing down the hard planes of his face. Hands fisted at his sides, he stopped in front of her. Her head fell back to glare at him.

“Are you getting in?”

She hesitated, staring at the unyielding set of his mouth and reading the determination in his face to have his way, to win. He wouldn’t accept anything less than her total surrender. She knew that. Just as she knew she could not—would not—give in to his bullying. She’d been bullied enough in her life. No more.

She found the will to lift her voice over the pounding rain. “No!”

Gideon had seen this in a movie before. Girl won’t get in the car. Guy demands she does. Girl tells him to go to hell right before guy flings her over his shoulder in a caveman display of dominance. If Claire wanted to play that girl, then he would be more than happy to oblige her and play his part.

Bending, he grabbed her by the knees and flung her over hisshoulder. She screeched and pummeled the backs of his thighs with her fists. He was well aware she didn’t hit like a girl—not with the lycan blood coursing through her veins—and that first blow nearly brought him down.

“Let me go!” she demanded over the steady beat of rain.

“Can’t.” Grinning, he adjusted her more comfortably on his shoulder and suffered her punches. “You’d fall on your head and break your neck.”

She jabbed a fist into his back, grinding her knuckles into his spine and nearly upsetting his balance on the slippery sidewalk. He delivered a loud smack to her rear end. “Stop that or we’ll both fall and crack our heads.”

“Well, that wouldn’t killme, would it?” she retorted.

“Smart-ass,” he grumbled, dumping her in the passenger seat.

He was half afraid she would bolt when he left her to walk around to the driver’s side, but she wisely stayed put. Slamming his door shut, he turned to look at her. With her wet hair plastered to her head, she reminded him of a drowned cat. Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths, her dusky nipples pebble hard through her soaked shirt. His hands itched to take hold of them, to taste them through her wet bra and shirt.

She stared ahead, not looking his way, ignoring him.

He rested both hands on top of the steering wheel, palms and fingers slippery wet against the leather, grappling for control. What the hell was he doing? Getting in too deep, his mind was quick to reply.

Simultaneously, they turned and looked at each other.

He didn’t know who moved first. Whatever the case, he was kissing her, his hands cupping her wet cheeks, his fingers tangling in the soaking strands of her hair. He crushed her to him, swallowing her moan into his mouth, frustrated by the uncomfortable gear stick between them. God, he felt like he was back in high schoolagain, making out in the front seat of his grandmother’s cramped Honda. Only she wasn’t some horny teenager. And he wasn’t some fumbling, desperate boy. Well, maybe he was desperate. He had to be. Why else was he so damned attracted to her? A lycan? One overexcited nip from her and it all ended. At least for him. Like playing with fire. And even that knowledge couldn’t make him stop, couldn’t keep him from delving his tongue deeper into her mouth.

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