Page 59 of Edge of Oblivion (Night Prowler 2)
He brushed past Bartleby and knelt beside the futon. He leaned over Morgan. His gaze traveled over her flushed face, her tangled hair,
her chest...
He squeezed his eyes shut, banishing the sight of hard pink nipples straining taut through the sheer, clinging fabric of the camisole, of her breasts, so full and round.
“Morgan,” he whispered, opening his eyes. She made a little sound in her throat and her brow furrowed, but her eyes didn’t open. “I’m going to move you to a more comfortable place, to a bed. All right?”
She didn’t answer. He smelled the drug the doctor had given her, smelled the chemical harshness of it in her blood beneath the amazing, opulent scent of the Fever, and knew it wouldn’t last long. Her body was burning through it even as he knelt there.
He gathered the sheet around her, carefully slid his arms beneath her body, and pulled her against him, cradling her to his chest. He lifted her and stood up. Her head fell against his shoulder, she breathed a little, discontented sigh. Her skin was hot, so hot—
The fingers of one of her hands curled around the front of his shirt. Eyes closed, she burrowed against him, inhaling, breathing his own scent into her nose. Then she made another sound in her throat, but this one was purely erotic.
A shudder wracked him. He had to get her to that bed, and fast, and then he had to get the hell away from her.
Without another word to the doctor, he crossed the darkened gym, kicked open the doors, and headed toward the stairs.
Morgan was on fire.
Everything burned, everything hurt, her skin and her muscles and her bones. Even her thoughts —chaotic and disjointed as they were—scorched a painfully blazing path through her brain, pounding one word over and over.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
She’d never felt anything like this incinerating, elemental urgency before but supposed she shouldn’t have been so surprised; her own mother had her first Fever late, though not as late as this.
Once Morgan passed puberty without a sign of it appearing, then twenty, then twenty-five, everyone just assumed she was an anomaly. That possibly her powerful Gift of Suggestion came with a darker side. Infertility.
But no. She was fertile. Now she felt it to the very marrow of her bones.
And there was a male holding her. An Ikati male, not the human doctor that had tended to her since the first signs of the Fever hit. She smelled the difference between them, the power, the strength of this male carrying her in his arms. She smelled his lust, dark and deep.
Her lids were so heavy from the drug she couldn’t open her eyes, but she could inhale, and she took that heavenly scent of lust into her lungs. This close, it was thick and sweet like candy, delicious.
It sent a spike of heat straight down between her legs.
She made a little noise of longing in her throat. The male began to walk faster.
There came the sound of heavy doors being kicked open, then light behind her closed lids that hurt enough to make her turn, wincing, and bury her face in the hard chest she was cradled against.
Movement and breathing, her body swaying with his steps, the motion rhythmic and calming except for the pressure of her breasts against his body, the aching awareness of him and his beautiful scent like something she wanted to eat.
Yes, taste him, her mind urged, churning. Taste all of him! He is what you need!
She arched her back, slid a hand up around his neck, and opened her mouth over the column of his throat.
Salt and musk and masculinity, heat and rightness, the throb of his pulse beneath her lips. He stumbled and cursed, yanked his head away, but she wanted more, she wanted to run her tongue over all his smooth, lovely skin, and then she wanted to bite him and straddle him and take him deep inside
—
“Touch me,” she whispered, arching into him again. His arms tightened around her. He made a low, rough growl deep in his chest.
They kept moving.
Faster now, down a set of stairs, another, the male breathing hard and nearly stumbling several times as he hurried along. Her nose was in his hair, her lips were on his skin, her teeth nipped at his earlobe, his shoulder, the soft spot between his collarbone and neck. It sent shivers through his body, delicious ripples of hard muscle that drove her own need even higher. She heard the sound of another door being kicked open, then there was cool darkness and she was abruptly deposited onto a bed.
“Morgan,” a voice said, hoarse, and then she knew. His voice sent a wash of pleasure through her body, pure and sweet, like sunlit honey.
He would help her, help ease the pain. Though he despised her, it was his job to keep her alive and well. At least for a while.
