Page 7 of Edge of Oblivion (Night Prowler 2)
“They’re both rebels—”
“With very different motives,” he interrupted, still wry, still pacing with his hands clasped behind his back. He shot her a measured, heated glance from beneath sooty lashes.
Her mouth quirked. “One for love, one for freedom. Both noble ideals—”
“Noble?” He came to an abrupt halt and gazed at her from across the room. His expression bordered on severe. “Jenna.”
He said her name in that particular way he did when he thought she was being unreasonable, chiding yet stroking, tender yet reproachful, and she was abruptly angry. She pushed away from the window, crossed her arms over her chest, and went to stand in front of the massive, unlit hearth. She kicked at the foot of the scrolled iron screen that shielded it and was rewarded with a black smudge of ash across the toe of her ivory satin slipper.
“You couldn’t understand, Leander. You’ve had your freedom your entire life. She’s been locked up, locked away, denied the most basic rights—”
“For her safety. For our safety,” he reminded her.
When she didn’t answer, he came up behind her and stood with the broad expanse of his chest pressed against her back. His hands lifted to gently encircle her shoulders. He brushed aside the gold mass of her long hair and pressed a soft kiss to the bare nape of her neck. She scowled down at the ashen, chunky remnants of some long-dead fire and refused to turn around and wind her arms up around his neck, though she wanted to with a desire so strong it still took her by surprise.
Always, always this need for him. For his body and his heart and his proximity, even when she was irritated with him, even when he was driving her mad with his cold, calculated logic. She simply could not imagine being without him, for one second of one day. Just the thought of it caused her physical pain.
Love, she had learned, was its own kind of prison. With chains and locks invisible but just as real and unyielding as those of steel.
“You know what’s out there,” he murmured. His lips brushed her skin with a gentleness that left gooseflesh in their wake. “You know better than most.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled, letting him draw her nearer, letting his scent of spice and smoke and virile man envelop her. His lips slid down her neck; the soft press of his teeth against her jugular made her shiver in delight. But she was still angry with him. Definitely.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” she said, leaning into him. She let her head drop back and rest against his shoulder. He turned his lips to her cheek.
“Hmmm,” he murmured, unconvinced. He wound his arms around her in a gentle, possessive embrace and nuzzled his face into her neck. She had to press the smile from her lips. He sensed the shift in her mood and pressed his advantage. “Compromise,” he whispered near her ear, “can be a beautiful thing.”
Her eyes blinked open. Instantly on guard, she stiffened. “Compromise?”
He breathed a low laugh down her neck that sent warmth surging through her entire body. It softened her, made her think of pillows and sheets and their very fine bed, of him ardent and warm and naked beside her.
Inside her.
Angry, she reminded herself. Angry.
“I know this is important to you,” he said in that soft bedroom voice, stroking his palms up and down her arms, slowly rocking her back and forth in his strong embrace. “And I know once you have your mind made up, well...” He lowered his lips to her neck again, opened his mouth over the column of her throat, heat and softness and a gentle suck that fluttered her eyelids. “...I might as well try and stop the north wind.”
“Exactly,” she said, scowling now at the carved figurines that decorated the long mantel, row after row of obsidian and porcelain and glass panthers in miniature, crouching, leaping, lazing in the limbs of a tree.
His muffled laughter shook them both. He turned her in a practiced, fluid motion, his hands gently coercing her hips, his palms flattening against the small of her back, drawing her in again. In spite of herself, her arms reached up and twined around his shoulders. He bent his head and pressed his lips to her temple, her cheek, one corner of her mouth.
“But perhaps, great Queen, you might allow me one or two conditions of my own,” he murmured, spreading his hand around the back of her neck. He tilted her head up and rained feathered kisses over her eyelids, her brow.
She made a wordless noise of protest and kept her eyes closed, frowning, feeling the heat and muscle of him burn her straight through their clothes. “Stop trying to bribe me.”
“Never bribing,” he breathed, skimming his lips over hers, lightly, oh so lightly, just enough to make her pulse jump and have her rising on her toes to better meet them. Her lips parted and she felt the fleet, electric shock of his tongue against hers. His arm tightened around her so she felt his heartbeat drumming against her chest, staccato and strong, to match her own. “Only asking.”
With one hand still cradling her head and the other wound hard around her body, he covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, making her forget all about the difference between a bribe and a simple question, making her sorry there was a manor full of restless, feral-eyed Ikati waiting for their decision, making her regret the terrible inconvenience of their fine and formal clothes.
She pulled away first, breathless and flushed, and gazed up at him from beneath her lashes.
“One or two,” she said, still stubborn, alight in the dark, glowing burn of his eyes. “But we agree she can try?”
A figure tottered by outside the sun-hazed windows, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed, stumbling blindly over the manicured lawn, headed toward the dark line of trees in the distance where the forest began. Without looking she knew it was Viscount Weymouth, wandering aimlessly in his mustard waistcoat and old-fashioned cravat, completely naked below the waist.
Leander smiled down at her, wolfish, and th
e flush spread over her cheeks and down her neck.
