Page 89 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
Beyond her surprise at his sudden appearance, her brain registered danger. Her mouth went dry.
She swallowed and said, “Yes. Are you?”
It took him several moments to answer, in which his throat worked and a muscle flexed, over and over, in his jaw. His hot, unblinking gaze never left hers.
“It takes a while after I Shift back…I’m not…I didn’t expect to see you.”
Her brows lifted. She waited, blood pumping hard through her veins.
“The animal,” he whispered, his teeth gritted. “It’s not…completely…” His gaze drifted over her, lingering on her mouth, her breasts beneath the T-shirt she’d worn to bed. His eyes flared
hotter.
“Oh,” she breathed, understanding in a heartbeat. “Ah, should I…” she glanced at the doorway.
“No,” he said immediately, a little too loud, then closed his eyes and moistened his lips. After a few deep inhalations, he said, “Yes. Probably. It’s not entirely…safe. The way you smell—it’s difficult to—argh! Fuck!”
He broke off and turned away from her in one swift pivot, his hands clenched in his hair, and stood there with his head bowed, silent, his entire body tensed.
The adrenaline that surged through her body was electrifying. She knew what was happening, her body knew what was happening, and it was responding in every way it could.
He wanted her. And he didn’t want her in a roses, poetry, and violins kind of way. He wanted her in a violent, animal, starving way. A possessive way.
An owning way.
Instantly, she wanted him that way, too.
As if he sensed it, he let out a soft, agonized groan. “Go back to your room,” he whispered. His broad shoulders rolled forward in a way that accentuated their breadth, and as she watched, fascinated, pinned in place, as a tremor ran through them. He said her name on a growl when she stayed where she was, and when she still didn’t move he spun around, advanced, and towered over her, glowering and shaking, molten hot.
“Go back to your goddamn room!”
His voice had dropped even lower than the register it held before, and Ember heard the unraveling edge of restraint in it as clear as if someone had struck a bell. But it didn’t frighten her. It excited her. It turned her inside out.
Slowly, with trembling hands, keeping her gaze locked on his, she reached out and touched him, flattening her hands over his chest. At the same time, she whispered, “No.”
He stiffened and made a sound that was part snarl, part hiss, and utterly primal. His nostrils flared again, and his eyes grew flatly dangerous.
Slowly, slowly, Ember slid her hands down his chest, over his abdomen, to the waist of his jeans, feeling his muscles twitch and flex beneath her fingers. As softly as she could, she said, “You’re not going to hurt me. I know you’re not going to hurt me.” Then she slid her hands up and under his shirt.
His skin was on fire.
The moment her hands touched the exposed flesh of his stomach, his eyes flared with such pure, primitive lust she felt as if cocaine had been injected straight into her bloodstream. He gripped her around the waist, set her up on the edge of the piano, kicked the bench aside so hard it went flying away and hit a stone urn with such force the bench split apart with a crack. He yanked her against his body.
“I can’t be gentle!” he snarled, his lips peeled back over his teeth. “I can’t go slow! I’m still too strong—I will hurt you!”
He was trying to warn her. But she didn’t want his warnings. She wanted him.
So she kissed him.
And just like that, the fever that always simmered between them ignited and engulfed them both in flames.
His mouth was devouring, his hands, ravenous, the sound he made in his throat purely animal. His fingers sank into the soft flesh of her hips and he bent her back, kissing her so savagely it stole her breath. Her took her lower lip between his teeth and bit it; suddenly she tasted blood, coppery sweet, and it sharpened her lust to a pagan fury.
Starvation and need thrummed through her. She pressed herself against his chest, tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him in. Harder. Closer.
Panting, he broke away and took hold of the neck of her cotton T-shirt with both hands. He ripped it straight down the middle, tearing it in two with one hard pull. She gasped, shocked at the violence of it, but he only pushed her down against the cool, hard surface of the piano with one hand flat on her chest and his eyes locked on hers, curled a hand around her pajama bottoms, and tore those off, too, in one swift yank, so she was lying there, fully exposed, with only her panties.
They were torn off next. His gleaming, ferocious gaze never left hers.
