Page 79 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“Oh! Let me see your hand!” He’d hurt himself! Jack peeled his fingers open one by one as he sat there breathing raggedly, his jaw tight, nostrils flared.
“It’s. Fine.”
“It’s not! You’re bleeding, Lucas!” The blood was oozing through the mess of clear goo and broken glass in his palm.
“Stop calling me Lucas,” he said roughly.
“Stop being such a baby!” she shot back, irritated that her lovely fog in Pleasantville was being invaded by his not-so-lovely mood.
“You stop being—like you’re being!” he roared, red-faced. Jack stilled.
She said innocently, “Oh, you mean . . . like this?” and let the towel fall to her waist.
His gaze fell to her naked breasts and his eyes went dark. His expression turned hungry, oh so hungry, but also hard. Emotion was rolling off him in waves, anger and desire and something else, a terrible, heavy thing with depth and midnight blackness.
“You wouldn’t offer yourself so lightly if you knew what I really wanted from you,” he threatened, deadly soft, his body still as stone. He looked into her eyes and for a moment she almost felt fear.
But then she saw it.
Longing. Loneliness.
Suffering.
She recognized it instantly. She’d glimpsed it on her own face often enough in the mirror to know that look anywhere, that urgent pathos, welling to the surface.
That total lack of hope.
She put her hands on either side of his face. He closed his eyes and turned away, but she forced his head back, forced him to look at her. He allowed it, breathing hard, every muscle taut, every inch of him bristling.
“I don’t know what’s on the other side of this moment,” Jack whispered, feeling her own hands tremble as she cradled his face. “And right now I don’t care. All I know for sure is that I’m thousands of miles from home and you’re the one who brought me here . . . and I want you, Lucas, no matter how crazy that might be.”
He’d begun to shake. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“I. Want. You.” Jack kissed him. Gently, just a brush of her lips against his.
He froze, not responding. Not pulling away.
She tried again, softly stroking her tongue across the seam of his lips. He gasped as she sucked on his lower lip, drawing it between her teeth. He was watching her, his eyes wary, heavy lidded but wolf bright, his breathing erratic, not participating and not touching her, just allowing her to do as she pleased.
She began to explore his mouth with her tongue.
She slipped it between his lips, using gentle suction and gliding, getting a jolt from the connection as his tongue slid against hers. Her hands went around his neck, her fingers threading into his hair, and she pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.
One of his hands closed around her shoulder. His shaking had worsened.
“I took advantage of you once,” he said hoarsely, pushing her away. “I can’t do it again. I won’t.”
In answer, she took up the edge of the towel, wiped the broken glass and ointment from his hand, dropped the towel on the floor, and crawled into his lap.
He groaned as she pressed her naked body against his.
Jack wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and leaned close to his ear so her lips brushed his earlobe as she spoke. “Let me ask you a question, Lucas. Does it feel to you right now that you have some kind of advantage over me? Because if I’m being honest, I really think I happen to have the upper hand at the moment.”
He sank both his hands into her damp hair and grabbed fistfuls of it, pulling her head back to stare down at her in agony. “You’re drugged! You’ll hate me tomorrow!”
“There is no tomorrow,” she whispered. “Everything we have is right here, right now.” She pulled his head down to hers, taking his lips. He moaned, a deep, masculine sound in his throat, and dropped a hand from her head to squeeze her bottom. Needing to feel his hardness at the center of her, where the ache had become a gnawing, burning need, she wriggled around in his arms and straddled him. He was hard and huge between her legs, the material of his pants the only thing between them.
“Jacqueline,” he protested, grimacing when she rocked against him, his hands spanning her hips.
