Читать книгу Immortal Redeemed - Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Страница 11

Chapter 4

McKenna felt herself losing ground in a multitude of battles. Between her body and her mind. Between her principles of right and wrong. And between the possibility of falling into a dangerous situation that might lead to an experience of the sublime.

She was under this guy’s spell. His mouth was an inferno, and she craved its warmth. He was an enigma, a face without a name, and though she was taking a chance, she’d been well trained in taking care of herself.

There was a nine-millimeter Glock in her nightstand and a revolver in a desk drawer by the front door. Her apartment was alarmed, armed with panic-button-type security. It was all there thanks to the bullet that seemed to have hit her in another lifetime, and the long recovery she’d endured.

Taking chances didn’t seem so disturbing when, due to the severity of that injury, she felt as if she was already living on borrowed time.

She wanted to feel something. She wanted to explore the edges of the unknown and find a place ruled by pure sensation. If this stranger could give her that...well, all right, and God bless his perfect, leather-clad hide.

Surprisingly, his kiss was tender at first—not much more than a light pressure. He was judging her reaction, being honorable about waiting for her response. So she kissed him back.

Green light.

He got the hint and deepened the kiss. More pressure. More heat. The warmth of his mouth ignited fires deep down inside her that grew even hotter when he slipped the tip of his tongue between her teeth.

Yes, you beautiful bastard!

Her mind soared. Her body began to overheat. McKenna placed both of her hands on his shoulders and dug her fingers into the worn black leather, looking for a hold. In the back of her mind she conjured more unladylike four-letter words that described her wanton behavior.

But what the hell...

Her knight crushed her body to his, bending her spine, kissing her with a passion that was shockingly new. This kind of passion suggested a world far from her familiar one, a place of raw abandon where anything was possible. Having his mouth on hers created in her a hunger for something she’d never even sampled. That hunger began to take her over.

He was what she wanted right that minute. More of this. More of him. God yes, she might have gone temporarily insane, but she was going to have it all.

Damn you...

Each second in this man’s embrace piled on more greed. Her skin buzzed with excitement. The deep V between her thighs tingled, anxious to be touched, entered, taken, filled, either gently or roughly, without caring about feelings, pain or hurt, and how she might hate herself afterward.

She longed to feel alive again, and this guy knew how to take care of that. He seemed to understand the things her life lacked and was willing to show them to her.

What have I become?

When he pulled back, she wanted to strike him in protest. She didn’t want to go back to being bland, scarred McKenna. Not now. Not yet. When she looked up, it was to find a questioning glint in his unusually light, sky blue eyes.

“You need to know my name.” The tone of his voice was like a second caress.

McKenna shook her head. “I’d rather not know that.”

“Then at least tell me yours.”

Without the heated pressure of his lips, she quickly chilled. “McKenna.”

He said, “It suits you. I like it.”

“Does liking my name make a difference?”

“It makes things more personal, don’t you think?”

“I’m trying to avoid personal.”

“Then we won’t be going inside?”

McKenna was surprised to hear her reply. “Yes. We will.”

After a kiss like that, she was wholeheartedly willing to put herself on the line.

“Yes,” she repeated, holding back the urge to straddle the guy right here on the street.

He was infuriatingly calm. Taking her hand in his, her motorcycle-riding knight turned from the street and led her to her front door...straight toward the culmination of those wicked images she could barely keep to herself.

* * *

Before McKenna realized it, they were almost up the stairs to her fifth-floor loft. No further threat of fainting spells came. She didn’t have to be carried since she was fueled by anticipation and adrenaline.

She handed him her key. Inside the high-ceilinged space, lights set on timers blazed in honor of her late return. Clothes from the day before lay strewn on the floor. The bed was unmade.

Her companion didn’t seem to notice the disarray. Once the door closed behind them, his hands were on her again. He gathered her into his arms, his mouth moving greedily on hers.

Nothing was left of the gentleman now. These kisses were acts of ravenous, insatiable hunger that hurled McKenna toward a heightened emotional state. Breathing became a game between her mouth and his, her lungs and his. The tightness of his hold on her kept the world from tilting.

Her coat hit the wood floor with a clink of the metallic buttons. He undid her shirt far enough to slip one heated hand beneath. When he reached her breast, her heart exploded. Her breath hitched. She felt the beat of his pulse through the thin layer of lingerie she wore. That pulse was strong, erratic, and it lurched when her hands joined with his in the furious race for discovery.

The leather he wore was a unique kind of turn-on, smooth as velvet, with an old-world masculine scent. She ran both hands over his backside and the jacket emblazoned with the curious logo. Simultaneously, his fingers sailed lightly across her bare stomach before reaching around to her back.

Every inch of flesh he touched burned. It didn’t take much for her to imagine what lay beneath his clothes and how much she would enjoy finding out.

“Off with the jacket,” she whispered into his mouth.

Wanting to miss nothing, McKenna searched for a way under his black T-shirt as his leather jacket hit the floor.

The groan she heard was a sound she had made. The sheer beauty in front of her demanded it. Where Derek, her former lover, had been lean and wiry, this guy was composed of gracefully tuned muscle. Wide shoulders stretched the cotton shirt tight. His chest was magnificently broad, perched above a narrow waist and hips.

He had the corded arms of someone used to performing hard work, without the calluses on his hands to prove it. Since he was a knight, according to the legend on his jacket, McKenna imagined him as a warrior of old, riding a horse instead of a Harley and swinging a sword. A heavy silver broadsword was the type of weapon knights with all that well-honed muscle would be trained to wield.

She imagined herself in his arms, back in those times of castles and fierce men on battlefields...

And damn it, she was taking this whole rescuer thing too far.

When his mouth recaptured hers, McKenna’s mind fuzzed over in favor of her body’s new focus. Bed. This guy was all hers for the next few hours, and she’d be counting them not in minutes, but in orgasms like the one she was close to having now.

Craving the feel of her skin against his, McKenna eased back. He was in excellent shape, his skin tight, taut. His abs were well-defined. He flinched when she touched his bare skin as if he wasn’t used to being touched.

Her fingers moved like lightning over him. When she looked up, he was smiling. His expression held a hint of sadness that made him look almost vulnerable. When their gazes met, blue eyes to blue eyes, McKenna’s internal fires became volcanic, erupting, spreading, spilling over every nerve she possessed.

She held her breath. He made a move.

First he tore off his shirt. Then he removed hers. He took the time to glance down the length of her body before lifting her into his arms. Crossing the room in three big strides, he laid her on the bed, pulled off her boots and leaned over her with one of his hands on the pillow and his other hand resting on the zipper of her jeans.

McKenna struggled for each new breath. Anticipation caused her limbs to quake. The guy’s damnably perfect face filled her vision, his features hurtfully handsome, almost supernaturally beguiling. “No one is this perfect,” she managed to say, holding off the distant internal drumming.

He arched one auburn eyebrow.

“You’re not going to have to work very hard,” she added. “I’m afraid I might be too weak to last very long against all that...” She waved at his body.

“Then don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t hold out.”

“Damn you.”

“I could stop,” he said. “But we haven’t even really started yet, have we?”

“One of us has.” McKenna closed her eyes and dug deep for the willpower to ward off the storm threatening to overtake her.

She didn’t want to feel any loss of control. She despised weakness. Weakness was a disadvantage for so many reasons. She’d been truly vulnerable once, two years ago, when a bullet was the cause. She’d been flat on the ground, on her back, nearly breathless and covered in blood. After that night, she’d had to kiss her job in law enforcement goodbye.

She had vowed never to allow anyone to take control of her life again, and so far no one had. She played tough, worked hard and avoided long-term relationships. She kept long hours so she’d be tired enough not to care overmuch about the past, and usually fell into bed exhausted and alone.

Tonight was special, but no big deal. She’d have sex, satisfy her cravings and usher this hunky nameless stranger out. She had condoms in her drawer from the few times she and Derek had shared a bed. She was hot, but not totally incompetent. There was no way she was going to shed the tough emotional shell she’d worked so hard to create for one night in the sack.

So what if her heart was pounding too hard and too fast as she waited for the sound of her zipper to slide on its metallic tracks? Sue her if she imagined what stroking her tongue over every delectable inch of this guy’s incredible body would be like.

He moved his hand, taking hers with it as the zipper began its downward slide. “Are you having second thoughts, McKenna?”

He pronounced her name with a very slight accent she hadn’t noticed before. British, maybe. Decidedly European. Super sexy.

“Yes,” McKenna answered truthfully, though that reply wasn’t only about what was going to take place here. The second thoughts he’d mentioned had to do with her whole damn life, and how it had brought her to the point of lusting for a stranger.

Whispers of cooler air breezed across her stomach, a precursor to the next step in this brazen rendezvous. Gritting her teeth, McKenna whispered, “Kick it to hell,” as the threat of an early climax rumbled upward.

There was just something about this guy.

Something to make her throw caution out the window.

And if the descent of her zipper wasn’t enough, her talented companion captured her mouth, letting her know that he planned to claim her tonight, in both body and soul.

As if he hadn’t done so already.

* * *

The cry that escaped Kellan’s lover’s lips was one of imminent ecstasy. In that sound lay an unleashed emotion he found vaguely familiar, like a wisp of memory stolen from a long-lost dream.

The woman he was with felt things on a major scale. Her cry was just one example of that.

Slowly he worked his fingers farther inside the waistband of her jeans, pausing when he reached the thin barrier of lace beneath. McKenna’s lingerie was delicate, ultra-feminine and way too fragile for a male with a mission. Delicacies like this were contrary to the kind of life he had endured, which made that scrap of fabric so very much more intriguing.

The woman beneath him snaked an arm around his waist. She raked his skin lightly with her fingernails and bit down on his lower lip with her tiny white teeth.

Christ. He was hard as steel. He was ready to take her and had to hold back, bide his time, sure a soul like hers needed to be confronted carefully in order for him to glean its secrets. If he went too far, too fast, crucial clues might be missed. He might fail altogether in his objective for coming here, and lose ground. Then again, maybe she was just a really attractive woman.

He didn’t want to rush this in any case. But neither could he afford to get lost in the challenge. Focus had to be maintained when his willpower had already started to dissipate. McKenna’s hands were like ribbons of molten lava, trapping him midway between lust and purpose. Those hands were heading toward his shoulder blades, a place no woman had visited since his only real love had pressed her lips there in goodbye.

McKenna was going to break that record if she had her way. He couldn’t let her get that far. If she reached his blades, she’d feel the designs carved into him with the blackened blood of the seven Blood Knights.

If she were his Reaper, that one touch could awaken her. Now that he was here, close, he wanted to prolong the pleasure.

When her fingertips found the lower edge of the tats, Kellan sucked in a breath. The sigils were scoring him raw when he already felt feverish. Part of his mind rebelled against the personal intrusion. His muscles spasmed with a dire kind of reminder that holy marks weren’t meant to be seen or shared.

But he fought against the old rules. This woman’s touch might be the only way for him to determine the sincerity of their connection.

These feelings he had for McKenna were a mystery, unless the two of them were connected. A woman’s lips had been the last thing he’d felt before his new, resurrected life began. Now a woman’s touch might cause the end of that second round of life.

He had to distract her from the tattoos, or he’d be undone.

Kellan rested his hand on McKenna’s flat belly. He splayed his fingers so that his fingertips rested on her pubic bone, above the lovely spot his body now shuddered to enter.

He was used to observing every movement, gesture, tic, in not only an opponent but also everyone else around him. Danger in unexpected places was a constant for him. He found it funny now that enhanced senses used to working overtime couldn’t quite get a handle on her.

While her sigh told him how much she liked this meeting of their skin, McKenna’s tension hadn’t eased. Though her face had flushed pink, her heart knocked out a swift-paced irregular beat. His heart matched hers pulse for pulse in much the same way that his body behaved when taking on the aspects of his hunted prey.

Her long lashes fluttered. Her tongue darted to moisten her lips. Oh yes. He liked it all. Her. This. McKenna was doing a number on him. She had ensnared him on the street with the invitation in her eyes, and now he would return the favor.

Kellan pressed closer to her, waiting for her eyes to reopen, part of him hoping they wouldn’t. Because he didn’t want her to see the questions on his face. Or the fangs, sharp-tipped and throbbing with a need for something they’d never had.

Kellan hauled himself back, cursing silently with blasphemies from his past.

It was then that he saw the small tattoo on her upper arm. A tiny black rose with its petals unfurling. This could have been a coincidence. People today had tattoos. Women were partial to flowers.

But then why did he have one very similar to it, carved into him centuries ago?

Hello, Reaper, the voice inside his head said.