Hunting Julian. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ endearing as he ran a hand back through one side of his dark hair. She had thought it was black, but up close she could see it was the darkest possible brown. It bothered her suddenly that there was so much about him that was appealing. It was like roses. Something so fragrant and beautiful that you couldn’t help burrowing your nose into it shouldn’t have things like thorns and bees to hurt you. She appreciated how naïve and unlike her such a thought truly was, but just because she rarely indulged them didn’t mean she didn’t have them.

      “My needs go well beyond those of my physical body,” he said to her, those green eyes flicking up from their low position in his bent head. She felt snared by that look, her throat tightening with a strange sense of having gotten in way over her head. She wanted to laugh aloud at the ludicrous idea as soon as she had it.

      “Well, mine don’t,” she countered, realizing she didn’t sound as convincing as she should have. She reached out to cover that up with her touch, having already realized how easily it distracted him. She snaked her arms around his neck, drawing herself in tight and snug to his body. “Your physical body will suit me fine,” she whispered softly as her lips brushed against his ear.

      Julian groaned softly as she wriggled against him, his hands tightening reflexively against her shoulders. Before she knew it, he had turned his face against her neck and was…

      Sniffing her?

      Asia’s brows lowered in a perplexed expression of disbelief as she felt him breathe deeply and sigh an extraordinary exhalation against her pulse. Even more unusual was the fine tremor she felt run through him.

      “Such a sweet invitation,” he breathed against her softly, his nose nuzzling against her pulse. “Too bad it is a lie.”

      He had her by her throat in an instant, his hand locking hard and fast around her as he kicked her feet out from under her and sent her slamming down to the floor on her back. He controlled the entire action, however, keeping the impact minimal, if not shockingly violent, as he ended up with his grip shy of throttling her and his face mere millimeters from hers. He had thrown a leg over hers, firmly pinning her to the hardwood floor as she instinctively reached to grasp the wrist of the hand at her throat.

      “For a woman who wants to fuck so badly, you smell decidedly clean of sexual arousal,” he growled harshly. “What game is it you are playing? Why are you here?”

      “I don’t…Are you out of your mind?” she rasped, the pressure of his hand just enough to warn her of his strength and the possible consequences if she ticked him off enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” Indignation seemed the way to go. Maybe a little fear. The more she was threatened, in actuality, the calmer and more in control Asia got. His kindness had rattled her much more than this would. This she understood.

      This was what she had wanted.

      She thumbed the catch on her ring, then grabbed his wrist again so the micro-fine needle injected into his skin. He would mistake the sensation for the cut of her diamond. In a sense it was exactly that. The heavy narcotic serum flooding into him would make him hers in an instant.

      “I am talking about this…”

      To her shock she felt his hand sweep up under her dress. His fingertips dipped into her panties below the waistband and it was all she could do to keep from freaking out as thick male fingers skimmed over her denuded mound and dove with intimacy between her nether lips.

      “Warm. Damp, to be certain,” he observed, “but in no way bearing the heat or wetness of a woman longing for sex.”

      “You’re blaming me because you haven’t done anything to turn me on?” she demanded incredulously.

      “Your scent is fear-scent, and yet not. You smell of a hunter. The predator. The ziniprano. Tell me, zini,” he said in a heated, fierce whisper of threat as he wedged himself in between her legs, “if it is a fucking you so desire, will it matter to you how it comes about?”

      The intent behind his devious invitation and the hard actions of his heavy body over hers triggered a hell of a lot more than fear in Asia. She knew she needed to wait, if only to see the narcotic hit him like a ton of bricks, making all of this infinitely easier, but she couldn’t. His intimate touch grew deeper as he spread her legs wide around his hips and Asia learned that there were just some things even she couldn’t do.

      “I don’t know,” she countered in a rasp of pent-up fury and hurt. “Why don’t you tell me how you did it to my sister, first?”

      He went still in surprise, just as she had hoped for, leaving himself wide open for her free hands to make their mark.

      Asia was a jujitsu master. She had achieved black belt status at a very young age, and had only increased in degrees until the time she had become the sensei of her own dojo. The art of self-defense, the art of power in small movements. This was what she used to drive rigid fingers into his throat and eyes simultaneously. She took satisfaction in his roar of agony as she used the ripple of her fit body to buck him off her at the first available opportunity. She spilled his significant weight onto the wooden floor and pounced on him in fisted, violent strikes.

      She hadn’t expected him to be an easy target, and he did not disappoint her. She didn’t even know how he had grabbed her and thrown her, but the next thing she knew she was getting floor burns on her bare legs as she skidded and tumbled away. She rolled up to her feet in smooth continuity, her hair whipping back as it spilled free of its twist. She ignored it, even though it was now a liability, and focused on her giant adversary as he growled with ferocious anger and crouched as if preparing to charge her. His following hesitation was a godsend. The more time he took, the more time for the drug in his system to take effect.

      “What is this?” he confronted her with a roar of fury. “Why do you play this brutal game with me?”

      “Because you are nothing but violent, evil filth, and this is what you deserve! You stole the single most precious thing from my life, as well as those most precious to the lives of countless others, and it’s time you paid the price for that!”

      “And you are going to make me pay, zini?” His laughter irked her as it rolled in irritating waves of derision over her. “Little warrior. So cold-hearted, no? To play such a game as the bait just to lure me in close. For what? What is this imagined slight I have done to you?”

      “My sister, you prick!” she screamed, months of pain and fear suddenly overriding all of her cold control. Hot fury and unwanted agony burned in her throat and clenching fists. “You stole her! I want her back! You will give her back to me, or so help me, I will kill you!”

      Why isn’t the drug working? Damn it, Justin had guaranteed it would! She’d watched him test it on a gorilla, the injection taking under sixty seconds to drop the beast completely.

      “I doubt that is how this will end,” he said flatly. He seemed confident of that as he straightened and strolled directly across the room.

      She fought. With everything she had and everything she knew, she beat him off her again and again. But every time she made a strike that should have taken him down, he simply shook it off and kept coming at her. It was as if he didn’t feel any pain at all, except she knew that he did when he grunted or bellowed out from her critical hits. Fighting in heels lent disadvantages and advantages, not the least of which was the stiletto she drove deep into the back of his thigh, shedding first blood as she yanked free.

      That was when everything changed.

      She СКАЧАТЬ