Hunting Julian. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ had pulled free with a spin so by the time she came full around, her fists raised in a pose of defensive aggression, blood poured down the back of his leg as he stumbled briefly to a knee.

      At least she thought it was blood.

      It was pink.

      Not a thin or light red, not red of any variety or shade, but a brilliant carnation pink bordering on fluorescence.

      The sight made her do a double take, the shock of it taking a moment to sink in as she stood frozen at the ready. Julian stood up slowly and turned around, his malachite green eyes glittering with a dangerous resignation. Asia had never known true and utter fear before, she realized. She knew that because she was feeling it right then when she finally understood just why the drug had not and would never work on Julian Sawyer.

      He wasn’t human.

      Julian didn’t know why he felt so betrayed by the acts of the gorgeously violent woman he was suddenly facing, but he did. He felt it bone deep and beyond. It was finally clear to him the reasons why she was there. Apparently, her sister had been Chosen. One of the thirteen he had taken over most recently. Asia had sought him out on purpose, set out to lure him in any way she could, and had primed and pimped herself for vengeance. His unexpected reaction to her and the way it had muddled his senses and reflexes had almost provided the key opportunity she would have needed. But that was over now. Reality was settling cold and sober onto his shoulders, resigning him to acts of inevitability.

      She would be his fourteenth and his last. If there had been any doubt, which there had not, it would have been out of his control the moment she drew blood and so obviously realized he wasn’t what she had expected him to be. His cover was completely blown. Useless. If she knew he was responsible for the disappearances of those women, then it was a sure bet that others did, too. That irked him, simply because he took such pride in how flawlessly he conducted his work.

      Now he needed to evacuate, and the law demanded she be dealt with without delay.

      Julian took advantage of her momentary shock to charge her. He snatched her up and then drove her down to the floor. He didn’t have time for grace or caution, though he tried to buffer her impact by cupping a protective hand around the back of her head. She hit hard, her breath jolting out of her like the explosion of a burst balloon. Then the drive of his weight on top of her hit her, preventing her from drawing in new oxygen. The advantage was all he needed to dive into the numbed aura radiating all around her lithe body. He could see the energy field surrounding her in vicious violets and furious reds, swelling in proportion to her anger and rage as she gave off the passionate power of her emotions. He could use them as the pathway into her, but he needed something quite different in order to open a pathway out of there.

      Closing his eyes, a dangerous risk around his ferocious zini, he focused his mindheart on catching up the lighter tendrils of color around her. Few and far between though they were at the moment, he snared them nonetheless. Winding it around his mindheart like spun cotton sugar around a cone of paper, he gathered them more and more. When her breath came again, it was with a wide-eyed gasp. She was staring into the nothingness of her own personal energy as her anger was converted against her will to a completely different type of passion.

      It was better when it was voluntary. It was so much more beautiful when the Chosen was open and willing, relaxed and ready to feel the pleasure transition could bring. She blindly reached for him, her hands fisting in his shirt as she fought his manipulation.

      “Relax,” he whispered to her softly as her body arched and contorted in a combination of resistance and starting pleasure. “You cannot fight this, Asia. Humans do not have the power at first. Your psyche is strong, your will is a thing of sheer beauty. You could sate the appetites of a thousand needy souls. I sensed it from you the moment I saw you. But it will be so much more than that. So very much more.”

      Once she was completely caught in his psychic webbing, he knew she would be helpless to resist or to physically fight him any more, despite her significant warrior skills. That had been a surprise, of course, but certainly made sense. The more aggressive and driven the personality, the more powerful the aura and all the energy it could exude. Julian pushed up away from her body a little, though he found himself loath to do so as his mental strokes along her essential energy translated in sensual writhing of her delectable form. His eyes drifted irresistibly down, over her chest where her nipples were poking out rigidly beneath the soft silvery fabric of her dress. The scent of her changed in strong degrees, and the arousal that had been missing from her “act” now permeated her skin and tissues with rich, musky intensity. It was positively delicious. So was the feel of her within his mindheart. His mindheart was the magnet, and her lust, need, and passion were the metals. His growing control over them began to manipulate them into amplifying the one thing he needed from her right then.

      Pleasure.

      Pure, anything but simple, and so very exquisite as it radiated stronger and stronger from her, it fed him until he was glutted with the delicacy of it. He became more than a little drunk with the incredible power of it. He was physically aching and blood flooded hard and hot into long-starved tissues. Julian sensed a certain measure of starvation from Asia as well. She fought her headlong tumble far better than any before her that he had ever seen. She was clearly used to powering through denial, to depriving herself of the pleasures of the body despite how she was so well made for it. The tragedy of that was in the fact that she was resonant with the raw talent for loving. Everything about her screamed a level of sensitivity and passion unlike anything he’d known before, and he craved intimate knowledge with that part of her. Not like this. Not with the forcible connection of minds, auras, and emotions where she had been given no choice, but with all the power of voluntary physical release and need that he sensed she was capable of.

      “Oh God!”

      She cried out and followed it up with a gasp as her knees blindly rose up on either side of Julian’s hips, cradling him in the amazing heat of her core when her sudden surrendering movement settled him deeply against her. She couldn’t know how very long it had been since he had known such carnal pleasure. Even so, this was like nothing he could remember. The sheer heat of her overwhelmed him and he was pulsing almost violently with need as her legs snaked around his and pinned him tightly to her while she began to cant her hips up against him. The searing heat of her sex burned through the fabric of his trousers. She rubbed against his turgid cock like a cat in heat, which, he supposed, she was. A heat of his making.

      Not hers.

      That was what made the bodily pleasure he felt so very wrong. There was an act in this society where one person forcibly used another for physical sex. A deviant act they called rape. This did not exist in his world. In truth, there were much worse things than such an extreme violation to be found within his world. Still, he was keenly aware that what he was doing could be construed as a mental form of rape, because she had not been willing when it had begun, but he’d had no choice, and the penalty for breaking certain laws would have been far harsher on her than this choice of the moment. At least this path would give her bliss unlike anything she would have ever felt in her human existence.

      Julian moved to draw away from her grasp, but was surprised to realize just how strong she was. She clung tightly to him, dragging him back down until his nose was firmly burrowed between her breasts, his sense of smell overwhelmed by that heated aroma of pure, aroused woman. Her fingertips raked through his hair as she writhed harder and moaned in low, rich need.

      God, he needed her to let go of him, Julian thought as his own arousal began to feed back into the draw of hers through his stimulated mindheart. He could not be this close to her when she broke. Even now she was reaching a fervor as she rubbed in frantic strokes all around his captured body. She would climax soon, opening the Gate. He wouldn’t allow СКАЧАТЬ