Dark Hunter's Touch. Jessa Slade

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СКАЧАТЬ the points on his fingers. “I was focusing on the important stuff.”

      She pursed her lips. “You were focusing on my breasts.”

      “Important stuff,” he reiterated. He flashed her a lazy smile.

      Another blow from the horn—farther away, but still too close—shivered each grain of sand and droplet of water so that the beach scintillated with uncanny brilliance. The otherworldly beauty froze his smile in place.

      “The Hunters are coming fast,” she whispered. She stepped closer to him. He breathed the scent of her, wild and heady, like a rare flower that shouldn’t exist trapped here between bare rock and vast ocean.

      “There is no place to hide.” He didn’t bother whispering.

      “In plain sight.” She took another step closer. Even streaked with sand, with her red-gold hair roughed into standing waves and her wings tucked demurely behind her, she shone almost too pure for his gaze.

      His hands twitched, reaching out to her of their own accord—wanting.

      She gazed up at him with glimmering gemstone eyes. “Do you trust me?”

      How could she ask that, when he was the one with his hands settling at the tender junction of her neck and shoulders, just above her bare breasts and her delicate wings? He brushed his thumb along the line of her jaw and felt her tremble.

      Afraid, was she? Of the Hunters following? Of him or of herself?

      “I just jumped off a cliff with you,” he reminded her in a ragged voice. “And I didn’t scream at all.”

      “Then kiss me.”

      His stroking thumb stilled. “Kiss you? Here? Now?” Even with those furious Hunters on their path, his heart had not hammered as painfully as it did now. “But—”

      “Kiss me.” Her voice quivered then smoothed, like bright quartz pebbles turning over in a gentle wave. Helplessly, his body swayed toward her, drawn by the undertow. “Kiss me as if there is no room even for moonlight between us, as if we have only one breath to share. Kiss me now.”

      Before she finished speaking, his lowered his mouth over her parted lips and did as she commanded.

      Ah, sweet good night! She was more than he had dreamed. Every time they had passed, with every fleeting glance, she had thrown one more loop of mystery around him. Now he had her in his arms, and he would finally have his answers.

      She tasted of forbidden yearnings, of sunlight that made the shadows deeper. He curled his fingers in the fall of her hair, and the silky caress over the backs of his knuckles set his every nerve ablaze.

      He drew her close against his body until the pendant ground into his breastbone. The twinge distracted him, and he tried to gentle his grasp. It was too much too soon. But she gripped his biceps and drew herself up to her tiptoes, surfing his chest like a perfect breaking swell.

      Her tongue teased his. Yeah, something was definitely swelling.... He returned the favor, tracing the slick inner curve of her out-thrust lip. He nipped gently, and her grip tightened on his arms.

      She pulled back just a bit. Her eyes, searching his, were wide enough to catch a last spear of moonlight just before the clouds closed entirely.

      He stroked one finger down her exposed spine. Beneath his calloused palm, the trailing edge of her wing was softer than velvet. He rubbed the scalloped bottom, amazed how the tissue-thin substance flexed with curious strength against his gentle tug, as if at the memory of a restless wind. The sensation delighted him on some deep level. The feeling was obviously mutual because she closed her eyes and swayed into him.

      He caressed her wing again in one long, slow sweep from shoulder blade to backside. His fingers were faintly slicked with a silvery powder that smelled like sex; as if she wasn’t irresistible enough, her wings cast off an aphrodisiac.

      He closed his eyes briefly, struggling to find his control even though the musk of arousal was pushing him toward an edge with a sharper drop than the other cliff she’d pushed them over. “Do you want me to stop?”

      She shuddered. No, the movement wasn’t hers. The sand beneath their feet quaked. Their pursuers were coming closer.

      “Don’t stop!” A chill mist rose around them, and her cry twisted in a desperate plume.

      He gathered her closer. His shoulders stiffened as if he could warn off all that threatened her with his possessive stance. Even as he claimed her for himself, he understood why the Hunters would never stop searching; with the silver glow of her spirit and the sky-blue sparkle of her eyes, she was too precious to lose.

      The pounding of hoofbeats echoed in his ears, along with the sound of hungry hounds panting....

      Or maybe that was just him.

      He flattened one hand against her back to brace her and then bent her gently to trail his lips down her neck. The slender arch of her throat trembled under his mouth with the resonance of her breathy moan. He inhaled the earthy perfume of salt and damp sand and rousing flesh. His own shaky exhale unfurled like dragon smoke across her skin.

      The mist had thickened and coiled in sinister figures, half seen and menacing…ravenous and seeking.

      Well, they could back the hell off; he already had her.

      The pendant had slipped off center and the V of the chain arrowed over her left breast. He framed the lower curve of her breast between his thumb and forefinger and plumped the flesh until the blue stone shifted over the darkening skin of her nipple. She moaned again as he pressed his lips to the center of the V, just off the upper swell of her breast where her heartbeat matched itself to his.

      “I refuse to scream ‘Mo’ when I come,” he whispered. “Give me your real name,”

      She shook her head fretfully. “Who said you are going to come? And my name doesn’t matter.”

      “It does to me.” He looked at her. The cold nipped at the moisture of her skin, dampening his lips.

      “Imogene,” she gasped. “Just don’t stop.”

      He dipped his head again and laughed against her flesh. His lower lip brushed over the steel and closed on her puckered flesh. He traced his tongue in a slow circle around her nipple, drawing the peaked pebble deeper into his mouth.

      She moaned and threaded her fingers through his hair, holding him close.

      Around them, the shadows shifted in vain, as if casting around for something gone missing. Vaile closed his eyes and ignored the cold darkness that pulsed around them in favor of the vibrant warmth beneath his hands.

      His body shifted in response to each minute motion of hers, like a dance. She tilted her shoulder, and he suckled at her other breast. She angled one foot back to take his weight, and he nudged his knee between her legs. The wispy fabric of her shorts slipped over his thigh, less obtrusive than even the sheerest bedsheets. He might as well be naked for all the modesty his own shorts offered.

      As if she’d read his thoughts—certainly she could not mistake his interest—her hands slipped along his shoulders and down his arms to settle just above his СКАЧАТЬ