by Hope, Anne
So what if he had?
Her defenses were unraveling, one thread at a time. She felt it, sensed it in the deepest corner of her soul. A soul that insisted on calling out to him, no matter how much she fought to silence it.
Now that she’d come clean about her illness, a weight seemed to have lifted from her shoulders. He knew the truth, understood the inherent risk of growing attached to her. And yet here he was, holding her, seducing her with his gaze alone.
He’d told her souls were constantly being reborn, had promised to find her again. Was it possible? In a world of over seven billion souls, what were the odds that their paths would cross not once but twice?
His hand skimmed the column of her throat, a brush of cool satin against her flesh. Angie’s head fell back. Her eyes drifted shut. Adrian’s touch was like a hypnotic dance, slow and sensual.
“You never told me where you live.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her, low and husky. It was a bold and reckless thing to say, an invitation to trouble, but Angie had never been one to shy away from life…or danger.
His perfectly shaped mouth grazed hers. The thin strip of air between them vibrated with an electrical charge that made her nerve endings hum with anticipation. Heat spiraled through her, pooling low in her belly.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, traced a burning trail toward her ear again. “Why don’t I show you?”
Chapter Twenty-One
When Adrian took her hand and guided her to the subway station, Angie assumed they’d be taking the train. Instead, he led her to a service door, beyond which an elaborate network of forgotten tunnels stretched. She didn’t know how long they walked or where he was taking her. All she knew was that they kept venturing deeper and deeper beneath the city.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“You’ll see.” Humor laced his voice, as did a note of mystery.
“How? It’s pitch-black down here.”
Adrian tightened his grip on her hand. “I won’t let you fall. Trust me.”
As she followed him into the heart of blackness, her fingers firmly secured in his, she did trust him. Never in her life had she felt safer.
Since she couldn’t rely on her sight, she focused on her other senses instead. A dank, musty odor permeated the air, a sure sign of abandonment and neglect. Her shoes glided across the slippery cement floor, and she became convinced that a thin film of condensation carpeted its hard surface. The distant sound of a train taking off or grinding to a halt occasionally pierced the deafening silence, growing fainter by the second.
Adrian escorted her down another flight of stairs. They took a few more sharp turns, then he came to an abrupt stop. A door creaked then swung open on rusted hinges.
Angie released his hand and crossed the threshold, her breath catching in her throat. “This is surreal.” She felt like Christine in The Phantom of the Opera. She’d gone to see the Broadway play, and she had yet to forget the elaborate maze stretching beneath the opera house.
Roman columns—topped by rounded arches—held up a vaulted ceiling. Intricate designs adorned their surfaces, along with flickering sconces. Several huge chandeliers hung overhead, casting a golden glow throughout the vast, cavernous room. Angie could’ve sworn she stood in the foyer of some European chateau, certainly not in an abandoned subway station several stories beneath the ground.
“What is this place?”
A look she couldn’t decipher came over his face. “Home.”
“You live down here?”
He didn’t answer, simply urged her deeper into his beautiful, isolated sanctuary. The utility room around the corner had been converted to a kitchen, with all the conveniences she enjoyed at her Manhattan penthouse. A mahogany table flanked by velvet chairs squatted in the center, over an antique Oriental rug.
They continued walking, and Angie took in the sights around her with unabashed awe. There were paintings on the walls, sculptures tucked away in quiet corners, a bookcase lined with numerous thick volumes that looked centuries old.
She ran her fingers over a marble statue, a woman with a veil over her head. The detailing was simply exquisite. “Where did you get all this stuff?”
“Some things I took, others I convinced people to give me.” No pride resonated in his voice. “I haven’t exactly lived an honorable existence.”
If the confession was meant to repel her, it didn’t work. She’d devoted her life to reforming thieves, and Adrian was no exception. His shady past only fueled her fascination with him, as did the loneliness she sensed in him. He’d surrounded himself with beauty, with art and literature and glimmering chandeliers, yet none of these things had filled the void within him. A void that only grew deeper with each additional year he spent in isolation.
“I’ve never brought anyone down here before,” he told her, confirming her thoughts. She withdrew her hand from the statue and raised it to his face, stroking his cheek. His skin felt smooth and cool beneath her palm. “I’m glad you chose to share it with me.”
He lowered his head until his nose brushed hers. She closed her eyes against the sweet sensation gathering in her throat. In that one suspended breath, Angie had everything she’d ever wanted, everything she could possibly need. Forever no longer felt like a dream, but a promise. One she ached to seal with a kiss.
Lifting her chin, she vanquished the distance between their mouths.
He made a deep, silky sound that warmed her blood and sharpened the escalating yearning within her. Tentatively, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. The air between their bodies vanished. The hard wall of his chest dug into her breasts, making every inch of her skin pulse.
He seized her by the waist, let his hands wander up her back and buried them in her hair. Angie went liquid against him. Her knees grew wobbly, unreliable, so she strengthened the grip she had on him by digging her nails into his shoulders.
Adrian didn’t complain. He held her so tight she could barely breathe. He swamped all her senses, surrounded her with his heat. She gasped when he spun her around and pinned her against a column. Her entire world blurred, shifted out of focus. Never before had she experienced so many sensations at once.
She drew in a shaky breath, broke the kiss. “Wait. There’s something you should know before—” Heat flooded her cheeks. “Before this goes any further.”
“More secrets?” he rasped against her mouth, his fingers stroking her throat, his leg wedged between her thighs in a most unsettling way.
“I’ve never—” She bit her lower lip. “This is really embarrassing.”
His hand traveled down the length of her neck, swept across her chest to close enticingly over her breast. His leg moved against her, stroking her so intimately, words failed her.
To her surprise, he said it for her. “You’re a virgin.”
She froze. “How did you know? Is it that obvious? Do I walk around with a big, flashing neon sign over my—”
He cut her off with another sweltering kiss. “I may not be able to read your mind, but I can feel your soul.” He ran his tongue across the very lip she had the nasty habit of mauling. “I can sense your hopes, your dreams, your deepest desires.” His wicked mouth traced a burning trail toward the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Desires you won’t even admit to yourself.”
Angie swallowed past her discomfort. “Well, where’s the fun in that? Every relationship needs a little mystery.”
“I disagree.” He raised her leg, securing it around his hip. If she hadn’t been convinced as to how much he wanted her before, she was now. Knowing she had this kind of an effect on him bolstered her confidence and made her ache for him all the more. “And tonight, I have every intention of teaching you all the benefits of full disclosure. If you’ll let me.”
A smile blossomed inside her. Maybe she didn’t have forever like he did. Maybe she was weak and fragile, held prisoner by her human frailties. Maybe tomorrow would come and yank the rug out from under he
r.
But none of that mattered now. All that mattered was loving him. The only thing sadder than dying was dying a virgin. If she let this moment pass her by, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
“All right.” Excitement shimmied down her spine, tempered by a flush of nervous insecurity, which she willed herself to overcome. “Teach me.”
With a boldness that surprised her as much as it did him, she raised her other leg and wrapped herself around him. His heat pressed into her, taunted and seduced her. Anticipation zipped through her veins. “Make love to me, Adrian.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Make love to me.”
Adrian had been waiting for weeks to hear Angie utter those words. All he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d met her was seduce her, and now that he’d succeeded, uncertainty stilled his hands.
Contradictory thoughts and feelings raged inside him. The untamed beast within him wanted to possess her, to put his mark on her and have her put her mark on him. But the man she’d slowly brought back to life hesitated.
She was so perfect, so pure, so unlike him. What if his love corrupted her? What if he lost control and pulled her essence deep inside him, robbing her of whatever time she had left on this earth?
She pressed a gentle palm against his cheek. “Is something wrong?”
When he failed to answer, her eyes flitted away from his face, and she unwrapped her legs from around his waist. Embarrassment made her skin flush with color. “I thought you wanted this.”
A harsh laugh issued from his chest. “You have no idea.”
Her unsteady gaze reluctantly met his. “Then what’s holding you back?”
“My goddamn conscience.” Of all the times to develop scruples. He’d never had trouble taking this kind of risk before, but Angie was different. The mere possibility of hurting her chilled his blood. “My kind, we’re not meant to mate with humans. Sometimes things go wrong.”
“Like what?”
He had to be honest with her. She needed to know exactly what kind of risk she was taking by being here with him. “If I’m not careful, I could kill you.”
Her self-consciousness forgotten, she raised herself on the tips of her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. The delicate gesture was so seductive his entire body shook with need. “I can think of worse ways to go.” Her words feathered across his mouth, her breath smelling faintly of strawberries.
A pained groan formed deep in his throat. “What if I lose control? What if I steal your soul?”
Her other hand rose to bracket his face. “You already have.” She kissed him again, her tongue tracing his lips, her hot body clinging to his, and his entire universe spun out of focus. Even if he’d been made of steel, he wouldn’t have been able to resist the sweet lure of her mouth.
He deepened the kiss, surprised when her life-force failed to react to the assault. Usually, a soul responded to his presence like a magnet, fighting to free itself from the body housing it and spear into him. Angie’s didn’t.
Maybe Marcus was right. Maybe her soul possessed some kind of resistance to him. If that was true, then he could love her fully, without fear or restraint. The thought emboldened him and slowly stripped away his doubts.
Still plundering her mouth, he yanked her off her feet and gathered her in his arms. She made a soft rasping sound against his lips and snuggled against him. Tenderness clogged his windpipe until it hurt to breathe. He ached to protect her, to cherish and shelter her. Right there and then he made a vow to himself. Nothing would take her from him. Not Kyros, not illness, not fate. Nothing. She was his, the part of himself that had been missing all these years, and he intended to keep her.
He carried her to the isolated nook that served as his bedroom and gently deposited her on the bed. Taking a moment, he absorbed the sight of her spread over his sheets. Golden-brown hair formed a delicate web across his white pillow as she watched him with nervous anticipation, her lips swollen from his kisses. Low lighting cast a yellow glow over her, gilding her skin and making her eyes shimmer.
He could’ve stood there forever watching her. In all his existence, he’d never seen anything as beautiful as Angie. He’d collected priceless works of art, furniture that had once graced the walls of palaces, carpets of the finest silk, but none of these things had brought him any joy or fulfillment.
And yet the image of Angie lying on his bed waiting for him made his whole world tilt on its axis.
She shifted uncomfortably. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Her hand shot to her head in an attempt to tame her wild curls. “It’s my hair, isn’t it?”
Adrian gripped her wrist and pinned her arm to the bed, startling her. “Don’t touch it. It’s perfect.” He caressed her scalp with his other hand until she relaxed beneath him. Her eyes drifted shut, and she angled her chin, exposing her throat.
Something urgent and feral shot through him. He lowered his mouth to her neck. Her pulse drummed a frantic beat against his lips as he kissed her delicate flesh. She sighed, her body loosening, her anxiety easing.
Arching her back, she buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer. Adrian’s body lurched in response. The need to conquer, to both please and dominate, blinded him. How would he love her the way she deserved to be loved, when all he wanted to do was rip her clothing to shreds and claim her?
She moved beneath him, her leg rubbing him in ways that threatened to snap the thin thread of his self-control.
“Easy there,” he grunted. “We have to take things slow.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
He chuckled against the enticing column of her throat. “Believe me. You want to.”
His fingers slowly undid the buttons of her pink silk shirt, one that was covered with a wild sprinkle of flowers and was far sexier when it fell open to reveal her white cotton bra. His hand itched to close over the gentle swell of her breast, but he held back. Instead, he continued kissing her, gliding his mouth over her skin, tasting and exploring every delicious inch of her.
Angie shuddered beneath him. “Do what you did to me last night. Touch me everywhere at once.”
Adrian’s breath came fast and hard at her words. He remembered how it had felt to invade her mind, to merge his consciousness with hers, to feel everything she felt in addition to the medley of sensations already running rampant through his veins.
Even from across the street, he’d had trouble controlling his baser impulses. It had taken an inhuman amount of self-discipline not to go to her, not to climb through her window and slide into bed beside her. If he were to breach her mind now, with her so close, he could lose what little restraint he had. Resisting temptation was hard enough without her mouth skimming his jawbone, the peaks of her breasts digging enticingly into his chest and her hips doing dangerous things to the lower part of his anatomy.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse her. Fortifying himself against the inevitable onslaught of sensation, he penetrated the walls of her psyche and proceeded to stimulate every forgotten nerve in her body.
The moment his power took hold, she inhaled sharply and bucked beneath him. “Oh, God.”
Something wild and animalistic clawed at his gut. His own nerve endings throbbed with heated awareness. Before he could stop himself, he tugged at her parted shirt, freeing her from it. Next he yanked off her bra and drew her hard nipple into his mouth. She made a startled hissing sound, her fingers tightening their grip on his hair. The gesture should’ve been painful, but it wasn’t. All it did was fuel the fire ravaging his system. His hand traveled down the length of her side, over her belly, toward the clasp of her pants. A few skillful moves and she lay naked beneath him, bathed in flickering yellow light.
He sensed a wave of self-consciousness struggling to break through the haze of desire in her mind, but he beat it into submission, replacing it with another surge of molten pleasure. Her body tensed beneath his, her chest rising and falling with each violent breath she i
nhaled, her tight, round breast finding shelter in his mouth.
Adrian was more than happy to accommodate. He lavished kisses on her, his hand seeking out the damp heat between her legs. With one fluid thrust, he entered her with his finger. He needed to know if she was ready for him.
She stiffened at the invasion. “What are you doing?” Shyness fought to reassert itself.
“Preparing you.” He stroked her intimately, and her breath caught in her throat.
“For what?” She inclined her hips and rocked against him despite herself.
“For me.”
She pressed her thighs together, her body shuddering around him, and he chuckled. This was going to be easier than he’d thought. The more ready she was for him, the less chance there was that he’d hurt her. Not that he’d had much experience with virgins.
He drew himself up and claimed her mouth again. He continued stroking her as he feathered worshipping kisses over her body, not stopping until he felt her burning beneath him, until all her inhibitions melted away and all that was left was the shattering need for completion.
When he was convinced her body was ready for him, he stood and stripped off his clothing, got the necessary precautions, then joined her on the bed again. The last thing he wanted was to impregnate her. Raising a Hybrid child could be a dangerous proposition for a human, and Angie had enough to deal with as it was.
For a few tension-filled seconds, he lay beside her, as exposed as she, savoring the feel of her skin against his. Energy flared wherever their flesh touched, a current so powerful it robbed him of both thought and speech.
She pulled him to her, forcing him to blanket her body with his. He felt awkward, vulnerable, as if he were the virgin. In a way he was. He’d had his fair share of women, but Angie was different. This was different. Being with her was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Her legs parted to receive him, and any qualms he had evaporated. This was where he was meant to be, where he needed to be. Nothing else mattered. He entered her slowly, willing her to relax, his mind caressing hers. As he gently rocked against her, their psyches merged along with their bodies.