Harbin’s face darkened and he pushed onto his feet, coming to tower over her. She glared up at him, refusing to let him intimidate her.
“I don’t fuck every female who glances at me,” he growled.
Aya huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No,” he snapped and grabbed her shoulders, his grip so tight it hurt. His eyes brightened, molten silver that warned she was pushing him again. “It isn’t that I don’t want you, Aya… I wanted you all those years ago… I want you now…”
She cursed her heart for doing a ridiculous flip in her chest and knocked his hands off her. “So what is it then?”
He sighed and reached out to touch her face but she stepped back, evading him. He lowered his hand to his side, his jaw clenched as he gritted his teeth and his nostrils flared as he drew in another deep breath.
His silver eyes held her immobile.
“It’s too dangerous.”
Before she could say a word, he grabbed her arm, pulled her close to him and shoved her right palm against his chest. Gods, he was as solid as a rock beneath her hand, his heart thundering against it.
“You can feel it… can’t you?” he whispered, his eyes locked on her face, imploring her to answer that question.
The beat of his heart was too fast, too hard.
Too wild.
He was barely in control and she had only kissed him.
“I’m on the cusp, Aya, and the hungers you bring out in me are too strong. I might not be able to… I don’t think I can keep control.” He flashed his fangs on a growl and clutched her hand, his short claws pressing in. “What you’re asking of me… I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
Aya stared at his hand, strong and beautiful, holding hers so tightly against his chest. Her heart beat in unison with his, a mad rush that turned her blood to liquid fire and made her burn to feel that hand on her body, satisfying the need that had been slowly consuming her from the moment he had kissed her in Archangel’s facility.
“I know it’s dangerous,” she whispered and slowly lifted her chin, bringing her eyes up to meet his. “I’m not asking you to retain control, Harbin… because I’m not sure either of us can.”
He snarled and swooped on her lips, his hands grasping her backside and hauling her up against him as he kissed her hard.
Gods, this was what she needed to feel. This hunger. This need. It poured through him into her, stoking her own need. She clutched his shoulders, moaning as she felt his muscles flex beneath her palms.
His feral growl as he turned and pinned her to the wall sent a cascade of shivers down her spine and had her pulling him closer, needing to feel him against her. She looped her arms around his neck and lifted her legs, locking them around his waist. He groaned and pressed against her, the hard bulge between his thighs rubbing her in just the right spot.
A moan slipped from her lips, she angled her head and kissed him deeper, tangling her tongue with his and seeking to master him. He fought back, his fierce kiss melting her bones and leaving her at his mercy. She needed more.
He gave it to her, using his body to pin her in place as he tore her robe open with one hand. She gasped as his cool hand cupped her right breast, squeezing and palming it, stirring the heat in her veins into an inferno. She rubbed against him, aching to feel him against her.
Naked.
She wanted to be flesh to flesh with him.
Aya released his shoulders, grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and yanked it up. He inched back, keeping his hips pressed hard against hers but giving her a view she would never forget as he helped her, tugging his t-shirt off over his head, revealing delicious compact muscles to her eyes.
Hell, she wanted to run her lips over every powerful inch of his body.
She wanted to kiss every scar, from the thickest ones on his left pectoral and above the ridge of muscle that ran over his right hip, to the tiny silvery ones that were barely noticeable on his creamy skin.
The need to feel his mouth on hers again overshadowed those hungers and she dragged him back against her. He took the hint and kissed her again, so hard that the back of her skull ached where it pressed against the wall. He strummed her nipple with one hand, the other cupping her backside.
Maddening.
She growled into his mouth, earning a low moan as her reward, and raked her nails down his sides, delighting in the firmness of his body beneath her wandering hands. She stroked her thumbs over his hips, the ridges of muscle there sending a hot thrill through her. His body was so hard against hers, the sense of power that ran from him into her cranking up her arousal until she was throbbing with need.
She needed him.
She needed her male.
“Harbin,” she uttered, the sound of her voice dripping with that need shocking her.
He growled in response and dropped her to her feet. She could only stare as he pulled his belt open and popped the buttons on his fly, and pushed his black jeans down his lean hips. Her breath hitched, desire pulsing through her as he revealed his cock. Her groin throbbed, wet with her need, and she moaned and bit her lip.
Gods, she needed him.
She reached a shaky hand out, wanting to touch the rigid steel length that rose from a nest of silver curls and stroke the shaft before teasing the soft dark tip.
“Can’t take that,” he muttered and grabbed her again, grasping her hips and shoving her up the wall. “Next time.”
She nodded. Next time.
The tiny sensible part of her mind that remained reminded her that there wasn’t meant to be a next time.
Harbin drowned it out by pulling her legs around his waist and entering her in one delicious hard thrust.
Aya cried out and he captured her lips and drove deeper into her, until their bodies were pressed against each other and she couldn’t take any more of him. She stilled with him, savouring the feel of him inside her, sensing he was doing the same. His kiss softened, slowing and warming her, filling her with light inside.
Dangerous light.
She couldn’t let this become anything other than getting her taste of him, discovering what it was like to be with him. She couldn’t. It was too dangerous.
He feared his primal need of her was dangerous.
She feared the same thing about hers. She feared it would make her fall for him all over again and he would break her heart again too.
She deepened the kiss and rocked against him, trying to shatter the softness of the moment and drive him into losing control again, surrendering to his carnal desires. He growled and grasped her hips as he withdrew, his cock almost leaving her before he drove back inside. She moaned in time with him as he thrust into her, each long stroke of his length cranking her need up to startling new heights.
He nipped her lower lip and then pressed his forehead against hers, his breath hot on her face as he pumped her harder, his hips flexing deliciously beneath her hands as she latched onto them.
Heaven.
Heat and tingles swept through her with each meeting of their hips, growing more intense as his thrusts grew fiercer. She moaned and tipped her head back, pressing it into the wall as she clung to him, feeling every intense plunge of his cock into her, feeling him laying claim to her body. She was ruined. She knew it. No male would ever be a match for Harbin. None would ever surpass him.
She had never felt anything like this.
It was mind blowing.
Incredible.
The soul-deep connection between them blossomed as Harbin dipped his head and kissed her neck, devouring it with soft nips of his blunt teeth, licking and teasing her until she quivered with need that only he could sate.
She tightened her legs around him and grabbed his right shoulder with one hand and the back of his head with the other, tunnelling her fingers into his hair.
“Gods,” she moaned, white lights dancing in front of her closed eyes as pleasure rolled through her, flowing from the spot where his lips tou
ched her and mingling with the bliss already building in her belly, edging closer to detonation.
Her mind whispered of the danger of allowing him at her neck but she couldn’t hear anything above the rush in her ears and her thundering heartbeat.
He snarled and thrust harder, his claws digging into her hips, pinning her at his mercy as he took her.
Claimed her.
She could sense it building within him, her instincts blaring a warning that she didn’t have the strength to heed. The hunger building within her, the need for release, was too powerful, consuming her.
She wanted more.
“Harbin,” she whispered and he growled against her throat in response and dipped his hips, angling them as he pumped faster, his powerful body flexing hard against hers.
His pelvic bone slammed against her sensitive nub and she cried out as the pleasure bomb that had been building inside her detonated, sending a shockwave through her that stole her breath and left her shaking from head to toe.
She moaned with each delicious aftershock that blasted through her, sweeping upwards in the wake of every hard rough thrust of his cock. He clutched her tighter, might have muttered her name into her throat, and nipped at her flesh again, sending a sharp wave of tingles rushing through her.
Aya started to shift her head to one side, desperate to feel his tongue on the nape of her neck and the sweet press of his fangs.
He inched closer and then snarled and grunted, his actions turning jerky as his cock throbbed and she felt his hot seed shooting into her. He sharply pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers, his hips thrusting slowly as his release swept through him. The feel of his cock pulsing sent more ripples of pleasure through her and she moaned in time with him.
As she slowly came down from her high, realisation dawned on her, cooling the blood rushing through her veins.
Harbin was tense beneath her hands, his feelings in disarray. He pulled free of her, set her down and tugged his jeans back up and buttoned them as he paced away from her, heading towards the bathroom to her left. Without so much as a backward glance at her, he slammed the door closed and she flinched as the loud bang echoed around the silent room.
Aya sank against the wall, her legs trembling, as shaken as he was.
She touched the spot on the back of her neck, the place where she had tried to tempt him into biting.
Into claiming her as his mate.
He had been right.
It had been too dangerous.
CHAPTER 17
Harbin gripped the edge of the black marble counter in front of him and stared at his reflection in the mirror, his face lit by the oil lamps that burned at a low setting on either side of it. Bright silver eyes looked back at him, shining and intense. He breathed hard, trying to quell the buzzing in his veins, the fierce demand that told him to return to Aya and finish what they had started.
His primal instincts commanded him to satisfy the need he had felt go through her with her climax.
The need to feel his fangs in the nape of her neck, marking her as his forever.
He growled and yanked the tap on, not waiting for the murky water to clear before scooping it up and splashing it on his face. The first wave drawn up from the well beneath the guild was warm, but it cooled quickly after that, until it was frigid and helped douse the powerful urge to surrender to that need and bite her.
He shouldn’t have let her carry him away like that, stripping down his resolve and his defences until he had given in to the hunger to have her. He should have been stronger.
He should have resisted.
Now he feared the buzzing in his veins would never go away, that he would forever be compelled to find Aya and be close to her, would forever need another taste of her, craving it until he went mad from that unfulfilled yearning.
They didn’t belong together. They were separated not only by the worlds they walked in, the realms they called home, but by a million other things, all of which he didn’t even want to attempt to overcome because it felt inevitable that there would always be one thing standing between them.
His past.
But gods, she had felt good in his arms, amazing wrapped around him and moaning hotly in his ear, uttering his name in a passion-drenched voice that was his new addiction. Forget the hunger to spill blood and the craving for the quiet calm that came before the kill.
Aya was more potent than that, more addictive, and he wasn’t sure he could ever get enough of her.
Harbin shoved his hand through his damp hair, preening it back from his face, and looked up at himself in the mirror. His eyes caught on the red streaks on his bare torso, wrapping around from his back to his stomach just above his hips. He stroked the ones on his right with his fingers, his heart beating harder as he recalled how she had scored him with her nails at the height of passion, a lost and wild thing that had driven him into the same dangerous state, making him let go of the fragile tethers of his control and unleashing his more animalistic side.
A growl rumbled through him.
She had marked him with her claws, and fuck, did he love it.
He loved that she had sought to place a claim on him, marking him as hers.
Too dangerous.
He should have stopped her. He should have been stronger.
He pinned his eyes back on his face in the mirror and then slid them towards the door behind him, feeling the full weight of his situation bearing down on him as he stared at it.
Now she was waiting in the other room, and he was locked in a cramped bathroom, and he would bet his left nut that she was just as confused as he was, searching for answers and not finding any.
The door grew hazy, his focus failing as the buzzing in his veins grew louder, rolling into a deafening roar that had him on the verge of turning around, opening the barrier between them and sweeping her up into his arms for round two.
He clamped his hands over the edges of the counter to anchor himself in place and breathed through it, using every technique he had learned over the past twenty years to master his emotions when they slipped the leash and maintain control.
Calm battled against craving, a fight so fierce he wasn’t sure he would win and be able to subdue the urges running rampant through his blood.
Through his soul.
Fuck, he could still sense her, could still feel the need in her. It was there beneath the surface when he went looking for it, easy to detect in her together with confusion, fear and anger. It lingered, as if she couldn’t quite dispel it. Need. Hunger. A craving that had his hands shaking against the marble, his fingers gripping it so tightly that his knuckles burned white.
His primal instincts pushed him to return to her, the powerful urge born of the need he felt burning through her and the one it had triggered in him—a need to satisfy his female.
He tensed when he sensed her move, his head twitching to his left, towards the door. It didn’t have a lock. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she walked in, wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself. He needed more time to rein in his desires and master them again, composing himself so he could face her.
Fuck, there wasn’t much in this world that scared him, but the beautiful female in the next room was doing a damned good job of rattling him.
A knock sounded.
Not on the bathroom door.
Someone was at the main door of his small apartment. Someone powerful. He whipped around to face the bathroom door and his eyes widened as he heard the quiet creak of the knob on the main door turning.
Aya.
He couldn’t hold back the snarl as he yanked the bathroom door open and stormed into the bedroom, driven to place himself between her and the intruder. She stood in the narrow corridor between the bathroom and the bed, barely a metre from the opening door, hastily tying the belt of the blue robe around her waist. He grabbed her arm and shoved her behind him, shielding her with his body just as the door opened.
Fuery pinned cold black eyes on him
and then lowered them to his hand where it still gripped Aya’s arm, holding her behind him. The elf’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his ears grew pointier. Aggression. Harbin knew the tells. He had been around elves long enough to have figured out the warning signs he needed to heed in order to keep his head on his shoulders.
He had also been around the mad bastard in front of him long enough to know how to defuse that aggression in most situations.
“What do you want, Fuery?” he said, pulling the elf’s attention away from the female behind him and narrowing it down to him.
Fuery raised his gaze back to Harbin and relaxed a notch, but not as much as Harbin had expected. Something about Aya had rattled the elf too. Because she was female? They didn’t have a female in the guild, and the times he had asked Hartt why, the elf had always glossed over it, mixing up his reasons between the female body’s lack of natural strength compared with a male’s, safety reasons, and keeping his male assassins on track at all times.
Harbin was beginning to think it actually had something to do with Fuery.
The dark elf drew in a slow, deep breath, and exhaled. “Hartt.”
Fuery never had been a man of many words. In all the years that Harbin had worked for Hartt, he had probably heard Fuery speak around one hundred words in English.
He had heard the elf rant like a crazed son of a bitch in his own language though.
“I’ll go to see him.” Harbin tugged Aya closer to his back when Fuery glanced down at her hand and she bumped into him, her other hand coming up to rest on his bare skin and sending a thousand volts through him. Heat curled outwards from the place where she touched, slowly sweeping through him and reigniting his desire.
Fuery’s black eyes narrowed.
Dark lines traced over him, flickering and broken, and he cast a pained look at Harbin before storming away.
Hartt had also never mentioned why Fuery couldn’t teleport.
Marked by an Assassin Page 19