Forged: The World of Nightwalkers (13 page)

And instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say. Or perhaps the very rightest thing he’d ever said because she got her back up in a fiery flash of indignant bourbon eyes.

“I am not small! Nor am I frail! Stop treating me like I’m some kind of porcelain figurine!”

“And you’re tough enough to survive a beast that grabs you by the throat in the middle of the darkness?
A beast so used tae fighting for his life he’d crush you wi’out even knowing he was doing so? Wi’out a regret?” he demanded of her angrily.

Her eyes softened in their regard of him. “You sound very much like a man with regret.”

Well, it was hard to argue with that when he took a moment to think about it. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m … Ah, God, Kat lass. I know what I am but I canna think of anything but how fine you’d taste right now. What does that make me in your eyes?”

She swallowed visibly and audibly. She didn’t answer, but her gaze dropped to his mouth and a sort of answering craving seemed to blossom in her eyes. He could see it and he could feel it. Just as true as he could feel himself grow even harder at the very thought of it.

“Damn me tae hell and back,” he muttered as his breath fell hotly over her lips. “You’ll hate me and then some one day. Mark my words.”

And with those prophetic words, he gave in to his impulses and rushed his mouth against hers. There was nothing gentle about the kiss, nothing introductory. He kissed her as though he’d earned every right to ravage the breath from her body. His words had spoken of caution and concern, but his mouth … Oh, his mouth was not holding anything back. It took only a second for utter craving to take the wheel. He pressed into her with a deeply indrawn breath, his weight falling over her, his body propped on one elbow while the other hand gripped her at her hip and drew her tightly against him.

Sweet hell
, he thought an instant after he ran his tongue across the plush seam of her lips, the craving she felt for the coming of it reflected in the softest little moan on the back of the softest little sigh. Had he not been so keen of hearing he might have missed it, and that would have been a crying shame. He swept his tongue
into her mouth and there it was, instant bliss, the sweetest of flavors known to man. Oh, and the heat of her. Wet and lush it was searing him to the quick. All of her was searing him to the quick.

He feared he was being too rough with her. After all, he’d not been with a human female in nearly three centuries. No. He’d slaked his bodily needs on Gargoyle females. Women as much beast as he was. Women who could readily take him at his worst.

But here was this gentle, delicate thing beneath him and he had no right, no right at all, to be doing this. Yet that lecture, like all the internal lectures thus far, fell on his completely deaf ears. He was too full of longing. Too overwhelmed with the taste and feel of her. And then her hand reached for his hair, her fingers plowing through the thick black locks, her palm pressing against him and …

 … encouraging him? Wanting
more
of him? She was unafraid? Or was she just unaware of the fire she was dancing so close to?

That was when her tongue came forward and slipped inside his mouth. Had he thought himself hard before? Oh, what an unsuspecting fool he was. The feel of her aggressing into the kiss was the most erotic thing he could ever remember to that date. But why? Why was she affecting him so hotly?

He didn’t care. He grabbed her at her hip, shifting himself over her, groaning when she parted her thighs and welcomed the weight of him between them. Their kiss took on a new, fiery life, her lips burning against his, the wetness of her toying against his tongue. He felt honored. Couldn’t help but to feel it. He knew he was undeserving of her trust after what he’d just done to her, undeserving of
her
, period. But he couldn’t make himself pull away, couldn’t keep himself from pressing his hips forward
against her, his naked flesh rubbing up against the denim of her jeans.

Her hand left his hair, her nails raking down the back of his neck. Every muscle in his body clenched as the sensation rode through him. Then her touch was curving over his shoulder, sliding down his chest and under his arm so she could draw her fingers down his back. The feel of her touching him was more arousing, it seemed, than him touching her was. The idea boggled because right then he couldn’t get his hands on her fast enough, hard enough, thorough enough.

He drew back from the kiss, catching his breath, his mouth hovering so close to hers as he groaned with pleasure from her touch. If she kept heading in that direction, she’d soon have her hand on his ass, and the anticipation of it floored him.

He tried to do her one better. His hand drew down to the hem of her sweater and lifting it with quick fingers he slid his hand beneath it, his palm running up over her ribs, his fingertips brushing the underside of her breast. It was far too tempting, far too overwhelming, the craving for more. He hotly embraced her breast, felt the fullness of it filling his hand, her nipple pointed and sweet.

She moaned and lifted into his touch and it was like he’d captured starlight—that was how bright and burning his reaction was.

“There now, there’s a willing lass,” he groaned against her mouth.

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. All her pliancy disappeared like the whip of a magician’s cloth revealing a trick. She drew back from him, before he could reclaim her in another kiss, as if she suddenly realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with.

Damn
, he thought with vehemence.
Bloody hell and damn! I want her too much to stop!

“Wait! Stop!” she said, her hands leaving his skin to push at him. Pushing him away as if she weren’t soft and wet with wanting him. And he could tell, just by the power of scent alone that she was all of that and more.

It was too late for her to suddenly agree he was too much a beast for her liking, he thought fiercely. She couldn’t give him just a taste of something that powerful and then expect him to stop wanting it altogether.

“Why wait?” he asked her, his hand leaving her breast to curve around her hip and around to the sweet shape of her arse. He loved the shaped of her, the way she filled his hand so well in spite of how small the rest of her was.

“Because I don’t want this!” she blurted out.

A fine and balder lie was never heard
, he thought with amusement.

Kat was suddenly awash with conflicting emotions and desires. Oh, he felt so good. So damn good. So male and powerful under the grip and press of her palms. One hand held him in a tight grip around his shoulder, and one hand was pushing against his chest and it was as if she couldn’t make herself agree on what to do.

But she wasn’t going to be a “willing lass.” The kind of willing woman who acted and thought nothing of later consequences. She had made a good life for herself here, and she wasn’t going to let him come in and ride roughshod all over it. She wanted things. Things that had nothing to do with big, sexy Gargoyles.

Just then his voice turned deeper, lower … guttural, his accent growing thicker with obvious desire.

“I ken you’re afraid of me half the time, but the other half,” he said, his face turning against her neck until he was breathing her in, “the other half of the time you’re wanting me. I know it because I feel it. I
smell
it. ’Tis a thing so ravenous that I canna ignore it.” His hand ran up the side of her body in a long, purposeful caress, ending
with him cupping her left breast in a hard, insistent hold again that made her gasp. “And I’ll be willin’ tae bet that if I touched you below and between, you’re wet and wanting me as well.”

She gasped again, this time with indignation even as her face flamed hot because the rest of her flamed even hotter. “I am not!” she lied sharply. “Don’t think so much of yourself! And get your hands off me!” She wriggled as if to throw him off her, but his grip was like iron and it was laughable to think she was any contest to his incredible strength. Even weakened as he was, there was nothing she could do to fight him. And besides, half of her heart wasn’t in it because he was right. He was right to say she was overwhelmed with craving. There was a part of her that wanted him to do as he said, touch her there and prove her a liar.

“Li’le liar,” he said, as though he could read her mind. His hand ran down from her breast and she began to breathe so hard it was a wonder she didn’t pass out. He swept his fierce touch down her belly and over the front of her jeans. He cupped her then with powerful fingers and used his grip on her to jerk her hips up, his erection so bold and hard against her thigh she felt her knees go weak.

“There now,” he hissed. “I can feel the heat of you. And how could I be so hard that my bollocks hurt from it if you were as cold tae me as you say you are?”

“I’m not responsible for the state of your … your …”

“Bollocks,” he said with smug amusement.

“Yes. Shut up!” She didn’t think she could burn any hotter with embarrassment, not to mention other things. He moved his hand then and ground himself against her and she felt herself responding wetly. A moan escaped her and he chuckled.

“I canna help it. ’Tis my nature, lass. Gargoyles are a lusty lot even under the weakest of circumstances, but
when we sense lust toward us from another … you ken there’s no resisting it. In other words, I wouldna be feeling it if you were as cold tae me as you claim.” He exhaled against her neck, his breath steamy and rich. “And there’s nothing cold about you,” he reminded her, his grip on her tightening just enough to get her attention. “Now I’m going tae slide my hand under this denim you’re hiding behind and I’m going tae prove tae us both how wet you are.”

“So what!” she blurted out. “Okay, so what if I am. I-it’s been a-a long time and of c-course I’m going to feel something when you’re touching me like this! It’s not as though you’re hard to look at and all muscley and testosteroney! I’d have to be dead not to respond to that. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t want a-a man like you?” When he exhaled with satisfaction into her hair she made herself go stiff in his hold. “It doesn’t mean I actually am going to have sex with you! I’m a discerning woman and … and you’re … you’re …”

“Go on and say it, lass,” he urged her, his voice like churning gravel, a sense of grimness to his tone. “I’m a Gargoyle. I’m a thing you don’t understand. An inhuman thing. Go on. Say it.”

“No,” she said, deflating in his hold, half the tension in her body disappearing. “A Gargoyle, yes. A
person
I don’t understand. But not inhuman. I don’t think of you like you’re inhuman.”

His hand slid away from intimate areas, coming to rest low on her belly. “Well,” he said, “that’s something I suppose. Something tae start with. And you’ve admitted you want me. Another thing in my favor.”

She huffed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Nay, no’ when it comes tae you. I promise you that.”

The promise affected her in unexpected ways. It made her feel … cherished. Did he mean it that way? Everything he’d said up to that point had been just hot hard
lust, but that one statement made it more … personal. As if … as if it was more about her than it was about his sensual nature. As if her affect on him was somehow special.

“Will you let me go now?” she asked softly, still aware that he held her very tightly and that he was still as hard as steel against her. Good God, she couldn’t help but recall how … 
endowed
he was. It ought to be terrifying, and, she supposed, she
was
a little bit terrified. But that fear meant she was contemplating him actually using it with her and she couldn’t let her mind go there.

Only, it was clearly already there.

No.
No
, she lectured herself.
You can do this. You just have to be firm
.

Firm. He was firm. Oh yes … very, very f—

Shit.
Shit shit shit! Stop it, Katrina Christina Haynes! This is a slippery slope and you’re just going to fall on your ass if you keep this up!

“I canna let you go when you keep squirming again’ me. Feels too bloody good.”

“I’m not squirming! And even if I were, it wouldn’t be so you could get your jollies with it! It’s because I’m trying to escape, you big oaf! Now let me go.”
Oaf? Really, Katrina, was that the best you could do?

“I will, but on one condition,” he said, his eyes light with amusement.

“What is it?” she asked warily.

“That you promise me another kiss. No’ now, but later on, at a time of my choosing. If I ask, you have to give over. Just a kiss, Kat lass. One wee li’le kiss.”

Kat bit her lip, her heart thundering in her chest. Not just because of all that had happened thus far, but because the idea of him calling in a marker like that at any given moment in the future well and truly excited her as if he were already kissing her all over again.

“All right,” she breathed. “But just one. And no tongue.”

“Oh, there’ll be tongue and plenty of it,” he countered. “I doona do things halfway and I willna expect otherwise from you. But just a kiss. Whatever comes after, now that’s up to you.”

“You promise?”

“Aye, I swear it.”

“Okay,” she assented.

Slowly, with obvious reluctance, he relaxed his hold on her, letting her move away from him in small increments. She was about a foot away from him, sliding toward the opposite side of the bed, still bathed in the infernal heat he was giving off, when he reached a hand to her neck, stroking a long caress against the side of her throat and then up into her hair.

“Good God, you’re beautiful,” he said on a low breath. “ ’Tis no’ because I’m tryin’ tae make headway with you that I say it, but only because ’tis the truth.”

She didn’t acknowledge the compliment, or the way it made her feel all melty inside. Still she just moved out of his hold, got to her feet, and walked away. She left the room without so much as a glance over her shoulder toward him, and it was possibly one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life.

Ahnvil rubbed the heel of his palm down the length of his cock. He had a cockstand that could drive nails and the woman who caused it was walking in the wrong damn direction. Christ above, didn’t she understand how this was painful for him? And not just in the physical sense. No matter what her protestations otherwise, he knew she saw him as a thing … a thing to be frightened of. And she wouldn’t be entirely wrong to think so. It’d been a long time since he’d been human, and now he spent only half his life as one … if that much.
He wondered sometimes if he had forgotten how to be human altogether.