Each one magnified his rage.
“I am so pissed off right now,” he snarled.
“Uh, I can tell,” she said, not sounding worried. “Your eyes are glowing.”
Glowing past the contacts? That was bad. Very, very bad. Soon a surge of pure energy would leave his body, frying everything around him. Unless . . . No. No, he wouldn’t. “You need to leave, Evie. Get in the car and drive away. I’ll meet you at the ruins.”
“As if!” The foolish girl approached him. “What’s going on with you?”
“Evie!”
“If we’re friends, you’ll tell me,” she insisted. “Maybe I can help.”
Low blow, using the friendship he’d insisted on. “I have more Arcadian abilities than anyone knows. I’m more powerful than anyone knows.” He’d never told anyone the full scope of his badassery, not even Michael. Humans feared what they didn’t understand, and he didn’t want his friends to fear him. “Sometimes that power builds up and requires an outlet.”
She thought for a moment. “Kind of like the world’s worst temper tantrum with deadly results?”
He nearly choked on his tongue. She wasn’t afraid of him, and clearly she never would be. “Yes.”
“What kind of outlet?” she asked.
“A physical fight.” He paused, watching her expression for the minutest change. “Sex.”
No horror. Only interest.
The interest nearly slayed him.
“In that case . . .” she said. She punched him once, twice, three times. “Better?”
Each of the blows knocked his head to the side. Blood trickled into his mouth, and sharp stings registered.
Amusement doused the hottest threads of the rage—but not his sexual hunger. He spit out the blood, his desire for her even worse. “Amendment. I have to do the beating.”
“Oh. Well, my bad. I’m going to decline on that one.”
“That one will never be offered to you.”
“But the other . . .”
Yeah. The other. Sex. He noticed she didn’t move away from him but stayed right where she was. Her gaze locked on his lips, and she began to pant.
Thinking of kissing him?
Maybe. Her adrenaline must have skyrocketed. He knew his had.
He stepped closer, unable to resist.
She did the same.
And then he was on her, wrapping his arms around her and jerking her into the hard line of his body. His tongue thrust into her mouth, demanding a response. She gave it, kissing him back with a passion he’d never before encountered, as if she had been starving all her life and he was her first meal.
Desire burned him from the inside out, sparking a fire in his blood, driving him torward the car. He lifted her to the trunk and forced her legs to spread and cage his hips. With his hands on her lower back, he yanked her against him and directed her into a hard, fast grind against his erection.
Hell yeah!
She groaned, and it was the most delicious sound.
The pleasure of her . . . it was almost too much. . . . Her br**sts rubbed against his chest, and he could feel the stiff peaks of her ni**les. All the while, he continued to feed her a down-and-dirty kiss that mimicked exactly what he wanted to do to the rest of her. Hard, almost punishing. Taking. Demanding.
He couldn’t get enough of her. The honey of her taste was a drug. Beyond addictive.
Necessary to sustain life.
Power seeped from his pores, and he suspected Evie could feel it, because little moans kept rising from deep in her throat, and her fingers kept brushing up and down the exposed skin on his arms . . . until her hands were tangled in his hair, her nails digging into his scalp; she angled his head just the way she wanted it. He liked that. Liked that she demanded and took with the same fervency he used.
She sucked the piercing in his bottom lip, and a low growl reverberated from him.
More. He needed more. He needed all. He needed her naked, and open. He needed to graze her ni**les with his teeth. Needed to devour her between her legs, then pound inside her, deep, so deep she would feel him for days afterward. He needed to hear her cries of rapture.
Yes. He reached for the hem of her shirt, ready to tear the thing off her.
A siren wailed in the background, and Evie stiffened.
“Wait. Stop.” She drew in a deep breath and shoved at him. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “This is wrong.”
Wrong? No. He—
Wasn’t kissing his fiancée.
Yes. This was wrong.
A tide of disgust rolled through him, and with a step back—physically and emotionally—he increased the distance between them.
Evie stood and did the same, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as if she couldn’t bear to deal with his taste a second longer. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“I know.” He wasn’t in love with Pagan, true, but he’d given her a ring. He had rules. Rules he should have followed.
He was ashamed.
He had just betrayed Michael in the worst possible way. Michael, who had done so much for him throughout the years but had only ever asked for one thing in return. That he leave his daughter alone.
I’m scum.
Correction, I’m worse than scum.
Blue had disrespected the man, and for what? Momentary pleasure.
Perfect phrase. Momentary pleasure. That was all Evie could ever be.
She wasn’t like Pagan. She would never accept the fact that he had to be with other women, no matter the reason for his actions. She would murder him, and perhaps even murder the female, totally unwilling to concede that what he did was a necessary evil of the job.
He—
Liked that, he realized, a little dazed. Wanted a woman to fight for him. To desire him, and him alone. To crave his unerring devotion and insist upon it.
Who are you?
“It was the moment,” Evie said, her voice hollow. “The rush of surviving the chase and explosion.”
Was it? “I know,” he repeated, his own voice just as hollow.
He didn’t know.
He’d been attracted to this girl from the beginning. Maybe she’d been attracted to him just as long. Maybe it had happened only recently for her. But the fact remained. They were into each other, no matter how wrong it was.
They’d have to be careful.
“Are you good now?” she asked.
Was he? The leash on his power was reinforced, but his mind was in turmoil. Never again taste that honey? Never again feel those teacup br**sts smashed against his chest? Never again rub between her legs?
Never thrust his fingers deep?