LITMIR.BIZ

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his arms, pulling them away from her. Confused, he started to retreat from her kiss, but her mouth followed his, drawing him to her as she shoved his hands beneath the hem of her shirt, sliding his palms over her abdomen. The shock of that warm hidden skin sent hot desire rushing through his veins.

      She was his. For this moment, for this hour, his mission was forgotten. His reason for being with her was forgotten in the explosion of pure feeling that had become his body. He slid his palms up to cover the silk-draped mounds of her breasts, eliciting a low moan from her throat. The sound of her pleasure, the feel of the soft mounds beneath his palms, nearly sent him over the edge.

      His mouth dipped to her neck, tasting her freckles, drawing a delicious shudder from her ripe, ready body. He wanted her. With everything he had, everything he was, he wished he could bury himself deep inside this woman’s heat. Most heady of all was the certainty that she lusted after him every bit as much. Beneath his fingers, her body trembled, begging for release. Her spicy fragrance was a song to his senses, her moans of pleasure driving him to madness. She was made for mating, made for him.

      “Touch me,” she begged, then pulled back and yanked her soft shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.

      He watched with wondrous anticipation as her hands went to her back to release her bra. But then his gaze flicked to her face, to her eyes, and he froze.

      Tears slipped down her cheeks, her eyes filled not with lust, but with frantic need…and panic.

      “I need you to touch me,” she whispered brokenly.

      His own words came back to him, the words he’d thrust into her head. Somehow he’d done this to her with his careless command. It didn’t make sense. He shouldn’t have this much control over her, but clearly she was not acting on her own.

      His body screamed for him to continue. To touch her as she demanded.

      But as her bra came loose in her hands, he grabbed her shoulders and thrust new thoughts into her head. I need to put my bra on. Beneath his touch, she stilled and pulled the undergarment tight once more, allowing him only a glimpse of the tantalizing flesh hidden beneath. The moment her bra was secure, her arms went around him.

      “Touch me, Kade. I need you to touch me.”

      Need quaked through him as he held her, a war raging inside him. He’d forced this on her.

      Kaderil’s hands tightened on her back and he kissed her hard, punishing her for his confusion. She met the kiss with equal passion, swamping his senses. He wanted her. He wanted her.

      But the fingers she raked through his hair reminded him too well of the way she’d sought to save him from the injury she’d inflicted. In his mind’s eye, he saw again the gentleness of her eyes as she’d sought assurance she hadn’t hurt him.

      Kaderil wrenched away from her, breaking the kiss.

      “Kade.” Autumn reached for him, try to pull his face back to hers. “I need you.”

      He grabbed her band of holly and shoved it into her hand before temptation got the better of him. Slowly, confusion clouded her face, wiping the look of desperation from her eyes.

      As he turned and stalked to the window, anger and frustration fueled his steps. In returning her sanity, he’d stripped himself of his own.

      He didn’t need her! He only desired her in the most base of ways. And he refused to care that he’d driven to tears the first person to show him true kindness in centuries. He was the Punisher. He demanded fear. Exulted in tears.

      Behind him, he heard the brush of cloth, then the soft creak of the sofa. He tried to ignore her, but his body had a will of its own all of a sudden, and he found himself turning back.

      Autumn sat, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

      Foreign emotions raked him. Regret. Pity.

      But to his amazement, the sound that broke from her throat was laughter. She lifted her flushed face and clasped her hand to her mouth. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.” Her eyes, miraculously, brimmed with as much humor as chagrin. “I’ve seriously got to date more.”

      He stared at her, bemused, as something about her tugged at him, drawing his admiration. There was no doubt he’d distressed her. The tears he’d seen in her eyes told him that clearly. Yet she laughed at herself and met his gaze with strength despite her dismay.

      He found himself unaccountably intrigued by her. And uncomfortably drawn to her. He longed for the familiar rightness of the Punisher’s scowl and an end to this pretense of softness. Kaderil the Dark was not a soft man. He was not a kind man.

      Yet there was something about this woman that called to that weakness. That tempted him to be both.

      He fought to conceal his scowl. He could not let this pretense of weakness become truth. She was a means to an end, nothing more. Even if her gray eyes sparkled with an intelligence, a warmth he’d been seeking all his life.

      Kaderil went to sit across from her, resting his arms on his knees, clasping his hands together.

      “We both lost control,” he told her, though it was a blatant falsehood. She hadn’t lost control. He’d stolen it from her.

      Damp lashes swept up to reveal eyes that held both vulnerability and strength. “I…um…don’t suppose we can forget this happened?” She grimaced, her slender nose wrinkling in a way that set her freckles to dancing, pleasing him. A flirtatious twinkle entered her eyes, making his pulse quicken. “At least until we get to know one another a little better?”

      His pulse stuttered at her words. Get to know him better? Overlaying the carnal image was another that left him cold. If she ever truly understood him, she’d know he wasn’t human. And that could never happen.

      He could never reveal his true self to her. Nor did he wish to know any more about her. Autumn McGinn was a pawn, nothing more. Already, he feared he’d long be haunted by the feel of her fingers in his hair and the laughter in her eyes.

      What had she done to him? What had he done to himself by toying with her?

      He’d known the human world could hold any number of potential perils for a dark blood with little power. Little had he expected the greatest danger would turn out to be this female with a smile capable of taming even the fiercest of monsters.

      Him.

      Chapter 3

      Autumn pressed her hands to her overheated cheeks, thoroughly flustered by her mortifying loss of control. The sun’s last golden rays gleamed through the windows, silhouetting Kade Smith’s dark head. He watched her with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, eyes that smoldered with the memory of the way she’d attacked him. She’d practically begged him to make love to her!

      The hunger he’d stoked with his lips and hands still vibrated along her skin. Never in her life had she felt such an intense desire to be touched. She’d nearly climbed out of her skin with the need to have his hands on her. Which wouldn’t be half as embarrassing if she’d kept the thought to herself.

      If only the ground would open up and swallow her whole. Since it showed no sign of cooperating, she rose, looking for another way to escape until her face cooled.

      “I’ll…umm…I’ll go call Larsen for you.” He looked up at her, his expression unreadable, as he nodded. He must think she was a complete idiot. “Why don’t you turn on the television or something?”

      Without a backward glance, she fled the room to hide in the tiny cabin that was her temporary bedroom, and dialed her friend.

      Larsen answered on the first ring. “Hi, Autumn. What’s up?”

      My blood pressure, my hormone levels, Kade’s…uh… Autumn groaned and yanked her mind from that thought and back to the conversation she’d intended. “I’ve got a guest, of sorts. I think he’s Sitheen.”

      A

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