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  She flinched, but didn’t retreat. She didn’t lose a scintilla of the stubborn resolve in her beautiful eyes or the upward jut of her chin. “Have you ever been alone, Rafe? I mean really, truly, alone?”

  “No,” he admitted soberly.

  “Then don’t talk to me about getting hurt. Don’t tell me I need to give up when I have nothing else. This hurt,” she said, clenching her fist at her breast as her voice choked. “This rage, is the reason I get out of bed every day. I can’t stop until it stops. Can’t you understand that?”

  He did. As much as he wanted to deny it to her, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know something of how she felt.

  His family and friends might have all perished if Opus and their mole had succeeded.

  If he had lost everyone that day?

  Just the thought of that emptiness carved a hollow in his chest.

  Devony had been living that pain every second of every day for five long months.

  She sat beside him in a rigid silence that nearly broke him. Her grief was profound, even all this time later. When he first saw her in Asylum, she had seemed so closed-off and brittle. So angry. Now he knew why.

  He cupped her lovely face, stroking her velvety skin with the pad of his thumb. “I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. No one should have to experience that kind of loss, Devony.”

  “I’m still hurting,” she murmured thickly. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”

  Her naked vulnerability in that moment nearly killed him. He gathered her close, even though everything logical and reasonable inside him pleaded for him to keep his distance. He couldn’t let her bear her pain alone.

  Especially when he had been born with the ability to heal, to restore.

  He spoke into the fragrant silk of her hair. “Do you want me to take it away for a little while? I will, if you want me to.”

  She swallowed hard, then slowly, firmly, shook her head. “No. I need to carry it. I need to keep them alive inside me, even if it hurts.”

  Christ, she was an incredible woman.

  As attractive as he found her physically, her courage turned him on even more.

  Her strength and resilience left his control in tatters.

  If she had agreed to let him heal her grief, he would have done it gladly. And then he would have left immediately afterward and made the call to the Order to find a safe sanctuary for her, somewhere far away from this business with Opus Nostrum and from him.

  But she hadn’t caved to her pain.

  No, Devony Winters was made of stronger stuff than that.

  And he had never known anything sexier.

  What he ought to do was leave.

  Not only for the integrity of his mission for the Order, but for his own sanity too.

  Hell, for what remained of his honor, if nothing else. No matter how thin that claim was now.

  “It’s getting late.” His voice was gravel, his mouth filled with the presence of his fangs. “I should go.”

  “Don’t.” She met his gaze, her irises simmering with flecks of glowing amber. As he drank in the beauty of her face, her pupils began to narrow, transforming with the intensity of her arousal.

  He felt the same need erupting inside him. All the desire he’d been trying to push down was quickly reaching the breaking point. Heat licked through his veins, his pulse drumming, all of his blood rushing toward the rigid and aching length of his erection.

  “Devony—”

  She didn’t give him a chance to say anything more.

  Her mouth crushed against his, her kiss a force of nature.

  He caught her in his arms and tumbled back onto the rug with her.

  CHAPTER 11

  All night she had been burning to feel his kiss on her again.

  She didn’t know how to describe the profound sense of gratitude she felt when Rafe had offered to take away her grief with his healing ability. She hadn’t expected kindness like that from the dangerous Breed male. He had healed her after the museum job, but that had been out of obligation for a comrade.

  His offer to ease her pain tonight had been born of something different, something deeper. Something that seemed like true concern, even affection.

  God forgive her, but she’d wanted to lean into that feeling so badly she had to force herself to deny him. She yearned to feel some kind of connection to someone . . .

  No, not just someone. To him. Her longing for Rafe’s care had been nearly overwhelming, but it paled compared to the driving hunger she had to know the heat of his lips on hers.

  The hunger had burst out of her, and only intensified as he took her down onto the floor with him. He held her face in gentle hands, plundering her mouth with a savage need that seemed to exceed even her own.

  “Ah, fuck,” he uttered raggedly against her lips. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to happen, Devony.”

  She hadn’t been prepared for him, either.

  All of the emptiness she had stuffed deep down inside her had opened up with him tonight. That bleak loneliness had been swallowing her whole for so long, but she’d never registered how fathomless and dark it had grown until she was sitting in this room with Rafe, sharing the details of her pain, and her plans for passing the hurt along to the monsters who had caused it.

  But all of those dark realities were nothing but ashes now, incinerated under the heat of her need for this man.

  A moan tore loose from her throat, sounding animal and raw.

  She didn’t care if she seemed desperate for him.

  She couldn’t care.

  “Don’t stop kissing me, Rafe.” Her breath was reduced to ragged panting, her fangs surging out of her gums. “I ache,” she gasped brokenly. “Oh, God, I need . . .”

  He answered with a low groan and a hard thrust of his pelvis beneath hers. Even separated by their clothing, the rigid length of his erection seared her where it bit into her abdomen. She pressed down, thinking the friction might alleviate some of that heat, but it only intensified as she ground against him.

  Rafe’s arms wrapped around her like warm iron bands. Then, in a fluid roll he sent her over onto her back, pinning her under him as his kiss deepened into something wild and hot and uncontrolled.

  Every vein and artery in her body throbbed as he covered her with his body and moved against her in an erotic rhythm. His tongue invaded her mouth, pushing past her teeth and fangs to stroke deep inside while his hips rocked heavily between her parted thighs.

  The hard throb of her pulse kicked into an urgent drumbeat, making the pool of need in her core twist and coil, spiraling into a desire she could hardly contain.

  Her skin felt too tight, too hot. Beneath her loose knit top and soft pants, her dermaglyphs felt more alive than ever before, as if the otherworldly skin markings were lit up and churning, licking her with fire.

  She had felt desire before, but so infrequently she scarcely remembered when. None of the fumbling schoolboy kisses or clumsy hands that chanced to touch her in the past could compare to what she was feeling now. Rafe’s touch obliterated everything that came before. His kiss ignited a fire in her that could not be contained.

  When his hand slipped under the hem of her sweater to skim over her bare stomach, she arched into him on a shivery gasp. She writhed under him, pleasure swamping her as his palm moved higher, caressing her over the thin lace of her bra. The front clasp popped open a second later, and Devony moaned as he cupped her naked breast in his hand.

  “Christ, you’re soft,” he murmured. “And I can feel your glyphs coming to life under my fingertips.”

  She could feel it too. Each brush of his hand sent pleasure dancing across her skin, and turned the ache in her core into a molten yearning.

  His kiss moved onto her throat. “I need to see you.”

  He didn’t wait for permission. It was just as well. She could hardly find her voice to give it to him as the hunger in her mounted. Pushing her shirt up from the waist, his hands skated a
long her torso, bunching the fabric beneath her chin. He stopped kissing her for a moment, and removed her top and bra completely. Then he tilted his head down to look at her.

  “You are so fucking beautiful.” His deep voice carried a coarse edge, thickened from his desire and from the fangs that filled his mouth. The heat of his amber gaze bathed her in warm light as he lifted up and slowly drank in the sight of her. “I knew you would be gorgeous, Devony. All of these pretty glyphs on your soft, creamy skin. But you’re beyond anything I imagined.”

  He touched her with the same reverence she saw in his eyes. When he bent forward and traced his tongue along the curves of one of her markings, she shuddered with sensation. He lavished kisses on every bared inch of her, moving from one breast to the other, then down to her navel. Her glyphs responded as if he commanded them, their colors surging and undulating under his lips, under his fingers, as he explored them all.

  “I wonder where this one leads,” he murmured, lowering himself over her body and licking one of the flourishes that disappeared below the waistband of her yoga pants. He tugged them down her hips, taking off her panties along with them. The breath he inhaled sounded ragged as his glowing gaze followed the path of a glyph that ran across her hip bone and onto the mound of her sex. His eyes flicked up to meet hers, a wicked tilt to his lips. “I think I found my favorite.”

  Spreading her legs to afford himself better access, he sank between her parted thighs and dropped a line of kisses from one end of the dermaglyph to the other. His short beard delivered a delicious abrasion, making Devony’s arousal ratchet impossibly tighter. Lord, she thought she might explode from desire for him.

  She nearly did in that next moment, when he pressed his mouth to the drenched seam of her body. His tongue cleaved between her folds and she sucked in a gulp of air. It left her on a shuddery sigh as he suckled her clit with ruthless demand.

  Her response seemed to spur his own. He moaned and dragged her closer, his palms cupping her backside, holding her steady when she could hardly keep from writhing in hot, pleasurable agony.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sudden, overwhelming tide of sensation that rolled up on her.

  The wave crested, then crashed, flooding every fiber of her being with a shimmery, quicksilver bliss. She cried out, his name ragged on her tongue as her release left her shaking in Rafe’s hands, her body convulsing against his whiskered face.

  When she finally dragged her eyelids open, she found him staring at her, studying her with pure male appreciation. Her vision was soaked in amber, her fangs feeling as long and sharp as daggers as she panted heavily through her parted lips.

  Rafe grinned. “Holy hell, Devony. I wish you could see yourself right now. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  All she could do was moan in reply. Even that wordless sound was rough and inhuman. She’d never made a noise like that before. Never felt this alive.

  And as overcome as he seemed looking at her, Devony could not begin to describe what the sight of Rafe did to her now, with her body thrumming from the pleasure he’d just given her.

  Handsome and golden, his immense body wrapped in muscle, he was magnificent simply by existing. But now, with his aquamarine eyes engulfed in amber fire, his face stark with desire, and his sharp fangs gleaming, he was nothing short of awesome.

  A fierce possessiveness washed over her as she gazed at him. It came from a place in her that had already claimed him as hers, even before tonight. It was an untamed part of her, one that had been sleeping until tonight. Until Rafe’s kiss in that parking lot woke her up.

  Devony lifted up off the floor, one palm planted in the center of his chest.

  He looked surprised at first, but an eager, approving light smoldered in his amber eyes as she urged him into a sitting position and rose onto her knees in front of him.

  She pulled off his black T-shirt and let her gaze roam greedily over the tangles of glyphs covering his strong chest and arms. He didn’t have as many as her. Thanks to her mother’s laboratory-manipulated genetics, Devony had been born with an abundance of the skin markings, plus the diminutive teardrop-and-crescent-moon stamp of a Breedmate.

  To anyone inside or outside of the Breed, she was unique. But to her, Rafe was a singular fascination.

  One she simply could not resist.

  She ran her hands over his smooth skin, watching the colors rush and churn along his glyphs. Dark wine, indigo and gold. Her own skin seethed with the same deep hues. All the colors of desire.

  Rafe shuddered under her questing hands, his gaze molten. When she leaned forward and used her tongue to taste him the way he had done with her, his muscles flexed under her lips. The enormous bulge that filled the front of his black jeans grew even more pronounced.

  His hands played in her hair, loosening it from the messy bun. “Have you ever been with a male of your own kind before?”

  She licked her lips. “I’ve never been with anyone.”

  He drew back and seized her hands, stilling them on a low curse. “No one at all?” When she shook her head, his expression hardened. “Ah, fuck. Devony . . . you should’ve told me.”

  “Why? Would you want me less if you knew?”

  His furrowed brow darkened even more. It took him a long moment to answer. “No. I don’t think anything could make me want you less. Not now. Not at any time.”

  “Good.” She kissed him, no gentle tangle of their lips and tongues, but a melding, a claiming.

  She didn’t want his tender care right now. She didn’t want gentle.

  She simply wanted him.

  Without releasing him from her kiss, she reached down to unfasten the button and zipper of his jeans. She fumbled a little, but then Rafe’s hands were there, too, as impatient and determined as hers.

  When he was freed, she couldn’t resist the urge to touch him . . . to taste him.

  His cock stood thick and proud, as glorious as the rest of him.

  She took his length in both hands, marveling at his girth and heft. He hissed tightly as she stroked him, then released a strangled groan when she lowered her mouth over him and took him deep into her throat.

  It seemed she was just finding her pace when he took hold of her shoulders and set her away from him on a raw, vivid curse.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this with you.” His gaze scorched her, his handsome face filled with an awful torment. “You should make me leave, Devony.”

  “That’s not what I want.”

  He scoffed low at her reply. “This has already gone too far.” His words were uttered like a warning, though whether meant for her or himself, she couldn’t be sure. “Daylight will be here soon enough. If I don’t get back to my place, I won’t be going anywhere for a long while.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I’m still asking you to stay.”

  She wrapped her hand around his shaft and kissed him again, a scorching mating of their mouths. He didn’t resist it. He didn’t reject her.

  No, far from it.

  On a growl, he tunneled his fingers into her hair and returned her kiss with a savage claiming. The next thing she knew, she was on her back beneath him, his big body wedged between her parted thighs.

  His kiss left her mouth and traveled down the length of her body. He spread her wide and devoured her sex, penetrating her with one finger until she thought she would go mad with arousal. He kept going, adding a second digit once her body grew accustomed to the first.

  It wasn’t enough. She craved something more than this. More of him. Still, he didn’t stop, not until she was screaming with the onslaught of a shattering climax.

  He shifted atop her, and then his hard length was a rigid demand against her slick folds. He rocked there for a moment, teasing her body with the promise of what was to come.

  She thought she was ready.

  She thought she had already felt the full spectrum of ecstasy.

  Oh, God, she was wrong.

  Rafe’s mouth foun
d hers again, and then he gave a thrust of his hips and the blunt head of his cock pierced her. She cried out with the sharpness of it, with the overwhelming sensation of him filling her, stretching her, leaving space for nothing but the intensity of their joining.

  She couldn’t hold back her cry as the pain and pleasure merged, becoming something wild and unhinged. She rode it out, her fingernails raking his shoulders as wave after wave crashed into her.

  “You feel too damn good,” he murmured, glowering down at her as he watched her come. “You should have ashed me when you had the chance.”

  ~ ~ ~

  He wanted to go slowly.

  He wanted to take care, be gentle with her, but Devony permitted none of that.

  She was Breed, and she was fearless.

  And holy hell, was she exquisite.

  The tightness of her sheath gripped him, her virgin flesh giving way under the battering force of his invasion. He could scent the faint fragrance of blood mingling with the silky juices that bathed his cock as he thrust inside her. It should have rattled what little sense of honor he believed he still had. Instead, the beast in him responded with a roar of pure possession.

  Her fingernails scored his shoulders, the lean muscles of her thighs wrapped around his hips as she rode the length and depth of every hard crash of their bodies. Her climax broke like a storm beneath him. He’d never felt anything so powerful and electric, so fucking hot.

  And her lovely face. Ah, Christ. Her face was even more beautiful transformed by passion and release.

  A wave of self-loathing buffeted him as he reveled in her uninhibited response. He had no right to be the one to witness her like this, nor to be the man she allowed to take her pleasure for the first time.

  He had no right to any part of her. No claim on her body, and certainly not on her heart.

  Yet the idea that any other male might touch Devony lit a cold fire in his veins.

  No one would be good enough—least of all, him.

  That didn’t stop him from savoring each soft moan that fell from her lips as he pumped into her. Every welcoming arch of her hips to meet his. All of the powerful shudders that swept her strong body as he drove her mercilessly from one orgasm to the next.