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.
He was the worst kind of bastard for being her first, especially when a minefield of half-truths lay between them.
But this was no lie—his desire for her. He hadn’t been able to hide that truth from her. Not from the beginning, and certainly not ever again after tonight.
He couldn’t hold back that need as he rocked into her with intensifying fury, powering into the warm, wet fist of her core.
Her eyes stayed open and fixed on him, no shyness in her fevered gaze as he thrust deeper with every stroke. A jagged sigh sawed from between her parted lips, her fangs gleaming.
Rafe growled, tumbling toward the edge of a steep abyss. He wouldn’t be content to go there alone. Leaning down, he took her mouth in a savage kiss as he sank to the hilt and began a deeper claiming of her body.
“Oh, God,” she moaned into his mouth. “Rafe, I can’t take it.”
He knew she didn’t mean pain. A strangled cry tore from her. Her body jolted beneath him, her hands still clenched like talons on his shoulders.
Rafe kept moving within her, even as her throat erupted with a scream of hard release. He was lost to the erotic pressure of her core wrapped so tightly around him, the rippling contractions milking him. The feel of her was more than he could take too. It wrenched a raw curse from between his teeth and fangs.
Now, his own need demanded to be sated.
Bracing himself on one forearm, he drove deeper and harder into her heat, mesmerized by the look of hunger and ecstasy burning in her eyes.
Her pulse throbbed in the base of her throat, repeatedly drawing his gaze to that hammering beat. Hunger lashed him along with the rolling wave of the release he’d been struggling to prolong.
His blood thirst had been dealt with a couple of nights ago at LaSalle’s party, but the sight of Devony’s vein drumming so near to his mouth was a temptation that rocked him to his marrow.
“Fuck,” he snarled, unprepared for the impulse rising up in him like a tidal wave.
He told himself it was only sex. He’d gone too long without it—not once since he’d been played for a fool by the Opus female who’d mesmerized him like a siren.
He’d denied himself out of punishment, but tonight he was paying the price. Devony was paying an even bigger price. Because as intense as this desire between them was, Rafe couldn’t allow it to be anything more.
His mission was all that mattered to him.
His vengeance against Opus Nostrum, and the redemption he hoped he would finally seize once the smoke was cleared and the battle had been won.
Until then, everything else was simply an obstacle he needed to avoid. Including Devony Winters.
He tried to persuade himself that tonight was a mistake he would need to correct, and what he felt for her now was only a momentary weakness, one that would fade under the harsh light of day. He needed to believe that, because the alternative was unacceptable.
Devony Winters was a temptation he had no time for, and no right to indulge.
