Fate and destiny be damned, but beautiful, kind-hearted Phaedra had no place with him.
Except like this, right here and now.
Her pleasured cries as he brought her to another explosive climax made his own release gather and build. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get deep enough into the yielding softness of her body’s tight sheath. Lifting his head on a thick roar, he watched her lovely face as she quivered and sighed his name. His vision burned with the bright amber that devoured his irises. His fangs filled his mouth, the dagger-sharp points digging into his tongue as he clenched his teeth and snarled with the jolting rush of his hot seed as it exploded inside her.
She arched off the table on a strangled scream, her hands clutching the back of his head, her thighs wrapped around his waist. Her body shook, soft sounds of surrender in the shallow sighs that fanned against his ear. Christ, he didn’t know how she managed to feel both as fragile as a kitten and as fierce as a goddess in his arms. It was an addicting combination, one that could easily consume him.
That she was immortal, part of a race of beings he’d long considered his enemy, was only a fraction of what made his desire for Phaedra so dangerous to him. It was her tender heart, her innate goodness, that had awakened something disturbing inside him.
She had begun to make him long for something more than the vengeance he’d vowed to have for the deaths of his teammates in the Deadlands. And, now, he had to add Eli’s slaying to that grim tally.
That vengeance should have been all that mattered to him.
The grief and guilt he carried for all of those lost lives would never go away, not even after he had the retribution he was prepared to give his life in order to have.
His dedication to that goal hadn’t faltered.
But if he wasn’t careful, his feelings for Phaedra were going to keep staking more territory. He only had room for duty. For cold, merciless payback.
Or so he told himself, as his climax ebbed, only to flare back to life with even greater ferocity.
It staggered him, how savagely he wanted her all over again.
His need for her was animal, a feral hunger that he’d never known before.
“Mine,” he uttered roughly against her mouth, even though he knew it was no better than a lie.
She couldn’t be his. In a few hours she would be leaving and he would resume the life he’d been born and raised to lead.
Regardless of all those truths, he said the reckless word again, unable to bite it back. “Mine, Phaedra.”
She gasped his name on a broken sigh, and he was lost to that wild, predatory need.
He wanted her. All the way to his marrow, he wanted her.
God help him, now that he’d been inside her, he was going to crave her every day of his eternal life.
As his arousal surged with renewed greed for her, he didn’t know whether to curse the dawn that would take her away from him in the morning, or pray to hell it arrived soon.
CHAPTER 15
When Phaedra woke up at daybreak alone in the big bed of her guest room, she thought for a moment that making love with Micah had only been a dream. A fantastic dream, at that.
As soon as she moved on the soft mattress, all the little aches and dull throbs between her legs and elsewhere told her he’d been no dream. And she couldn’t really call the raw passion they’d shared making love, either. It had been something bigger. Something explosive and uncontrolled.
A primal, undeniable connection that still vibrated in her marrow.
In her very soul.
She had been so drunk on pleasure she hardly remembered walking back to her room with him after they’d rearranged their clothing and he’d escorted her through the empty corridors of the command center. The hard, still-hungered kiss he’d given her at her door had left the ghost of a bruise on her lips. She ran the tip of her tongue over the tenderness that lingered there now, savoring the reminder of Micah’s passion.
It was a bittersweet reminder, because although he hadn’t said as much, incredible as their time together was last night, it also felt like a goodbye.
Now that dawn had come, it might only be a scant handful of hours before she would be departing for Rome with Zael and Brynne. She didn’t know if Micah would seek her out before then. Her head said he wouldn’t, but her heart was filled with a foolish sense of hope.
After telling herself nearly since she’d arrived at the Order’s headquarters that she couldn’t wait to return home, now she found herself merely going through the motions of preparing to leave.
She took a long shower, then dressed for the imminent trip. Her small bag didn’t require much packing, so after arranging her long chestnut hair into a loose ponytail, she left her room to look for Zael and his mate.
