He arched a brow. “You’ve got something against Washington, D.C.?”
Dammit, the male was infuriating. “Am I supposed to ignore the fact that you and your ilk are the spawn of Atlantis’s destroyers?”
“No,” he answered soberly. “I don’t expect you to ever forget that, or to forgive it. But I’m not a monster.”
There was precious little space left between them, but one more step closed the gap entirely. She couldn’t think with him so near. She couldn’t summon a sharp reply or a demand that he step back to a respectable distance.
She didn’t want to do either of those things.
“I don’t believe you’re the monster you’re feared to be either, Selene.”
Her lungs felt constricted as she stared up at him. She couldn’t seem to slow the frantic pace of her pulse, feeling it drum in her breast, in her throat, in other places she didn’t want to consider. Especially not when Darion’s smoldering gaze felt hot enough to incinerate her clothing.
“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating straight to her marrow.
She was certain she did not want to know, but she couldn’t find words to say so.
He slowly lifted his hand, as if giving her the chance to deny him. Faith help her, she couldn’t have refused his touch if her life depended on it.
He stroked his fingertips along the line of her jaw. “I think you’re lonely, not evil.”
She bristled, hearing his quiet remark like a physical blow. “You don’t have the first idea--”
His mouth met hers in a kiss that not only silenced her outrage, but scattered it.
She almost expected his lips to carry the bitter metal tang of mortal blood, but all she tasted was spicy, warm male and something elusive that made her senses spin out of control as Darion’s tongue thrust past her teeth and into her mouth.
She couldn’t deny the pleasure.
She couldn’t pretend she didn’t crave more of him with an intensity that astonished her.
How could this man she should despise as her enemy stoke such a swift and staggering need inside her? He was the last man she should crave, yet his kiss ignited a want in her unlike any she had ever known before. Heat unfurled in her core, threatening to melt away her sanity.
He drew her against his muscled length, cradling the back of her skull in the palm of his big hand as his kiss went deeper. The sharp tips of his fangs grazed her tongue, and where their bodies pressed together she could feel the hard evidence of his arousal.
This was wrong. It was reckless.
Desire like this could be the ruination of everything she stood for, everything she had strived for so long to protect.
Selene moaned, knowing she should push him away.
She couldn’t.
Her fingers tunneled into his dark hair, urging him closer as she licked her tongue against his. A low groan vibrated through him, as ominous as thunder at the head of a storm.
He pulled back only for a moment, his handsome face fierce with desire and not a little anger. “Fuck,” he uttered harshly. “Why did it have to be you?”
Selene didn’t have an answer. She was grappling with the same staggering disbelief.
All she knew was she needed to have his mouth on hers again.
With her hand at the back of his corded neck, she pulled his head forward for her kiss.
CHAPTER 25
He was burning up already, and now her kiss poured gasoline on the flames.
Selene had been angered when he told her she was more lonely than evil. He’d thought for sure she would torch him with her light.
