Part 31 (2/2)

While the initial bite had been a shock, the sharp nick of pain had quickly dissipated into something lush and intoxicating. Pleasure bloomed all over her body from the inside out, as if each long pull of Lucan's mouth at her neck sent a shaft of warm light back into her, reaching down through her core to stroke her soul.

He covered her with his naked weight, their robes askew as he took her to the floor with him. His hands were rough as they sank into her hair, holding her head to the side as he drank from her. Heedless of any pain his injuries might be causing him, he pressed his bare chest against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His lips never broke contact with her neck even for a second. She could feel the intensity of his need in every hard draw.

But she felt his strength, too. It was coming back, bit by bit, renewing because of her.

”Don't stop,” she murmured, speech slowed for the mounting ecstasy that was building in her with each pulsating movement of his mouth. ”You won't hurt me, Lucan. I trust you.”

The wet, succulent sounds of his hunger was the most erotic thing she'd ever heard. She loved the heat of his lips on her skin.

The ungentle graze of his fangs as he drew her blood into his mouth was a sensation that was both dangerous and exciting.

She was already soaring toward a splintering o.r.g.a.s.m when she felt the thick head of Lucan's erection nudging against her s.e.x.

She was wet, aching for him. He drove in deep with one thrust, filling her completely with rigid, volcanic heat. Detonating her in an instant. Gabrielle cried out as he plunged hard and fast, his arms like a cage around her, clutching her tightly. He was mindless in his rhythm, a force of raw, magnificent desire.

And still he remained fastened at her neck, pulling her into a blissful, creamy darkness.

She closed her eyes and let herself float away, toward a beautiful obsidian fog.

From someplace distant, she felt Lucan buck and pound above her, his strokes urgent, his large body vibrating with the power of his own release. He shouted something harsh and went completely still.

The delicious pressure at her neck abruptly eased, then vanished, leaving coldness in its wake.

Still drifting, still awash in the heady feel of Lucan sheathed inside her, Gabrielle lifted her heavy lids. Lucan was poised over her on his knees, staring down at her as though frozen. His lips were bright red, his hair wild around his head. His feral eyes were throwing off amber sparks, they were so bright. His skin color was healthier, the network of markings on his shoulders and torso glowing a deep crimson-black.

”What is it?” she asked him, worried. ”Are you okay?”

He didn't speak for a long moment.

”Jesus Christ.” The rough growl of his voice was tremulous, a pitch she'd never heard in him before. His chest was heaving. ”I thought you were... I thought I had-”

”No,” she said, giving a lazy, sated shake of her head. ”No, Lucan. I'm fine.”

She couldn't read his intense expression, but then he didn't give her a chance. He recoiled, sliding out of her. There was a stricken look in his transformed eyes.

Her body felt cold and empty without his warmth. She sat up, rubbing off her sudden chill. ”It's okay,” she a.s.sured him.

”Everything's okay.”

”No.” He shook his head and vaulted to his feet. ”No. This was a mistake.”

”Lucan... ”

”I never should have let this happen!” he bellowed.

With a furious roar, he stalked to the foot of the bed to retrieve his clothes. He yanked the black camo pants and nylon s.h.i.+rt on, then grabbed his weapons and boots, and left the room in a tempest of seething rage.

Lucan could hardly catch his breath for the way his heart was banging in his chest.

When he'd felt Gabrielle go slack beneath him as he drank from her, a stark fear had torn through him, shredding him from the inside out.

She trusted him, she had said while he had been drinking feverishly at her neck. He'd felt the spurs of Bloodl.u.s.t jabbing into him as Gabrielle's blood flowed into him. Her voice had eased some of the pain. She was tender and caring, her touch, her naked emotion-her presence itself-grounding him when the animal part of him might have slipped its reins.

She trusted him not to harm her, and that trust gave him strength.

But then he'd felt her drifting away from him and he feared... G.o.d, in that instant, how he'd feared.

It still gripped him, the black, cold terror that he might have harmed her-could have killed her-if he'd let things go any further than they had.

Because, for all his pus.h.i.+ng her away, all his denial, he belonged to her. Gabrielle owned him, down to his soul, and not simply for the fact that her blood was nouris.h.i.+ng him now, healing his wounds and strengthening his body. He had bonded to her, long before now. But the irrefutable proof of it had come in that bleak instant a moment ago when he feared he might have lost her.

He loved her.

Down to the darkest, loneliest part of him, he loved Gabrielle.

And he wanted her in his life. Selfishly, dangerously, he wanted nothing more than to keep her with him for all the rest of his days.

The realization made him weave in the corridor outside the tech lab. In truth, it nearly sent him to his knees.

”Whoa, easy there.” Dante came up to Lucan almost without warning and grabbed him under the arm. ”d.a.m.n. You look like holy h.e.l.l.”

Lucan couldn't speak. Words were beyond him.

But Dante didn't need an explanation. He took one look at Lucan's face and fangs and Dante's nostrils flared as they picked up the obvious scents of blood and s.e.x. He blew out a low whistle, a gleam of wry amus.e.m.e.nt flas.h.i.+ng in the warrior's eyes.

”You gotta be kidding me-a Breedmate, Lucan?” He chuckled, shaking his head as he clapped Lucan on the shoulder. ”s.h.i.+t.

Better you than me, brother. Better you than me.”

CHAPTER Thirty

Three hours later, with night full upon them, Lucan and the other warriors were geared up and sitting in a black SUV parked about a half mile down the road from the old asylum.

Gabrielle's photographs had proven extremely useful in planning the hit on the Rogue lair. In addition to several exterior and ground-level, entry-point photos, she'd taken interior shots of the boiler room, various corridors, stairwells, and even a few containing inadvertent images of mounted security cameras that would need to be disabled once the warriors gained access to the place.

”Getting in's going to be the easy part,” Gideon said, as the group of them began the final review of the operation. ”I'll interrupt the security signal on the ground-level cameras, but once we're inside, planting those two dozen bars of C4 in critical areas without alerting the entire colony of suckheads will prove a little trickier.”

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