Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (6 page)

“No,” she said, ignoring the jab. “I mean, I’m sorry about that night in my apartment … when I kissed you.”

“Are you?” He didn’t believe her. His tone was cool and level, but it contained a dangerous edge.

“Of course I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Then why did you?”

She glanced down, searching for an answer that would make sense to herself as well as to him. “I did it because I was afraid.”

“You didn’t seem afraid, Jordana.”

“I was afraid of what you might do if you found out Carys was there with Rune that night. I only wanted to stop you from finding out. I just wanted to distract you.”

His face darkened in challenge. “There were a dozen different ways you could’ve done that, none of which would’ve involved putting your mouth on mine.”

She groaned, feeling her cheeks go warm and red. “I know. I’ve already apologized. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry, Nathan.”

The way he looked at her brought every nuance of their kiss back to life in her senses—the cushion of his mouth beneath hers, the softness of his lips combined with the rough abrasion of his dark-shadowed jaw. The powerful stillness of his body as she threw herself against him.

Punishing muscle and lethal strength caged inside a rigid, total control.

Some brazen part of her she barely recognized throbbed with the want to know that kiss again—to have a taste of what it would be like to press against this deadly male and see if he ever let his iron discipline slip, even a little.

More uncomfortable heat flooded her face at the uninvited direction of her thoughts.

And deep inside her, another unsettling heat bloomed …

Nathan’s gaze lingered on her, those eyes seeing everything about her. Knowing everything. Ruthless in their study of her.

Jordana grew anxious suddenly, afraid that Nathan might touch her.

Afraid he might kiss her.

Afraid he wouldn’t.

“I’ll take that tape now,” she said, her voice thick and raspy.

He didn’t give it to her, didn’t move. “Tell me what you see in Elliott Bentley-Squire.”

Jordana stared up into Nathan’s dark eyes. She shook her head.

“Tell me,” he insisted.

Although talking about Elliott was the last thing she wanted to do in that moment, Jordana drew a breath and tried to conjure words. “He’s kind and affectionate,” she murmured lamely. “He’s loyal and steady and attentive …”

Nathan’s lips twisted with dark amusement. “That’s how I’d expect you to describe a pet, not the man who’s fucking you.”

The frankness shocked her, embarrassed her. But she was also unwillingly aroused by Nathan’s lack of delicacy. There was a rawness about him that was unlike anything she was accustomed to.

She was playing with fire where this dangerous male was concerned, and it only made her want to dance closer to the flame.

“Elliott and I are not lovers,” she said, pushing the words out of her mouth before she was too afraid to bite them back. “I’ve never been with him in that way.”

Something flickered in the depths of his dark eyes. “And you don’t want him like that either.”

Jordana frowned, hating that Nathan could know that about her so easily. “I’ve never wanted anyone like that. There’s been … no one.”

“No one?” Nathan seemed to go even more still where he stood. The only movement she could detect in him was the ticking of a tendon along the line of his jaw. “He wants you, this Elliott Bentley-Squire. He’s waited a year to bond you to him by blood. How long do you think you can keep him from claiming you, Jordana?”

“Elliott is a patient man. He’ll wait until I decide it’s time.”

Nathan gave a harsh grunt. “Then he’s not the kind of mate you need. Not the kind of male a woman like you deserves.”

She collected her courage enough to meet his challenge with one of her own. “What could you possibly know about what I need or deserve?”

He stepped in tighter to her, crowding her backward with the massive breadth of his body. “Have you ever kissed Elliott Bentley-Squire the way you kissed me?”

She didn’t answer, couldn’t form words with him this close to her.

“Has he ever made your cheeks flame just by looking at you, or made your pulse beat like a hammer in your veins because of the things you wish he’d do to you?”

Jordana swallowed. She exhaled a shaky breath edged with a humiliating whimper. Somehow she managed to find her voice amid the tumult of confusion and dark, unwanted desire that was swirling like a tempest inside her. “I suppose you’re arrogant enough to believe that I should want someone like you instead?”

He chuckled then, low and humorless. “No, Jordana. I’m the last kind of man you should want in your life … or in your bed.”

And yet he didn’t move away from her. He just kept her caged with his body for a seemingly endless moment of time.

His irises crackled with tiny sparks of amber as he stared at her. Only the barest tips of his fangs were noticeable behind the lush line of his upper lip.

Jordana felt him reach between the scant distance of their bodies to take her hand. His fingers were warm and strong, so large and commanding as he held her in his firm, guiding grasp.

He uncurled her loose fist, only to place something hard and round, cold and sleek, in her palm. Of course. The roll of packing tape.

“Go back to where you belong now, Jordana.” He drew away from her at last, leaving her standing in a chilled, confused state of arousal and rejection. “Get out,” he said, a warning in the curt command.

Jordana held the tape to her chest and could hardly scramble for the door fast enough.

As she started to rush for the corridor, he added, “That kiss was a mistake, Jordana—for both of us. But don’t expect me to believe you’re any more sorry than I am that it happened.”

IF HIS MORNING HAD STARTED OFF IN A BAD WAY, BY AFTERNOON it hadn’t improved a bit. After his encounter with Jordana, as much as Nathan craved an outlet for his tightly leashed aggression, he didn’t want to risk killing any of his teammates if he joined them in the day’s combat exercises in the weapons room.

Instead, he’d spent the bulk of the day in the command center’s technology lab, digging into public records—and some not so public—in his search for intel on Cassian Gray.

All he’d discovered was that the man was proving to be as elusive on paper as he was in person. For all the lack of information, it was as if Cass had been taking careful steps to cover his tracks from the moment he first surfaced in Boston twenty-some years ago.

As if he’d been planning all along for the day he’d need to vanish.

Nathan downloaded what little he had on Cass to a mission intel file, then shut down the computer and left the lab. With sundown just a few hours away, he had time to get in some solo training and prep his weapons for the night’s patrol with his team.

His body was still tense, aggression still riding him, and he knew damn well it had less to do with frustration over a stymied mission than it did a certain platinum-haired, Darkhaven beauty he had no right to desire.

An unschooled virgin besides.

Fuck
.

Never mind the fact that she was Carys Chase’s best friend—as of
today, her roommate besides—and the darling of Boston’s high society, Breed and human alike. Never mind that she had all but promised herself to another male, out of obligation or naivete, it didn’t matter.

No, Jordana Gates was off limits for many reasons, but most of all this: Because she was pure. She was innocent.

He wouldn’t be the one to take that from her.

He couldn’t take that from anyone, not the way his hungers ran.

He hadn’t been merely trying to scare Jordana when he told her that he was the last man she’d want in her bed. It had been a warning. One he hoped to hell she took to heart, because God help her if she trusted him to be the hero.

On a curse, Nathan stalked into the vacant armory of the Order’s weapons room. He stripped off his black T-shirt and powered himself through a punishing hour of solo exercise with a pair of long daggers. The exertion woke up his muscles and bones, reminded his body of what it was trained to do.

More important, it woke up his Hunter’s mind, put his thoughts in ruthless focus on executing the patrol ahead of him in the city tonight.

Elsewhere, in the main arena of the weapons facility, he could hear Rafe, Eli, and Jax still running one another through the paces of mock combat. A fourth voice—Aric must have joined them at some point—whooped as blades clanked and sawed together, steel meeting steel.

Nathan finished his solo maneuvers and hit the shower. He hoped to be in and gone before the other warriors wrapped up their work in the adjacent room, but no sooner had he stepped under the hot spray than footsteps falling heavy on tile and lighthearted insults sounded in the locker area outside.

Elijah’s low drawl echoed over the rest of the men. “Damn, someone tell me why I thought that fifth round of hand-to-hand and blade work was a good idea.” A moment later, the brown-haired vampire swaggered naked into the showers, slanting Nathan a casual nod of greeting.

Eli took his place across from Nathan and turned on the spray, groaning as the hot water coursed over him. Blood ran in thin, diluted rivulets down Eli’s
dermaglyph
-covered arms and legs from wounds he’d sustained in the practice, but already the lacerations were beginning to heal.

Minor injuries were of no consequence to their kind. Cuts and contusions vanished in minutes, sometimes less time than that.

“Don’t be such a sore loser,” Aric Chase taunted. Grinning, he strode
in and took a spot two down from Elijah. Rafe and Jax followed him inside, briefly acknowledging Nathan before going to separate corners of the showers. “What’s the matter, Eli,” Aric pressed, “don’t want to admit you got trounced by a trainee?”

“Trainee,” he said, smirking as he glanced at the younger warrior and sluiced water off his face. “Daywalking, smartass punk, more like it. You’re good with a weapon, I’ll give you that. But don’t think I didn’t notice you waited to take me on until after I’d already gone four rounds with two warriors who actually know how to fight.”

Aric chuckled as he soaped up and shot a look at Rafe across the room. “You know, for a Texan, he’s sure got a fragile ego. Must be that weaker, late-generation Breed blood in him.”

“The hell you say.” Eli snorted, his drawl thicker now. “Ain’t nothin’ fragile about me. Next time you ask me to spar, I’m gonna drop you on your daywalker ass before I kick it from here to the Alamo.”

Aric laughed and rinsed off the suds. “Tell you what. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you a handicap next time.”

“I’ll give you a handicap right now, sunshine.” Elijah flashed his fangs at the other vampire and made a fast swat at Aric, cuffing his flaccid dick. It was a jest and a challenge—one Aric tried to return, but wasn’t quick enough.

Both laughing now, Eli grabbed him in a headlock under the water and let him sputter for a few seconds before letting him go. Before long, Jax and Rafe joined in the skirmish, the four big males wrestling around like a close-knit wolf pack.

Like the tight band of brothers they were.

Nathan watched for a moment, detached from the camaraderie. For all his expertise in stealth and combat, game play was a concept that eluded him. It went against his nature. Against the rigid discipline that had made him a consummate killer by the time he was seven years old.

He chased.

He conquered.

He destroyed.

His training as a boy in the Hunters’ cells permitted nothing less. And although his rescue at age thirteen had saved Nathan, a part of him had never come out of Dragos’s lab and likely never would.

He was the fighting dog, rescued from the squalor and violence of the betting pits and brought into a kind, loving home to live a better life.

He had been spared, given a new chance. He had parents and friends
he cared for. He had fellow warriors who would die for him, as he would for them.

Yet, like the dog removed from the ring, when a hand reached out to him—in play or in comfort—it was all he could do to keep from biting it.

The distance between who he was now and what he’d been raised to be was a thin razor’s edge that he toed with meticulous discipline each and every day. No one knew the effort it took for him to seem normal. To appear that he fit in with decent people, that he belonged.

They saw what he wanted them to see, and nothing more.

No one knew him beyond what he’d allowed them to perceive.

No one took anything from him that he wasn’t prepared to give up.

No one ever had, until Jordana Gates.

His blood ran hot at the thought of her, their conversation—and the all-too-tempting memory of her body in such close proximity to his—making his veins light up with hunger.

If he’d thought the beautiful Breedmate an unwanted distraction before, crossing paths with her this morning had only confirmed what he’d been striving so hard to deny.

Jordana Gates was going to be a problem for him.

She already was. After one brief kiss and a couple of chance encounters—all told, only a few minutes’ time in her presence—she had aroused a fierce desire in him. She was impacting his focus, diminishing his concentration.