His Darkest Embrace (13 page)

Jagger did the same, so busy trying to ignore the loud silence that he didn’t taste the beans that he gulped down in minutes. The hunger pains in his gut began to ease, although the ache that formed in the pit of his stomach was a testament to the fact that he’d wolfed his food down like an animal.

He leaned back but was afraid to shut his eyes. Would she try to escape?

Jagger tilted his head and observed her as she finished the last of her tin. Her tongue darted out, quickly licking away a drop of sauce that had landed on the corner of her mouth. He was mesmerized at the sight and when she stuck her finger in her mouth, to suck away any lingering remnants that she might find, he felt his groin tighten in response.

All he could think about was her luscious lips wrapped tightly around his straining, painful erection.

And she had no clue as to the effect her simple actions were having.

“Come here,” he commanded roughly. Her stare jumped to his, and he held it, her blue eyes wary and hesitant.

He could see that she was shivering. Her body had been through a lot over the past few days, and he knew that physically she must be damn near the end of her rope. That being said, he still didn’t trust her enough to allow her to be away from his reach.

She raised her head, her elegant chin jutting out. “No.” Her one-word answer was no surprise, but instead of impatience and anger, he felt a sense of pride in her belief that she could win over him.

His grin widened. The little minx had no clue what she was up against.

“Come here …
now,”
he said once more.

He could see her brain working furiously, looking for a way out. He couldn’t be sure if it was because she was so incredibly tired, or if she realized the futility of the situation. Maybe it was both.

No matter. He watched her closely as she got to her feet, pulling along a blanket that had been stuffed inside her supply bag. She stopped just in front of him and bit her bottom lip.

He smiled up at her wickedly, spreading his legs and indicating she slide in between them. Skye hesitated for only a second and then something flashed across the deep blue of her eyes. They darkened and a ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

A tingle of energy slid down Jagger’s spine and he felt his mouth go dry. Anticipation shot through him, but it was quickly replaced with anxiety.

The feel of her ass against his crotch had his cock twitching excitedly and the uncomfortable heaviness that followed was painful.

His body immediately tightened and when she wriggled her softness against him and murmured, “Oh, sorry, just trying to get comfortable—the ground is so hard,” he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.

Fuck.

What the hell had he been thinking? He should have tied her to a tree or something.

He tried to ignore the earthy scent that clung to her skin. By rights the woman should stink to high heaven. They had been trekking through the jungle for days. But she smelled incredibly delicious and he wanted nothing more than to run his tongue down the back of her neck, nibble his way around the delicate jaw, and claim her luscious lips as his own.

“Who is this Nico?” Skye asked, her voice slicing through his fantasy. She moved her body once more, a subtle grind, and he clenched his teeth. “Ah, that’s better,” she said softly.

Jagger blew out hot air. It was going to be one hell of a long night.

He took a few moments and forced his body to relax. It was hard. The warmth of the woman between his legs called to the animal inside of him. He could feel the possessive need, the
want
that lay there waiting to explode.

“Nico is jaguar. No one really knows where he comes from, what clan. His tattoos are unlike any I’ve seen before.” Jagger controlled the shudder that tingled inside of him, but it was hard. Skye Knightly felt too damn good. “He used to belong to my brother’s unit at PATU but left several years ago.”

“Okay, I’ve heard you boys talking about PATU and I have no clue what the hell that is.”

Jagger smiled at the indignant tone of Skye’s voice. She sure as hell didn’t like being out of the loop. “Paranormal Antiterrorist Unit. It’s specialized and uses highly trained operatives, all otherworld. You know, people like us, non humans. Jaxon has headed the unit for the last seven years.”

“And this Nico person was in this unit. Why did he leave?”

“That"—Jagger sighed—"is not my story to tell.”

“Well, what did Julian mean when he said that Nico was unstable? Are we hanging our hopes on some nut job who’s gone native and lives in the jungle full time?”

“I went
native
and my faculties are wholly intact.”

Skye snorted. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

“Look, I’ll be the first to admit that Nico has issues, but it’s not like we have much choice. If anyone knows where this freaking cave is, it will be Nico.”

He waited as his words soaked in. His body was tight, uncomfortable. When she moved yet again, an exquisite pain shot from his cock and traveled up his body like a lightning bolt. It left in its wake a fire that singed every nerve ending along the way. It elicited a hiss from deep within his chest and he cursed under his breath.

Jagger didn’t know what would happen if she kept up her game of cock tease. Her round ass was an invitation he was finding hard to resist. The fact that her heart rate had sped up and her body was now flush with heat told him that she was not immune to the pull of desire that raged inside of him.

“You will not win,” he whispered, low, against her neck. He knew exactly what she was up to.

Skye turned her head slightly, until their mouths were almost touching. When she whispered, the heat from her mouth caressed his lips like a kiss: “Who says I want to win?”

Her voice, husky, fanned the flames of desire to a level he’d not felt before.

Ever.

Fuck,
Jagger thought as her lips reached for his. He held back for a second and then with a groan covered her mouth with his own. As her sweetness opened up to him, he pushed back the thoughts that lingered like a bad dream. He opened his mouth fully and his tongue plunged deep inside the warm wetness of hers.

Jagger ignored the voice that echoed deep within his mind.

No good can come of this.

Chapter 12

D
angerous slivers of desire swept across Skye’s flesh and she shuddered as Jagger’s mouth met her waiting, eager lips. Each pass of his tongue pulled at something deep inside of her, an ache that roared to life with a pulsating need that, while painful, carved trails of pleasure-spiked desire across her skin. It felt like every single nerve ending was electrified.

The intensity left her breathless.

All of this with just a kiss.

She groaned softly into his mouth, shifting her body until she was able to turn fully. Skye wanted every single inch of her flesh touching his. It was all she could think about. The incredible need to touch and to taste.

It was like a fever, this need to connect on every level possible.

With Jagger.

“Christ, but you feel good.” His low, rough voice sent a new round of pleasure spiraling through her body.

“So do you,” she whispered against his mouth.

Her hands had crept up his body and Skye’s fingers dug in as she straddled him, pushing her center into the welcoming heat between his legs.

He was rock hard and the hiss that escaped his lips as she ground her body against him excited and thrilled Skye. She took wicked pleasure in knowing just how much he wanted her. To know that his passion more than matched the molten heat that raced through her veins was an amazing feeling.

She wanted to lose herself in him. To forget everything that tinged the landscape black and threw a dagger of destruction into her foreseeable future.

A future that was on borrowed time.

She shook her head and cleared her mind from such thoughts. An image of Jagger naked and wet, shrouded in mist as the wildness of the jaguar slowly fled his body, flashed before her eyes. He’d been so untamed, so feral when she’d first laid eyes on him.

She smiled into his mouth as he growled deep from his throat, his breaths coming in ragged bursts.

Skye grabbed his face between her hands, nipping at his nose as she pulled away. His eyes, electric green, burned with a fire and intensity that at one time might have unnerved her. Scared her, even.

Yet now it awakened something inside that answered in kind.

Jagger Castille was all male. Rough, hard, powerful. And for this night, he was all hers.

She didn’t give a rat’s ass that he was jaguar. Not at this moment, anyway. Because in the coming days none of it would matter.

Skye traced her index finger along his chiseled chin, up along his jaw until her hand sunk deep into the glossy waves that caressed his neck. He was so damn beautiful, it almost hurt to look at him.

She reached down slowly, watching his eyes dilate as her lips hovered just above his mouth. She knew that he wanted her as much as she craved him, and that only fed the fires to an even hotter degree.

The noises he made were so animalistic, she couldn’t help but smile wickedly as each one tore from the back of his throat.

In a time when everything seemed to be uncertain, the one thing she could control was the here and now. How ironic that Skye, an elite eagle knight, wanted to control a jaguar warrior.

Badly.

His eyes began to glow; sparks seeming to fly from deep within. Skye felt his hands ease their way around her body until they cupped the mounds of her ass tightly. He pulled her in tighter, crushing her against him with merciless intent.

Skye bit her lip as the ache that lay heavily between her legs intensified. Jagger pulled her slowly back and forth across his erection, and the friction from the material of her shorts was insanely pleasurable.

Her right hand slowly brought his head back toward her, while she kept his mouth aimed toward her own with her left. She wanted to taste him, and opened her mouth hotly against his, her tongue going deep and securing his mouth as her property in one careful swoop.

He tasted like the jungle. Hot, spicy, dangerous.

Inside her soul, the raptor was hungry.

They kissed, long and hard, each feeding from the other with an appetite that was insatiable.

“I want you so bad it feels like I need to crawl inside of you or I’ll go crazy,” Jagger whispered hoarsely into her ear.

Skye stilled at his words. The longing and need that colored his words was echoed inside of her. It was almost painful, this need to mate. To make love with a man who was her equal.

A man you’ll have to give up.

The thought slipped into her mind, silent and sneaky. Skye savagely pushed it away. Tonight was hers and to hell with everything else.

She pulled her mouth from Jagger’s, loving the way he tried to hold on, as if she were the oxygen he needed to live. She then righted herself, keeping her body balanced on his crotch as she straddled his groin.

“You are a fucking angel.” Jagger reached for her hair and she let him fondle it between his fingers, her hands running up along his forearms as he did so. She could feel her nipples, hardened with need, straining against the soft cotton of her tankie and she laughed throatily, pushing his hands away as she reached for the bottom seam.

As the sultry jungle air touched the heated flesh of her breasts, coaxing the nipples into an even harder pucker, Skye shuddered. They were so sensitive that she groaned softly. Her breasts felt heavy, full of need.

Jagger inhaled deeply and he held her hands at her sides, effectively trapping her. His eyes were nearly black with desire as they fed from the exposed flesh that trembled beneath his gaze.

Long moments passed but he wouldn’t release her. Skye began to move impatiently against him. “Let me go, I need to—”

He moved quickly, his tongue darting out to attack the turgid nipple closest to him. He circled the hardness, moving his tongue with a deft control that left Skye shaking.

“Oh God, that feels so good,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sensations that were fingering their way out from her chest, to the soft ache between her legs. It was like a direct conduit, and only intensified when he closed his entire mouth over her nipple.

Skye arched into him, wanting to grab hold of his head, but her hands were still trapped at her sides. He wouldn’t release her. It was like an exquisite torture.

He began to suckle,
hard,
and each time he drew her deep into his mouth, it pulled at her desire in such a way that it was painful. Yet wholly pleasurable.

“Please,” she whimpered, “I need to touch you.”

Jagger laughed wickedly and moved to her other breast, trapping the aching nipple between his teeth, scraping the sensitive peak provocatively. Skye squealed and ground herself against him, loving the feel of his hardness. She began to writhe in earnest as small sounds of pleasure and desire fell from her lips.

Jagger held her firm still, his open mouth and tongue devouring the rosy hardness like it was candy. He licked, nipped, and suckled, and then blew on each breast. The sensation was unlike anything Skye had felt before, and her head fell back as she gave herself up to its exquisite pleasure.

She’d had lovers in the past. Yet none had affected her on such a level as did Jagger. He’d barely begun to scratch the surface and she was putty in his hands.

“Jagger, release my hands.” Her words were throaty but she managed to get them out, and when he suddenly acquiesced, Skye immediately grabbed his head and brought his mouth back to her own.

“You taste like sin,” she whispered against his mouth.

A smile spread across her own as she pulled away and slowly stood. The night’s kiss against her heated skin spread a rash of goose bumps across her flesh, and her fingers fell to the hard nipples at her breasts.

God, she loved the way his eyes reacted when she touched herself. She massaged the aching buds and laughed softly at the exasperated curse that flew from his lips.

“You’re fucking killing me.”

Skye tore her gaze away from his and let her eyes wander down the hard planes of his chest. Savagely, she reached for the shirt that covered what she so wanted to see and practically ripped it from his frame, tossing it aside, where it landed on top of hers.

Her mouth immediately fell to his neck and she nipped and suckled the base, licking slowly, seductively, at the point where his pulse banged out a rhythm of desire. Her nipples scraped gently against the hair on his chest and she sucked in her breath as a new wave of sensation poured over her flesh.

Jagger’s hands wove a trail of fire up and down her bare back while her mouth slowly slid toward his chest, until her tongue flicked a wet kiss against each of his nipples. They, too, hardened, and she rose slightly until her breasts were crushed against his.

Something then slid across her subconscious. A whisper of darkness.

Skye stilled. Her heart beat fast and heavy in her chest as a spike of adrenaline rushed through her veins.

“Don’t stop now,” Jagger uttered, his voice hoarse, edgy with need.

“I just, I …” Skye struggled to clear the fog of desire from her brain. Something was weird. Off.

It tempered the raw need that she felt, but only minutely, and when Jagger once more claimed her nipple, deep in his mouth, she threw her head back.

His hands were inside the waist band of her shorts and he leaned back, pulling the denim from her limbs and leaving her bare to his roving eyes. They were hooded, sexy in their regard of her nakedness.

Skye smiled at Jagger and slowly slid her hands down her belly. She spread her legs open and teased the sweet spot that lay hidden within the folds of her sex with quick, gentle movements.

The sweat that covered Jagger’s skin in a fine sheen quickly beaded and the look on his face was so raw and intense that she stopped her actions.

His eyes began to glow and the tattoos that adorned the hard lines of his abs and left bicep seemed to move. She was transfixed to such an extent that at first she didn’t note the change in the atmosphere.

“Don’t stop now, baby,” he whispered hoarsely, though his voice fell from his lips in layers, and her heart jumped. Something wasn’t right.

Slowly, as if from far away, she felt the beginnings of panic intruding. Skye’s head felt fuzzy and she shook herself, trying to right her body.

Her skin was no longer heated but cold, and a feeling of dread settled deep in her gut. The air around them began to fog as the warmth from the earth reacted to the suddenly cold temperature.

Her desire fled, the need forgotten. Something was desperately wrong.

Jagger seemed to be oblivious to all of this, and when he reached for her, his eyes focused solely on the exposed apex of her legs, she kicked hard and rolled to the side.

“What the fuck?” The words, ripped from his throat were furious. “I can’t, I …”

Jagger stood over her, chest heaving, erection strained against his pants, with his hands clenched tightly at his sides. His face had gone white and she could sense the fury that lay just under the skin.

Skye scrambled away, more confused than ever, looking around wildly.

“Something was"—she swallowed, trying to force the words out—"something was here.”

Jagger’s eyes narrowed and he scented the air. When he turned back to her, his face was tight with anger. “Lady, the only thing that I see is a cock tease.”

Skye shook her head, but no words came forth. She had no clue what had just happened and couldn’t articulate it. She dropped her gaze to the ground, shoulders sunken as she tried to cover her nakedness.

She suddenly felt exposed, cheap.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered.

Jagger suddenly bent low, his breath striking the skin of her cheek. “No I don’t. I don’t understand any of this. I’m not one of your flyboy eagles, and I don’t like games.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

Jagger pulled away. “We’re done. Get dressed.”

Skye kept a wary eye on him as she gingerly reached for her clothes. In less than thirty seconds she was dressed, unsure of what to do next.

“Come here,” Jagger commanded, yet this time there was no desire, warmth. In fact there was pretty much nothing at all.

She hesitated, but the look that he threw at her quenched any desire to ignore his request. The man was pissed, and now that several moments had passed, Skye was starting to think that he had every right to be.

Her eyes swept the area once more and nothing seemed out of place. The jungle was just as it had been. Silent, dark.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She held her head high and walked over to him, surprised when his arms went around her. But this was no gentle touch. He had a rope tied around her waist before she even knew what was happening.