Chapter 15
Jericho
Her pulse hammers beneath my thumb where I’m cupping her jaw. Her breath soft on my lips. Warm. Quick. Smelling faintly of coffee and arousal so thick I can taste it in the air.
She moves first—lifts onto her toes, closes the distance, presses her mouth to mine. Not tentative. Not uncertain. Demanding.
“Jericho,” she murmurs my name against my lips. Barely sound. Just breath shaped into syllables.
Not a warning. Not a question.
Pure need.
The last of my restraint shatters.
I kiss her back. Hard. Hungry. My hand fists in her hair, angling her head exactly where I want it. My other hand slides down to pull her flush against me so she can feel exactly what she does to me, how hard I am, how much I want this, how far past reason I’ve gone.
She gasps into my mouth, and my dragon surges, demanding to surface, demanding I claim. I restrain myself, but the effort makes my chest heave.
Her hands are everywhere. On my chest, my shoulders, fisting in my shirt like she’s trying to pull me closer even though we’re pressed against each other. She’s making sounds; small, desperate noises that make my cock throb and heat flood my flesh.
I turn us. Pin her against the wall. The impact isn’t gentle, but she arches into it, into me, seeking friction. The pressure of her mound against my erection makes a groan ripple up my throat.
I can feel her heat even through our clothes. Can smell her lust. Can taste it on her tongue when I deepen the kiss, when I take her mouth.
My hand slides under her shirt. Finds bare skin. She’s burning up. Wolf heat bleeding through, and my dragon responding with fire that makes my skin hot enough to sting beneath her touch.
She pulls at my shirt. Yanks it up. I break the kiss long enough to drag it over my head, and then her hands are on my bare chest, nails scraping, exploring.
I get her shirt off—mine, the one I gave her—and there’s nothing underneath except skin and pert, perfect breasts and the rapid rise and fall of her breathing.
My mouth finds her throat. Her skin tastes like salt and wolf, the flavor sharp on my tongue, making my dragon rumble approval deep in my chest.
I kiss lower. Her collarbone. The valley between her breasts. Her skin against my lips is fever-hot, and when I take her nipple into my mouth, she cries out, her hands tightening in my hair.
Not pulling away. Pulling me closer. Demanding more.
I lift her, and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation. The pressure against my cock makes my vision blur.
My mouth finds hers again. The kiss is brutal. More teeth than finesse. Her tongue sliding against mine in a rhythm that makes my hips rock against her, seeking friction that’s nowhere near enough.
Scales threaten beneath my skin. I can feel them trying to surface along my forearms, my spine. My eyes are probably shifting—dragon sight trying to surface, wanting to see her in full spectrum, wanting to watch her heat signature spike when she comes.
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t flinch. Just presses closer like she wants the burn.
My hand slides between us. Finds the top of her pants. Her breath stutters when my fingers slip beneath fabric to find bare skin and—
She’s soaked. Slick and swollen, and when I touch her, she makes a sound that’s almost a sob.
“Jericho—” she chokes out my name.
I press against her entrance. Just one finger. Just testing. Her head falls back against the wall, and I watch her face—lips parted, eyes closed, cheeks flushed pink. Her arousal intensifies, flooding my senses until there’s nothing else.
I slide my finger past her slick lips. Shallow. Teasing. Her inner walls clench around me, and she whimpers. The sound goes straight to my cock, my pants suddenly too tight, too restrictive.
Mine.
The word blazes through me. Not thought—truth written in fire and instinct and something deeper than conscious recognition. This female is everything I didn’t know I needed until she was clawing her way into my life with murder in her eyes and need in her scent.
I add a second finger. Work them deeper. Her legs tighten around my waist. Her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood, and I don’t care. I want her marks on me, want evidence of this.
She’s close already. I can feel it in the way her body tenses, in the way her breathing turns ragged, in the desperate sounds she’s making between kisses. Her pulse pounds where my mouth finds her throat. The rhythm matches the clench and release of her inner walls around my fingers.
My thumb finds her clit and circles. Once. Twice. Barely a minute, and she shatters. Comes apart in my arms with my name torn from her throat and her body clenching rhythmically around my fingers. The scent of her pleasure is so intense it makes my dragon roar recognition.
But it’s not enough.
I need inside her. Need to feel her wrapped around my cock. Need to claim her properly.
She’s already reaching for my pants. Fumbling with the button. Getting it open. Dragging down the zipper with shaking hands.
Her palm closes around my cock, and my vision whites out for half a second. I’m so hard it borders on painful—have been for what feels like hours. The relief of her touch is overwhelming. Then she strokes, and it becomes torture of a different kind.
She’s not gentle. Not tentative. Just works me with purpose and pressure that makes my hips thrust into her grip.
“Inside me.” Not a request. A demand. Her eyes meet mine—pupils blown so wide there’s barely any color left. Wolf taking over. “Now.”
I should think about this. Consider consequences. Remember that in hours we’ll be at Aurora and everything will be complicated.
I don’t think. Just adjust our position. Line myself up. Feel her heat against the head of my cock. I’m pressing forward when—
“Frost. Allon. Extraction is here. Open up.”
The voice cuts through everything. Cold. Authoritative. Coming from right outside the door.
I know that voice. Viktor Parlance. Aurora’s leader. The man I need to convince I’m worth sanctuary.
We both go still. My cock pressed against her entrance. Her legs wrapped around me. Both of us half-naked and panting and one thrust away from—
“I know you’re in there,” Viktor continues through the door. “Syndicate is regrouping. We only have minutes. Open the door.”
The world snaps back into focus with brutal clarity.
Nadia’s eyes meet mine. Wide. Horrified. Processing what we were about to do and who’s on the other side of that door about to witness the aftermath.
We move at the same time. She drops her legs, and I release her, and we’re scrambling backward trying to make ourselves presentable.
My shirt. Floor. I grab it and yank it on. Button my pants even though my cock is still hard and aching, and my dragon is snarling in protest at stopping. There’s a visible wet spot on the fabric. Nothing I can do about it.
Nadia finds her shirt and pulls it over her head. Her hair is tangled from my hands. Lips swollen from kissing. Face flushed. Neck marked where I sucked too hard. There’s no hiding what we were doing.
She knows it too. I see the panic flash across her face, see her trying to smooth her hair down and failing.
Another knock. Harder. “Last chance before I breach this door.”
I cross to it. Try to breathe normally. Fail. Try to think of something to say that will make this less catastrophic.
Also fail.
This is not the first impression I wanted to make. Not disheveled and half-dressed with his operative’s juices all over me and my cock still straining against my pants and every sign of what we were doing written across both of us.
But there’s no alternative. No excuse. No way to rewind five minutes and make different choices.
I open the door.
Viktor Parlance stands in the hallway. Mid-fifties. Face as sharp as a hawk’s. He takes in everything in one sweeping glance. My disheveled appearance. Nadia behind me in a similar state. The small room with its single bed and the tension that saturates the air.
His expression doesn’t change. Just goes colder. Calculating. Weighing what he’s seeing against what he knows and arriving at obvious conclusions.
His gaze shifts from me to Nadia and back. Lingering on her swollen lips. Her flushed cheeks. The marks on her throat. The shirt she’s wearing that clearly isn’t hers.
Three seconds of silence that feel like hours.
Then his jaw tightens fractionally. The only visible sign of his reaction.
“We’ll discuss this.” His voice could freeze water. “Move. Now.”
I meet his eyes. Say nothing. There’s nothing to say that won’t make this worse.
His expression tells me exactly what he thinks of me, of this situation, of my chances at gaining Aurora’s trust after what he’s just walked in on.
Great.
This is a fuck-up.