Chapter 7 #2
“No, Kincaid, in the end it would be you,” she said as she looked hard into those marble blue eyes with those haunting veins of gold that laced them like a treasure she could never tap into.
“As Alpha, as leader of these people, who would you pick? Who would you demand the sacrifice of? Where would you find a volunteer?” She reached to rake hard fingers through his haphazardly spiky hair.
“What if I really needed someone to test my theory on? What if I really believed I had found a way to kill a Morphate? We’d need someone to test it on, wouldn’t we? Who would we pick?”
“No one,” he breathed against her mouth. “You would never kill someone. You’d never demand a Morphate lay his life down for your science. You are not that kind of person. You never have been. I know that.”
He lurched forward, capturing her mouth with his and, for the very first time, kissing her.
Truly kissing her with feeling and emotion behind it, putting himself into the expression of affection and accepting her on the other side.
It was by far the most luscious kiss she had ever been a part of.
Sweet and wet and painfully tender in its way.
His tongue laced with hers in several deeply touching sweeps.
Then she pulled away from it, pulled back from the temptation of getting lost in the connection he was seeking in that moment.
“The trick is making Paulson believe I am that kind of person,” she said softly against his lips. “Actually, affirming it is more like it. He is already assuming I am that kind of person. Just like you have.”
Have. Yes. In the past. Up until that moment, in fact. But now he realized that she had never had any intention of finding a way to kill a Morphate. Simply because the only way to prove it was absolutely unacceptable to her. As would be any of the methods she would need to use to get to that point.
“If you never had any intention of helping me do what I’ve asked of you, why are you here?” he asked quietly.
“You asked me to do two things. The other was to help you control the beast inside of you. I think there I can be of some help. And I admit I have other goals. I want to see the Morphate children. I want you to trust me enough to let me do what I can to help them.”
“Is that why you’ve done this?” he demanded to know, his hand gesturing to the increasingly glowing figure on the laptop screen.
“I’m not wholly sacrificial,” she said. “I need your protection from Paulson as well. I’m in his sights as much as you are. He’s going to get me one day for one reason or another, and I need you to be there for me when that happens.”
A strand of her hair had escaped the tight pull of her usual ponytail, perhaps because his hands were at present wrapped around her small head.
He reached for it, smoothing it back into place as best as he could.
It was strange, but in that moment his urges were very oppositional to his actions.
He wanted nothing more than to muss her up.
To pull all of her hair free, to have it between his fingers as she threw her head back in pleasure.
But despite those overwhelming urges and the insistence of his internal beast that she was the perfect mate for him, he had replayed their sexual encounter over and over enough times to recognize that she was simply not built for him.
As beautiful and delicious as she had proved to be, all his hunger could ever do was tear her apart.
Her pale pallor and the weariness in her features told him that more than anything.
Now if only he could keep reign over the part of him that wanted to countermand his control. The fact of the matter was, just the smell of her, just the nearness of her warmth stirred him up in ways he had never felt before.
Yes, he had had some amazing fucks with some amazing women, some of them powerful Morphates who had temporarily stepped into the role of Alpha female. But none of them had ever lasted because none of them had made him feel like this.
“Tad. That boy who thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread,” Kincaid said gruffly.
“He’s subordinate, everyone knows I don’t care for his attention to you.
They see …” He didn’t want to point out that everyone in the lab clearly knew she was his.
He’d marked her hard enough, and his hovering in the lab had made it clear.
He had tried to keep it low-key, knowing the trouble an outright claim on her might cause, but it had been impossible.
“He’ll do anything for you and for me. He’s invested in the project. He’ll do it and do it well.”
Jenesis almost wanted to smile at him, but she muted the sunburst of pride she was feeling at that moment, though she didn’t wholly understand why. But she admitted she was proud of Kin for his intelligent choice, and for trusting another, whether he realized that was what he was doing or not.
“You’re right, he’ll do it. And he can be trusted.”
“I’ll kill him for real if he fucks it up,” Kincaid growled menacingly.
Jena sighed. Oh well, at least he was trying.
“Well, then, let’s go kill our Tad, shall we?” she suggested, reaching to discontinue the program and shutting down the laptop. She had to brush against him as she did so, and she could feel his strong, tightly powerful body and his incredible heat against her as she did so.
She felt one of his hands close over her hip, and suddenly she felt him behind her as she bent forward, his arousal very evident as he rubbed himself up against her backside.
The movement was powerful but brief, a strong act of dominance and a reflection of his true desires.
But when he pushed away from her, his breath falling hard, she knew what it was taking for him to maintain control over his baser desires.
She turned to look at him, her entire body hot with desires of her own that had been roused by his body contact.
He had left very abruptly the night before.
There had been little explanation and she hadn’t required one of him.
She had just assumed they’d come to an impasse and he had thought it best to leave.
But his behavior was telling a very different story.
So was hers, for that matter. She should be storming furious with him for all his rude assumptions and obstinate ways, but damn him, she understood him too well.
She understood his fears and his paranoia.
And she felt an incredible amount of compassion and empathy.
She knew what it was like to feel like you were alone and unable to put your trust in one single soul.
Especially a member of the opposite sex.
She had spent seven years denying her cravings and needs as a sexual being. Her tumultuous session of sex with him had been the closest thing she’d had to a real physical connection.
She lifted her gaze to his, seeing the want and fire in his eyes. If she could judge by the tightness of his clenching fists, it was taking everything in him to keep from throwing her up against the smart glass and giving in to his lust.
She stepped closer to him, reaching to touch his chest, her fingertips drifting over the ridges of abdominal muscles under the simple fashion of his oxford shirt.
“I won’t ask an obvious question. I know you want me,” she heard herself saying, her voice so sultry it was as though it were somebody else speaking.
“What I want to know is why you won’t act on it.
You don’t strike me as the sort who doesn’t take what he wants.
In fact, you’ve already proved as much.”
“And nearly tore you apart in the process,” he said roughly, trying to take a step back but failing in his bid to free himself of her disturbing caresses because she stepped with him, allowing her hand to catch him by his belt.
She grabbed hold and used all of her strength to pull him up tight to her aching and craving body.
“There are other ways to express passion,” she said.
Then, before either of them could judge her actions, she had shoved them both up tight against the nearest wall and let her hands run down the front of his soft denim jeans.
She could feel him, erect and hot, through the fabric.
“I took you well enough last night,” she said in defense of herself, although when their eyes met they both acknowledged how much he’d been forced to hold back in order to keep the episode from turning into something dangerous and very unpleasant to remember.
But as she deftly unbuttoned his pants she knew she wasn’t looking to abuse her limited human vagina any further than she already had.
She pulled his shirt free of his waistband, fingers working with wicked ease through his buttons until she could strip the fabric back, peeling it down the swells of his awesome shoulders, exposing smooth skin everywhere she went.
She knew she wasn’t imagining the increase of heat radiating off of him.
Her analytical brain even appreciated that there was something about the way he smelled that just got more and more delicious by the minute.
It reached the point when she felt she had to touch her mouth to him.
Oddly enough it wasn’t her lips that made it to him first. It was her eager, hungry tongue that licked over the large swell of his left pectoral muscle.
And once the taste of him was on her tongue, she utterly forgot about the fact that the stab wound in his chest was almost completely healed, only the smallest divot in his flesh marking the spot of the occurrence.
She hadn’t believed the violence she had found herself capable of in that moment. She hadn’t known she could get that angry. She had wanted to hurt him and that was the only way she could think of, all the time knowing it would be a very small hurt in the grand scheme of his life.