Jaci Burton - Taken by Sin

“How do you know I’m the one you need?”

“The life I save has to mean something. Saving you from the Sons of Darkness … stealing you from their grasp … that’s meaningful.”

“Okay. That makes sense.” So was she his target? Had she been since that night in Sicily? Maybe he was using her. Then again, maybe she was using him, too. Maybe she needed this redemption as much as he did. But could you build a love based on ulterior motives? Did that even matter anymore? How could they even have something together now, knowing what she knew about him? And what happened …

“What happens if I am your redemption? If this works and you …save me?” she asked. “Do you become an angel again and disappear forever?”

He looked at her for a while before answering. That meant she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

“Ideally, yes. When I redeem myself, I become a Guardian once again, and everything that entails. It means I’m invisible to the human realm.”

She would not cry. It wouldn’t be the first time she lost someone she loved. She’d get over it. She’d be human again. Or at least human enough that she’d have control over the demon inside her. That’s all she wanted, right? “I see.”

“No, you don’t see.” He picked up her hand, squeezed it. “I hadn’t counted on any of this when we started.”

“What?”

“Falling in love with you. I love you, Isabelle. I don’t want to leave you. But it may be the only way to save you. So what do I do? Let myself love you and let the Sons of Darkness have you? That would be the ultimate selfish act, and it would only allow us to be together a short period of time.”

Damn. He loved her. Or maybe he was just saying that to get her to agree to all this. Why couldn’t she believe in him, or in herself?

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

She almost laughed at the look of shock on his face. “I do. I mean I’d like to. Oh, hell, Dalton, it’s not like I get declarations of love every day.”

He pulled her against him, swept her hair away from her face. “You should. Goddammit, you should.”

He kissed her, and she sensed his anguish, his un certainty, and all his regret. It equaled everything she felt, which somehow eased her. She leaned into him, wrapped her arms around him, needing to lose herself in something that had nothing to do with what was going to happen between them in the future, and everything to do with right now.

All she wanted, all she could handle, was this moment. She no longer wanted to think about the future. The future didn’t seem full of hope and promise, or full of anything to fear. It was simply a place she didn’t want to go-not if that future was without Dalton.

She loved him. No matter what his reasons for being with her, for saving her, for bringing her here for whatever kind of otherworldly merger he had concocted with Georgie, she loved him. That wasn’t going to change. And if the demon inside her could give him his redemption, she’d make that sacrifice. For him.

As she moved against him, touching him, memorizing every part of his body under her hands, she was filled with a sense of wonder.

So this was love, this all-encompassing sensation of being filled to bursting with so much emotion she felt she couldn’t contain it all. She felt like she could explode, like she couldn’t sit still, yet there was nowhere else she wanted to be but right here next to Dalton.

They spoke no words, just pulled at each other’s clothes. Isabelle wanted only skin against her, his heat touching hers. Consumed by a sense of urgency, she wanted access to his body. Who knew how little time they had left? The clock ticked, the sound echoing in her mind.

When he stood and dropped his shorts, she scooted in front of him, rolling her palms over the angled planes of his hips and buttocks.

“I should have known you weren’t human,” she said, her voice a whisper in the darkness. “No man is this beautiful, this perfect.”

There wasn’t a single mark on him, nothing to mar the perfection of his body. The wound on his stomach was gone, as if it had never happened. She’d never noticed before that he didn’t even have scars on his body. He really was perfect. Ideal coloring, ideal body shape, and as she encircled his shaft and it slid into her hand, pulsing with life, she smiled.

“Yes. Perfect.”

She stroked him with both hands, deriving the greatest pleasure at watching his head roll back, his lips part and a wild groan escape his lips. And when she took him between her lips, he focused on her with a fierce gaze of utter possession, his hand cupping the back of her neck to guide her movements. He was like satin over steel, the softest skin over hard stone. She cupped the sac that hung between his legs, squeezing him gently while she rolled her tongue over his shaft.

Dalton muttered an oath and pulled away, knelt down and pressed her against the sofa, then spread her legs with his shoulder. He kissed her inner thighs, his silky hair tickling the skin there.

But she didn’t laugh. Not when his warm breath caressed her sex, not when his mouth covered her. She gasped, arching upward against all that wet, hot delight, reaching for more of that sweet pleasure. He held her hips and licked her, his tongue loving every part of her until she was shaking, hanging on a ragged edge. And when he slid his finger inside her, she rolled over that edge, gripped his wrists, and bucked against him, completely out of control.

Dalton didn’t let her regain an ounce of that control. He flipped her over on her knees, her face against the sofa, and slid inside her with one swift thrust. She tilted her head back, embedded in sensation as he rolled his hips to give her the perfect angle.

He bent over her, his chest pressed to her back, and nibbled her ear.

“I love you, Isabelle.”

The words whispered were dark, inviting, his fingers threaded through her hair and pulling as he pushed.

“You’re mine. No matter what happens, you’re mine.”

Thrilled by his possession of her, she couldn’t speak, could only react with her body, pushing back against him with every move he made. Every time he sank into her, he drove his meaning home.

She was his. She would always be his, body, heart, and soul.

“Yes,” was all she could manage as he licked the column of her throat, his fingers tight in her hair, refusing to let her budge, possessing her in every way possible. He lifted her up and one hand covered her breast, surrounding her nipple and tweaking it with soft, measured strokes until she cried out with delight. He moved his hand down, over her ribs, her belly, stroking her hip and moving inward to cup her sex, rolling over the taut bud to massage the burgeoning ache that threatened to devour her from the inside out.

Gripping, swelling, she was only pleasure now. Whatever Dalton wanted from her she would gladly give. Lost in sensation, she was mindless against the assault of his body, his mouth, his teeth grazing her shoulder as his hand worked its magic along with the rhythmic strokes of his shaft. It was too much; unintelligible words spilled from her lips as she catapulted into orgasm. Dalton pressed tight against her and shuddered, going with her over that wave as they held together in a wild ride where nothing existed but the two of them.

When they collapsed against the sofa and the white light surrounded them, she felt no shock. This time, she was at peace with the knowledge that this man was something incredibly special.

And he was hers.

For as long as it lasted.

Mandy sat in the corner of the seedy bar appropriately named The Bomb, scanning the activity around her, soaking in a bottle of beer and the atmosphere, and trying to avoid her own muddled thoughts.