Sylvia Day - A Touch of Crimson

Micah’s hand tightened on Elijah’s with surprising force, his claws extending enough to break the skin of his own palm and Elijah’s. Blood, hot and slippery, pooled between their joined grips. “Listen. You’re the one. Hear me? It’s you. Get Rachel out… Get them all out.”

Elijah jerked backward. “Don’t put that on me, Micah.”

“She trusts you-” The redhead erupted into violent, hacking coughing that left flecks of blood on both his lips and the pristine whiteness of his sheets.

“Rachel will be fine. I promise you that.”

“Not Rach-” He gasped. “Adrian’s woman… trusts you. You can abduct her… Leverage.”

Elijah pulled free of Micah’s grip, furious and sick that his best friend would dump this shit on him now. On his fucking deathbed. “Don’t do this,” he hissed. “Don’t ask me this. She risked her life for me.”

Micah’s head lifted from the pillow, his gaze an echo of its former fierceness. “Adrian will bend for her. Promise me. Step up. Make it happen. You can free them all. Only you.”

Lurching to his feet, Elijah stumbled out of the room.

“Blood oath, El,” Micah whispered, holding up his bloodied hand. Then he deflated into the bed, his chest rattling with every labored breath.

Elijah cleared the threshold. He looked at the lycans waiting outside the room. There were more of them now. A dozen familiar faces, all looking at him with somber, unwavering expectancy.

“You all put him up to this,” he accused. “You told him where I’ve been these last couple of weeks.”

Esther stepped forward. “Elijah-”

“You selfish fucking bastards.”

He looked at his hand and the already healing punctures marring it. With a roar, he shifted. Bursting free of his clothes, he vaulted forward in a powerful lunge that took him almost to the end of the building.

He rammed through the door to the outside and ran.

Lindsay was still gasping, trying to regain the breath Adrian had knocked from her, when he landed on the other side of the house. She heard the slide of a glass door at her back; then she was being carried through it and into a room containing a massive desk and a wall of overflowing bookshelves.

Leaning back in his embrace, she looked at his face. His features were stark, the skin stretched taut with fierce determination. Another door closed behind her, this one an interior door, and she was pushed up against it, pinned by Adrian’s hot, hard body. The drapes began their automated glide shut along with the sliding glass door, plunging the room into silence and darkness.

“Adrian…”

His mouth sealed over hers. He caught her wrists in his hands and pulled them above her head, one after the other. His tongue thrust into her mouth, a swift plunge that turned her on instantly.

The warm, vibrant scent of his skin filled her nostrils, wilder today than she’d remembered. Sexier.

She struggled against his grip and found her wrists tied to a coat hook on the back of the door. As his hands slid down her arms, she tugged to no avail, then grasped frantically with her fingers. Feeling lace, she realized he’d done that undressing thing with his thoughts and secured her to the hook with her own panties. A tentative squirm confirmed she was now commando in her jeans. “Let me go.”

“You’re not leaving me.” His voice was low and deceptively even, but the rigidness behind it was as tangible as the thong around her wrists.

Lindsay tugged again. The lace tore and immediately something stronger bound her to the door. When Adrian’s hands pushed up beneath her T-shirt and cupped her bare breasts, she realized it was her bra. A shiver moved through her. The only time she’d ever been held against her will was the day her mother had been killed. “Cut me loose, Adrian.”

His mouth latched on to the side of her neck. His fingers tugged her nipples into hard tight points. “No.”

Without volition, she arched into his hands, her breasts growing heavy and tender. “You’re upset. We should t-talk. We need to talk.”

“Not now.” He gripped her hips, making her aware that she was now completely nude. When a hair-dusted thigh pushed between her own, she realized he was naked, too.

Her breathing was loud in the otherwise quiet room. Her heart raced with a potent mixture of fear and forbidden desire. If it had been anyone else restraining her, she would’ve lost it. But it was Adrian, and the feel of his hands against her skin kept the terror she might have felt at bay.

“You should think about this.” She panted, attempting to wriggle away from his inflaming touch. “You don’t want this. You don’t want what’s going to happen to you if you do this.”

His cock glided between the slick lips of her sex. Lindsay froze. He was hot and hard, delectably long and thick.

“Does this feel,” he purred, “as if I don’t want this?”

She bucked when his lips wrapped around her nipple. The coat hook creaked in protest but held fast. Adrian didn’t have the hollow particleboard doors that would have given her a chance to escape. The solid wood his architect had used was more than strong enough to take her weight and abuse.

He drew on her breast with long, deep pulls of his wicked mouth. Her good intentions started to melt away.

“I’m afraid-” She spoke the lie, hoping it would deter him.

“I know. You’re on fire with it.” He parted the lips of her sex and stroked a fingertip through the silken liquid of her desire. “You’re always so fearless, but you trust me enough to be afraid.”

Her moan echoed through the room. She was achingly aware that the hallway must be on the other side of the door behind her, along with a dozen or more angels who disliked and distrusted her for this very reason-she reduced their leader to a mere man, with all the weaknesses and lusts and desire for comfort that came with that mortal state. “Stop this.”

“I can’t.” He kissed her again. A hot, wet, lush kiss that spoke of a man who’d crossed his limits at some point in the days they’d been apart. “I won’t.”

“God, Adrian.” She writhed in his grip as he captured her neglected nipple in his mouth, his tongue licking and worrying the rigid peak. “Why won’t you let me save you?”

He released her with a soft pop, then straightened to rub his temple against hers. “There’s nothing to save. It’s all falling apart.”

The painful emotion in his words broke her heart. She longed to pull him close and embrace him, to soothe his torment. But she couldn’t move, had only her voice with which to comfort him. “Tell me what happened.”

“Later.” He slid down her body. His lips brushed between her cleavage; then his tongue darted into her navel. When he nuzzled between her legs, Lindsay bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Beneath her distress at being immobilized in the dark and her worry over Adrian’s volatile mood, she was ferociously aroused. In an untenable situation. She couldn’t forget how exposed they were and how many people- angels -were nearby.

“Don’t do this. You’ll regret it.”

“I regret not doing it.” He held her open with his thumbs. The tip of his tongue fluttered maddeningly over her clitoris. As her sex clenched in greedy hunger, a rough noise escaped him. “I should have finished what we started in Vegas. I should have ignored the damn door and fucked you until you’d never even think about leaving me.”

His serrated voice revealed his anguish and cut her deeply. She wanted to push her fingers into his hair and hold him close. She wanted to gentle him with soft strokes of her hands down his back. She wanted to give him the freedom to put down his burdens in total safety, away from the eyes of those who needed him to be strong all the time. But doing so would make him confront what ate at him, when what he wanted now was the oblivion he could find in her body.