just how wrong she had been, she’d been willing to die to make things right.
Mike covered her hand with his as he lowered his head, scraping his teeth along the elegant line of her neck. “This,” he whispered roughly, pressing her hand tighter against him, “is nothing. If I had wanted blood from you, I would have taken it. This doesn’t matter to me.”
She laughed harshly, trying to tear herself away from him, but Mike just wrapped his arms around her, keeping her trapped against him. “Doesn’t matter? You’re crazy. I could have killed you. A weaker shape-shifter would have died. By all rights, you should have killed me.”
Mike smiled as he stared down into her eyes. They looked wild, terrified . . . and desperate.
For the first time, he realized she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. Oh, kitten, you shouldn’t have let me know that, he thought absently as he lowered his mouth to hers. He bussed her lips gently before moving to whisper against her ear, “I don’t want you dead. I’d kill anybody that harmed you.” Smoothing a hand up her back, over her neck, he cupped the base of her skull and arched her face up to his. “I just want you. And I have for years—ever since Agnes brought you back to us. I wanted you then, and I want you now.”
And there wasn’t a damn thing that would keep him from it, not now. Not now that he knew his need wasn’t one-sided.
“What kind of fool are you?” she whispered weakly, trying to turn her head aside. “I tried to kill you; you nearly died.”
“You didn’t try to kill me. If you had wanted me dead, then I would be dead,” Mike argued easily. Giving in to an urge that had tempted him for years, he fisted his hand in her braids as he murmured, “And it wasn’t until I damn near died that I really started to live.”
Mike stared into her eyes for a long moment before he said, “I didn’t start to live until you came into my life, Leandra. And I’ll take another bullet, this one straight to the heart, before I let you go.”
Slanting his mouth across hers, he kissed her, pushing his tongue demandingly inside her mouth. For a moment, she did nothing, standing there passively under his hands while he prepared himself for her to pull away.
Instead, she moaned, rising up and pressing against him, her arms winding around his neck. Mike crushed her against the wall, rocking his hips against the cradle of hers, shuddering at the softness there.
He skimmed his fingers up her side, brushing the heel of his hand against the outer curve of her breast. She leaned into his touch, and Mike swore, tearing his mouth from hers and pressing his forehead against hers. “I want you naked. I want to strip your clothes away and watch as I push inside you. I want to make you scream.”
Her lids drooped and for a second, Mike thought she was going to try to pull away again. But instead, a slow, feline smile curved her lips, and she whispered, “So what’s stopping you?”
Closing his eyes, he sucked air into his lungs, praying it would clear his head enough to think.
Nope. He still wanted to strip her naked, here and now, and fuck her. Hard.
Closing his hand around hers, he stepped back and led her to the back exit, pulling her out into the alley behind the bar. “My first time with you isn’t going to be with an audience,” he said flatly.
“First time?” she murmured as they moved down the alley.
Mike walked faster and faster, until they were running, the ground beneath them blurring from the speed. “Yes, first time. And make no mistake, Leandra, this is just the first time. There will be others.”
The part of Leandra that always balked when somebody implied they knew something she didn’t wanted to scoff at the certainty in his tone, but she had an odd feeling in her belly that he was completely right. One time, one hundred times, a thousand . . . it would never be enough.
I will take what I can get , Leandra thought with something