He stared at her, wondering if there had been clues he'd missed along the way. But he hadn't been looking at Alex as anything more than a source of information at first, an unwilling witness that he would need to pry open by any means necessary. Once he'd talked to her, he had begun to like her. And once he'd begun to like her, it was hard not to crave her.
And now?
Now he was honor-bound to protect this female at any cost, and that damned well included protecting her from falling into the hands of a male like him. He was putting her in danger just by being with her, dragging her deeper into his mission for the Order and closer, especially after today, to the horror of his brother's sick little games. If he was half the warrior he had pledged himself to be, he would sweep Alex out of this place and get her the hell back home, never to see or hear from him again.
"Kade?" She cocked her head slightly as she came closer, still waiting for his answer, her tone still playful. "That's, um, that's not what you need to tell me, is it?"
"No. That's not it."
"Well, that's good," she said, practically purring the words. "Because I really don't want to talk right now."
Kade drew in a breath as she drifted up close to him, no more than an inch and a paltry scrap of wool between them. And the scent of her ... warm skin, feminine heat, and the spicy-sweet trace of something even more elusive that he now knew had to be the Breedmate's unique blood-scent. Even without the damned birthmark, hell, in spite of it, Alexandra Maguire was an intoxicating combination that wrapped around him--through him--like the most potent drug. She looked up at him, her caramel-brown eyes darker than ever, deep pools to drown in. "I want to be with you, here and now, Kade." Slowly she opened the blanket, baring herself to him completely as she wrapped her arms around him, ensconcing them both within its folds. The heat of her naked body seared him, imprinted itself on his memory like a brand. "I'm tired of feeling cold all the time. I'm tired of feeling so alone. Just for now, I want you to touch me, Kade. I just want to feel your hands on me." She didn't have to ask twice. He knew the courage it took for her to admit her vulnerability to him, to put herself out to him like this. He couldn't pretend that he wanted this any less than she did. He'd craved her since the moment he first saw her. Now all of his good intentions--all of his thoughts toward duty and honor--incinerated in an instant.
He brought one palm up along the delicate line of her spine; the other rose to caress the graceful curve of her cheek and the silky skin of her nape. Her pulse fluttered against the pad of his thumb as he stroked the tender skin over her carotid. As he played that soft, erotic patch of flesh with his fingers, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, granting him more access than was wise. Kade's own pulse hammered, each tick of her heartbeat, each small quiver of her body against him as he stroked her, spurring his most primal hungers. He dipped his head and nuzzled his face in the cradle of her neck and shoulder, daring only the briefest kiss when his fangs were quickly filling his mouth, his tongue eager for a taste of her. He exhaled the urge on a low growl, trailing his mouth around to the front of her throat, then lower, bending as he palmed one perfect breast and lifted the rosy nipple to his lips. He suckled her, careful not to graze her with the sharp points of his fangs as he tugged the tight little bud deeper into his mouth, rolling it with his tongue and reveling in her breathless gasps of pleasure. He reached down with his free hand, gripping the sweet swell of her rump, then teasing the seam of her body from behind. She felt so good in his arms, so right. He crushed her to him, letting his fingers cleave deeper, into the slick folds of her sex. She was wet and hot, her flesh a welcoming haven as his touch delved within her.
"Oh, God," she gasped, arching into his embrace. "Kade ..." On a moan, he released her breast from his toying bite and came back to her lips, capturing her sigh in a deep, hungered kiss. Although she matched his fevered pace, he was the one who set it, more urgent than intended, but he was too far gone to take things slowly. He was also too well aware of the changes coming over him--changes that would require some explaining, which would also require talking, something she had not been interested in before and something he was incapable of at the moment. Still kissing her, unable to take his mouth off hers, he guided her back toward the nest of blankets near the fire. Together they undressed him, a hasty stripping off of his coat and shirt, boots and jeans. Kade shucked the rest of his clothing as Alex broke their kiss and trailed the tip of her tongue down along the side of his neck. He shook with the sudden jolt of desire that flooded his veins, felt the rush of blood racing through his limbs and down to the throbbing length of his cock. His skin prickled with the transformation of his dermaglyphs, the pattern of Breed markings that tracked over his chest and arms and down onto his thighs. The glyphs, normally a shade or two darker than his own skin color, would surely be saturated with color now, deepening to reflect the desire he felt for Alex.
"Ah, fuck," he growled, drawing in a sharp hiss as she nipped playfully at the tender skin below his jaw. He didn't know how much more he could take. When she reached down and stroked the length of his shaft, he couldn't bite back his animal snarl. She palmed the blunt head of his sex, her touch both curious and demanding as she slicked his moisture over the sensitive skin.
"Lie down with me," he said, his voice ragged, his breath sawing in and out of him. He took her by the arms and sank with her to the blanket-covered floor of the cabin, kissing her as he gently pressed her beneath him. She was so soft and warm against his body, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her thighs parted where his hips wedged between them. His cock nestled into the wet cleft of her sex, rampant with the need to drive deep, but Kade only played at entering her, sliding between the plush petals of her body as he teased his mouth along the flickering heartbeat at the side of her neck. He reached down to grasp himself, rubbing his hard flesh against her softness, using the broad tip of his penis to stroke the tight little bud of her clit. She moaned, arching to meet his tempo, spreading her legs to invite him deeper. He resisted the temptation, but only barely.
She'd asked him to make her warm, and so she was, but he wanted to make her hotter than she'd ever been. The sudden, unfathomable need to brand himself upon her body--to bring her pleasure unlike anyone had before him--beat in his blood like a drum. Stunned by the feeling, he drew back slightly. But Alex looked too good, felt too good, and before he could remind himself that she deserved better, he was kissing his way down the front of her body. He savored every sweet inch of her from the small mounds of her breasts to the firm muscle of her belly and the damning little birthmark at her hip that made all of this pleasure and selfish need of his so wrong.
But wrong or not, as selfish as it was for him to give in to his desire for Alex, he was well beyond resisting now. The feel of her beneath him kicked the flame in his blood to full boil. The scent of her pulled him like a magnet toward the downy patch of curls between her legs. He kissed her there, using his lips and tongue and teeth until she was writhing against his mouth. And still he didn't stop. He suckled her and stroked her, pleasuring her until she arched up beneath him and cried out with a shattering, shuddering climax.
And still he didn't stop.
He kept kissing and suckling and stroking her, bringing her to the crest of another wild release, and then, only then, did he rise up to cover her with his body, thrusting deep and roaring as the hot, wet walls of her sheath contracted around his pumping shaft. He drove into her, realizing that he too had needed this warmth, this sense--even if temporary--that he wasn't alone. He'd needed Alex like this, in this moment, as much as she only thought she needed him.
Kade's release coiled hard in the base of his cock, intensifying with every fevered thrust. Hotter and hotter, tighter and tighter, until he couldn't hold back a second more. He went taut with the force of it and plunged as far as she could take him, burying his face in her shoulder and giving a hoarse shout of release as his seed exploded from him in a heated, liquid rush.
He couldn't have held back if he'd tried, although there was no threat of pregnancy so long as there was no exchange of blood. But even that proved more tempting than it should be. Kade's fangs punched long from his gums as he lost himself inside Alex's molten heat. He heard her pulse racing, felt it in the frenzied echo of his own heartbeat. And where his mouth rested in a tight grimace against her skin, he felt the rush of her blood pounding just beneath the surface of her delicate skin.
"Ah, Christ ... Alex," he hissed, tormented by the flood of sensations she aroused in him. Everything Breed in him demanded that he make this female his own, that he lay claim to her blood as he'd just laid claim to her body.
Kade clamped down hard on that further need, but damn, it wasn't easy. He rolled her against him, spooning her from behind to help conceal the changes that had come over him in their passion.
"Are you all right?" she asked him as he struggled to get ahold of his impulses and some scrap of rational thought.
"Yeah," he managed after a moment. "Better than I have a right to be."
"Me, too," she said, her smile evident in the drowsy contentment of her voice as it fanned warm and light over the top of his forearm. "In case you're wondering, my pilot services usually don't include getting naked with my clients."
"Good," Kade said, little better than a growl as he gathered her closer to the front of his still-heated body. He didn't want her getting naked with anyone, he realized with a jolt. He wouldn't have liked the idea before what just happened between them today, and he sure as hell wouldn't take it well now.
"What about you?" she asked as he covered them both with the blankets to shield his glyphs from her view.
"What about me?"
"Do you ... do this often?"
"Get naked with sexy Alaskan bush pilots in the middle of the frozen wilderness?" He paused for a minute, letting her think he was giving the question serious consideration. "Nope. This was a first for me." And so was the fierce sense of possession that still drummed in his blood when he thought of Alex being with any other male. He wondered idly if it was the fact that she was a Breedmate that had drawn him to her from the first. But even as he thought it, he knew that the birthmark that connected her to the shadowy world he inhabited as one of the Breed was the least of the qualities that attracted him to Alexandra Maguire. The last thing he needed right now was an emotional entanglement, least of all with a female bearing the teardrop-and-crescent-moon mark.
But he was entangled. In fact, he had just tied a few more knots in an already impossible situation. Cursing himself for the first-class fool he clearly was, Kade kissed the top of her head and gathered her close as he waited for his eyes to resume a normal appearance and his fangs to have a chance to retreat. It took some time, and even after his body settled into a comfortable peace, his hunger for the woman in his arms remained.
Chapter Fifteen
Daylight broke thin and overcast outside the wide mouth of the woodland cave. The predator had sought shelter there a short while ago, when the sun's first weak rays had begun to claw their way through the winter darkness. Few things existed that were stronger than he, particularly in this primitive world that was so different from the distant one he'd been born into many millennia ago, but as advanced a life-form as his kind was, his hairless, dermaglyph- covered skin could not process ultraviolet light, and just a few minutes' exposure would kill him.