Oh, God ... please, let me live.
I don't want to die!
Jenna swallowed past the lump of anguish in her throat. "I keep thinking that I didn't love them enough," she whispered, miserable at the thought. "I keep thinking that if I really loved them, I would have died with them. That when the Ancient forced me to decide if I wanted to live or not, I would have made a different choice."
When a sob caught her breath, Brock's fingers brushed the underside of her chin. He lifted her face to meet his solemn gaze. "You survived," he said, his voice firm yet infinitely tender. "That's all you did. No one would blame you for that, especially them."
She closed her eyes, feeling the weight of her regret ease a bit with his soothing words. But the void in her heart was a cold, empty place. One that gaped even wider as Brock gathered her close, comforting her. His warmth and caring seeped inside her skin like a balm, adding deeper emotion to the desire that hadn't lessened for the nearness of his body to hers. She curled into the shelter of his arms, resting her cheek against the solid, unwavering strength of him.
"I can take it away, Jenna." She felt the warm press of his mouth, the riffle of his breath through her hair, as he kissed the top of her bowed head.
"I can carry the grief for you, if you want me to."
There was a part of her that rebelled at the idea. The tough woman, the seasoned cop, the one who always charged to the front of any situation, recoiled at the notion that her grief could be too much for her to bear on her own. She had never needed a helping hand, nor would she be the one to ask--not ever. That kind of weakness would never do.
She drew back, denial sitting at the tip of her tongue. But when she parted her lips to speak, the words wouldn't come. She stared up into Brock's handsome face, into his penetrating dark eyes, which seemed to reach deep inside her.
"When was the last time you allowed yourself to be happy, Jenna?"
He stroked her cheek so lightly, so reverently, she shivered under his touch.
"When was the last time you felt pleasure?"
His large hand drifted down, along the side of her neck. Heat radiated from his broad palm and long fingers. Her pulse kicked as he cupped her nape, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin below her ear.
He brought her toward him then, tilting her face up to meet his. He kissed her, slow and deep. The unhurried melding of his mouth against hers sent a current of liquid heat arrowing through her veins. The fire pooled in the center of her, the raw core filling with bright, fierce longing.
"If this isn't what you want," he murmured against her lips, "then all you have to do is tell me. At any time, I'll stop--"
"No." She shook her head as she reached up to touch his strong jaw. "I do want this. I want you--so much right now, it's scaring me half to death."
His smile spread lazily, those sensual lips parting to reveal the white flash of his teeth--and the growing length of his fangs. Jenna stared at his mouth, knowing that basic human survival instincts should be throwing off all sorts of alarms, warning her that getting too close to those sharp canines could be deadly.
But she felt no fear. Rather, her mind recognized his transformation with an inexplicable sense of acceptance. Excitement, even, as the absorbing brown of his eyes began to glitter with fiery amber light.
Above the crewneck collar of his gray T-shirt and beneath the short sleeves that clung to the knotted bulge of his smoothly muscled biceps, Brock's dermaglyphs pulsed with color. The Breed skin markings deepened from their usual dark bronze hue to shades of burgundy, gold, and deepest purple. Jenna ran her fingers along the swirling curves and tapered arches of his glyphs, marveling at their unearthly beauty.
"Everything I thought I knew is different now," she mused aloud as she stood in the circle of his arms, idly tracing the pattern of the glyphs that tracked down his thick forearm. "It's all changed now. I'm changed--in ways I'm not sure will ever make sense to me." She glanced up at him. "I'm not looking for more confusion in my life. I don't think I could handle that on top of the rest of it."
He held her stare, no judgment in his eyes, only patience and an aura of unerring control. "Are you confused right now, when I'm touching you ...
or when I'm kissing you?"
"No," she said, astonished to realize it. "Not then."
"Good." He bent his head and claimed her mouth again, suckling her lower lip, catching it between his teeth as he stroked her back, then palmed his hands along the curve of her ass. He squeezed her possessively, hauling her electrified body up against the hard ridge of his groin. He nuzzled into the crook of her neck, his lips warm and wet on her skin. When he spoke again, his voice was thicker than before, edged with the same kind of need that was roaring through her. "Let yourself feel pleasure, Jenna. If you want it, then that's all this needs to be between us. No pressures, no strings. No promises neither one of us is ready to make."
Oh, God. It sounded so good, so tempting to give in to the desire that had been crackling between them ever since she woke up at the Order's compound. She wasn't ready to open her heart again--she might never be ready for that vulnerability again--but she didn't know if she was strong enough to resist the gift Brock was offering her.>God help him, she didn't remove her soft hand from him, either, not even when his low growl of male need curled up from the back of his throat.
Thoughts of what had happened with her just hours earlier in his quarters flooded back to him on a heated wave of recollection. There had been nothing but a few bare inches between them then, as now. Then he'd wondered if Jenna had wanted him to kiss her. He'd been uncertain about her feelings, about the possibility that she might be feeling anything close to the desire he had for her. Now he needed to know with a ferocity that staggered him.
To be sure he wasn't misreading things, for his own sanity if nothing else, he brought his free hand over and covered her fingers with his. He drew closer to her, coming around the front of her where she leaned her weight against the table.
She didn't flinch away. Not Jenna. She stared him square in the eyes, confronting him head-on, as he should have expected she would. "I really don't know how to deal with all of this," she said softly. "The things that have happened to me since that night in Alaska ... all the questions that may never be answered. I can handle that. Somehow, I'll learn to handle all of that. But you ... this ..." She glanced down then, only briefly, staring at their connected hands, at their entwined fingers. "I'm not very good at this. My husband has been gone four years. There hasn't been anyone since. I've never been ready for that. I haven't wanted ..."
"Jenna." Brock stroked the underside of her chin very gently, lifting her face up toward his. "Would it be all right if I kissed you?"
Her lips wobbled into a small smile that he could not resist tasting. He bent his head and kissed her slowly, easing her into it, despite the intensity of his own need.