Break the Day - Lara Adrian Page 0,32
Devony.”
“I’m still hurting,” she murmured thickly. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”
Her naked vulnerability in that moment nearly killed him. He gathered her close, even though everything logical and reasonable inside him pleaded for him to keep his distance. He couldn’t let her bear her pain alone.
Especially when he had been born with the ability to heal, to restore.
He spoke into the fragrant silk of her hair. “Do you want me to take it away for a little while? I will, if you want me to.”
She swallowed hard, then slowly, firmly, shook her head. “No. I need to carry it. I need to keep them alive inside me, even if it hurts.”
Christ, she was an incredible woman.
As attractive as he found her physically, her courage turned him on even more.
Her strength and resilience left his control in tatters.
If she had agreed to let him heal her grief, he would have done it gladly. And then he would have left immediately afterward and made the call to the Order to find a safe sanctuary for her, somewhere far away from this business with Opus Nostrum and from him.
But she hadn’t caved to her pain.
No, Devony Winters was made of stronger stuff than that.
And he had never known anything sexier.
What he ought to do was leave.
Not only for the integrity of his mission for the Order, but for his own sanity too.
Hell, for what remained of his honor, if nothing else. No matter how thin that claim was now.
“It’s getting late.” His voice was gravel, his mouth filled with the presence of his fangs. “I should go.”
“Don’t.” She met his gaze, her irises simmering with flecks of glowing amber. As he drank in the beauty of her face, her pupils began to narrow, transforming with the intensity of her arousal.
He felt the same need erupting inside him. All the desire he’d been trying to push down was quickly reaching the breaking point. Heat licked through his veins, his pulse drumming, all of his blood rushing toward the rigid and aching length of his erection.
“Devony—”
She didn’t give him a chance to say anything more.
Her mouth crushed against his, her kiss a force of nature.
He caught her in his arms and tumbled back onto the rug with her.
CHAPTER 11
All night she had been burning to feel his kiss on her again.
She didn’t know how to describe the profound sense of gratitude she felt when Rafe had offered to take away her grief with his healing ability. She hadn’t expected kindness like that from the dangerous Breed male. He had healed her after the museum job, but that had been out of obligation for a comrade.
His offer to ease her pain tonight had been born of something different, something deeper. Something that seemed like true concern, even affection.
God forgive her, but she’d wanted to lean into that feeling so badly she had to force herself to deny him. She yearned to feel some kind of connection to someone . . .
No, not just someone. To him. Her longing for Rafe’s care had been nearly overwhelming, but it paled compared to the driving hunger she had to know the heat of his lips on hers.
The hunger had burst out of her, and only intensified as he took her down onto the floor with him. He held her face in gentle hands, plundering her mouth with a savage need that seemed to exceed even her own.
“Ah, fuck,” he uttered raggedly against her lips. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to happen, Devony.”
She hadn’t been prepared for him, either.
All of the emptiness she had stuffed deep down inside her had opened up with him tonight. That bleak loneliness had been swallowing her whole for so long, but she’d never registered how fathomless and dark it had grown until she was sitting in this room with Rafe, sharing the details of her pain, and her plans for passing the hurt along to the monsters who had caused it.
But all of those dark realities were nothing but ashes now, incinerated under the heat of her need for this man.
A moan tore loose from her throat, sounding animal and raw.
She didn’t care if she seemed desperate for him.
She couldn’t care.
“Don’t stop kissing me, Rafe.” Her breath was reduced to ragged panting, her fangs surging out of her gums. “I ache,” she gasped brokenly. “Oh, God, I need . . .”
He answered with a low groan and a hard thrust of his pelvis beneath hers. Even separated by their