urge to mate. To his credit, he did his best to beat back the instinct and hold on to some semblance of rationality. But all that meant was that she was the one who ended the battle between sense and sensibility--by putting her mouth against his.
Oh . . . God, his lips were soft.
In spite of the thundering she sensed in his blood, he kept himself in check. Even when she slid her tongue inside of him. And that restraint made it easier for her as her mind flickered back and forth between what she was doing now . . .
And what had been done to her mere days ago.
To help focus her, she sought out his chest and ran her palms down the pads of muscle over his heart. Easing him back onto the mattress, she breathed in his scent and smelled the bonding he felt for her. The dark spices were unique to him, and about as far as you could get from the sickening stench of a lesser.
Which helped her separate this experience from her most recent ones. The kiss started out as an exploration, but it didn't stay that way. John moved closer, rolling his massive body against hers, his heavy leg riding up until the weight of it pushed down on her own. At the same time, his arms wrapped around her, bringing her in tight to him.
He was moving slowly, as was she.
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And she was fine until his hand slipped onto her breast. The contact scrambled her, yanking her out of this room and this bed, taking her away from John and the moment with him and landing her back in hell.
Fighting her mind's defection, she tried to stay connected to the present, to John. But as his thumb brushed over her nipple, she had to force her body to stay still. Lash had liked to hold her down and draw out the inevitable by scratching and pawing at her, because as much as he'd enjoyed his orgasms, he'd been even more into the foreplay of fucking with her head. Psycho-smart move on his part. She'd have infinitely preferred to just get it over with-John pushed his erection into her hip. Snap.
Her self-control rubberbanded on her, reaching its limit and splitting in half: With a surge, her body bolted away from the contact of its own volition, breaking the communion with him, blowing up the moment. As Xhex sprang off the bed, she could feel John's horror, but she was too busy reeling from her own fear to be able to explain. Pacing around, desperately trying to hold on to reality, she breathed in deeply, not from passion but derivative panic.
Well, wasn't this a bitch.
Fucking Lash . . . she was so going to murder him for this. Not for what she was going through, but for the position she'd put John in.
"I'm sorry," she groaned. "I shouldn't have started it. I'm really sorry." When she was able, she stopped in front of the dresser and looked into the mirror that hung on the wall. John had gotten up while she paced and gone to stand before the sliding glass door, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw clenched hard as he stared out into the night.
"John . . . it's not you. I swear."
As he shook his head, he didn't look at her.
Scrubbing her face, the silence and strain between them amplified her urge to run. She just couldn't deal with any of this, with what she was feeling and what she'd done to John and all that shit with Lash. Her eyes went to the door and her muscles tensed for her exit. Which was straight from her playbook. For all of her life, she had always relied on her ability to ghost out of things, leaving behind no explanations, no trace, nothing but thin air.
Served her well as an assassin.
"John . . ."
His head swiveled around and his stare burned with regret as she met 272
it in the leaded glass.
As he waited for her to speak, she was supposed to tell him it was best that she go. She was supposed to toss over another limp-ass apology and then dematerialize out of the room . . . out of his life. But all she could manage was his name.
He pivoted to face her and mouthed, I'm sorry. Go. It's okay. Go. She couldn't move, though. And then her mouth parted. As she realized what was in the back of her