Forever The World of Nightwalkers - By Jacquelyn Frank Page 0,67

fire and passion. A woman of heart and wisdom. She is going to need you, Marissa, just like I need you.”

He closed that last aching distance between their lips, catching her breath in his mouth before kissing her with a soft ferocity, the connection so gentle and yet the emotion behind it so fierce. She had never been kissed while inundated with so many thoughts and emotions warring through her. It made her feel like she was completely out of control. There was something thrilling and terrifying about that. Her first instinct should have been to flee, to run away far and fast and never, ever look back. But what she did in actuality was reach out for him, her palms flattening on his chest just before curling into it, pulling the soft cotton of the shirt he wore into the tightness of her fists. She was wedged between his muscled body and the wall, but she could swear he was the harder and more immovable of the two. The perception was due to the fact that she knew just how powerful he was, knew the strength he was capable of. And yet he touched her so gently, just the tips of his fingers drifting over the rise of her cheek before filtering into her hair. He still held her wrist in his opposite hand, holding her even though her hand was already against him. It was as though he were anticipating—

She gasped in shock as his words finally sank in, a stunning wash of cold dashing all the immediate heat he had inspired. She tried to jerk back and away, but there was simply nowhere for her to go. So instead she tore her mouth free of his and, panting hard for breath, turned her face down and used the press of her forehead against his chest to hide herself from him.

“No,” she gasped on ragged breath. “No! You don’t mean … but … you can’t mean that! You barely know me! I don’t … and don’t I have to—?”

She was speaking incoherently because she wasn’t thinking straight. How could she when he was pressed so close to her, overwhelming everything that she was, filling every breath with that so very male scent of him. His taste was on her lips, the burn of five o’clock shadow along the edges of them.

“How do you know what I mean and what I don’t mean if we are such strangers?” he asked her, somehow confusing her with the logic. “Why do I feel like I am coming home when I kiss you if I barely know you?” He took a breath and she knew, she just knew he was drawing in her scent. His eyes were half-closed with the obvious pleasure of it. “We have just spent these past minutes talking of the enduring souls of my people and you, a nascent original who has only known one life, presumes to know everything there is to know about the soul and what it would be like if two souls of perfect complement came together? No. No, that’s foolishness,” he chided softly. “Even more foolish than a man who longs for a woman for over a year and yet stays seated at his desk, allowing her to walk by again and again, thinking he could be content with just the vision of her and the soft trailing eddies of her scent.

“I almost died three weeks ago and the moment I realized it, the moment it sank in, the first thing I thought was that I would have died without ever touching you the way you should be touched.”

And that was when the ghosting touch of his hands came to an end. He pressed the weight of his body into her, and his hand slid down her chest until he had filled his palm with her breast, pressing her own flesh into herself, making her feel the intensity of his words and the desire riding hard behind them.

“I feel the soft shape of you like this and I can’t decide whether to take you softly on my bed or take you hard, right here where we stand. And it doesn’t matter because I know you’ll be magnificent either way. It’s going to come down to the impression I most want to leave on you, Marissa. It’s going to come down to the understanding that I finally have you here. So,” he said, his lips and breath hot against her hair as he continued