Her eyes moved to his hands. He was gripping the rail behind him, across from her. His knuckles white from the force of his grip.
The elevator came to a stop, the doors slid opened and a couple started in, stared at the Breeds and backed out. The doors slid closed again.
“Back up,” Malachi said. It was a rough, rasping sound as Stygian obviously pushed the right button. The elevator started up.
Malachi reached out then, pushed a button himself and Isabelle heard Rule growl his name. A real, male feline sound of irritation. The commander wasn’t happy.
Isabelle and Malachi both ignored him. The elevator stopped again.
“Do you really want to stay?” Malachi asked the two men without looking at them as the doors slid open again and no one moved.
No one except Isabelle.
Releasing the rail, she stepped across the distance separating them. She felt as though she were being drawn to him, pulled to him by some unseen force. His gaze held hers, his lashes lowering to half mast.
She was only distantly aware of the other two exiting the elevator. All that mattered to her was that they were gone. She didn’t have to hold herself back. She didn’t have to force herself not to touch him, taste him, kiss him.
She wanted that kiss. The kiss she had dreamed of. A kiss she had been certain she would never feel.
Moving to him, her hands braced against his chest, she went on tiptoe, but without his help, if he hadn’t lowered his head, it wouldn’t have happened.
Her hands slid to his shoulders, one against his neck as she felt the warmth of his breath against her lips.
“I caught you,” he whispered.
Her lips parted as his touched, moved with his words.
“Or I caught you.”
Suddenly, it didn’t matter who caught whom, or if there was a head start, time to think or even a need for thought. His lips covered hers as his arms slid around her, pulling her closer, lifting her to him.
The taste of ambrosia filled her senses. It had to be ambrosia. The elixir of the gods. It had to be something not quite natural, because the taste of his kiss went to her head like a drug. Like a pleasure she couldn’t deny herself because she had waited far too long for it.
For Malachi.
His fingers cupped the back of her neck, tilting her head back as his lips slanted over hers, parted them, and pure heat swept through her senses. His tongue slipped past her lip, swept over hers and tempted her, teased her to catch it.
She nipped it.
He growled.
Strong fingers slid into her hair, gripped and held her head in place as he turned her, lifted her with his other arm and braced her against the side of the elevator.
His tongue swept past her lips again and stroked against hers.
And she nipped again.
Exhilaration surged through her. Adrenaline surged through her veins as his fingers moved from her hair, cupped her jaw and his kiss became firmer, more dominating, demanding.
He wasn’t asking permission. There was nothing exploratory about the claiming, nothing introductory. He was taking her with his kiss, with his tongue, and she knew what he wanted.
What she was aching for.
Her lips closed around his tongue, sucked with delicate greed as it pumped between her lips and the most unique taste, subtle and hot, filled her senses.
She couldn’t define it. She couldn’t describe it.
She wanted more.