Was right in front of her now, she realized, and she was blinking up at him.
His face had healed, all hint of his burns gone. His nostrils were flared as he sucked in a torrent of air. His color was high, his usually violet eyes flecked with so much emerald they were like flashing “go” signs that reached her soul.
She didn’t want him to stay just because he needed her blood. She wanted him to want her. Because he liked her. Her smile, her laugh, her sense of humor. Her crudeness, coarseness, everything. All the good, plus the bad. And yeah, she knew what a tall order that was. An order no man could probably meet.
She wasn’t easy to be around at the best of times, and during the worst, well, she sucked flaming balls of mean. Look at the way she’d snapped at him, demanding he leave. Still, she wanted his eternal admiration.
But her most important wish? She wanted him to like her as a human. Not as a potential vampire. She wanted him to consider her good enough, just the way she was. And maybe he was on that road already.
You’re my human, he’d said, and every feminine instinct she possessed had sung a choirs of hallelujah, reminding her that he did sometimes make her feel special. But as always, doubt intruded. How long would he feel that way? Eventually everyone found fault with who she really was.
“Ava,” McKell rasped.
She licked her lips. He was here, and he was lusting after her. For the moment, that was enough. Because she couldn’t send him away again. She just didn’t have the strength.
“I’m going to have you, woman. If you resist, I’ll tie you up. I swear I will.” He lifted the whip threateningly.
“No need to tie me up.”
His pupils expanded, but he didn’t yet move in for the kill. “For us to be together, and be able to tell everyone about it, I must aid AIR?” His warm breath trekked over her skin, teasing her.
Why wasn’t he touching her? Just then, she didn’t care if the entire world knew. Just then, he was hers. Tomorrow—today? In her sick, weak haze, she’d lost track of time—she would take him to AIR headquarters, head held high. People could think what they wanted, and for once, the thought of her peers calling her trash didn’t bother her.
“Ava,” he prompted again. He bound one of her wrists in a loop he’d created in the leather. A warning. Then he traced a knuckle over her cheekbone, gentle, tender, and she quivered.
Finally. Touching. “McKell. I—I don’t care if you aid AIR. That has no bearing on this.” Shocking, even to her. “Only thing I ask is that you don’t turn me.”
He gave a tug, and the leather tightened on her. “Why?”
“Because I have to be good enough, just as I am.”
“You are.”
Fear once more reared its head. For how long? She had to make him understand what his claims of superiority did to her. “How would you like it if I insisted you become human?”
He blanched. “I wouldn’t.”
Just as she’d thought. “It hurts to be considered inferior.”
“I never want to hurt you.” His voice was a blade jerked from its sheath. “I’m sorry that I did. But I am going to have you, Ava. You’re not going to push me away. Not this time.”
She released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Well, okay. I’m glad that’s still on the table.”
His gaze flicked to the bed behind her, then moved back to her face. Heat pulsed from him. “A table? Yes, I can take you on a table.”
Darling man. “No. I mean, I do want to have sex with you.”
A dark brow arched. “Is the table an option or not?”
Part of her wanted to laugh, but all of her trembled with anticipation. “Does it matter?”
He crowded her, easing her back until her knees hit the edge of the mattress. He claimed her other wrist, wrapped the leather around it, too, forcing her to arch her back, her br**sts rubbing his chest. Took all of her strength, but she managed to remain upright. Leaning, but upright.
“I’ll take you however I can get you,” he whispered roughly.
The words, his voice, the need in his eyes, like electrical currents raging through her. “Then let me go and I’ll get rid of the towel.”
Like a rubber band being snapped, he yanked his body into a straight line, increasing the murmur of air between them. He unwound the whip and tossed the coiled length to the floor.
With shaky hands, she tugged at the towel. The material fell in a pool at her feet.
A bead of sweat formed on his brow. But he reacted to her nakedness in no other way.
“Mc—McKell?” Uncertainty intruded.
He kept his gaze on her face, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Before we begin, and if I look down, I’ll begin, let’s be clear on what I want to do, as sex and f**king aren’t apt descriptions. I’m going to have you, every inch of you. With my mouth, my hands, my cock. I’m going to drink from you, straight from your neck, perhaps even your thigh. When I’m done, there’ll be no part of you I haven’t touched.”
A cool breeze enveloped her, but she suddenly didn’t care. She liked the goose bumps that formed. They were like a road map to every location she wanted his tongue. In other words, everywhere.
“Ava. Your response. Now.”
“Promises, promises,” she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck. She jerked him down for a kiss.
He didn’t hesitate. Their lips met, and their tongues instantly tangled together. His body aligned with hers, rigid determination against melting softness, and her entire world spun out of control. She held McKell tighter, her only anchor in that sensual storm.
He tasted like butterscotch and wicked sex, filling her mouth, sliding down her throat. Overwhelming her, branding her. It was as if she hadn’t been sad and depressed a short while ago. As if she’d been sensitized and hungry for days, years, and had only now found sustenance.
Her legs shook uncontrollably, and she barely stopped herself from climbing him. The orgasm he’d given her earlier should have left her sated, but as McKell continued to feed her kiss after drugging kiss, fire spread through her, increasing the hunger pains, heating her up, demanding another.
She might never get enough of this man.
And that thought should have scared her enough to send her running and screaming from the room. But one of his hands snaked around her waist and forced her deeper into the hard line of his body, that wall of strength and fire, and the thought of running was massacred. Brutally. Wonderfully. The thought of screaming, however …