“Please, Niko,” she muttered. “Now.”
His low hiss filled the air, his erection pressing eagerly against her damp heat.
“Next time,” he muttered.
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
He gazed deep into her eyes, a thin layer of sweat coating his face.
“Next time I intend to spend hours pleasuring you.”
A sly smile curved her lips. “Or maybe I’ll pleasure you.”
“Oh, shit.”
His control snapped.
Just like that.
Reclaiming her lips, Niko’s hands shifted to her lower back and with a forward thrust of his hips he was entering her in one sure stroke.
She gasped, but not from fear.
Exquisite pleasure blazed through her and she pressed her face into the curve of his neck. She’d never done anything but the traditional missionary position. Now she realized that the current arrangement allowed her to feel every slow stroke into her before he was retreating and returning with a slow, insistent thrust.
“Niko,” she breathed, feeling overwhelmed.
It was more than the extraordinary bliss of feeling him moving deep inside her. It was the sense of intimate connection with this man that went beyond the physical.
“I knew it would be perfect,” he whispered as he continued his measured pace. “I knew you would be perfect.”
“I never realized.”
“Never realized what, my sweet angel?”
“That this could be so—”
“So?”
“Life altering,” she breathed, her body moving in perfect rhythm with his.
His low laugh echoed through the air with an unmistakable satisfaction.
“You belong to me now,” he vowed.
Belonged?
If she’d been in her right mind, she might have protested the possessive comment.
But instead she arched her back as her body began to tighten with a shimmering anticipation. His steady, unrelenting pace was stoking an inferno deep within her that threatened to combust.
“Angel,” he breathed, giving her leg a tug higher as he angled his hips upward.
His slight shift was enough to press him even deeper within her and with a shocking force the tension that coiled between her legs abruptly shattered into a thousand pieces.
She cried out and wrapped her arms around his neck as he gave two more deep thrusts before he was reaching his own climax.
She held on tightly as they both struggled to recover from the explosion of sensations, their ragged breaths the only sound to stir the air.
Chapter Seven
Niko ran a shaky hand down the damp skin of Angela’s back, his face buried in her apple-scented hair.
Man, he ached to press her even closer to his trembling body. To hold her so tightly she would never be able to escape. But even now he feared he might accidentally crush her.
She was so fragile. So vulnerable.
The knowledge frightened him on a primal level that threatened to make him do something extremely stupid.
Like lock her in his rooms at Valhalla and never let her out.
Something that this fiercely independent woman would most certainly protest.
“You’re quiet,” he at last murmured, lifting his head to study her with a searching gaze. She’d never looked more beautiful with her hair tangled around her flushed face and her lips still swollen from his kisses. But he was a Sentinel. He didn’t miss the hint of unease behind her air of sleepy satisfaction. “Are you having regrets?”
“No.”
She used her finger to draw an aimless pattern over his chest, seemingly unaware that the light caress was enough to kick his libido into overdrive. Of course, just being close to this female was enough to send his libido into overdrive. Or catching her scent. Or seeing her across the room . . .
He swallowed a groan, grimly leashing his insistent desire.
This wasn’t a fleeting afternoon of delight.
This was the start of eternity.
Together.
He needed to know what was going on in that clever, always unpredictable brain of hers.
“What is it, angel?”
A brief hesitation. “I was just thinking that we don’t really know much about each other.”
His hand skimmed beneath the warm silk of her hair, massaging the tense muscles of her nape.
“I know that you’re beautiful, frighteningly intelligent, and that you dislike being the center of attention,” he promptly informed her. They were beyond him pretending he hadn’t spent the past six weeks spying on her like some creepy stalker. “I also know that you rarely allow people close to you, but you’re fiercely loyal to the few friends that you trust. And that you’re lonely and you’ve never felt like you belong.”
She stiffened, clearly disturbed by the realization of just how much she’d unconsciously revealed.
“You can’t know that,” she breathed.
“I can because I felt the same.”
Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You?”
“Sentinels aren’t always recognized until they hit puberty,” he explained, revealing the sort of information only shared among high-bloods. She would soon be a part of his world. Whether she liked it or not. “When I was a child I went to public school, but even at a very young age I knew that there was something different about me. I could run faster, jump higher, see better, and hear things no one else could.”
She frowned. “And that was a bad thing?”
His jaw clenched at the memory of the hateful taunts and brutal ambushes that had dogged his early years.
“Boys can be extremely competitive and no one wants to play with the kid who always wins.”
Her expression softened with sympathy. “Ah.”
“And that was before my super strength kicked in.”
Her fingers spread across his chest. “What happened?”
“I nearly killed a neighborhood boy when he threw a rock and hit me in the head.” He grimaced. The memory of the boy lying on the ground with his face beaten bloody was one that had haunted him for years. “That’s when my mom called Valhalla.”
“Did they come and take you away?”
“Yes.”
Her hand lifted to cup his face, her heart far too tender for her own good.
“Were you unhappy?”
“At first,” he admitted. “My mother came to visit when she could, but I’d become too wary to make friends.” His lips twisted. He’d been a surly, arrogant kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore. In no way did he want to admit he was one of the mutants. “Especially when they were all freaks.”