“Someone of your choosing?” she asked gently.
His gaze sharpened a bit, intense with purpose. “Someone I trust implicitly to have your best interests in mind, yes.”
“What about my happiness? What about love?” She stared up at him. “What about the things I need?”
Clearly taken aback, he went silent for a long moment, regret creeping into his features. “Have you ever felt unloved or unhappy as my daughter?”
“No,” she assured him. “I’ve never wanted for anything, Father. You’ve given me more than I ever could’ve hoped for.” She smiled sadly. “Except the freedom to become an adult woman with my own mind, my own dreams … my own plans for my future.”
He said nothing, not for several endless seconds. “Please come home, Jordana. Let me fix this … before it’s too late.”
She shook her head. “I don’t love Elliott. I never did, no matter how much you seemed to wish it were so. And now there’s someone else—”
The words seized up in her throat as her senses prickled to attention. A shiver of awareness traveled through her bloodstream, making her veins sizzle and her palms tingle with the dancing of a thousand needles.
He was here.
Nathan.
Jordana felt him even before she turned around to confirm it with her eyes. The entire room seemed aware of his powerful presence too. She watched as a clearing began to form down the center of the exhibit hall.
Bit by bit, a path opened between Jordana’s place in the room and Nathan, standing just inside the doors.
He came after all.
And, God, he looked good.
Tall and dark and dangerously handsome in a basic black suit that looked anything but basic on him. He wore an ebony silk shirt, unbuttoned below his throat, exposing just the sexiest hint of the Gen One dermaglyphs beneath his clothing.
Glyphs Jordana was now intimately familiar with and couldn’t wait to see in their full, na**d glory once again. Along with the gorgeous Breed male they belonged to.
Her mouth watered just thinking about it, and her heart rate kicked into a faster, heavier tempo.
Without a word of excuse to her father or anyone else who had stopped to gape, Jordana waded into the parting crowd and headed straight toward Nathan. She could hardly keep from running to him, and there was no curbing the smile that spread across her face as she came to a halt in front of him.
“I didn’t think you’d be here.”
His stormy eyes took a long, slow trip from her face to her toes. When he met her gaze again, amber sparks glowed in his irises. “How could I refuse such an enticing invitation?”
She felt warmth flood her cheeks. It had nothing to do with shyness, but an eager reaction to the hunger she saw written so plainly on Nathan’s face. It was written on his skin too. The tawny-hued glyphs at his throat surged with deeper saturation, and she knew the rest of his Breed markings would be livid with wild, waking colors underneath the urbane dark suit.
She smiled, barely resisting the urge to touch him. To kiss him and press herself against him, even in front of hundreds of observing eyes.
“I’m glad you came,” she murmured. “I realize you probably can’t stay long. Your patrols—”
“My patrols will wait. For tonight, anyway.”
Hope flared in her belly. “You have the night off?”
“More or less,” he replied, his sensual lips flattening slightly. “I was instructed to take the night off.”
“Because of me?” She frowned, reading the meaning in what he didn’t say. “Because you stayed with me last night. Oh, God … not because of the messages I sent you today? I never should’ve done that. I overstepped—”
“You did nothing wrong.”
His hand lighted gently along the side of her face, an unexpected touch Jordana savored. She tilted her head into his palm, greedy for the brief contact.
“I chose to be with you,” he said, bringing his hand back down to his side. “I knew what I risked last night.” Nathan’s voice was a rumble in the back of his throat, low and deep, as his heated gaze drank her in once more. “As for the messages you sent, I haven’t been able to focus on anything else since I saw the photo of you in this dress. You look even more incredible in the flesh.” His mouth curved wickedly. “But then, I already knew that.”
Her veins thrummed in response to his innuendo. All it took was his dangerous smile and her core bloomed with liquid heat at the remembrance of their night together.
She wanted him now, again … always, she was certain.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured, wishing he’d touch her again. “But I don’t want to cause problems for you with the Order.”
“Any problems there are mine to deal with.” That devastating smile faded as he sent a dark glance around the gathering. When his eyes came back to her, they glittered as bright as embers. “And there was no way in hell I was going to let you wear this dress for anyone but me. Even if I had to put on a monkey suit and try to play nice with the natives.”
“It’s a very nice monkey suit,” she said, melting under his possessive stare. “Oddly enough, seeing you in it only makes me want to sneak away somewhere and tear it off you.”
Nathan’s answering growl vibrated all the way to her bones. “Don’t tempt me, female.”
Oh, but she wanted to tempt him. She wanted to be the one in control, the one making him crazy with pleasure and need, until she was certain she owned his body the same way he had mastered hers.