The fact that it was Malcolm kissing her now, his hands stroking her arms and throat, strong fingers slipping into the fine hair at her nape as he pulled her deeper into his embrace, deeper into his dizzying kiss, only made her need quicken even more.
He dragged his mouth to the sensitive skin below her ear, breath scorching, voice gravelly and dark. "Christ, lass. You shouldn't feel this good. I shouldn't want you like this."
She moaned her reply, lost to the same overwhelming need. For Malcolm. For the feel of his strong hands on her, familiar and yet so very new. No stranger could have stirred her the way he did now, and she let him sweep her into the current of his passion.
The edge of the table pressed into her backside; Malcolm's hard, masculine body hemmed her in from the front. Even through their clothes, the heat between them was undeniable. The thick jut of his arousal was a heavy demand against her hip, a delicious friction that ground into her in a primal rhythm, his palms and fingers stroking her C sthe he br**sts over the soft knit of her sweater.
Her hands craved to explore him too. She ran them up his broad chest, following the taut slabs of muscle that felt like iron beneath his dark T-shirt. The dermaglyphs on his bared biceps surged with the colors of his need. Dark wine, burnished gold, and deepest indigo pulsed like living tattoos, intensifying with each fevered beat of his heart.
When she lifted her gaze back to Malcolm's face, she found his expression fierce, his fangs stretched long and sharp, his pupils transformed to catlike slits, all but eclipsed by scorching pools of amber. That light flashed hotter when he reached between her thighs and rubbed the seat of his palm against the aching core of her body. Danika arched into his touch, panting as he stroked her, every nerve ending exploding in waves of hot need.
"Tell me to stop," he whispered thickly against her mouth, the sharp points of his fangs grazing her lips. "Tell me you don't want this."
But she could say no such thing. Her cry of mounting release was all she could manage as a dam inside her crumbled away like rubble under the skill of his touch. She broke apart, gasping his name and holding on to his thick shoulders as he pressed her spine down onto the table and covered her with his body.
Clothing came off in a rush, flung away in mere seconds.
And then they were naked together. Skin to skin, hands roaming over bare flesh. Mouths teasing, testing, taking.
Malcolm's thick sex cleaved the wet petals of her body, a heavy demand that made her thighs part wider to take him. He entered her with a curse huffed coarsely between his lips. His long thrust filled her completely, made her arch beneath him in boneless pleasure. His c**k invaded and coaxed at the same time, aggressive yet careful, steel sheathed in softest velvet. In that fevered moment, she couldn't get enough.
Although they'd never kissed before, never touched-certainly never as they had tonight-he knew just how to move with her, when to push her to the edge and where to let her take control of their tempo.
She opened her eyes and saw a man she knew, a man she trusted with this fragile, needful reawakening of her body. "Malcolm," she panted, reaching up to caress his rough jaw and savaged cheek as he rocked into her with a relentless rhythm. "Oh, God, Mal ..."
She didn't know what she meant to say to him. She didn't know if there were words. But then he kissed her and the need to speak left her. He drove harder, deeper, until another orgasm raced up on her and swept her over a steep ledge. He came with her. His shout of release was raw and possessive, taking with it her need to think, or to question how they could have ended up like this, together after lifetimes apart.
Naked and burning in each other's arms.
Chapter Six
It wasn't until the roar of his orgasm subsided that Malcolm felt the full weight of what he'd done.
Sex, with Danika.
The widowed Breedmate of a male who'd been like a brother to him all that time ago. The woman who'd put herself in Reiver's crosshairs and was liable to derail Malcolm's entire purpose for living. A female he had no right to desire, let alone seduce-least of all at a time when neither of them could afford the distraction.
It hadn't been his intention to have Danika naked beneath him tonight. Far from it, in fact. Yet he couldn't muster the good sense to regret what had happened here.
Carnal, fevered, incredible sex.
And his greedy body only wanted more.
He stared down at her, laid out before him like an offering on the kitchen table.
Christ, she was beautiful. Milky skin and long, lean limbs. Supple curves in all the right places. He stroked his hands over her perfection. Brushed his fingers across her br**sts and down her abdomen, where a small red birthmark in the shape of a teardrop and crescent moon stamped her as a Breedmate-a female meant for his kind, capable of bearing Breed young and bonding to one of his race eternally through blood. Only death could sever it.
The sight of that diminutive mark on Danika MacConn sent a jolt of possessiveness through him-unbidden, but hard to ignore. His fangs were still filling his mouth from the passion he'd shared with her. Now a darker need put a throb in his gums, made his amber-hot eyes burn brighter in his skull ... made his pulse quicken with the urge to feed. To take her delicate throat in his mouth and pierce the pretty vein that ticked there.
To drink from her and bind this female to him at last.
That urge boiled past his lips on a low growl.
Danika's dusky blue gaze lifted to him, and he could only hope her ability hadn't betrayed his thoughts to her. "Come, lass," he rasped, disengaging from her heat to take her into his arms.
He lifted her up and carried her away from the table, striding naked with her, out of the kitchen and up the castle stairwell to the master bedroom on the second floor. His bedroom. The one he hadn't set foot in for months.