Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (10 page)

Nathan gave her a sidelong look. “And yet you went there tonight.”

“Elliott Bentley-Squire doesn’t own me. I’m perfectly capable of handling myself.” She scoffed lightly, realizing how perfectly incapable she must appear to Nathan right now. “Well, I can usually handle myself. Tonight was an exception. I’m embarrassed that you feel you have to see me home.”

“It’s nothing,” he replied.

But it was something to Jordana. It was a chivalrous gesture from a man who hadn’t exactly struck her as the noble type. She would not have imagined he’d had it in him, considering he was more accustomed to combat and brutality and death.

There was probably a lot she had to learn about Nathan, and as she studied his grave profile, she found herself hoping she might have the chance to understand everything about the remote, unreadable man.

“Before we left the club,” Nathan said, “you told me you didn’t want to go home alone. What was that about?”

Jordana tried to wave off the question. “It was silly. Something happened at work tonight as I was leaving, and I got spooked. I’m sure it was nothing.”

“What happened?” Nathan was all warrior now, no longer posing a light inquiry but demanding an answer.

“I thought I saw someone outside the museum tonight, as I was heading for my car. I thought he was watching me.” It sounded foolish to her now, even though at the time she’d been more than a little rattled.

“He,” Nathan said, his deep voice edged with suspicion and a protectiveness that surprised her, warmed her. “Did you see this man? Did he threaten you in any way?”

“No,” she replied. “No, nothing like that. I saw someone standing outside the museum as I was leaving, that’s all. As I said, I’m sure it wasn’t anything but my imagination running away with me.”

Nathan made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded less than convinced, but he didn’t press any further. “We’re here,” he announced, slowing down as they approached her building. He drove around to the underground parking, then found Jordana’s assigned space without her telling him where it was.

She stared at him from the other side of the vehicle as he killed the engine and handed her the remote starter. “I can’t decide if I’m impressed or unnerved that the Order not only knows where I live but where I park my car.”

“Not the Order,” he said, slanting her a look that made her nerve endings tingle in response. “Just me.”

Nathan didn’t give her much chance to process that information. Before she could stammer a reply, he was already out of the car and coming around to the passenger side. He opened the door and took her wrist to help her to her feet. His strong fingers clamped around her in a grasp that was equal parts command and comfort.

Heat sizzled through their connection, and Jordana struggled to appear unaffected as she came to stand in front of him with hardly two inches of space between their bodies. “Well,” she said, forcing a lamely polite smile. “Thanks again for seeing me home, Nathan.”

“You’re not there yet.”

When she would have demurred, he released his grasp on her and gestured toward the elevator leading to the lobby of her building. He strode alongside her to the waiting lift and rode up with her.

Seamus was on duty, as usual. The doorman rose from behind his wide reception desk and gave her a welcoming nod as she stepped into the quiet lobby. “Evening, Miss Gates.”

“Hello, Seamus,” she greeted, trying to walk nonchalantly across the polished marble floor.

“Mr. Bentley-Squire’s looking for you, Miss Gates,” Seamus informed her. “He called several times tonight to ask if I’d seen you, even stopped by a short while ago—”

The doorman abruptly clammed up the instant he noticed Jordana wasn’t alone.

“Thank you, Seamus,” Jordana said, keenly aware of Nathan’s presence as he followed her out of the elevator and across the lobby, neither waiting for permission nor asking for it.

She saw the middle-age human guard warily eye the dark and dangerous-looking Breed warrior at her heels. It wasn’t every night that Jordana traipsed through her building in the company of a man, let alone one dressed in patrol gear and bristling with deadly weapons.

And it didn’t help that she likely carried the unsavory fragrances of the club on her as she sailed past Seamus’s desk.

The doorman cleared his throat. “Everything okay tonight, Miss Gates?”

“Yes, of course. Everything is fine. Good night, Seamus.”

She gave him a practiced smile, one that invited no further comment,
as Nathan proceeded to trail her to the penthouse elevator in broody silence.

As soon as the polished steel doors closed behind them, Jordana closed her eyes and blew out a sigh. “The whole building’s going to know about this tomorrow. Seamus is sweet and well meaning, but discretion isn’t one of his strong suits.” She slowly shook her head, then pressed the button for the penthouse floor. “I can only imagine what he must be thinking about me right now—”

“Why do you care what that human rent-a-cop thinks?” Nathan’s low voice was little more than a growl as he moved so he was facing her inside the lift. “Why do you care what anyone might think of you?”

“Because I’m a Gates.” An automatic answer, a standard she held herself to from the time she was a child. “Certain things are expected of my family. And of me. I have to care what people think.”

“Bullshit.”

Startled, she looked up into Nathan’s stormy gaze, realizing only now just how close he stood to her. Heat radiated from the large, muscular bulk of his body, sending a flush to her cheeks and down between her breasts. Then lower still.

Nathan didn’t need to say anything—he didn’t need to do anything—and yet his presence was so dominating, it seemed to suck all the air out of the small space.

Although some insane compulsion drew her toward all of that heat and power, Jordana inched backward, not stopping until her spine bumped against the rear of the ascending car.

He was right there too, crowding her physically, forcing her to hold his probing stare. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You hide behind the crutch of your family’s name and whatever obligation you feel toward it, but that’s not what I’m asking you. I want to know why you hide.”

He moved closer, leaving her no room to escape. No room to avoid his piercing eyes or the chaos of her own senses as every nerve ending inside her came alive with awareness of this man and her dangerous craving for him.

“I want to know why you feel the need to clamp a hard lid down on who you truly are, Jordana. The woman who kissed me in this very building last week. The woman who looked at me at the museum party last night like she was drowning under the weight of everything that was expected of her.” Nathan came closer still, until his chest brushed hers,
his body searing the length of her. “I want to know why you try so hard to deny the woman you truly are, Jordana.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice sounded very small, unconvincing, even to her own ears. “I’m not hiding behind anything. And you don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Don’t I?” His dark eyes flashed with amber. When he spoke again, she spied the razor-sharp tips of his fangs behind his sensual upper lip. “You wanted me to take you out of that party last night. You would’ve fought me and denied it, but in the end, we both know you would’ve gone with me.”

Oh, God. He was right
.

Even so, she gave a sharp toss of her head. “No. I would have done no such thing—”

“Yes, Jordana, you would have.” He smiled now, a confident, knowing smile that gave her no mercy at all. “And today in the supply room of the command center, you wanted me to touch you, to kiss you. To do whatever wicked things I wanted to you.”

She swallowed hard, her mouth going dry under the scorching heat of his gaze.

“You waited for it,” he said. “You crave it now, as much as I do.”

A sound curled up from her throat, but if she’d hoped to be able to deny what he was saying, the soft moan that slipped past her lips was a pitiful effort. “Don’t say such things. You have no right—”

“Why not, Jordana?” he pressed. “Why not say it if it’s the truth? Why should either of us pretend we can stop what’s going on between us?”

“Because—” She sucked in a breath, searching for the strength to refuse him.

“Because, why?” he asked, more gently now, yet no less commanding. “Tell me why you’d rather scurry back behind your family name and the obligations you’ve constructed into your own prison?”

Jordana brought her fingers up to her lips, trying to bite back the words that would betray her. They spilled out anyway, a whispered rush. “Because I’m afraid.”

Something flickered over Nathan’s stern features—shock or understanding, sympathy or pity; she couldn’t be sure.

He reached behind him and hit the stop button on the elevator. With a soft rock, the car came to a cushioned halt inside the shaft.

Jordana’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”

Nathan didn’t answer. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

Anxiety shot through her. “Seamus will notice that we’ve stopped. He’ll wonder what’s going on in here.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Nathan growled. “Neither should you.”

“He can see us,” Jordana pointed out, glancing past Nathan, toward the small security camera lens staring down at them from the ceiling of the lift.

Although he didn’t so much as flinch, the tiny red light on the monitoring device blinked out, snuffed by the power of Nathan’s Gen One Breed mind. “Now it’s just you and me, Jordana. I’m the only one who can see you. I’m the only one who will hear you. Are you afraid now?”

When she looked down in silence, Nathan’s warm, strong fingers came to rest beneath her chin. He lifted her face, refusing to let her hide even her gaze from him. “Are you afraid of me, Jordana?”

She gave a weak shake of her head, astonished that it wasn’t fear she felt with this man right now. It was something far more powerful than that. More powerful than the desire he stirred in her as well. She trusted him.

Nathan didn’t have to demand she bare her soul to him; his turbulent blue-green eyes and unexpectedly gentle touch compelled her with equal measure. “My father’s had a very strict path laid out for me to follow from the time I was a child. He wants things for me. Expects me to act a certain way, to achieve certain goals he’s set for me. He does it out of love, I know that. He only wants what’s best for me.”

“I’m sure he does.” Nathan closed the scant distance between them, a towering wall of muscle and dark, simmering intent. “What do
you
want?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “But sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never be the daughter he wants me to be. I’m terrified I’m going to wake up one day and realize I no longer want the things he thinks are best for me.” She let out a soft sigh, still holding Nathan’s stormy gaze. “I’m afraid I already have.”

He growled a curse, something low and dark, under his breath. His features sharpened, making his face more fierce, as profane as it was handsome. Jordana lifted her hand, wanting to brave a touch of his angled cheekbone and rigid jaw.

Nathan caught her in midmotion, wrapping his fingers around her
wrist before she could make contact. His grip was warm but firm. Wordlessly, he raised her hand up and away from him, pinning it over her head against the back wall of the elevator car.

Jordana didn’t know what to say—she didn’t know what to think—as he then brought her other hand up as well and held it there. She tested his hold and found it unyielding. As unbreakable as iron.

Staring up at him, she swallowed, all too aware of how her current position left her totally at Nathan’s mercy. With her hands held above her head, her spine pressed against the solid wall of the elevator car, the only place she could possibly move was toward the crowding heat of his body. Her breasts strained against the buttons of her conservative silk blouse. Her legs were spread slightly to keep her balance, and cool air tickled up the bare lengths of her calves and thighs, making her even more aware of the moist heat pulsing at her core.

Every feminine particle of her being thrummed in response to Nathan’s presence, anticipation pounding in her blood.

He switched his grasp so that one hand shackled her wrists, leaving his other free to roam. He stroked the backs of his knuckles along the slope of her cheek, then down along the swells of her breasts, hardly touching her yet making her burn with sensation. “Are you afraid of me now, Jordana?”

“No.” Her reply was little more than a gasp, breathless not from worry but from the startling sense of her own vulnerability.

Nathan held her completely under his control. She couldn’t have broken loose of his hold if her life depended on it. Nor did she want to.

He owned her in that moment, and damn him if he didn’t know it too.

He reveled in it; she could see the dark pleasure in his eyes as he drank her in from head to foot in the tight confines of the lift. Amber sparks pierced the thundercloud color of his irises. His broad mouth was grim yet sensual, barely concealing the growing length of his fangs.

He bent toward her and took her mouth in a scorching, commanding kiss.

Jordana had no experience with such hard passion, such hungered demand. She could only surrender to it, moaning as his lips covered hers, claimed her. His tongue pushed at the seam of her mouth, and she opened to him, submitting to this further claiming with a shudder of raw pleasure that rippled through her, then pooled molten hot between her thighs.

She’d never been kissed like this. She was lost to it, her limbs languid and boneless, her veins lit up and electric.

Where Elliott’s kisses were earnest, even passionately inflamed at times, Nathan’s mouth was wild and untamed on hers. Possessive and fevered. His kiss branded her in a way that left all other comparisons in ashes.

When he abruptly broke contact and reared back from her, Jordana couldn’t contain her cry of dismay. Nathan stared at her, his dark eyes glittering with bright amber light that swamped the thin vertical slits of his transformed pupils.

She wanted more. Jordana tried to reach for him, only to remember that he still held her hands in the manacle of his iron grasp. She frowned, struggling a bit more determinedly against his hold.