Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 05 (16 page)

Her eyes went wide, and she leaned back, her dark hair
sliding across her cheek as she slanted him a sideways look. “You had two women
on Saturday night. I would’ve thought that was enough to keep any man going for
a few days. Even a Lycan.”

“You know damn well I didn’t sleep with them. It was—”

“Not my business,” she said quickly, holding up one
slender, delicate hand. “So stop right there and spare me the details.”

“Damn it, Morgan. I didn’t touch eith—”

“If that’s true, then it’s only because you didn’t
have the chance,” she stated, cutting him off. She looked around the inside of
the pub, as if trying to find something to focus on that wasn’t him. “So is
this your way of telling me that you need to go off on your own tonight to pick
up a woman?” she eventually asked, rolling her lips together. “Because if so,
you certainly don’t owe me any explanation, Kier. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Christ, I’m not looking to leave you alone,” he
muttered.

She sent him a look of comical disgust. “Well, I’m
sure as hell not going to tag along!”

“Damn it, Morgan. I wasn’t asking you to!”

She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him
warily, her gaze shadowed by a heavy weight of suspicion. “Then spell it out
for me, because I have no idea what you want from me, Kierland.”

“You,” he growled, and it was easy to hear the
graveled edge of the wolf’s voice in the guttural word, the beast stretching
within him, irritated by the human constraints of his body. “You’re the one
that I need.”

She blinked, staring at him as if he’d just grown a
second head…or lightning beams had just shot from his eye sockets. With one
hand pressed against her chest, she wheezed and managed to splutter, “Is that
meant to be some kind of joke?”

A thick sound of frustration broke from his throat,
and Kierland pulled a hand down his face, hating that he could feel a damn
blush burning beneath his skin. “I’m not telling you that I want to go out and
find another woman,” he muttered, before looking away to stare out across the
crowded pub. “I’m telling you that I want you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” His gaze came back to her, and whatever she
saw in his eyes made her own face flush with heat, a wild bloom of color
burning in her cheeks and along the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t understand.” Slow, careful words, as if she
was talking to someone who’d lost their grip on reality. And hell, maybe he
had.

Kierland rubbed at the knotted tension in the back of
his neck, then made a quiet, gritty confession. “The truth is, I haven’t been
with another woman since you came to England with the others.”

WORRIED THAT SHE MIGHT actually be dreaming, Morgan
reached under the table and sank a short claw into her thigh. As the sharp
sting of pain faded, she could only marvel at the fact that she hadn’t awakened
in her bed, alone, to find that this was all some kind of fatigue- or
stress-induced fantasy. But Kierland was still sitting across from her, looking
like he wanted to eat her alive, the provocative scent of hunger pouring off
his big, ripped body making her light-headed.

“What exactly are you saying?” she asked, choosing her
words with care. She was still mortified by the things she’d said to him on the
train. No way in hell was she going to compound her embarrassment by misreading
the situation.

He took a moment to respond, his head angled forward
and a little to the side as he stared at her through his dense lashes, his gaze
touching upon her individual features—eyes, nose, mouth—before returning to her
eyes again. Finally, he answered her question. “I’m saying that I haven’t been
with another woman in the past month, because you’re the only one that I’ve
wanted under me. No one else. And I’m saying that there’s still lust between
us, just like there was ten years ago.” The husky words shook with a raw force
of emotion that she could hardly believe was real. “It doesn’t matter how
misplaced it is,” he went on to say, “or how badly we wish it didn’t exist. I
think it’s finally time we got it out of our systems, once and for all.”

Blinking, Morgan took a slow, careful breath and wet
her lips, while her blood slipped through her veins like hot, thick syrup. “Are
you…actually admitting that you wanted me back then, Kier?”

He turned his head farther to the side, and slid her
one of those wry male expressions that managed to look both sardonic and sexy
as hell. “I would have thought it was pretty obvious.”

“And what makes you think I wanted you?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he was
fighting back a smile. “Are you really gonna try to deny it?”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “But…I was a girl
with her first adult crush. I had stars in my eyes. Then I got a heavy dose of
reality, and I grew up.”

From the look on his face, she could tell the quiet
words had revealed more than she’d wanted. Morgan thought he would question
her, digging for answers, but he didn’t. Instead, he blew out a rough breath
and said, “I want you under me, Morgan, and I’m tired of pretending I couldn’t
care less if it ever happens. Because it’s a lie. I care a hell of a lot about
wanting you. I always have.”

God, she couldn’t believe this was Kierland sitting
across from her, speaking so…openly. The man had never so much as even
attempted to kiss her all those years ago, and now he was claiming that he’d
wanted her. A lot. It made her head spin, knowing that she hadn’t just imagined
the hunger she’d sometimes thought she’d caught in those beautiful green eyes.

But if that was true, then why had he gotten involved
with Nicole? Why had he never told Morgan how he felt?

“You really think this is a good idea?” she croaked,
too wary to ask the questions that she really wanted answered.

“I’d give you an easier option if I had one, but I
don’t.” The raw force of his gaze made her flustered and hot. “The fact is,
I’ve given this a lot of thought, and there’s only one way I’m going to be able
to stomach working with Granger.”

Oh…hell.

Morgan dropped her head forward and covered her face
with her hands, holding perfectly still, even though she was shaking apart
inside. God, she should have known where this was leading. That it would turn
ugly, the way everything always did between them.

Slowly, she lowered her hands to her lap, a wry,
self-deprecating smile curving the corner of her mouth. “This isn’t about me at
all, is it? It’s about Ashe. Some weird jealousy thing.” There was a soft edge
of anger to her words as she said, “One of those ‘You don’t want me, but you
don’t want anyone else to want me, either’ situations.”

His voice slid over her like dark, crushed velvet, his
heavy-lidded stare smoldering with lust. “Trust me,” he reiterated slowly.
“Wanting you has never been a problem.”

“Some sort of vampire prejudice, then?” she shot back,
trying hard not to melt beneath the primal heat of his stare. “You can’t
stomach to see someone in your unit cozying up with a vamp?”

Frustration rode the hard, muscled lines of his body,
blasting against her like a physical force. “Don’t ask me to explain it,
because I can’t. But it’s not a vampire thing. I’m just… Damn it, I hate this,”
he muttered, taking a deep, shuddering breath, as if willing himself to calm
down. The fisted hand on the tabletop slowly relaxed, and he flexed his
fingers, laying his palm flat. For a moment, all he did was stare down at the
back of his hand, with its long fingers and thick veins, while the pub
continued to provide a noisy backdrop to their quiet conversation. Finally, he
lifted his head and stared right into her eyes as he said, “I don’t want to
fight with you anymore, Morgan. I just want to have sex with you.”

Madness, how much those rough words turned her on. Not
to mention how badly she wanted to believe him. How desperately she wanted to
throw herself across that table and attack him, right there in the middle of
that bloody pub. But the doubts and fears were nearly impossible to ignore.

She swallowed, and fought to make sense of the words
crashing around inside her skull. “If you’re doing this to keep me away from
Ashe, it isn’t necessary, Kier. Like I’ve told you before, Ashe and I are just
friends.”

He snorted, clearly not believing her.

“That’s the truth, Kierland. He was a friend when I
needed one. And then he was…he kept me together at a really bad time in my
life. Kept me from falling apart, and I owe him more than I can ever repay. I
know the two of you have never gotten along, but he’s not the villain you’ve
made him out to be.”

“He’s hardly a saint,” he muttered under his breath,
and she could tell that he was trying hard to control his temper.

“No, he isn’t a saint,” she agreed. “But he isn’t
evil, either.” She lowered her gaze, staring at the polished surface of the
table. “Still, I meant what I said. I won’t be sleeping with him.”

“Then so long as we’re on this assignment, you’ll be
sleeping with me.”

The husky, devastating words jerked a short, nervous
laugh from her chest, and she looked back up, mesmerized by the hard,
determined expression cut into the rugged angles of his face. With the
burnished rays of sunlight spilling in through the pub’s high, stained-glass
windows, pouring splashes of color across that lustrous hair and powerful body,
he really was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen.

Wetting her lips again, she shook her head a little to
break the spell, and tried to remember all the reasons why this was such a bad
idea. “What in God’s name makes you think I’m going to agree to this?”

“We’ve been putting this off for years, Morgan. Don’t
you think it’s time we finally did something about it?” he asked in a deep,
rich rumble. “Whatever else might be between us, we’ve always wanted the hell
out of each other, and it’s even worse now than it was before. These past two
days have proven that. And as much as I figure you’d like to deny it, the truth
is that you want to know the answer to the question as badly as I do.”

“And the question would be…”

He focused on her hot face with a visceral, predatory
intensity, and replied, “What it’s going to be like when I’m inside you.”

Need spiked through her body, molten and warm and
aching, her expression no doubt giving away every damn thing that she felt, but
it couldn’t be helped. Morgan wished she could be cool and sophisticated about
the intimate topic, but that just wasn’t her. Put her on a battlefield, and she
could fight like a ruthless bitch with the best of them. But land her in the
middle of a conversation about sex, and she blushed like a schoolgirl, her
heart beating so heavily she knew he could probably hear it over the clatter of
the pub.

Nerves were so ridiculous at her age, and yet, there
seemed so much to be nervous about. For one, this was Kierland saying these
outrageous things to her, which would have been enough to rattle any woman. And
for another…she’d never been intimate with a wolf before. And from the things
Morgan had heard, it wasn’t an experience a woman could ever forget. Lycans
were known to be insatiable lovers. Wild. Ravenous. As aggressive as the
Deschanel, when their beasts were awakened.

With those thoughts tumbling through her mind, she
couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she said, “I’ve heard things about
Lycans, Kier. They’re rumored to be some of the most…aggressive of the breeds
when it comes to sex.”

A heavy pause. A rough breath. Then he finally
responded. “You’ve slept with a Deschanel, Morgan. I wouldn’t have thought
you’d be afraid of aggressive sex.”

He was right about the Deschanel’s reputation, but the
truth was that Ashe had always been incredibly tender with her, mindful of her
age and innocence…worried that he’d scare her if he got too rough. But she
wasn’t going to admit any of that to Kierland. “I’m not saying that I’m afraid.
Maybe I just want to make sure you won’t hold back and act differently with me.
Because of my bloodline.”

He waited until she’d slid her gaze back to his before
saying, “I’ve always considered you one of the strongest women I know, so
there’d be no reason for me to go easy on you.” His chest shook with a gritty
bark of laughter that seemed to take him by surprise, and a slow grin crossed
his mouth. “I doubt I could lighten up even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I plan
on doing everything I can to make sure the experience is one that makes an
impact. One you won’t ever forget.”

Morgan bit back a telling moan, so aroused she could
barely sit still. He’d spent so many years hiding this part of himself from
her, and though she’d imagined it in her fantasies, seeing the sexy redhead in
full hunger mode was too delicious to be real.

But he was lying, and she knew it.

“What?” he asked, arching a dark brow as he spotted
the sparks of accusation glittering in her eyes.

“It’s just that I know that’s not true,” she told him,
shrugging her shoulder. “Ashe told me what happened with that nest of rogue
vampires. That you refused to attack with the full unit of trainees, the way
you’d been ordered to, because you didn’t want me involved. The only
explanation I can think of is that you were worried I would jeopardize the
mission, because I wasn’t as pure-blooded as the rest of you.”