again she could see that he was blatantly aroused. The massive bulge behind the denim was unrepentant, even if the owner was a little bit more so. Corrine couldn’t help the knee-jerk flush of heat that rushed down the center of her body and up her neck to her cheeks.
“Stop,” he rasped suddenly, the plea drowning in aching need. “Stop looking at me. Stop thinking. .”
Kane groaned and Corrine realized abruptly where her thoughts had begun to drift and that he could read her mind. Blushing in earnest now, she tore her eyes from him, covering her hot face with cold hands and trying not to mentally acknowledge the damp traces of arousal left between her legs.
“Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?” she gasped, a flustered tinge of red spreading all over her fair skin. Kane couldn’t bring himself to look away, his gaze fixed as the lamplight flickered over her, illuminating the paths of pink that tinted her pale skin. She turned, searching, he sensed, for the top sheet that had been left on the floor earlier. She wanted to cover up the evidence of her reaction to their Imprinted chemistry. He was immensely satisfied when she couldn’t find it. Knowing she would be stupid to waste her energy climbing down off the bed again, she crossed her arms from shoulder to shoulder, hiding little more than the stiffened points of her nipples.
“Nothing,” Kane answered with a gruff croak of his voice. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re perfect.”
She laughed at that, a hard sound full of bitter denial. “If that were true. .” She stopped, a moment of panic lighting her eyes. She was remembering he had access to her mind, but it was too late already.
“If that were true,” he finished for her, “then you wouldn’t be alone.”
“I. . I’m not alone,” she denied quietly, her face turning from him. “I have my sister.”
“Corrine, there is nothing wrong with wanting a companion in your life,” he told her.
Perhaps it was the infinite compassion in his voice that made her look back at him, but the sight of her brimming eyes stabbed into Kane like a huge, butcher knife.
“I’ve done everything I was supposed to do,” she said softly, a hard sniffle trying to force back her feelings. “I went to school. I’ve got a good career. I live a strong and independent lifestyle. I’m good to other people as much as I can be. I take care of my family. I try so hard to do everything right. .”
“Corrine, your lack of a partner has nothing to do with some kind of cosmic scorecard. Not in the way you think,” he countered. “Destiny isn’t punishing you by forcing you to be alone. Very much the contrary, sweetheart. She was simply making sure you were ready and open when your true mate came along.”
She pushed back at the thick coiling curls of her cinnamon-fire hair and gave him a dirty look. “And let me guess. That special guy just happens to be you, right? How friggin’ convenient for me that I just happened to get so lucky as to be held prisoner by your side, eh? Oh, wait. That’s not luck, that’s you insisting I’m going to croak if I budge so much as an inch off this bed! And can someone tell me again why I believe that ridiculous claim?”
Kane watched her pull back behind this caustic display with a sense of fascination. It was almost enough to make him forget the insistent desire punching through his body repeatedly. She was so beautiful. Even when she tried to be as prickly as a cactus, he found her utterly gorgeous.
“Because,” he replied absently as his eyes dropped of their own accord over her bare curves, “you’ve seen the proof of it. You left me and it hurt you. Drained you. Now, after only a couple of hours near me, you’re able to sit up again.”
“It’s called rest,” she argued. “You had nothing to do with it!”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, really!”
“Then prove me wrong. Come here and kiss me.”
Corrine gaped at him. “And just what the hell is that going to prove, besides the fact that I’m a gullible idiot?” she demanded.
“Come and kiss me and see.”
He watched with amusement as she debated the wisdom of falling for what she thought was a prank, a way of conning her into cheap thrills. He forgave her for thinking so little of him. After all, she hardly knew him. He, on the other hand, knew everything about her. He’d staked her out, observed her, read her mind, and hunted her down. There wasn’t a single thing about her, not even the deepest secret she had, that he wasn’t privy to. He knew exactly who she was, and Kane knew she was everything he could ever have wanted. He also knew he was everything she had ever wanted. It would just take a little time to make her see that.
She chewed on her bottom lip for a long minute, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his face, studying him very closely to try to read what kind of game he was running on her. After a minute she made a little sound of disgust.
“Fine. Whatever floats your boat, sport. I’m going to love to see how you fast talk your way out of this one.” With that, Corrine scooted up onto her knees, grasped hold of him with hands on either side of his face, and leaned forward until she was just about to lay her mouth against his. Kane didn’t even realize it, but as she hesitated he began to pant heavily for breath. The closer she was, the more difficult it became for him to control the vicious hunger Samhain was beating into his body. His hands curled down into tight fists, the chains pulling taut with a chink of sound that made her glance up at his bound wrists. The small smile that touched her lips at the corners told him that she was enjoying her position of power over him. But he didn’t begrudge her that. The tables were about to turn.
Corrine was super cautious as she touched the barest surface of her lips to Kane’s. When he didn’t move or make a single sound, when he didn’t even so much as blink, she dared to move an increment closer. His mouth was nice, lax, and soft, completely lacking any aggression. Somehow she had expected him to try to press himself onto her, take instant command. . to try to prove something to her. She certainly hadn’t expected him to lie utterly passive and quiet as she tentatively kissed him. She drew back and cocked a brow at him. He chuckled, the sound short and clearly derisive.
“What are you? Two?” he mocked her. “I’ve seen twelve year olds kiss with more passion than that.”
Kane’s redheaded mate gasped with a hot flash of indignant fury. “Why you lousy son of a—!”
That was when Kane surged up at her and captured her scowling mouth. He caught the passion of that temper between them, letting the power of it loop them together like the surest of knots. It was true that all the information he and his brethren knew about the Imprinting had come from rare live examples and potentially embellished fairy tales, but one thing had always seemed to be consistent in the tales he’d heard. Nothing kick- started the Imprinting faster than fierce emotion, and some of the most ferocious was anger and outrage. Oh, he would have preferred love or even just blatant passion, but he was limited by the situation and could only work within certain bounds.
The kiss seared them together at their mouths, the crush of lips awkward and harsh at first because of his lurching, graceless attack on her. But he cheated for just a moment or two, his mind taking over her motor control so she couldn’t rush away from him, the resulting paralysis dropping her against his chest and mouth.
The result was instantaneous ignition. Like a rocket roiling out burning fuel at liftoff, the sensation exploded over them both. Kane’s libido screamed into overdrive, demanding all he had been denied when his brother and his King had bolted him down next to Corrine, forcing him to bear up under all her warm sighs and subconscious snuggling against his raw body. Her mind did not recognize him; the mores and hang-ups of her species interfering noisily, but when she’d been asleep, her body had had no doubt as to whom it craved. Now she was getting a crash course in what it had felt like for him as he had struggled through this sacred full moon. She would be untouched by it no longer. Never again, in fact. Kane growled inside in frustration as his shackles kept him from wrapping her into his embrace, kept him from dominating the moment anymore than he already had. But he knew Abram, his
So he dismissed the limitation and let it work in his favor. He slowly relaxed back into the pillows behind him and Corrine hastily moved forward to close any distance that might be created by the action. Ensnared by the shocking heat of Imprinted passion, she was stunned into reacting purely on instinct. Kane knew she had never felt anything like this in all of her human existence, but he liked the feel of her wicked delight and surprise as it burst through her in sprays of hot cinder and liquid lava. She reached to wrap her hands tightly around his head, seizing him firmly and fiercely as her lush mouth worked heatedly against his. Kane pulled for breath as his body strained with hardest heat for her. She opened her mouth and licked his lips with an achingly gorgeous invitation.
She sealed their mouths together and swiped her artful tongue against his. The pure flavor of her mouth burst against Kane’s tongue and he ground out a deep sound of pleasure. But it was nothing compared to the shout
