Stroke of Midnight

by Lara Adrian

  He shrugged, barely acknowledging the ability he so seldom used.

  “Can you heal them too?”

  “No. And now you know my curse,” he murmured wryly. “I can inventory someone’s wounds, but I can’t help them.”

  She tilted her head at him, warmth sparkling in her eyes. “You helped Yasmin tonight.”

  Jehan stared at her, unsure how to respond. Seraphina couldn’t know how his so-called gift had hobbled him in his life. He’d grown up feeling useless, aimless. It wasn’t until he’d found the Order that he realized there were other ways to do something meaningful with his life. That his life had purpose.

  She was still studying him, looking gorgeous and far too interested in him as she held his gaze. “The storm’s really blowing out there. Do you want to wait it out in here or would you rather go to my place?”

  He arched a brow. “Your place?”

  “My tent.” She smiled, and the warmth of it went straight to his groin. “It’s where I stay when I’m here at the camp for any length of time. It’s not all that comfortable, but it is private.”

  Jehan’s grin broke slowly across his face. “Miss Sanhaja, are you trying to seduce me?”

  She licked her lips, tilting her head as she held his hungry gaze. “I think I might be.”

  Holy hell. The promise in her voice had his blood racing so hard and fast to his cock, he wasn’t sure he’d make it to her tent.

  “Lead the way,” he drawled thickly, his fangs already punching out of his gums.

  He held the blanket aloft over them as they dashed out of the medical building and raced through the blizzard of sand. Seraphina’s tent stood toward the far end of the camp. By the time they reached it and found their way past the zipper and ties that secured the shelter’s entrance, they were coated in a thin layer of grit. They stumbled inside together hand-in-hand, Seraphina laughing and breathless in the dark.

  She left him for a moment, bending to turn on a lantern.

  The soft light put a glow on her pinkened cheeks and on the flush of color rising up the smooth column of her throat, making the fine sand that dusted her skin glitter like diamonds. Under the windblown tangle of her long brown curls, her sandalwood-colored eyes were fathomless and filled with desire. Her breath was still racing and shallow, the outline of her breasts teasing him from under the crisp white linen of his shirt.

  He’d never seen anything so lovely.

  With the storm howling all around them, sand buffeting the tent like rain, Jehan stood speechless, the sight of her like this branding itself into his memory forever.

  He couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke the velvet of her cheek. And then that wasn’t enough either, so he cupped her face in his hands and dragged her into a fierce kiss.

  The instant their mouths met, it was as if no time had passed between their fevered kiss before the sandstorm and this electric moment now. Hell, it was as if they were merely picking up where they left off that first night at the villa. All of the hunger he felt for this female, all of the desire...it was right there below the surface, waiting for the chance to reignite.

  And he knew that Seraphina felt it too.

  On a moan, she melted against him, her lips parting to give his tongue the access it demanded. Heat licked through his veins at the taste of her passion, scorching everything in its path. In an instant, his fangs punched through his gums to fill his mouth. Need hammered in his temples, in his chest. In the aching length of his cock.

  He groaned with the intensity of it.

  He had to pace himself. Wanted to take this slowly with her, despite his own impatience to have her spread out beneath him as he buried himself inside her.

  But Seraphina was merciless. Her wet mouth and gusting breath tore at his resolve. Her soft curves and strong, questing fingers on his shoulders and chest, in his hair, stripped away his already threadbare control.

  Sliding his hands under the loose hem of the tunic, he greedily caressed the firm swell of her satin-covered breasts. Seraphina gasped, arching into him as he flicked open the front clasp of her bra and cupped her bare flesh in his palms. Her nipples were tight little buds that pebbled even harder as he rolled and tweaked them between his fingers, hungry to taste them.

  He released her, but only so he could take the shirt off and feast on her with his eyes.

  He drew the linen over her head and let it fall to the floor of the tent. The red sash holding up her pants came off next. He untied it and watched as the slackened waistband of the linen trousers slid off her hips to pool at her feet.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured, reaching out to run the backs of his knuckles down her arm, then across the flat plane of her belly. He ventured further, toying with the lacy edge of her delicate panties. “This is what I wanted to do that first night with you, Seraphina. Undress you inch by inch. Pretend I had the right to look at you like this and think I could ever be worthy of having you.”

  She slowly shook her head. “I don’t want you to pretend, Jehan. Tonight, I don’t want you to stop. I didn’t want you to stop that first night either.”

  A sound escaped him, something raw and otherworldly. He slid his fingers into the scrap of fabric between her legs, and...holy fuck.

  She was almost bare beneath the lace. And wet. So damn wet. Hot, liquid silk bathed his fingertips as he delved into her slick cleft.

  She bit her lip, dropping her head back on a sigh. Holding on to him as he stroked her silky folds, she squirmed and shuddered against his touch. “Jehan, don’t make me wait. Please, don’t make me want like this again.”

  “No chance of that,” he uttered, his voice like gravel in his throat, raw with desire. “Not tonight.”

  Not ever again, some possessive part of him growled in agreement.

  He didn’t know where it came from—the bone-deep sense that he belonged with this woman.

  That she was his.

  And that as ridiculous as the ancient pact between their families was, it had somehow delivered him to the one woman he craved more than any other before.

  Jehan drew her mouth to his and kissed her again, as reverent as it was claiming. He broke contact only so he could strip out of his shirt and jeans, leaving both at his feet. He wore nothing underneath, and as soon as his cock sprang free, Seraphina’s hands found him.

  She stroked and caressed him, her fingers so sure and fevered, he nearly came on the spot.

  Need twisted tight and hot with every slide of her hands over his stiff shaft, pressure coiling at the base of his spine.

  Somehow, he managed to collect himself enough to douse the lantern with his mind. The tent plunged into darkness. Although the sandstorm raged outside, driving everyone in the camp indoors, he wasn’t going to share Seraphina or this moment with anyone else.

  Pulling her down onto the pallet of blankets and pillows with him, Jehan removed her panties, then smoothed his hand along every beautiful swell and delicately muscled plane on her nude body. The temptation of her sex was too much. The sweet scent of her arousal drenched his senses as he moved over her, parting her thighs until she was opened to him like an exotic flower.

  One he couldn’t wait to taste.

  He lowered his head between her legs, groaning in a mix of agony and ecstasy as his tongue met her nectar-sweet, hot, wet flesh. His fangs were already fully extended, but at the first swallow of Seraphina’s juices, the sharp points grew even larger.

  The urge to bite—to draw blood and make her his in the most powerful way he knew how—rose up on him without warning.

  No.

  He tamped the impulse down hard, blindsided by the force of it.

  Losing himself to carnal pleasure was one thing. Binding Seraphina to him for eternity was another. And it was a line he wouldn’t cross.

  He had no room in his life for a mate, and if she woke up in the morning with regrets, he sure as hell didn’t want one of them to be irrevocable.

  Tonight, he wanted to give her pleasure.
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  Selfishly, he wanted to give her the kind of pleasure that would ensure that every other male who’d ever touched her was obliterated from her memory.

  Tonight, Seraphina was his—not because some ridiculous agreement said she should be, but because she wanted to be.

  Because she felt the same undeniable desire that he did.

  “Come for me,” he rasped against her tender flesh. “I want to hear you, Seraphina.”

  “Oh God,” she gasped in reply, arching up to meet his mouth as he kissed and sucked and teased with his lips and tongue. When she writhed and mewled in rising pleasure, he gave her more, sliding a finger through her juices and into the tight entrance of her body. She cried out as he added another, thrusting in tempo with his tongue’s deep strokes.

  He glanced up the length of her twisting body. “Open your eyes, beauty. I want to see you come for me.”

  She obeyed, lifting heavy lids, her gaze drunk with pleasure. “Jehan, please...”

  Her hands tangled and fisted in his hair as he coaxed her higher, desperate for her pleasure—for her release—before he would let himself inside.

  Ah, fuck. He’d never seen anything as erotic as Seraphina caught at the crest of orgasm. The sexy sounds she made. The unbridled response of her body. The tight, hot vise of her sheath, clamping down around his fingers as he flicked his tongue over her clit and drove her relentlessly toward a shattering release.

  She held his gaze in the dark, and when she crashed apart a moment later, it was with his name on her lips.

  Jehan couldn’t curb his satisfied grin.

  He rose over her, pressing her knees to her chest as he guided his cock between the slick folds of her sex. Her eyes were locked on his, her body still flushed and shuddering with the aftershocks of her release. He tested her tight entrance with a small thrust of his hips, groaning as her little muscular walls enveloped the head of his shaft.

  He grasped for control and found he had none.

  Not where this woman was concerned.

  And why that didn’t scare the hell out of him, he didn’t know.

  Right now, with Seraphina wet and ready for him, the question damn well didn’t matter.

  With a harsh curse, he flexed his pelvis and seated himself to the root.

  CHAPTER 11

  She gasped Jehan’s name as he took her in one deep, breath-stealing thrust.

  His wicked mouth and fingers had left her nerve endings vibrating and numb with sensation, her body slick and hot from release. But each rolling push of Jehan’s hips stoked her arousal to life once more. His cock stretched her, filled her so completely she could barely accommodate all of his length and girth. She closed her eyes against the staggering ecstasy that built as he moved inside her, his powerful strokes and relentless tempo driving her to the edge of her sanity.

  She’d never felt anything as intoxicating as the naked strength of Jehan’s magnificent body. That all of his passion—all of his immense control—was concentrated on her pleasure was a drug she could easily become addicted to. Maybe she already was because her hunger for him was only growing more consuming with every hard crash of his body against hers.

  Reaching up between them, he drew one of her legs down from where it lay bent against her chest and wrapped it around his waist as he shifted into an even more intense angle. The new position gave her access to his glyph-covered pecs and muscled abdomen, which she explored with questing fingers and scoring nails. She lifted her head and watched him pound into her, mesmerized by the violent, erotic beauty of their need.

  Jehan made an approving noise in the back of his throat. “Do you like the way we look, Sera? Your legs spread open so wide for me, my cock buried in your heat?”

  “Yes.” Oh, God. Had she thought she was already at the brink of combusting? His dark voice inflamed her even more. She tore her gaze away from their joining only to meet the crackling fire that blazed down at her from his transformed eyes. “Jehan...I didn’t know it could be like this. Watching you push inside me like you can’t get deep enough. I love seeing us together like this. I love the way we feel.”

  “Mm,” he responded, more growl than reply. “Then let me give you even more.”

  He set a new pace that destroyed her already slipping control. Another orgasm mounted and twisted inside her, sweeping her into a dizzying spiral of pleasure. She caught her lip between her teeth on a strangled moan as the climax swelled, nearing its breaking point.

  Jehan’s rhythm showed no mercy. He rode her harder, deeper, his hips pistoning furiously.

  She arched beneath him, unable to hold on any longer. Turning her head into her pillow, she let go of a scream as her release broke over her in wave after wave of bliss.

  Jehan pumped furiously as she came, then a rough curse ripped out of him. He tensed, his muscles hardening like granite beneath her fingertips as she clung to him. His amber-lit eyes blazed hot, locked on her.

  He hissed her name, torment and pleasure etched in his handsome, savage face. Then a roar boiled past his teeth and fangs. His hips thrust viciously, then he plunged deep on a curse as the sudden, scorching flow of his seed erupted inside her.

  She’d never felt so sated. So deliciously fucked.

  She caressed Jehan as his body relaxed and his orgasm ebbed. But his cock had lost little of its stiffness inside her. And as he murmured rumbling praises for the way she felt, his strong fingers petting her hair and cheeks and breasts, that lingering stiffness had returned to steel again.

  She couldn’t control her body’s response to him, nor could she curb her shaky sigh of pleasure as his shaft swelled to capacity and the walls of her sex clenched to hold him. She moved beneath him, creating a slick friction.

  “Holy fuck, Sera.” He closed his eyes for a moment, head tipped back on his shoulders as she invited him to take her again. When his gaze came back to hers, the fire that had been there before flared even hotter. “I should’ve walked away. Now, it’s too late. It’s too fucking late for both of us.”

  She nodded, knowing he was right. They should have resisted this heat that lived between them.

  They should have refused the handfast and all that came with it.

  They both should have realized that giving in to this desire would only spark a greater need.

  For Sera, what she felt for Jehan went beyond physical need or even a passing affection. Tonight, she’d seen a new side of him. Not the arrogant Breed male who strode through life as if he owned the world. Not the Order warrior who dealt in ruthless justice and death.

  Tonight, at the camp, she’d witnessed a different side of him. Jehan was a kind man, a compassionate man. She’d glimpsed the honor inside him, and now that she had seen those things, she would never be able to regard him in any lesser light.

  So, yes. It was much too late for her to walk away from anything that happened between them tonight.

  And if she should regret that fact, she never would.

  Not when Jehan was looking at her the way he was now, with fever in his eyes and desire riding the furious arcs and swirls of his multicolored dermaglyphs. And not when his amazing cock was making her yearn to be taken all over again.

  “On your knees this time,” he commanded her, his deep voice husky and raw.

  Her eyes widened in surprise, but she eagerly scrambled out from under him to obey. He loomed behind her, the heat of his presence scalding her backside. His fingers waded through their combined juices, wringing a desperate mewl from her throat as the wet sounds of his caresses joined the dry howl of the sandstorm still raging outside the tent.

  She felt the thick length of his cock between her swollen folds. Then he grasped her hips in his hands and slowly impaled her on him, inch by glorious inch.

  They set a less frantic pace now, somehow finding the will to savor the pleasure, making it last as long as they could hold out. After they had both climaxed again, they dropped into a lazy sprawl on her blanket-strewn pallet.

  For a long
while, there were no words between them. They lay together in the dark, listening to the hiss of swirling sand as the storm continued to sweep through the camp.

  Sera was stretched alongside him, one arm resting on his chest. She traced the pattern of glyphs that spread over his smooth skin, memorizing the Breed skin markings that were unique to him alone. They were beautiful. And so was he.

  “I need to thank you for tonight, Jehan.”

  He grunted. “No need, trust me.” His strong arm tightened around her, bringing her closer against him. “I should be the one thanking you.”

  She rose up to look at his face. “No, I mean for what you did tonight. For helping me bring the supplies here. For going out into the storm to find Yasmin and make sure she got the care she needed for her injured leg.”

  He shrugged mildly. “Again, there’s no need for thanks. I did what anyone would do.”

  “Not anyone,” she said. “And I never would’ve expected it from you. I misjudged you when we met, and for that, I also owe you an apology.”

  He cupped her nape and brought her down to him for a tender kiss. “Maybe we both were too quick to judge. When you told me you only agreed to the handfast to collect the trust from your father, I assumed you were willing to take his bribe because you wanted the money for yourself. And not that it should matter why you wanted it, but it did. Tonight at the checkpoint, I know what you did. I realized what you’ve been doing all along—using your personal funds to buy clearance for camp supplies.”

  She frowned. “It’s only money. How can I keep it when those supplies mean life or death to the people who depend on me?”

  “Your work obviously means a lot to you.” There was a soberness in his eyes as he studied her in the darkened tent. “You told me that night we walked in the garden that your work is a calling.”

  “I did say that, yes.” It surprised her that he remembered the offhand remark.