Free Night Falls on the Wicked by Sharie Kohler Page B

his voice a wisp of heat on the air, so close he scorched her bruised lips.
    Closing her eyes tightly, she shook her head, panicked that he should see anything at all when he looked at her. Anything close to the truth.
    “N-nothing,” she choked.
    “Oh, no,” he returned, his voice quiet and confident and much too close as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb caressing her earlobe in a deft, sensual stroke. “You’re definitely …
something
.”
    His lips came back down on hers again. She moaned into his mouth and leaned into him. His hand found her breast again.
    She didn’t know what burned hotter, his lips on her or the imprint of his hand on her aching breast. And then there was her blood. It baked in her veins, drove her to a frenzy. She buried her hands in his hair and pulled his mouth closer, deepened their kiss with a ferocity that might havefrightened her if she had let rational thought even enter her head.
    She was beyond rational thinking.
    She ravaged his mouth, biting, licking, sucking. She unleashed herself, unleashed everything she had denied and hidden away for the last three years. And he gave it all back to her, met her every lick, her every kiss and nip. He took and seized, his mouth and hands fierce and thorough. Everywhere.
    A sob rose in her throat as he buried his warm face in her throat, sucking on the stretched cord there. His teeth scored her sensitive flesh. She trembled from the inside out, her fingers digging into his shoulders, clinging …
    He growled, the dark sound vibrating against her skin.
    She stilled at the deep animal sound, startled and a little frightened.
    What the hell was that?
    The noise didn’t even sound …
human. He
didn’t. He sounded like, like …
    He wrenched away from her, his hands hard on her arms, holding her away from him as if he didn’t trust himself to have her near him.
    His chest heaved, ragged breaths tripping from his mouth. He closed his shining eyes in a savage blink, torment etched into his face.
    Her own gasping breath filled her ears. She watched him intently, trying to make sense of what she’d heard, of what she read in his face, what she saw there in every anguished line and angle … of the impossible thought skittering through her head.
    He opened his eyes. They glowed with that eerie light again. He looked at her with such stark longing that all fear melted away. For a moment, she thought he would pull her back into his arms and devour her … finish what they started. What she wanted.
    But no. Instead, he flung her away as if the touch of her burned his hands. He was gone so quickly, she hardly saw him leave. There one moment and then gone the next. She blinked and brushed a shaking hand to her lips.
What just happened?
    She moved to the door and looked out, but he was already gone.
So much for his worrying about her staying the night alone in an apartment with a broken window.
    Her shaking fingers traveled from her bruised lips to her throat, still hot and tender from his kisses. Her body throbbed, ached. Freezing to death wouldn’t be problem tonight. She doubted she would cool down any time soon. Not with the memory of him to warm her.

N INE
    N iklas stood just out of sight, beneath a canopy of snow-draped trees behind the diner. Branches creaked in the arctic wind as he watched Darby close the door of her apartment. His breathing had yet to slow. His hands curled tightly at his sides.
    A low growl burned at the back of his throat, dark and primal—the part of himself he couldn’t deny, as much as he loathed it. The beast in him simmered just beneath his rippling skin, fighting to burst free. For the first time in years, since he’d first turned, he’d doubted his ability to keep himself in check—to keep the beast away.
    She did that to him.
Darby
. Damn her. He shook his head, bewildered. No female had ever had that effect on him before. Good thing he’d be gone soon. Far from her.
    He sensed the pack was