Page 132 of Phoenix Burn

She pulled away first, and I fought to keep from tightening my arms to bring her back. But then her gloved hand reached between us to stroke me through the fabric, and I gasped and shuddered.

“There’s no reason for both of us to be frustrated as hell,” she whispered. “Let me do this for you.”

No.Yes.It felt so bloody good. My choices swirled in my brain as her clever fingers wrought complete havoc. But as my human waffled, my beast surged to the surface.

It wanted her. And wanted hernow.

I pushed her back against the railing. And kissed her.

She went rigid beneath me, pulling her lips away. “No, Matt. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re wearing bleedin’ gloves.” My voice didn’t sound at all like my own. “Cara said it’s skin contact,” she gasped. “We can’t risk it.”

“If it starts to happen, we’ll stop,” I growled.

The world of scent revealed all. I could smell her arousal, and I knew she wanted me as badly as I wanted her. I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Strewth, Angel,” I ground it out. “I honestly don’t know if I can stop, even if you ask me to.” She cupped my balls, then ran her palm up along my rigid shaft and rubbed the exquisitely sensitive place beneath the swollen head. I gasped, “Don’t ask me to.”

It was part command, part entreaty. She reached up to wind her fingers through my hair and pulled my head down to her.

“I wouldn’t dare,” she breathed into my ear, and my beast seized control.

34

Anna

Matt ran his teeth and tongue along my throat, and I tilted my head back. An involuntary moan fell from my lips.

My brain insisted that this was a very bad idea. But I ached for him, and this thing between us had grown to monstrous proportions. Alone with him, beneath the moon, just felt so right, and denying it seemed so wrong.

But my gloved hands fisted in his hair and pulled his lips free. “We leave clothes on,” I stated. “No skin on skin. No more kissing.”

“Won’t work.” He was almost panting, but his hands paused at the hem of my tee shirt.

“We’ll make it work,” I insisted. Memories of his still, lifeless body beneath me were far too fresh in my mind.

His head fell forward, pushing his forehead against my hair. “I have a glove, too.” He pulled something out of his pocket and laid packets on the rail—three foil squares joined together.

I met his gaze, which blazed green fire. “You have condoms?”

“Yeah.”

“You were hopeful, weren’t you?”

He groaned. “You have no idea.”

My mind connected the dots, and I surveyed him through narrowed eyes. “You brought them to the academy? Were you expecting...”

His lips twitched. “Strewth, no. But you have no idea what I went through for those frangers. Dire’s don’t need ’em when we are with humans. We aren’t fertile with them, and we don’t get STDs. Had to hit up our human hybrid crew. Took me a while to find someone hopeful enough to have packed them. Then I had to snarl at him.”

My brain filtered that and came back with, “You sleep with human women?” Thoughts of him with other women—I stifled the rage that rose within me. I had no right to it, but still...

He drifted his fingers along my cheek. “Never said I was celibate, Angel. But that was before I met you,” he whispered. “There are no other women now. There never will be.”

The promise made by so many men, but his honesty rang through the words. And his touch sent shivers of electricity through to my very core.

Not touching him, skin to skin, was going to be pure torture.

---