Page 14 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
He grasped her head between his hands and forced her to look up at him.
“You’re going to make it up to me for your little pity party,” he said, gazing at her hotly. His face was flushed, his eyes were bright with unmistakable lust. “Aren’t you?”
Staring up into his eyes, something inside her just melted.
Yes, she was still pissed about the spanking because she wasn’t into pain and this was her birthday dammit, but also, yes, she did want to make it up to him. She knew she’d insulted him, and she couldn’t exactly figure out why it should matter that she’d hurt this cocky gigolo’s feelings, but guessed it was just a little old-fashioned courtesy, a vestige from her mother’s long-ago teachings about manners and the right way to treat others.
Even if he was your paid whore.
Perhaps especially if he was your paid whore.
Holding his gaze, Jack nodded an emphatic yes.
He nodded back, gently stroked her hair off her face, and smiled at her with an oddly contented look in his eyes, as if she’d just made him very proud.
She didn’t pause long enough to examine why his approval should send such a wash of warmth through her veins. She just leaned forward, grasped the hard length of him in her hand, and slid the engorged head of his erection into her mouth.
When he moaned and his entire body was wracked by a violent shudder, Jack also didn’t bother to examine more closely the high, sweet thrill that sang through her, pure as sunshine. She just applied herself vigorously to making it up to him, and let the questions of ethics and manners and her own uncharacteristic, wanton reaction to this beautiful stranger fade from her mind.
She knew tomorrow she’d suffer for this. Tomorrow the self-loathing would begin.
Tonight she was just a woman who needed a man, and a soft place to fall, if only for a little while. So she allowed herself to fall, and pushed that old, familiar burn of shame down into darkness.
Jacqueline Dolan wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
Snoring aside—soft and girly snoring, but still snoring nonetheless—she might be the most feminine woman he’d ever met, in spite of the tough-chick bravado she wore like a suit of armor. She was tender and passionate and surprisingly intuitive, guessing correctly that the feeling he got when kissing her was a little too . . . much. Though she was operating under a false idea of who and what he was, she still managed to recognize emotion in a stranger, and feel compassion for him.
Compassion. Wasn’t that a laugh, coming from her?
Lying beside her on the bed, with the sheets tangled between their legs and the first, faint pink rays of dawn creeping beneath the drawn curtains of her hotel windows, Hawk stared down at her, lost in thought. He’d seen pictures of her before, of course, staring vehemently into the camera as if she wanted to strangle the photographer, or on assignment in some hellhole with her hair in a messy ponytail, mirrored aviators on her stern, unsmiling face, wearing khakis and combat boots, gazing off into the distance. In those photos, the unmistakable impression was one of a woman who was hard. Hard, cold, and an utter bitch.
The woman snoring gently beside him now was anything but that. She was actually quite sweet.
He wondered why she tried so hard to hide it.
In sleep, her features lost all their rigid tension, the sharp, wary edges that lent her that standoffish vibe that telegraphed she’d rather kill you than say hello. She had a dusting of freckles across her nose, fine as a sifting of cinnamon, and her lower lip was slightly more full than the top one, giving her mouth an alluring kiss me pout. She was bright and sexy and shockingly vulnerable beneath that icy façade, and she was also quite possibly the best lay of his life.
God, was she.
He’d never known a woman with such hunger. Most women were shy or hesitant, especially the first time with someone new, but Jacqueline Dolan had been ravenous, nearly insatiable, despite hours of his best efforts. It was as if she’d been storing up every one of her sexual needs for years, and unleashed them all last night. And, if he was being entirely honest with himself . . . he liked it.
He liked it a lot.
Jacqueline shifted beside him, exhaled a small, restless sigh. Her lids drifted open. She blinked up at him in hazy recognition, her blue eyes soft and warm.
“Lucas Eduardo Tavares Castelo Luna,” she whispered, smiling drowsily up at him, “you are a beautiful man. I hope you have a beautiful life. Will you please put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door when you leave?”
Just as quickly as she’d awoken, she closed her eyes and fell back asleep, leaving Hawk staring down at her in shock.
She remembered his name. No one ever called him by his real name.
And no one—ever—had called him beautiful.
An unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling crept over him, starting in the deepest pit of his stomach and going everywhere at once.
Weak, whispered his father’s voice into his mind. Weak and worthless, like I always said.
Yes, he had always said that. And despite being dead for over fifteen years, his father still lurked in the darkest corners of his psyche, waiting to pounce on the slightest show of softness or emotion.
