Breeds: Stygian's Honour Part 23

He had to fight back his own tears, his sense of failure.

"We have no choice." The sound of his own voice, rough with the tears trapped inside him, sc.r.a.ped against his senses. "We agreed, Jane. For their lives, we agreed. And she's our daughter. She needs us."

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Ah, G.o.d, it hurt.

His guts were shredding, his chest felt as though jagged nails were tearing across it with demonic satisfaction.

"She's my baby," Jane sobbed painfully, her pain another jagged tear into her heart.

"This wasn't supposed to happen, Audi. She wasn't supposed to be taken from us again."

"No one will take her. I'll keep her safe," he swore, yet he knew what he was facing. It was an empty promise at best, and Jane knew it.

"Why do they want her?" Her fists clenched against his chest as she trembled with her anger. "Why, Audi? Why would they come for her? Liza is nothing to them.

There's no way she can be of use to them.

There's no way anyone could know-" The last was barely a breath of sound.

Audi knew why, just as he knew the danger his daughter faced because of it.

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"I'll fix it, Jane," he promised, closing his eyes and praying that he wasn't lying to his wife for the second time in their marriage.

Just as he prayed this daughter didn't pay for his failure to protect her as the first had.

G.o.d help him, Liza was the child he and Jane had always dreamed of. She was a fighter, in- telligent and adept, compa.s.sionate and lov- ing. There wasn't a manipulative bone in her body or a single death wish to torture her family.

She had given their lives purpose at a time when he had wondered if they would drift forever in a haze of guilt that never seemed to find relief.

Yet, from the moment she had opened her eyes and called him "Dad," he had felt a heal- ing begin. Just as Jane had.

She was a true mother to Liza.

Their daughter had learned to cook, to clean, to laugh and to tease. She had talked him into teaching her how to skate, how to 321/862.

rock climb, and finally, she had allowed him to teach her how to drive.

If he lost her- G.o.d help them both if they lost her.

CHAPTER 10.

Liza had learned years before exactly how to avoid the facts of life.

Stepping into the hotel room and seeing the two beds separated by a small table, she sighed heavily.

"Really?" She turned back to him in disbe- lief. "They didn't have a larger room? A suite, perhaps?"

His shoulders lifted, a rakish smile curling his lips despite the somberness in his dark eyes. "Hotel's all booked up, sweetheart."

Of course it was.

"You have a few of your sleep shirts in the wardrobe."

He indicated the tall 323/862.

entertainment center with its four drawers beneath the screen. "Isabelle had one of the officers who followed us to the hotel go back for them. There are clothes in there as well."

"Great, some guy pawing through my clothes." It was all she could do to hold back a shudder at the thought.

"It wasn't like that, Liza." The frustration in his voice only seemed to infuriate her further.

Turning on him, she crossed her arms be- neath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and confronted him with all the anger she couldn't seem to bury. "It wasn't like what, Stygian? Like some a.s.shole pawing through my silk panties and bras? Do you think they didn't snicker as they chose the gowns? That they didn't imagine me na- ked or wearing one of the silk camisoles I sleep in? Since when are Breeds any better than any other man when it comes to l.u.s.t?"

Dropping her arms, she turned to stalk to the bathroom, to get away from him. To 324/862.

strangle the fury tearing through her before she choked them both with it.

Before she was entirely certain what was happening, Liza found herself being pulled around and hauled against Stygian's chest, his large hand still holding the arm he had gripped to pull her to him.

"Do you really believe I would allow anoth- er man to do something so d.a.m.ned intim- ate?" he growled, shocking her.

That was possessiveness in his voice. That low, primal growl held a vein of pure, de- termined ownership that at once p.r.i.c.ked her independence and pulled at the woman who longed to belong- To something. To someone.

"I don't really know what you would do, do I, Stygian?" Her breathing was suddenly rough, heavy.

The need to know if Isabelle had been right about a Breed's kiss being addictive was suddenly overwhelming. If not addictive, 325/862.

then what about the aphrodisiac it was sup- posed to contain?

She licked her lips, suddenly desperate for the answer.

"No male Breed pawed through your cloth- ing, your silk, or your gowns," he snarled down at her. "Ashley chose each piece and she alone packed it before the Breed who drove her back to the house returned her to the hotel. Never, ever, Liza"-his lips were so close to hers now that she swore she could almost feel them against hers-"would I al- low another man to touch what you would wear so intimately against your flesh."

Breathing was a ch.o.r.e. Her chest was so tight with the need to hold back the moan rising inside it that she felt light-headed from the battle. Every second that she felt the heat of his chest sinking past their clothing to the sensitive, peaked hardness of her nipples, she could feel the flesh between her thighs growing wetter.

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She wanted him.

She had never wanted a man in her life.

She had thought that part of herself must have surely died in the wreck when she was fifteen. Before then, there had been very little interest in the opposite s.e.x. Afterward, there had been none.

Until Stygian.

"I hate this," she suddenly whispered as her fingers curled against the powerful muscles of his chest, desperate to keep her- self from ripping at his body.

"Hate what?" His free hand cupped her face, his thumb brushing against the plump curve of her lower lip then.

Oh, he knew what. She could see it in the sudden intensity of his gaze, feel it whipping through the air between them and torturing them both with the hungry need for it.

As her tongue swiped over the painful dry- ness of her lips, it licked over the tip of his thumb. The sudden, explosive taste of salty 327/862.

male flesh rushed through her senses, over- taking them for one destructive second.

"I've never wanted-" Her breathing hitched painfully. "I never wanted this, Stygi-an. I didn't want to be torn apart like this. To be destroyed by something I couldn't control or teased by a man who's far too aware of my weaknesses."

She couldn't bear it. To be played with. To ache and to want, to hunger for something and have no name to give to what she hungered for.

To her, it was the worst possible tease.

"Tease you?" His voice was suddenly rougher, grating as he wrapped one arm around her back and pulled her closer. "I'd never tease you, Liza. I promise, I'm entirely, wholeheartedly serious about this. About you."

His head lowered and his lips touched hers.

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She was shaking. Like a leaf in the storm and any other cliche that slipped through her suddenly too-alert brain.

Shudders of reaction began tearing through her as her lips parted and his settled more firmly against them, opening them, owning them.

His tongue swiped over her lips, flicked past them and licked over her tongue.

Suddenly, she knew what Isabelle had meant. His kiss was like a summer rain- storm, lightning and thunder chaos clamor- ing through her system as the taste of sum- mer heat rushed through her senses.

His lips slanted over hers, his hands pulling her closer as the feel of his erection pressing against her stomach had her tilting her hips and arching to meet him.

Blood thundered through her veins, the fiery need spreading through her body, clam- oring for more, burning away any objections she could have made.

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Desire burned through her in ways she couldn't have antic.i.p.ated. It sizzled across her flesh, sensitizing it, creating a receptive base for each touch he should deign to stroke across it.

And she wanted each touch.

His tongue flicked across her lips, teasing and heating them. She licked against it, lov- ing that wild, stormy taste. Then it sank between her lips once again, giving her only seconds to close her lips over it, to contain the taste filling her system before it retreated once again.

Oh G.o.d, the pleasure was exquisite.

Her nipples hardened furiously. The pres- sure of her bra against the sensitive tips was almost agony, so she took it off.

It wasn't the fabric she wanted touching her. It was his hands, his fingers. She wanted the feel of his flesh against hers creating that roughened, electric pulse of sensations that raced across her skin.

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She ached for it.

She had to get closer.

Twining her arms around his neck, she arched to him, and still it wasn't enough.

"I can't touch you like this," she whimpered, pulling at his shirt as he re- leased her lips for only a second. "I need to touch you more, Stygian."

So much for not being that kind of girl.

At least she only wanted to be a s.e.x slave for this man.

And oh yes, she could handle s.e.x slave.

For a night or two, anyway.

For a lifetime or two, definitely.

"Oh." Her eyes flew open as she felt his hand push beneath her shirt, the calloused, roughened flesh stroking up her back. "I like that."

No, she loved it.

She arched into his touch, her lashes drift- ing closed as his hand stroked back down, 331/862.

curved around her hip then moved up her midriff, her rib cage- Opening her eyes, a ragged breath of air tore from her lungs as his palm cupped the swollen mound of her breast.

Why her hand was suddenly gripping his wrist, she wasn't certain.

She looked down to where her fingers curled over his powerful wrist, her flesh much paler than his, the feel of those invis- ible hairs beneath softening its toughness.

Breathing hard, barely able to draw in enough oxygen, she lifted her gaze to his once again. Liza pressed his hand more firmly against the curve of her breast. Still watching him, she let her own thumb stroke over the tight, hardened point of her nipple.

Oh, that was good.

Letting her lashes drift closed once more, feeling the caress of his gaze where her hand lay over his, she let her thumb rub against the sensitized peak as he watched.

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His breathing grew heavier, the heat against her flesh seemed searing. The hunger rising inside her was suddenly clamoring to take more sensation, to amplify it and tor- ture them both with a need she was finding impossible to deny.

Drawing her thumb back, a moan drifting past her lips, Liza was prepared to stroke the needy little nubbin again when suddenly, Stygian took control of the caress.

With thumb and forefinger, he gripped the tip and rolled it between them, then let his lips brush against her jaw.