Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [864]
Holy hell … beautiful, sexy Alex, naked and waiting for him.
Kade cleared his throat, suddenly at a loss for words, let alone the excuses he meant to hand her about why he had to leave right away.
“I, ah … I found some wood and matches in the bucket over there,” Alex said. “I thought I’d warm things up in here.”
Warm it up? If she was any hotter, Kade’s body would have gone up in flames where he stood. His heart was still pounding from the unpleasant discovery in the woodshed, but now its rhythm took on a deeper, more urgent beat. He felt a muscle jerk violently in his jaw as he watched the soft firelight dance over her smooth, creamy skin.
“Alex …”
He gave a weak shake of his head, unable to summon the words to deny her. The dozen or more reasons why this was a bad idea—particularly now, when duty compelled him to put aside his own selfish cravings and focus wholly on the mission he’d been sent there to do—fled from his lust-drenched brain. Hunger swamped him, desire flooding over the rage that had consumed him not even a minute ago outside.
This was bad, this need he had for her. Given its timing, he wasn’t sure that taking things between Alex and him to an intimate level could possibly be any worse of an idea right now.
That is, until she stood up and began to walk toward him. The threadbare blanket that draped her form so loosely, trailing behind her, now split open in the front and gave him an unhindered glimpse of her lean, endless legs with every slow step she took. And as she drew nearer, the thin fabric shifting to bare the soft white flesh of her left hip, Kade saw the tiny crimson teardrop-and-crescent-moon birthmark that pushed this entire situation out of the realm of your basic bad ideas and squarely into the disaster zone.
She was a Breedmate.
And that changed everything.
Because Alexandra Maguire wasn’t merely a mortal, human woman he could play around with, pump for information, maybe fuck for a while, then eventually mind-scrub and forget. She was as good as kin to one of his kind, a female to be honored and revered, as precious as gold.
She was something rare and miraculous, something he damned well didn’t deserve, and she had no bloody idea.
“Ah, Christ.” He set the duffel bag down on the floor. His business with Seth and the Order would both have to wait. “Alex, there’s something … we need to talk.”
She smiled, a sensual, playful curve of her lips. “Unless you need to tell me that you have some kind of disease or that you’re actually into guys …”
He stared at her, wondering if there had been clues he’d missed along the way. But he hadn’t been looking at Alex as anything more than a source of information at first, an unwilling witness that he would need to pry open by any means necessary. Once he’d talked to her, he had begun to like her. And once he’d begun to like her, it was hard not to crave her.
And now?
Now he was honor-bound to protect this female at any cost, and that damned well included protecting her from falling into the hands of a male like him. He was putting her in danger just by being with her, dragging her deeper into his mission for the Order and closer, especially after today, to the horror of his brother’s sick little games. If he was half the warrior he had pledged himself to be, he would sweep Alex out of this place and get her the hell back home, never to see or hear from him again.
“Kade?” She cocked her head slightly as she came closer, still waiting for his answer, her tone still playful. “That’s, um, that’s not what you need to tell me, is it?”
“No. That’s not it.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, practically purring the words. “Because I really don’t want to talk right now.”
Kade drew in a breath as she drifted up close to him, no more than an inch and a paltry scrap of wool between them. And the scent of her … warm skin, feminine heat, and the spicy-sweet trace of something even more elusive that he now knew had to