Voracious - Alice Henderson [104]
Her head felt muddled and light, as if she had drunk too much wine. Most of her didn’t even care. His lips reached her collarbone, kissing along the sensitive skin there. Her skin broke out in chills.
He eats people, the voice continued. And now his pheromones are lulling you into complacency so you don’t notice when he starts to tear out whole chunks of flesh.
I’d notice that, she countered the voice, as he began to move his lips upward again, over her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. His lips brushed her own, and she could feel his skin burning. Then they kissed, a deep, drunken kiss that sang in her mind, her body tingling with pleasure. She’d read it in a ton of hokey books before but had never experienced it till last night, but he tasted sweet, like apricot or honey, a rich, fruity taste that conjured images of a tropical paradise.
His tongue met hers, his legs moving closer until their bodies pressed flush against each other. Madeline didn’t even raise her arms. She continued to stand, hands at her sides, as if in shock.
A distant part of her whispered warnings, begged her to pay attention.
But her lips moved, her tongue met his, and she drank him in.
THE creature’s kisses grew passionate, fiery. Hands on Madeline’s arms, he backed her up against the trunk of a tree just off the path, the boughs draping down over them. He moved against her, their bodies pressed tightly together. Her hands reached up, tangling in his long, black hair as their tongues touched. The merest hint of a spark surged through her with every touch, and she closed her eyes against the pleasure.
His hands ran down her sides to her hips, and he grasped her there, pulling her into him, rhythmically pressing against her.
Her hands clasped behind his neck, his dark locks framing their faces as they kissed. His bare skin there was deliciously hot—
A young archaeologist, laboring in the hot sun at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, looking up, startled, then terrified as claws and fangs rend him apart, tongue darting into the spurting throat and red cavities filled with warm, soft organs. Sweet knowledge of ancient times, intoxicating power.
Madeline’s eyes snapped open as she jerked her hands away violently. The very tongue she touched had tasted the flesh of that archaeologist. Stefan’s dark eyes watched her curiously.
“I can feel what you see,” he breathed, closing his eyes in ecstasy, bringing a hand up to her face. She knocked it away harshly. He remained close, still pressed against her.
She turned her head away, fighting with a fog that surrounded her senses, dulling some sensations and stoking others feverishly. Putting a hand on his chest, she tried to push him away, but he brought his hand up and closed it over hers. The warm olive skin was callused, and he stroked her hand.
The phenomenal scent swept over her, filling her head, singing to her mind and body. She tried to shake it away, but it engulfed her in a voluptuous cloud, like the smell of an incense-laden Buddhist temple. He bent his head closer, breathing her in. His arms wrapped around her back, one hand gripping the tree behind her.
Closing the distance between them, his lips brushed against her cheek, then her lips. His scent effused her very being, and she couldn’t concentrate on what she’d just seen, could barely remember it. The exquisite haze drifted around her, luring her until her fingertips ached to touch him, and she trembled with desire.
The red cotton shirt he wore buttoned down the front, and she slid her hand inside, feeling the muscles of his chest move as he held her.
In the vast white expanse of the Arctic, a French-Canadian explorer running desperately across jagged ice, slipping in smooth spots, sharp edges slashing through his boots. Behind him drips of blood trail across the pale surface of the ice. The creature, running close behind, licking blood from the ice, breath frosting in the frigid air, alive with the hunt, excited as it draws to a close. It leaps on the explorer’s back,