Edge of Hunger

Shock gripped him and he uncrossed his arms, his hands fisting at his sides. For a long, tense moment, he stared her down. The energy in him was pumping, making him feel wired, on edge, crawling up his spine, curling around the backs of his ears. He tried to keep it together, but hell, he was creeping himself out. No wonder she was looking at him as if he was some sort of monster from the deep, dark lagoon.

Hell, for all he knew, he was.

Ian worked his jaw, aware that he had to scrape the words out of his throat. “What did you say?”

“You did something to me. In…the dream.” She wet her lips, her blush visible even in the hazy moonlight coming from above, shining around the pale wash of her hair like a halo, making her glow. She looked…soft, like something warm and sweet that you just wanted to wrap yourself around; that you wanted to feel melt over you like a warm summer rain. A sweet piece of candy that you left on your tongue to savor, to enjoy as its flavor trickled down your throat. All sunshine and smiles. Things he didn’t want—things he sure as hell didn’t deserve.

She looked ethereal, surreal…something too good for him to touch, even if she was out of her goddamn mind.

Yeah, and you’re so together, Buchanan. A rock. Justa grounded kind of guy.

He ignored the sarcastic asshole living in his head, and tried to get his mind around what she was saying. Another scam? That had to be it. She was messing with his mind, though God only knew why. What could she want from him? He had nothing to give. Nothing but a screwed-up past and a questionable future. If it was a con, he couldn’t imagine what she hoped to get from it.

As if reading his thoughts, she whispered, “I’m not making this up. And this time, I can prove it to you, Ian.”

He knew he was trying to intimidate her, knew it made him an ass, but he did it anyway. “And what was I doing in your dream, baby? Did I have you tied to my bed, making you beg for it?” He gave a gruff laugh, lifting his brows. “Come on, Molly. Tell me. If anything else, this should prove to be some pretty entertaining bullshit.”

Her mouth trembled, cheeks fiery and warm, eyes glassy and wild with a sheen of moisture, but he knew she wasn’t going to cry. No, she was…turned on, he thought with a sharp, cracking jolt of realization that slammed through him. His words had aroused her as much as they had him.

He watched her head shake from side to side, heard a low, trembling “no” whisper past her pink mouth. His eyes narrowed as he studied her, and it hit him that she looked like a woman who’d just rolled out of bed with a lover. Something aggressive and violent twisted in his stomach. Had she gone out and found some jerk-off to nail tonight, while he’d been alone in his bed, dreaming about her?

“It didn’t happen like that.” Her words came in a rush, and she slumped against the door frame, her body melting against the weathered wood as if she needed it to keep her upright. But her eyes changed, filling with an inner strength that aroused him even more than her shivering innocence, if that was possible.

He wanted to demand who she’d been with but heard himself say, “Yeah? Then just what did I do to you in this dream, Miss Stratton?” He wanted to shake her up, throw her off balance, the same way she’d done to him. “There’s no way in hell I’d get you beneath me and not fuck you. Not-a-chance-in-hell,” he ground out.

“You did,” she breathed softly, the wild look taking her eyes again. “You…we had sex,” she said in a whispery little rush. “But…”

“Yeah? Spit it out, honey.” He grinned and gave her a crude look, letting his inner asshole free. “I’m dying of curiosity here.”

She trembled, hugging herself tighter, her mouth quivering, eyes bright and wide as she stared up at him. She blinked. Then swallowed. “You bit me, Ian.”

He froze, locked into place, while the floor fell out from beneath him. “What did you just say?”

She swallowed again, trembling like a leaf, lifting one hand to press her fingers against the left side of her neck, beneath the fall of her hair. “You bit me…and I can…I can still feel the marks.”

Ian watched, trapped within a thick, oppressive daze, as she slowly pulled her hand away, turning her fingers for him to see. And there, glistening on Molly Stratton’s pale little fingertips was a dark, crimson smear of blood.

CHAPTER FOUR

MOLLY’S HEART POUNDED to a painful beat as she watched Ian come closer, the movement of his body predatory and primal, like an animal’s. He moved in a way that was too natural for a human male, too elemental, all that power and shocking intensity pulsing from him in slow, heated waves that made her want to shiver and melt all at once. She saw his muscles shift beneath the burnished silk of his skin, almost too gracefully for such a big man, as if strength came to him too easily, without effort and dangerously smooth. It reminded her of the way he’d moved over her in the dream.

He reached toward her with one large hand, the callused tips of his fingers scraping her skin, and moved the fall of her hair back from the side of her throat. The second he found the bite marks he’d made, his eyes flared into a hot, wicked blue, then narrowed, staring…unblinking. His breath surged between his slightly parted lips with a rough, uneven cadence.

She wet her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, a wave of chill bumps spreading over the sensitized surface of her body, while inside, chaos reigned. Her heart fluttered wildly like a trapped bird that might burst from her chest with her next breath, the sound of her pulse roaring in her ears like the midnight break of surf against craggy, weatherworn cliffs. The subconscious landscape of her emotions was a dark, gothic setting, complete with smoke-gray skies and thunderous cracks of lightning rumbling like ominous bellows in the distance.

All you need is Shelley’s Frankenstein lurking in theshadows to make you feel right at home.

She shook off the whimsical thought, wishing he’d just say something.

“Unbelievable,” he finally breathed out in a low, stifled rasp. Molly watched the word as it formed on his lips, mesmerized by the shape of his mouth, the texture and hue, something inside of her coming a little undone by the salty, sweet scent of his breath. It sat on her palate like the promise of something forbidden and sweet, like a sin. Pure, perfect temptation. His fingers slid farther beneath her hair, curving around the back of her head, and she stole another quick look up at his eyes to find him watching her, his stare as hot as it was intensely blue.

Oh, God, she silently moaned, while her voice remained frozen, locked inside the prison of her throat.

His gaze moved over her face as if she was something he’d never seen before. Like Adam discovering Eve, he stared at her as though she were some foreign creature. A revelation. A curse. Something he should fear. Something that could destroy him.

“What do you want from me?” he ground out through teeth that were clenched in confusion and some indefinable emotion, his fingers tightening the slightest fraction in her hair. “How the fuck did this happen?”

“I…I don’t know.” Scraping the confession out of a dry throat, Molly became aware of tiny pinpricks of sensation swirling through her system. She could feel its rush through her blood, behind her eyes, pulsing like tender heat in her lobes, against the backs of her knees. Desire, unfathomable and unwanted, and completely inexplicable, considering the circumstances. But there all the same. She couldn’t deny, or ignore, its existence, no matter how badly she wanted to. She felt betrayed by the sheer depth of her reaction, as if lust had mounted a revolt against her common sense.

The sultry summer breeze blew harder, and his scent surrounded her, engulfed her, making her dizzy… making her want. His hand shifted again, slipping lower, curving around the back of her neck, and his skin was too hot, burning her flesh. So alive and warm and impossibly male. She blinked, and suddenly his body was even closer. So close now that his forehead nearly touched hers, their breath soughing together in a hectic, frenzied rush. “No more games. I want an answer, and I want it now. How did this happen?”

“I…I have no idea.” She could tell from his grim expression that he didn’t believe her, and the words rushed up from inside of her like a gasping, swelling burst of frustration and fear. “I swear, Ian. I have no idea how it happened. That’s why I came here. I was worried. I needed to see that you were okay.”

“To see that I’m okay?” he growled, lashes so long and thick they cast shadows against his skin. “Christ, woman. I’m not the one who almost had their fucking throat ripped out.”

A police car came roaring around the corner in the next instant, siren blaring as it sped past the weathered apartment building and into the night. They both jumped, flinching from the jarring screech of the siren’s wail.

Pulling away from her, Ian pushed one rugged hand back through his damp hair, the muscles in his arm and chest coiling and flexing with the action, drawing her eye. “I need a cigarette,” he muttered, turning and disappearing into the darkness behind him. He didn’t slam the door in her face, so Molly assumed she wasn’t being told to leave. He moved deeper into the shadows of the apartment and she followed, pulling the door shut behind her.

Without the light from the street, darkness blanketed the room. The loss of sight made her other senses sharper, the panting sound of her breath filling her ears, the surface of her body so sensitive, it was as if she could feel the shadows against her skin. They slipped over her flesh like tiny, featherlight touches of a fingertip, stroking her cheekbones, her chin, the line of her throat.

Just stay calm. Don’t freak. And for God’s sake,don’t start crying again. He’ll think you’re out of yourmind. Not that he doesn’t think that already.

Taking a deep, trembling breath, Molly squinted against the darkness, unsure of where to walk, until a low glow of light spilled into the murky gloom from a doorway on the far side of the room. Following the light, she found him facing her, one powerful shoulder braced against the far wall beside a window in the small kitchen, head lowered as he lifted his arms to light the cigarette perched between his lips. He’d switched on a small light that shone over the sink, the muted glow too weak to reach the shadowed corners, casting him in a hazy glow of gold.

Slanting a curious look in her direction, he spoke in a graveled, hesitant rumble. “Why did you scream my name at the end? Did I hurt you?”

She moved cautiously into the kitchen and collapsed into one of the pine chairs beside a small table, wishing she’d pulled on something heavier. The chill of the air conditioner seeped through her thin shirt, freezing her to the bone, while Ian stood there half-dressed, his body vital and big, covered with a light sheen of sweat, as if impervious to the cold. “No.”

“Then why the scream?” he demanded, taking a long draw off the gleaming cigarette, the details of the room lost beneath the force of his presence. She had the feeling she could have been surrounded by ravenous predators and still have remained oblivious to the danger, her entire focus centered on the hard, beautiful bulk of Ian Buchanan.

“Answer me.” The harshness of his gritty tone made her flinch. The soft glow of light glinted off the broad width of his shoulders, his skin gleaming like bunched satin, and yet, he was completely untouchable. Like a wild, caged animal. Beautiful, but deadly.

Molly looked away and drew an unsteady breath. “I didn’t want…”

“What?” he snapped, the word lashing with whipcord strength.

A self-conscious shrug rolled across her shoulders, her eyes still focused on a distant patch of his kitchen floor. “I didn’t want you to…leave me there alone.” The confession slipped from her lips without any direction from her brain, startling and unintended. She wanted to snatch back the telling, vulnerable words, but it was too late. He was already absorbing them, working them over in his mind, that dark blue gaze zeroed in on her with ruthless, uncompromising intensity when she sneaked a quick peek at him from beneath her lashes.

“Tell me what you remember.”

She flushed, keenly aware of the heat suddenly rising up beneath her skin, burning in her cheeks. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, every part of her oversensitized, as if she were experiencing everything too keenly. The coolness of the air. The stuttering speed of her pulse. The press of that beautiful blue gaze, the mesmerizing color probably the envy of every woman he’d ever known.

“Molly!” he snapped again.

The words jerked from her lips in rapid succession, beyond her control. “We were in a forest. It was night. You were…different.”

A rough, humorless laugh rumbled up from his throat, and he took another deep pull on the cigarette, his silence making her ramble with the need to fill the uncomfortable space. “We had sex, but you…you didn’t…”