The Darkling's Desire Read Free Page A

one.
    Jasper’s eyes followed the movement, if warily. Slicking her
hands up the sides of her body, she ran them through her hair, dislodging two
pins at the same time.
    When his eyes darkened with arousal, when he again bent his
head, she jabbed the pins into his neck, one on either side. He howled like a
wild animal as the sharp metal pierced his flesh, and while she had the
momentum, Anastasia flipped him over onto his back, letting her own thighs
squeeze tightly and hold him down.
    The flip had brought her tantalizingly close to her knife. She
just needed an inch…just an inch…
    Impossibly strong hands grasped her hips, pulled her down,
scraping her over hard flesh. Anastasia looked down, her own bottle-green eyes
meeting angry gray, and she swallowed thickly.
    Her nastavnyk had never taught her
what to do with two hundred plus pounds of enraged, aroused Darkling.
    A hand loosened its grip on her hips, reached up to cup her
around the back of her neck and pulled her down. Hot breath warmed her ear and
the whisper that followed tickled her skin.
    “You are out of options, little Amazon.”
     

Chapter Two
    Jasper was confused, though he knew that he hid it
well. He had assumed that the Amazon had blundered her capture of the rogue
Darkling in an attempt to show him her true desires. Though he knew that
interpersonal skills were not his strongest point, he wondered how he could have
so badly bungled this. While he could feels sparks of arousal shooting off her
skin, he was becoming very aware that none of this situation had been
planned.
    She was far, far too angry for that.
    Now he had two handfuls of spitting mad Carpathian Amazon
straddling him, her core open and heating his already painful erection. Ever
with her ire up, her heartbeat was slower than normal for a human—there was some
kind of supernatural in her, of this he was certain.
    That would explain why she had been sent for this particular
mission, when she was clearly not experienced or even that disciplined.
    What he could not explain was this attraction that he felt.
Something about her teased at the edges of his memory, connecting her to someone
else that he had long worked to forget, but this…this was stronger. More vital.
It had nothing to do with the bloodlust—he was not hungry, although to him, her
blood smelled like ripe fruit and honey gone warm in the sun. He was too old to
give in to base urges like biting just to taste, so he should have been too old,
as well, to want to strip her down to her skin, to bury himself in her tight
little body.
    It seemed that he was not.
    “You had best go, little Amazon.” Abruptly he released her,
slipped out from beneath her hips with vampire speed. Now standing across the
room from her, he ran his fingers through his thick, tousled hair as he studied
her intently one last time, filing every detail into his memory. “You do not
know what you are playing with.”
    After allowing her mouth to fall open for a split second, the
Amazon hissed—actually hissed at him—and followed him across the room. “My name
is Anastasia, you ignorant ass, and I know exactly what I am playing with. Do
you not know who the Amazons are?”
    She slapped a hand on his upper arm, digging her fingers in,
and Jasper lost control, both of his temper and his arousal. With his hands
clasped at her waist, he lifted her up and carried her to the table that sat a
scant few strides away. And with one sweep of his arm he cleared it of the
heavily scented candles and richly colored crystals that it had held. As the
objects crashed to the floor, he laid Anastasia on the table, wrapping her legs
around his waist.
    Though she pushed at him again, he sensed that her heart was
not truly in the movement. Clasping one wrist in each of his hands, he took her
mouth in a kiss that tasted to him of rage and of acceptance, of hatred and
desire. He let his tongue sweep her mouth, let his fangs—now fully descended—nip
at her lips, though not hard