Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(23)

Nothing, nothing had ever been like this. So good. So consuming.

So much . . . pleasure.

Marna realized her hands were fisted in Tanner’s dark hair. Her thighs were trembling, and her breath heaved out. She forced her fingers to unclench. Forced herself to suck in more air for her starving lungs.

Tanner’s head lifted. His eyes were shining as he stared at her—and he licked his lips.

Her sex clenched.

“I love the way you taste.” His voice was so deep, dark.

She couldn’t speak. Had she shouted before? Screamed in pleasure?

Maybe.

“I could eat you up.”

Her heart lurched.

His gaze dropped to her sex once more. He swallowed. “Want . . .”

She still wanted him. She’d come, erupted, but . . .

Marna wanted Tanner inside of her.

And he was—he was pulling away? Why? This wasn’t the way things worked, at least not for humans. “Tanner?”

He rose beside the bed and stood with his back to her. She saw the heavy marks on his skin, marks she hadn’t even noticed before. Long, twisting scars that cut deep into his flesh. Scars that curled out from his back, wrapped around his sides and—

He turned to glance back at her.

Her gaze locked on the scars that cut across his stomach. Sunlight shot through the window, so there was no hiding the scars. But then, Tanner wasn’t trying to hide the marks.

She was the one who hid her scars.

“That was . . .” His hands were clenched. “You haven’t been with a man before, have you?”

Why lie? Oh, right, she couldn’t. “You’re my first.”

A shudder worked over him, and his fists whitened. “I could tell. Your response… the way you came for me.” His breath rasped out. “Beautiful.”

Her thighs were still shaking. And her shifter—he was turning and walking away. “Why? Why are you leaving me?”

His hand lifted and his fingers curled around the door frame. She could see the edge of his claws breaking through the skin of his fingertips. He dug those claws into the wood, and Marna swallowed.

“You aren’t ready for what I’ll do to you.”

Were his words supposed to be a threat? Or a promise?

“First times aren’t meant for shifters.” He wasn’t looking at her. His claws dug deeper into the doorframe. “We’re too rough. Too wild.” His laugh was bitter. “Especially for an angel.”

Marna grabbed for the covers and pulled them around her body. She hadn’t known a need for modesty, until she fell. “So what was . . . that?” Him, kissing her, touching her, tasting her?

“It was me being f*cking starving for you.” His claws had carved deep grooves into the wood. “And realizing how dangerous I can be to you.”

She rose from the bed. Marna wrapped the sheet around her and headed toward him. “I don’t think you are.” When had things changed for her? She could see his claws. His scars.

Doesn’t matter.

He was a shifter, and he was the man who’d given her a taste of paradise on earth. Not wild. Not dangerous.

Perfect pleasure.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips over a scar that twisted the flesh of his back.

Her lips had barely skimmed over his flesh when he whirled to face her. “Don’t.”

“I want to.” She wanted to kiss and touch more of him. He’d had his chance. Wasn’t it hers, now?

“You don’t understand.” He pushed her back. Took a step away from her as if he needed extra distance. His nostrils flared. “If I take you, there’ll be no going back for you. For me.”

Marna shook her head. “What does it matter? Humans have sex all the time—”

“I’m not human.”

She stared at him.

“Neither are you.”

His erection pressed against the front of his jeans. He was that aroused, and still telling her no?

“Panthers,” he spoke slowly, “we’re territorial. When something is ours, it’s ours. Nothing, no one, takes what belongs to us.” He took another step away from her. “We’re vicious, deadly, and the worst nightmares most folks have ever seen.”

Marna didn’t know what to say. It was true that the only nightmare she’d had since being on earth had been about panthers. Their claws and bloodlust. But now . . .

“For your first time, you don’t want that.”

She wanted him.

“If I have much more of you . . .” His eyes burned. His fangs elongated. His face—he was changing. Shifting. “I won’t ever let you go.”

He whirled away from her then. Marna chased after him. He was shifting before her eyes. His bones snapped, his body contorted, and he hit the landing below with a thud.

“Tanner!”

His head turned, and he stared back up at her. “Don’t . . . watch.” Gravel-rough.

But she couldn’t look away. Fur burst along his skin, perfect, black fur that lined his body. His eyes glowed, growing brighter, brighter, and the man that he’d been vanished as the beast took his place.

The panther was huge. Muscled, lethal. She’d never seen a more powerful killing machine. When he opened his mouth and roared, his razor-sharp teeth glinted. His claws, sharp enough to rip a man to shreds, flashed as he threw up his front legs.