The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(65)

All she could do was shake her head at herself. “It’s not you I’m worried about,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She rubbed her eyes. “No, actually, I don’t want to lie to you. The truth is, I fear the taste of you.”

“Why’s that?”

One more thing to mourn, she thought.

“I’m going to want all of you,” she replied roughly as she looked over at him.

His eyes flared, as if she’d surprised him. And then he lowered his lids to half-mast.

“I will never tell you no.” His voice was a sexy rasp as he spoke. “Not ever.”

Before she could respond, he pulled up the sleeve of his tunic and extended his arm. “Take my wrist.”

Her eyes locked on the veins that ran from the base of his palm up the inside of his forearm. They were heavy compared to her own, and beneath the cover of his flesh, she could see the pulse.

Hunger surged and made her shake. From anticipation.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked him, thinking of that cell he had stopped in front of. That female he was so tied to, regardless of what he’d said.

“You need me,” he replied. As if that explained everything.

“When I came here in the dark,” she said, “I had nothing to guide me, and that increased my fear until I was choking on my paranoia. As soon as I was sure that I had not been followed, I lit one single candle. It increased my risk, but it was a small thing, and it grounded me. It kept me from losing it. If I can understand just one piece of who you are, it’ll be like that single candle. It will ground me.”

Jack dropped his head. As the silence stretched out, she didn’t try to persuade him. He had to make up his own mind—and still his vein lay exposed between them, the temptation so strong, she clenched her hands into fists. She knew, though, that these were going to be among her last moments with him.

“Or tell me why the female in that cell doesn’t affect us,” she prompted with a helpless shrug. “Just give me something to go on. Anything.”

“There is no female for me.” His voice was hoarse. “Nothing affects us . . . because you are the only one I have. The only one I want.”

“Truly?” she whispered.

He took her clenched hand and put it to his heart. “On my honor, you are the only one who is held here. And I wish things were different for me, I truly do. They are not, however, and what I feel for you doesn’t change my situation.”

Closing her eyes briefly, she was aware of a crushing defeat. But she was glad for the honesty because it gave her even greater faith in what he had revealed.

She had her single, tiny flame. She had her orientating light. She had her grounding.

And it was the one that mattered the most.

“Take of me,” Jack said roughly, as if he knew exactly what was going through her mind.

As he lifted his wrist to her mouth, his eyes were luminous, so bright and blue, that she felt as though she was falling into him. His big body was beautiful, and so was his face, but those eyes . . . it was the way they revealed his soul that called to her the most.

With a trembling hand, she reached up and drew his long braid over his shoulder. “May I see you with your hair down?”

There was a pause, and then Jack went to the leather tie that bound the thick end. He undid the strap, and then his fingers pierced through the bottom of the weave, starting to pull apart the lengths.

“Let me do that,” she said.

When he dropped his hands, she took over—and she took her time. Piece by piece, she unwound the tight plaiting, the dark hair lengthening as it was released from its confinement, the waves shiny and lit with blue-black flashes. Long . . . thick . . . smelling of sandalwood, his hair was luxurious in the candlelight, the ends extending down past his chest, onto his heavy shoulders and thick arms.

Running her fingers through his hair, pulling it back from his face, her breath caught. He had been handsome before. Now . . . he was transformed into something otherworldly, some kind of fallen angel or tortured deity, expelled out of heaven to suffer here on earth.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“What?”

By way of answer, he brought his fingertips to the high collar of his tunic. One by one, he freed the ties, revealing the strong column of his throat.

“You don’t have to,” she said softly.

“As I told you, I will never deny you.”

“I didn’t know I’d spoken out loud to ask.”

And as for the never denying her, that was true . . . except for when it came to leaving with her. But enough thinking about that.

Jack pulled the tunic up and over his head, revealing himself to her naked from the waist up, his pectorals and ribbed stomach caressed by the firelight of the candles, his incredible hair spilling around everywhere, his stare alit with blue flame.

“You don’t have to speak of it.” He reached across the electrified air between them and brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “What you want is in your eyes.”

He moved his thumb to her lower lip, running it over her mouth before penetrating in and stroking first one, and then the other, of her fangs. With a moan, Nyx felt the contact down deep in her core, the licks of arousal tightening her nipples, making her pant.