Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(58)

Delaney pulled out of his embrace but didn’t move away. Instead, she rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up to look at him.

“So what are you saying?” she asked, her voice calm, but strained.

He lifted his hand, as he looked up at her, and ran his knuckles lightly along her cheek. “By only binding one of us, the mating isn’t permanent. If I’d bound myself to you, too, it would have been. The way it stands now, it can be broken. Once this is over, if I can take your memories, I can send you home. You’ll get your life back, Agent Randall.”

No joy leaped into her eyes. No relief. For a dozen seconds, she was silent. “So the bond was real, but not permanent. What’s going to happen to me if I try to leave you?”

Tighe sighed. “Good question. I’m hoping I can break the bond when I steal your memories. Since you’re human, I may be able to do it. Worst case, you’ll probably feel this tug, this longing, for something you don’t understand. It’s not perfect, but few lives ever are.”

“You really think I can go home?”

“I can’t promise. I’m not the only one of the Ferals with the ability to steal the memories of humans, but my gift is the strongest. If my soul goes before the clone dies, one of the others will try to free you.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“You can’t leave our world with the knowledge you currently have of us.”

“I’ll have to stay here?”

“Either here or in one of the Therian enclaves.”

“Will your friends let me live?”

“Absolutely. I’ve talked to Hawke about it. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

“A prisoner.”

“You’ll have a life, D.” He cupped her jaw and ran his thumb across her soft cheek. “I’m not planning on dying. I haven’t figured out how, but I’m going to get that son of a bitch.”

Something flared in her eyes. “Good.”

Tighe slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down until her mouth was firmly on his. The kiss filled him, strengthened him, and sent heat coursing through his veins. He pulled her on top of him until she covered him, then cupped her bu**ocks and pressed her against his growing arousal, pulling a moan of need from his throat.

Desire swam in his blood. “I want you, brown eyes.”

Delaney pulled from his embrace and sat up, straddling him as she pulled the soft tee shirt up and off her body, revealing perfect br**sts in the moonlight filtering into the room.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, and reached up to cover the soft mounds with his hands.

She watched him with fathomless eyes. “Come inside me, Tighe.”

He needed no encouragement. In seconds, he finished undressing them both, rolled her beneath him, and sank deep into her heat. His soul gave a shuddering sigh. If he could stay there, right there, he would. Forever.

After he’d driven them both to completion, he held her in his arms until she fell asleep. Would the desperate need to touch her, to hold her, leave him once his soul was complete again?

He had a bad feeling the answer was no. That the only way he’d ever truly feel whole was with Delaney by his side.

Delaney woke up alone the next morning, climbed out of bed and took a quick shower, then dressed in the jeans and one of the sweaters Kara had loaned her until she could get some clothes of her own.

Her body was loose and warm. Sated. When Tighe had come in last night, she’d tried to be cool. Tried to be mad at him for not marrying her and humiliating her in front of his friends like that. But she’d found she didn’t have the anger in her. She was all too aware she wasn’t in her own world, and the rules of this one were very different. And she was very much an outsider.

Then he’d pulled her into his arms, his body shaking, and held her like she was all that kept him together. She’d melted, overwhelmed by the depth of her feeling for the man and her desperate need to keep him safe.

The last of her pique had disappeared beneath the weight of her caring and the certainty that he needed her right now. Time was running out. His soul was disintegrating.

And, heaven help her, she was absolutely in love with him.

She reached for her boots, which had miraculously survived her bloodbath. The same boots she’d worn on the job nearly every day for six years. She stilled in the act of pulling on a sock and thought of Phil and her colleagues looking for her, thinking she was probably dead. She hated that they were expending needed time and resources looking for her, yet she was beginning to understand the Ferals’ critical need for secrecy.

It didn’t seem real that she’d gotten mixed up in a battle of inhuman forces, races no one else knew existed. It didn’t seem possible she’d fallen in love with a man who wasn’t human.

As she slipped on her sock, the door opened, and Tighe walked into the room. Her heart did a slow roll in her chest, setting off a fan of sparks.

He looked so damned good, dressed in jeans and a black silk shirt that hung loose around his trim waist. His short sun-bleached hair, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, was still damp from a shower he must have taken elsewhere. Sunglasses covered his eyes.

A slow smile spread across his face, flashing his dimples. “You found clothes.”

“Kara loaned them to me.”