Such a complex ego and personality would certainly make for some interesting challenges, he made no mistake about that, but he was definitely spoiling for a challenge.
From her. Not from a thousand other male idiots who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like this if given a map, a guide, and a way to cheat. Besides, she smelled good enough to eat, and he was realizing just how damn hungry he really was.
In all of this time…encountering so many women and experiencing them at their most primal and most vulnerable, and he had never reacted like this. Julian began to realize there was a significant reason for all of it—the possessive urges, the jealousy, and most of all the uncontrolled response of his entire psyche just to her distant presence. The way he had been so juiced up by the simplest touch of her fingertip should have tipped him off instantly, but he’d been caught between his needs for his second target of the month and the press of time. He hadn’t seen it at first. Now he began to understand what he was standing in the shadow of.
If Kine could see him now, he’d make Julian suffer for every moment he had touted how he didn’t need a kindra. But at that time he hadn’t fully appreciated how powerful certain instinctual urges could really be, and he was quite sorry now for not showing them their due respect. He was becoming more regretful by the second as his skin literally began to tighten with the need to get closer to her. She called to him on a visceral level and he knew that although resistance was inconceivable for him at this point, the pull was completely one-sided until he did what he had to do. However, it would require gaining her trust in order to betray it.
Not an easy task for many reasons, her obviously jaded and acerbic personality being the key sticking point.
Julian moved over to the bar across from her and watched very carefully as she took pleasure in blowing off a few more men before deigning to be a little charming to one or two. She was holding a very select court within a half an hour and Julian studied each of her choices carefully. Each one was handsome, carried a fit build, and was obviously full of confidence. A lot like him, if he thought about it, but she had dismissed him for some reason. It occurred to him that her dismissal had been rather purposeful in its way. She had gone out of her way to cut him much more sharply than she did others.
Yet her parting shot had been very leading.
Julian pushed away from the bar and crossed to her. He stepped through her court and held out a hand in invitation although he had yet to see her dance. He didn’t verbalize his request and didn’t back away when she ignored him for a while to finish her current conversation. Then she turned her head and looked up at him. For a moment there was something very hostile flashing in the cold depths of her ice blue eyes, and then she cocked a brow in question.
“Back again?” she asked almost wearily. She leaned back in her chair, liquid silver fabric drawing tight over her fine breasts. He felt every man in range zero in on the detail and it grated harshly on his senses as they reacted with sexual arousal in varying degrees. Each and every one of them was determined to be the one she took home with her. Half of them were already hard in anticipation of it.
He needed to withdraw her from this throng before his temper began to chafe. As well trained as he was in controlling his more volatile emotions, he was in deep and alien waters now. He’d never experienced the brutality of impulsive feelings that he was currently being thrashed with.
“Again?” he echoed softly, meeting the chill beauty of her gaze. “I never left. However, it is time I asked you to dance.”
“Time?” she asked archly.
“Well, yes. You challenged me earlier. I took up the gauntlet. The next step would be to convince you that I am the one you want to take to your bed tonight. I imagine dancing with you, and therefore obtaining time for private discussion, is one of the best ways to secure that in this environment.”
“Hey!” someone protested his forthright supposition.
She held up a hand to stay the protester’s chivalrous intent.
“Dancing will convince me to fuck you?” she queried just as bluntly. “You must be a hell of a dancer.”
“Only one way to find out,” he said.
She contemplated the proposal with amusement on her lips, then got up and walked past him, once again refusing to let him touch her even to guide her to the dance floor. That was okay, though. He would be touching her soon enough.
They reached the floor and he took the choice away from her abruptly, grasping her wrist and tugging her in close and tight along his body. She was tall and incredibly fit beneath her curves, her strength showing itself in a flare of resistance for a moment before she seemed to make herself relax against him. He understood instantly that it wasn’t a real relaxation, the low tension in her spine and legs radiating clearly into his psyche. He had expected her to be uptight, so he didn’t understand why she would try to affect otherwise. Why, he wondered, did she make herself curl against his body when she wasn’t yet ready to do so?
He tested her, dropping a hand into the low, sweeping curve of her spine as it spread out over her sweetly turned bottom. He moved her in tight to the tempo of the music, swaying her sharply and deeply into the bend of his hard body. His very hard body. He made the state of his arousal known, letting her feel the thickness and weight of it through both their clothing, figuring she should share in the state since she’d caused it a good forty minutes ago and it hadn’t eased since. But that was okay, too. He was enjoying the sensation. The deprivation. He wasn’t looking for easy relief; he wanted to drag it to him kicking and screaming, and he knew she would be the perfect resource for the battle he craved.
Julian turned her quickly around in his arms, giving himself the cushion of her rear for his hips as he curved an arm around her ribs under her breasts. He moved them both to the low, pulsing throb of the music almost as reflex. His full attention was elsewhere. His nose drifted down the line of her neck as he drew in that delicious verbena cleanliness. Feminine musk rose from her skin beneath her dress, the heat of the press of so many bodies making her warm considerably and creating the rich aroma in abundance. It was agonizing and gorgeous all at once. He longed to draw her away somewhere alone so he could indulge without all the harsh outside influences of smoke, alcohol, and overused synthetic perfumes worn by others.
“This is quite an argument,” she said with a flirtatious rubbing of her backside against his zipper. Julian’s hands swept down to her hips, holding her there against him as he let her warmth burn into him until he ached. She did not argue in the least, instead taunting him in seductive slides and wriggles.
Julian grabbed her around her slender throat, tipping her head back against his shoulder and engaging her ear with a rough-voiced warning. “Don’t think you will play me like this and then just walk away with a toss of these sweet shoulders and that tart attitude of yours.”
“I can do whatever I want. It’s a free country and I owe you nothing.” She turned in his hold, reaching down to flick a saucy finger up the length of his erection. “I think I’ve given you enough already.”
Then she tossed her shoulders and whirled out of his hold, making as if to walk away. Julian didn’t let her get that far before returning her with an almost elegant catch and spin back against him. He settled her firmly in place, his hand back over her bottom although quite a bit more blatantly this time.
“Tease,” he said gruffly against her ear. “Why are you being so purposely cruel to me? What have I done that so offends you?”
“Why would you think I am offended? Can’t stand some simple hard-to-get? Grow a thicker skin,” she advised. “Toughen up.”
“I am plenty tough enough. Hard as steel, in fact,” he hissed against her cheek. “More so than I have been for a very long time.”
“Mmm. Sure,” she scoffed. “Guy like you? You probably take home some airheaded tart every single night. Maybe I’m just not interested in being one of the crowd. Ever consider that?”
“You