She stared up at him, miserable with need. She saw that same need written in the intensity of his gaze, in the iron firmness of his square jaw as he parted his lips and descended on her once more.

He claimed her mouth this time, and she sank into it willingly, wantonly.

His kiss was both tender and hungry now, coaxing and demanding. Her tongue found his and he moaned, a low, tormented sound.

He tasted so good. Hot and powerful, primal. Yet his arms were protective, careful as they wrapped around her and held her close.

Nova leaned into his strength, into the warmth he offered within the circle of his arms.

She should be afraid. All of her old defenses fired like warning shots, cautioning her that this passion was a dangerous thing. He was a dangerous man--the worst kind, a Breed male, like the one who had violated her so brutally long ago.

But her instincts soothed under Mathias’s touch. Her fears had no place here, when he was kissing her, caressing her, stoking a need in her that she had never known.

He had asked her to give him her trust. Where Nova clung to it so tightly when it came to her past and the life she left behind, now, sheltered in Mathias’s arms, under the gentling power of his intoxicating kiss, she knew only surrender.

She had no fight in her as he dragged her deeper into his embrace, pressing his body to hers. His arousal was obvious, thick and hard at her abdomen. He groaned as he moved against her, tension rippling through him like a current.

“Do you want this, Nova?” he murmured against her mouth. His voice was gravel, a rough, hot growl that should have sent panic into her veins, but instead kindled a higher flame in her core. “Tell me. I need to know if you’re feeling this too.”

She had a thousand reasons to deny it, to deny him.

A thousand reasons to push him away and hope she never saw him again.

But when she parted her lips, only one word slipped off her tongue. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 7

He hadn’t truly expected that answer.

But that didn’t keep Mathias from taking Nova’s petite frame up in his arms, then carrying her through the small apartment to the bedroom at the end of the short hallway.

He knew she wanted him. Hell, he knew she was as fevered and hungry with desire as he was. He tasted it in her kiss. He saw it in her pale blue eyes, which had gone dusky with need before he’d even brushed his mouth against hers the first time.

But he’d fully anticipated her rejection, not a breathless surrender.

She was scared to be with him; she’d admitted that easily enough.

What she hadn’t been so forthright about was the reason for her fear. Part of him wanted to believe it was because she was inexperienced with sex, but the few things she’d told him about her past had given him reason enough to understand that Nova wasn’t a virgin.

She’d been misused before, and it made him want to gather her to him like a broken bird and soothe her with gentling words and careful hands.

But Nova was also a fiery woman--a sexy, vibrant female who made everything male in him want to stand up and beat his chest, show her in the most carnal, primal way that she was his tonight, and that no man would ever come near her again without coming through him first.

As he walked over to the bed and sat her down on the edge of it, Mathias struggled with the two warring sides of himself.

The urge to get her naked beneath him had his blood running hot in his veins, his fangs throbbing as fiercely as the erection that strained against his pants, demanding release.

It took all the control he had not to act on that impulse. Instead, he smoothed his hand over her silky black-and-blue hair, let it sift between his fingers. He stroked her creamy, velvet-soft cheek, let his thumb trace the shell of her ear, over the combination of small silver and black hoops that rode its delicate perimeter.

He caressed the satiny lengths of her tattooed arms, committing every colorful inch to memory as both his fingers and his admiring gaze traveled her skin. He studied the Gothic-looking design on her left forearm--the one he’d initially dismissed as a tombstone. On closer look now, he realized he’d seen the image somewhere in the city. Had walked by it a thousand times on his regular patrols of Southwark, in fact.

“It’s the rose window on the remains of the old Winchester Palace, down by Southwark Cathedral,” Nova said, when he stroked the tattoo in silent contemplation. “That’s where I met Ozzy, after I first came to London. The Cathedral only gives homeless people shelter for the night, so I hung out at the ruins during the day, sketching to pass time. Oz was there one afternoon and saw my work. He offered to let me apprentice at the shop.” She exhaled a soft laugh. “Since no one else was going to hire a homeless fourteen-year-old, I decided taking a chance on Oz was better than panhandling tourists.”

Mathias listened, moved that she had opened up this small bit of her past to him. He still didn’t know where she’d been before arriving in London at such a tender age, nor did he know the circumstances behind why she’d run...or from whom. He didn’t know her full name. Hell, he wasn’t at all convinced that Nova was even her true first name.

All things he was patient to wait for, answers he realized he didn’t need to have at all, in order to care for her the way he did already.

He kissed her again, then reached for the hem of her black tank top and slowly drew it up, over her head.

Below the phoenix tattoo with its spread wings and scarlet Breedmate mark at its heart, Nova’s torso was a clear canvas of milky, unblemished skin. Her small breasts were perfect little globes, capped with sweet pink nipples just begging to be tasted. He could hardly wait, but he had to--at least, until he was sure Nova was ready for all he craved of her.

“You’re beautiful, with and without the ink,” he murmured, his voice rasping, thick with want. He took her right hand in his, looked down at the modified tattoo that was no doubt a constant reminder of her past, of all she fought so fiercely to leave behind. “You’re safe with me. I promise you that.”

She nodded, but it was a faint acknowledgment. Although Nova had proven herself unbreakable in escaping whatever horrors she’d endured, there was a fragility in her eyes as she watched him explore her body with his gaze and his touch.

“You can trust me,” he said, then bent down and kissed her, slowly, deeply.

It was too much--that fresh meeting of their mouths after he was already taut with desire for her. Mathias growled low in the back of his throat as his tongue tangled with hers, their lips wet and hot, their slow kiss turning fevered and unstoppable.

He needed to feel her against him.

He needed to be inside her, his impatience held back on the thinnest of tethers.

But her pleasure meant more to him in that moment.

He pulled his mouth away from hers on a snarl. “Lie back.”

She did as he asked, and when she was settled flat on the bed, he prowled onto the mattress with her, straddling her knees. He soaked her in with his gaze, the coal-bright glow of his Breed irises bathing her skin in soft amber.

Slowly, he tugged down her loose black sweat pants, baring the tops of her hip bones and the subtle dip of her slender abdomen. Mathias’s mouth watered as he glimpsed the lace edges of her panties--bright pink, silky, surprisingly girly.

“Always the unexpected with you,” he remarked, grinning through his teeth and fangs.

She smiled up at him. “I’d hate to be boring.”

“I don’t think you ever have to worry about that.”

He drew her pants all the way off and dropped them to the floor. Nova’s lean legs were as clear as her torso, just smooth skin that tempted Mathias’s hands. He stroked the length of her limbs, slowing as he reached the apex of her thighs. Heat met his fingers as he toyed with the lacy scrap of fabric that covered her sex.