Dark Taste of Rapture (Alien Huntress 6)

She stilled, licked at his lips one final time, as if she couldn’t help herself, then lifted her head, her breath coming shallow and quick. Her mouth was red, swollen, and glossed with his taste. God, he liked that, liked knowing some part of him was on her, in her, that he was connected to her and she to him.

Her eyes were glassy with her arousal, her pupils blown and shadowing her irises. “Did I do something you didn’t like?” Fingers loosening …

Wanting to moan at the loss, he shook his head. “I liked what you were doing too much.”

“Oh.” A blush stained her cheeks, or maybe a deeper flush of arousal. “Oh.” A slow, wicked grin spread, lighting her entire face as she clutched him tighter. “So by stop you actually meant keep going?”

He fought a laugh. Humor, when he was skirting the edge of danger. Such a thing should have been impossible, and would have been, with anyone else. Noelle’s teasing spirit spoke to a part of him he’d never known. The mischievous child he’d never gotten to be.

“No. I just … I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t. Unless you leave me like this.” She stroked up, down.

Another hiss of breath. “I can hurt you in other ways. Believe me, I really can.”

Her brow furrowed with her confusion, and she straightened the rest of the way, removing her hand from his c**k completely. He wanted to curse, but offered up a prayer of thanks instead. “How?” she asked.

Hinges squeaked, Mia Snow sticking her dark head out the door a second later. Her blue gaze scanned the area, then lightened when she spotted them. “There you are.”

“What?” An unspoken this better be a matter of life or death coated Hector’s voice as he angled his body away, hiding his erection and blocking her view of Noelle.

“Nice greeting, ass**le,” Mia snapped.

“Sorry,” he muttered. I am a calm, rational being. “What do you want?”

With her, you never knew. Could be something easy, like being asked to go into work early the next day, or something slightly more difficult, like kicking your own ass into next week for some perceived slight.

“There’s been a homicide. Dallas is having a meltdown about something, so I’m making you primary,” Mia told him. “You need to head to the scene now, and have a look-see before local PD screws everything up.”

Hector’s gaze sought Noelle unbidden. She’d gotten herself under control, her expression blank, her breathing even. That she’d recovered so quickly, he didn’t like. At all.

“Give me the details,” he forced himself to say.

Mia spouted them off as if she were reading bullet points from a computer screen. When she finished, she added, “Oh, and take Tremain with you. You’re going to need her.”

Eighteen

NOELLE TRIED TO RELAX in her seat. Hector had traded rides with Mia, taking her AIR standard issue, complete with uncomfortable syn-leather interior, a console perched between the driver and passenger seats, and dash-screens in place of a steering wheel and glove compartment. Clear shield armor separated front from back, so that naughty otherworlders couldn’t attack with fists, teeth, or even mind control.

Noelle owned a garage full of cars, some made before the human-alien war nearly a century ago, and before the armor-modification had become customary. She much preferred the older models. What was more fun than cutting corners as if you were on rails, burning rubber, and spinning donuts without sensors to stop you from crashing?

Besides making out with Hector in a public place, that is. Again. After a year-long abstinence, as if no time had passed. Nothing, that’s what.

Her blood still shimmered with desire. Her hand still ached from trying to fit all the way around him, his length so thick her fingertips hadn’t come close to connecting.

Yet he appeared unaffected, all business.

She studied the harsh planes of his profile. He had a staring contest going with the road, ignoring her. Sensors covered the entire outside of this vehicle, so there was no reason to focus that steadily. The car maneuvered the streets on its own, slowing, stopping, and speeding up as necessary.

Well, she could do that, too. Noelle peered out the window. Soon they left the suburbs behind, with the cute houses and the cute families, inside eating dinner. They made their way toward the poorer part of the city. Cool air trickled from the vents, but nothing could override the scent of Hector that permeated the small front enclosure. Wild, earthy, and sweaty.

Every breath Noelle sucked in reminded her of what they had been doing before Mia interrupted—eating each other’s faces.

Both times before, a single taste had caused instinct to propel Noelle over a ledge she couldn’t see until too late. He was a drug to her, able to destroy any barrier, addicting her quickly, heating her inexorably, spinning her closer and closer to the bottom of what would either prove to be a deep, dark cavern of loneliness, or a bright, consuming bed of passion.

Hell, this time she hadn’t even needed a taste. She’d fallen the moment he had approached her, and there had been no stopping her spiral to splat. Every cell she possessed had yearned to have his hands exploring her, his body pounding into hers.

Damn him and his irresistibility. Now she wanted more of him, more from him, and would have given him more of herself. Would have asked him to go home with her, where she would have given him all, everything.

Maybe. One-night stands weren’t her thing, and never had been.

Maybe he would have wanted more than a one-night stand, though. Maybe he would have wanted to stay the night with her, see her again the next day, and the next. He craved her, after all.

Except he was already distancing himself from her. Regretting?

Hello loneliness.

With Corban, she’d known where they were headed before they ever hit the sheets. He’d wooed and won her, and then stuck around to polish his prize. With Hector, she’d never known, and it had never mattered.

With Hector, she still didn’t know, and it still didn’t matter. Damn him, she thought again.

“Hector,” she began. She wasn’t a coward. She would simply ask him what he expected from her. If he said they could give this thing, whatever it was, a try, she’d give the relationship everything she had. If he said this was the end—rejecting her for the third time in their acquaintance—she’d stab him in the jugular and hide his corpse.

Besides, this was her first murder investigation. Concentration was key. So after she found out where she stood with Hector, her mind would be clear, and then boom, she could solve the case and save the day. Easy as that.