The Predator (Dark Verse Book 1)

He closed his eyes, for that small second.

His Adam’s apple bobbed above the knot of his tie, for that small second.

And then his arm went down.

A breath Morana hadn’t known she’d been holding escaped her in a rush.

He stepped back, not looking into her eyes again, leaving her to be kissed by the cold rain and chilled air, his jacket falling out of her grip as he bent down swiftly to retrieve her gun from the muddy ground.

Standing back up to his full height, his white shirt plastered to his torso, wet skin and ink peeking underneath the transparent fabric, making Morana swallow reflexively, he extended her own gun back to her. Morana let her eyes rove away from his chest to his red-knuckled hand that was making her heavy gun look small.

She took it from him silently, her fingers brushing his, sending tingles up her arm.

He didn’t react, as was usual with him.

He also didn’t look into her eyes, which was unusual.

He just turned on his heel and headed towards his huge vehicle, the rain pelting down on his imposing figure in the utter night, after kissing the breath out of her.

‘I get my mouth on you, you’ll never be the same.’

His words came back to her. He’d been right.

Morana looked down at the gun he’d picked up for her and handed back to her.

She’d wanted something. He’d given it to her, in a way only he could. He’d not uttered a word. But he’d made his choice. So had she.

Taking a deep breath in, Morana swallowed, stepping forward.

And she followed him into the dark.

Her heart started beating faster than it already was, the need inside her, for so many things, coming to the fore. His eyes caught it, the fire in them singeing her, inflaming before her very own.

Before she could blink, his mouth was upon hers, prying her lips open with his tongue, flicking her tongue in a movement she felt between her legs. Clenching her thighs together to relieve the throbbing, she closed her eyes and went up on her toes, instinctively allowing him more.

And then, he devoured her.

Fulfilling every promise his eyes had ever made to her.

He devoured her in the rain, with his gun beneath her jaw.

He devoured her while tasting like the whiskey and sin she heard in his voice.

He devoured her without touching another inch of her body, stroking her tongue with his, tasting her so thoroughly her legs weakened, her hands catching onto the lapels of his jacket to keep herself upright, not touching his skin like he wasn’t touching hers, yet letting him support her.

Electric.

There was no other word for it.

It sizzled. It sparked. It consumed.

His scruff rasped over her wet skin, lips meshing together as heat infused her, and she knew she would carry the evidence of that burn around her mouth later. She wanted that evidence. She wanted him to look at her reddened flesh tomorrow and feel the heat in his body like she would every time she saw it. She wanted him to look at her swollen lips and remember the invisible line he crossed with her. She wanted him to look at her and remember that first kiss in the rain.

Holding onto his wet jacket, she sucked on his tongue, inviting him deeper, and got her lower lip nipped in response, the gun kissing her skin, sliding down from her jaw, down the slope of her neck, down her cleavage, to stop between her breasts.

It stopped above her heart, making it jump out of her chest even as he kept ravaging her mouth, all his heat, his intensity, pouring over her along with the rain.

A shiver ran down her spine, her fingers fisting the fabric of his jacket, her lips trembling against his, and he pulled back.

Morana opened her eyes, stunned at the force of that kiss, stunned at her own reaction, stunned at him.

She saw his lips, swollen, wearing the evidence of her wild mouth, and her skin heated, her nipples pebbling even harder, even with the gun pressed to her heart.

“This is the only chance I’m giving you to kill me. After this, should you choose not to, this will never come up again. After this, you’ll need to let go of the idea that you’re killing me. After this, you never, ever threaten me with my life again.”

The hand in his pocket came out, his fist clenching and unclenching.

That small outward movement gave her fortitude.

“You deliver my death or you let it go. Either way, you need to make a choice, as I’ve made mine and come to peace with it. Because if your choices affect my life so deeply, if a choice you made two decades ago is defining my life right now, then I’ll make you choose again. This time, not as a boy but as a grown man.”

And then the tremor in her voice came out, her jaw clenching as her voice broke. “Because I sure as fuck will never, ever let you think you’ll kill me again. This is the only chance you’ll ever have.”

Her instincts were raging inside her. “So, choose.”

Her palms started sweating.

She saw his grip on the gun tighten, his arm starting to move, and she closed her eyes.