Break the Day Read online

  “Some of your father’s notes are dated almost two years ago,” Rafe said as Devony sat down beside him once more. “If he had his eyes on

  Crowe Industries at that time, then whether he realized it or not, he must have been getting damn close to Opus too.”

  She nodded, but there was a sorrow behind her eyes. “Al my father ever wanted was a lasting peace in the world. My entire family was committed to that cause. They pledged their lives to it when they joined JUSTIS.”

  Rafe frowned, reflecting on the fact that she had lost not only her father in the London headquarters bombing, but her mother and brother as wel .

  Although Devony was obviously a natural in covert fieldwork and intel igence gathering, he knew a sense of profound relief that she hadn’t fol owed in the family’s footsteps or she might have also been among the casualties that night.

  “I take it you didn’t share their interest in law enforcement?”

  She gave him a disagreeing look. “Yes, I did. I wanted to join JUSTIS more than anything. My parents refused to consider it. To make them happy, I agreed to pursue music instead.”

  Rafe couldn’t stop himself from reaching up to touch her cheek. “I’m very glad you did.”

  She blinked and bit her bottom lip. His gaze fol owed that sweetly innocent reaction, arousal gripping him in an even firmer hold. A growl built deep in the back of his throat, a warning not only to himself but to her.

  He drew his hand away, his molars clenched tight to combat the swel ing of his fangs. “I don’t think your father or anyone else in your family would be happy to know you’ve picked up the torch he left behind. You should go back to music, Devony.”

  And he should go back to focusing on his own personal mission to bring down Opus and everyone loyal to their cause.

  “I can’t go back to my old life. It never real y suited me to begin with. This is my life now.”

  Rafe exhaled sharply. “Subterfuge and kil ing? Risking your life and God knows what else by embedding yourself with scum like Cruz?”

  “If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

  “What wil you do if you succeed in finding a link to Opus or any of its members?”

  “I wil kil them.” No hesitation in her clear voice. Only cold and steady resolve. “I wil finish this for my father. For my mother and Harrison, too. I need to finish this for myself.”

  Shit. Rafe stared at her, knowing there was nothing he could say to dissuade her. Then again, he didn’t need to dissuade her. Al it would take was one cal to the Order and she would be removed to someplace safe until this was over.

  And she would despise him for the rest of her eternal life.

  It shouldn’t matter to him. Until a few days ago, he didn’t have any idea she existed.

  But now he did, and that simple fact changed everything.

  Nothing could be the same after coming here tonight. Now he knew what she had endured because of Opus’s evil. He understood her desire to

  make someone pay.

  However, knowing that and al owing her to continue on this path were two different things.

  She was interfering with Order objectives. She was interfering with his own as wel . As righteous as her need to avenge her family might be, he had his own need for retribution too.

  “You need to give this up.” He shook his head. “You’re going to get hurt, Devony. I don’t want to see that happen.”

  “I’m not worried about me.”

  “Damn it, you should be.” His reply came out harsher than intended.

  She flinched, but didn’t retreat. She didn’t lose a scintil a of the stubborn resolve in her beautiful eyes or the upward jut of her chin. “Have you ever been alone, Rafe? I mean real y, truly, alone?”

  “No,” he admitted soberly.

  “Then don’t talk to me about getting hurt. Don’t tel me I need to give up when I have nothing else. This hurt,” she said, clenching her fist at her breast as her voice choked. “This rage, is the reason I get out of bed every day. I can’t stop until it stops. Can’t you understand that?”

  He did. As much as he wanted to deny it to her, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know something of how she felt.

  His family and friends might have al perished if Opus and their mole had succeeded.

  If he had lost everyone that day?

  Just the thought of that emptiness carved a hol ow in his chest.

  Devony had been living that pain every second of every day for five long months.

  She sat beside him in a rigid silence that nearly broke him. Her grief was profound, even al this time later. When he first saw her in Asylum, she had seemed so closed-off and brittle. So angry. Now he knew why.

  He cupped her lovely face, stroking her velvety skin with the pad of his thumb. “I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. No one should have to

  experience that kind of loss, Devony.”

  “I’m stil hurting,” she murmured thickly. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”

  Her naked vulnerability in that moment nearly kil ed him. He gathered her close, even though everything logical and reasonable inside him

  pleaded for him to keep his distance. He couldn’t let her bear her pain alone.

  Especial y when he had been born with the ability to heal, to restore.

  He spoke into the fragrant silk of her hair. “Do you want me to take it away for a little while? I wil , if you want me to.”

  She swal owed hard, then slowly, firmly, shook her head. “No. I need to carry it. I need to keep them alive inside me, even if it hurts.”

  Christ, she was an incredible woman.

  As attractive as he found her physical y, her courage turned him on even more.

  Her strength and resilience left his control in tatters.

  If she had agreed to let him heal her grief, he would have done it gladly. And then he would have left immediately afterward and made the cal to the Order to find a safe sanctuary for her, somewhere far away from this business with Opus Nostrum and from him.

  But she hadn’t caved to her pain.

  No, Devony Winters was made of stronger stuff than that.

  And he had never known anything sexier.

  What he ought to do was leave.

  Not only for the integrity of his mission for the Order, but for his own sanity too.

  Hel , for what remained of his honor, if nothing else. No matter how thin that claim was now.

  “It’s getting late.” His voice was gravel, his mouth fil ed with the presence of his fangs. “I should go.”

  “Don’t.” She met his gaze, her irises simmering with flecks of glowing amber. As he drank in the beauty of her face, her pupils began to narrow, transforming with the intensity of her arousal.

  He felt the same need erupting inside him. Al the desire he’d been trying to push down was quickly reaching the breaking point. Heat licked

  through his veins, his pulse drumming, al of his blood rushing toward the rigid and aching length of his erection.

  “Devony—”

  She didn’t give him a chance to say anything more.

  Her mouth crushed against his, her kiss a force of nature.

  He caught her in his arms and tumbled back onto the rug with her.

  CHAPTER 11

  Al night she had been burning to feel his kiss on her again.

  She didn’t know how to describe the profound sense of gratitude she felt when Rafe had offered to take away her grief with his healing ability. She hadn’t expected kindness like that from the dangerous Breed male. He had healed her after the museum job, but that had been out of obligation

  for a comrade.

  His offer to ease her pain tonight had been born of something different, something deeper. Something that seemed like true concern, even

  affection.

  God forgive her, but she’d wanted to lean into that feeling so badly she had to force herself to deny him. She yearned to feel some kind of

  connection
to someone . . .

  No, not just someone. To him. Her longing for Rafe’s care had been nearly overwhelming, but it paled compared to the driving hunger she had to

  know the heat of his lips on hers.

  The hunger had burst out of her, and only intensified as he took her down onto the floor with him. He held her face in gentle hands, plundering her mouth with a savage need that seemed to exceed even her own.

  “Ah, fuck,” he uttered raggedly against her lips. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to happen, Devony.”

  She hadn’t been prepared for him, either.

  Al of the emptiness she had stuffed deep down inside her had opened up with him tonight. That bleak loneliness had been swal owing her whole

  for so long, but she’d never registered how fathomless and dark it had grown until she was sitting in this room with Rafe, sharing the details of her pain, and her plans for passing the hurt along to the monsters who had caused it.

  But al of those dark realities were nothing but ashes now, incinerated under the heat of her need for this man.

  A moan tore loose from her throat, sounding animal and raw.

  She didn’t care if she seemed desperate for him.

  She couldn’t care.

  “Don’t stop kissing me, Rafe.” Her breath was reduced to ragged panting, her fangs surging out of her gums. “I ache,” she gasped brokenly. “Oh, God, I need . . .”

  He answered with a low groan and a hard thrust of his pelvis beneath hers. Even separated by their clothing, the rigid length of his erection seared her where it bit into her abdomen. She pressed down, thinking the friction might al eviate some of that heat, but it only intensified as she ground against him.

  Rafe’s arms wrapped around her like warm iron bands. Then, in a fluid rol he sent her over onto her back, pinning her under him as his kiss

  deepened into something wild and hot and uncontrol ed.

  Every vein and artery in her body throbbed as he covered her with his body and moved against her in an erotic rhythm. His tongue invaded her

  mouth, pushing past her teeth and fangs to stroke deep inside while his hips rocked heavily between her parted thighs.

  The hard throb of her pulse kicked into an urgent drumbeat, making the pool of need in her core twist and coil, spiraling into a desire she could hardly contain.

  Her skin felt too tight, too hot. Beneath her loose knit top and soft pants, her dermaglyphs felt more alive than ever before, as if the otherworldly skin markings were lit up and churning, licking her with fire.

  She had felt desire before, but so infrequently she scarcely remembered when. None of the fumbling schoolboy kisses or clumsy hands that

  chanced to touch her in the past could compare to what she was feeling now. Rafe’s touch obliterated everything that came before. His kiss

  ignited a fire in her that could not be contained.

  When his hand slipped under the hem of her sweater to skim over her bare stomach, she arched into him on a shivery gasp. She writhed under

  him, pleasure swamping her as his palm moved higher, caressing her over the thin lace of her bra. The front clasp popped open a second later,

  and Devony moaned as he cupped her naked breast in his hand.

  “Christ, you’re soft,” he murmured. “And I can feel your glyphs coming to life under my fingertips.”

  She could feel it too. Each brush of his hand sent pleasure dancing across her skin, and turned the ache in her core into a molten yearning.

  His kiss moved onto her throat. “I need to see you.”

  He didn’t wait for permission. It was just as wel . She could hardly find her voice to give it to him as the hunger in her mounted. Pushing her shirt up from the waist, his hands skated along her torso, bunching the fabric beneath her chin. He stopped kissing her for a moment, and removed her

  top and bra completely. Then he tilted his head down to look at her.

  “You are so fucking beautiful.” His deep voice carried a coarse edge, thickened from his desire and from the fangs that fil ed his mouth. The heat of his amber gaze bathed her in warm light as he lifted up and slowly drank in the sight of her. “I knew you would be gorgeous, Devony. Al of these pretty glyphs on your soft, creamy skin. But you’re beyond anything I imagined.”

  He touched her with the same reverence she saw in his eyes. When he bent forward and traced his tongue along the curves of one of her markings, she shuddered with sensation. He lavished kisses on every bared inch of her, moving from one breast to the other, then down to her

  navel. Her glyphs responded as if he commanded them, their colors surging and undulating under his lips, under his fingers, as he explored them al .

  “I wonder where this one leads,” he murmured, lowering himself over her body and licking one of the flourishes that disappeared below the

  waistband of her yoga pants. He tugged them down her hips, taking off her panties along with them. The breath he inhaled sounded ragged as his

  glowing gaze fol owed the path of a glyph that ran across her hip bone and onto the mound of her sex. His eyes flicked up to meet hers, a wicked tilt to his lips. “I think I found my favorite.”

  Spreading her legs to afford himself better access, he sank between her parted thighs and dropped a line of kisses from one end of the

  dermaglyph to the other. His short beard delivered a delicious abrasion, making Devony’s arousal ratchet impossibly tighter. Lord, she thought

  she might explode from desire for him.

  She nearly did in that next moment, when he pressed his mouth to the drenched seam of her body. His tongue cleaved between her folds and she

  sucked in a gulp of air. It left her on a shuddery sigh as he suckled her clit with ruthless demand.

  Her response seemed to spur his own. He moaned and dragged her closer, his palms cupping her backside, holding her steady when she could

  hardly keep from writhing in hot, pleasurable agony.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sudden, overwhelming tide of sensation that rol ed up on her.

  The wave crested, then crashed, flooding every fiber of her being with a shimmery, quicksilver bliss. She cried out, his name ragged on her

  tongue as her release left her shaking in Rafe’s hands, her body convulsing against his whiskered face.

  When she final y dragged her eyelids open, she found him staring at her, studying her with pure male appreciation. Her vision was soaked in

  amber, her fangs feeling as long and sharp as daggers as she panted heavily through her parted lips.

  Rafe grinned. “Holy hel , Devony. I wish you could see yourself right now. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Al she could do was moan in reply. Even that wordless sound was rough and inhuman. She’d never made a noise like that before. Never felt this

  alive.

  And as overcome as he seemed looking at her, Devony could not begin to describe what the sight of Rafe did to her now, with her body

  thrumming from the pleasure he’d just given her.

  Handsome and golden, his immense body wrapped in muscle, he was magnificent simply by existing. But now, with his aquamarine eyes

  engulfed in amber fire, his face stark with desire, and his sharp fangs gleaming, he was nothing short of awesome.

  A fierce possessiveness washed over her as she gazed at him. It came from a place in her that had already claimed him as hers, even before

  tonight. It was an untamed part of her, one that had been sleeping until tonight. Until Rafe’s kiss in that parking lot woke her up.

  Devony lifted up off the floor, one palm planted in the center of his chest.

  He looked surprised at first, but an eager, approving light smoldered in his amber eyes as she urged him into a sitting position and rose onto her knees in front of him.

  She pul ed off his black T-shirt and let her gaze roam greedily over the tangles of glyphs covering his strong chest and arms. He did
n’t have as many as her. Thanks to her mother’s laboratory-manipulated genetics, Devony had been born with an abundance of the skin markings, plus the

  diminutive teardrop-and-crescent-moon stamp of a Breedmate.

  To anyone inside or outside of the Breed, she was unique. But to her, Rafe was a singular fascination.

  One she simply could not resist.

  She ran her hands over his smooth skin, watching the colors rush and churn along his glyphs. Dark wine, indigo and gold. Her own skin seethed

  with the same deep hues. Al the colors of desire.

  Rafe shuddered under her questing hands, his gaze molten. When she leaned forward and used her tongue to taste him the way he had done with

  her, his muscles flexed under her lips. The enormous bulge that fil ed the front of his black jeans grew even more pronounced.

  His hands played in her hair, loosening it from the messy bun. “Have you ever been with a male of your own kind before?”

  She licked her lips. “I’ve never been with anyone.”

  He drew back and seized her hands, stil ing them on a low curse. “No one at al ?” When she shook her head, his expression hardened. “Ah, fuck.

  Devony . . . you should’ve told me.”

  “Why? Would you want me less if you knew?”

  His furrowed brow darkened even more. It took him a long moment to answer. “No. I don’t think anything could make me want you less. Not now.

  Not at any time.”

  “Good.” She kissed him, no gentle tangle of their lips and tongues, but a melding, a claiming.

  She didn’t want his tender care right now. She didn’t want gentle.

  She simply wanted him.

  Without releasing him from her kiss, she reached down to unfasten the button and zipper of his jeans. She fumbled a little, but then Rafe’s hands

  were there, too, as impatient and determined as hers.

  When he was freed, she couldn’t resist the urge to touch him . . . to taste him.

  His cock stood thick and proud, as glorious as the rest of him.

  She took his length in both hands, marveling at his girth and heft. He hissed tightly as she stroked him, then released a strangled groan when she lowered her mouth over him and took him deep into her throat.