A sound curled up from her throat, but if she’d hoped to be able to deny what he was saying, the soft moan that slipped past her lips was a pitiful effort. “Don’t say such things. You have no right—”
“Why not, Jordana?” he pressed. “Why not say it if it’s the truth? Why should either of us pretend we can stop what’s going on between us?”
“Because—” She sucked in a breath, searching for the strength to refuse him.
“Because, why?” he asked, more gently now, yet no less commanding. “Tell me why you’d rather scurry back behind your family name and the obligations you’ve constructed into your own prison?”
Jordana brought her fingers up to her lips, trying to bite back the words that would betray her. They spilled out anyway, a whispered rush. “Because I’m afraid.”
Something flickered over Nathan’s stern features—shock or understanding, sympathy or pity; she couldn’t be sure.
He reached behind him and hit the stop button on the elevator. With a soft rock, the car came to a cushioned halt inside the shaft.
Jordana’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”
Nathan didn’t answer. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
Anxiety shot through her. “Seamus will notice that we’ve stopped. He’ll wonder what’s going on in here.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Nathan growled. “Neither should you.”
“He can see us,” Jordana pointed out, glancing past Nathan, toward the small security camera lens staring down at them from the ceiling of the lift.
Although he didn’t so much as flinch, the tiny red light on the monitoring device blinked out, snuffed by the power of Nathan’s Gen One Breed mind. “Now it’s just you and me, Jordana. I’m the only one who can see you. I’m the only one who will hear you. Are you afraid now?”
When she looked down in silence, Nathan’s warm, strong fingers came to rest beneath her chin. He lifted her face, refusing to let her hide even her gaze from him. “Are you afraid of me, Jordana?”
She gave a weak shake of her head, astonished that it wasn’t fear she felt with this man right now. It was something far more powerful than that. More powerful than the desire he stirred in her as well. She trusted him.
Nathan didn’t have to demand she bare her soul to him; his turbulent blue-green eyes and unexpectedly gentle touch compelled her with equal measure. “My father’s had a very strict path laid out for me to follow from the time I was a child. He wants things for me. Expects me to act a certain way, to achieve certain goals he’s set for me. He does it out of love, I know that. He only wants what’s best for me.”
“I’m sure he does.” Nathan closed the scant distance between them, a towering wall of muscle and dark, simmering intent. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “But sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never be the daughter he wants me to be. I’m terrified I’m going to wake up one day and realize I no longer want the things he thinks are best for me.” She let out a soft sigh, still holding Nathan’s stormy gaze. “I’m afraid I already have.”
He growled a curse, something low and dark, under his breath. His features sharpened, making his face more fierce, as profane as it was handsome. Jordana lifted her hand, wanting to brave a touch of his angled cheekbone and rigid jaw.
Nathan caught her in midmotion, wrapping his fingers around her wrist before she could make contact. His grip was warm but firm. Wordlessly, he raised her hand up and away from him, pinning it over her head against the back wall of the elevator car.
Jordana didn’t know what to say—she didn’t know what to think—as he then brought her other hand up as well and held it there. She tested his hold and found it unyielding. As unbreakable as iron.
Staring up at him, she swallowed, all too aware of how her current position left her totally at Nathan’s mercy. With her hands held above her head, her spine pressed against the solid wall of the elevator car, the only place she could possibly move was toward the crowding heat of his body. Her breasts strained against the buttons of her conservative silk blouse. Her legs were spread slightly to keep her balance, and cool air tickled up the bare lengths of her calves and thighs, making her even more aware of the moist heat pulsing at her core.
Every feminine particle of her being thrummed in response to Nathan’s presence, anticipation pounding in her blood.
He switched his grasp so that one hand shackled her wrists, leaving his other free to roam. He stroked the backs of his knuckles along the slope of her cheek, then down along the swells of her breasts, hardly touching her yet making her burn with sensation. “Are you afraid of me now, Jordana?”
“No.” Her reply was little more than a gasp, breathless not from worry but from the startling sense of her own vulnerability.
Nathan held her completely under his control. She couldn’t have broken loose of his hold if her life depended on it. Nor did she want to.
He owned her in that moment, and damn him if he didn’t know it too.
He reveled in it; she could see the dark pleasure in his eyes as he drank her in from head to foot in the tight confines of the lift. Amber sparks pierced the thundercloud color of his irises. His broad mouth was grim yet sensual, barely concealing the growing length of his fangs.
He bent toward her and took her mouth in a scorching, commanding kiss.
Jordana had no experience with such hard passion, such hungered demand. She could only surrender to it, moaning as his lips covered hers, claimed her. His tongue pushed at the seam of her mouth, and she opened to him, submitting to this further claiming with a shudder of raw pleasure that rippled through her, then pooled molten hot between her thighs.