Kane Read online

  He was so amazed by the easy way she appeared to accept pleasure, the way she so willingly let it roll over her body, that he didn’t expect the abrupt shift she made that started to bring him inside her. Kane’s hands reached up to curl tightly around the steel links that held him imprisoned, suddenly needing the vicious grip as she slowly worked to impale herself on him.

  At ninety-eight years of age, Kane was two years from being an adult in the eyes of his peers, but right then he had never felt more like a novice at life. The sensation of his perfect mate welcoming him with such exquisite perfection brought him to his proverbial knees. He shook his head, trying to stave off the dampness in his eyes, but with little success. He hated that he couldn’t touch her, and yet there was something about her proud domination over him that made it all worthwhile.

  Corrine closed her eyes, dropping her head back with a lusty groan that echoed high in the stone room. Kane was so hot that she felt as if she was impaling herself on pure burning steel. She worked herself down onto him, gasping at the ferocity of his heat and feeling wave after wave of his profound emotional response. Oh, how compelling it was to know he was feeling this way because of her! When he finally sank home inside her, she had to lean with flat palms against his chest, drawing hard for breath because of how intense the sensation was. Her entire body shimmered with delight and the ready edge of pleasure. She lifted herself and shifted back onto her heels, crying out as he met her with a defiant thrust of his hips. Her whole frame shivered with the impact and she almost fell over him. Instead she ended up braced against him and staring down into his brilliant blue eyes and their undeniable devotion.

  She raised herself again, taking advantage of the moment to kiss his mouth as she drew forward over him. After a moment of swimming in the gaze of his eyes, she whispered to him. “You love me,” she said softly.

  “Yes.” He punctuated the confession with another powerful thrust to meet her descending stroke. She lifted again almost instantly, breathing a moan of pleasure against his lips.

  “Kane . . . Kane, you know I don’t—”

  He cut her off with a deep return into her slight body, rocking her forward so that their mouths met in a wild, soul-searching kiss. He let her settle back on her own this time, breathing hard against her damp, well-used lips. “You will.”

  Corrine felt the utter conviction pouring from him and a chill of delight shivered down her spine. He was once again telling her the absolute truth. His truth. A truth, she realized, she wouldn’t at all mind living.

  Sitting up straight and proud on her very personal stallion, Corrine took charge of her ride. Kane continued to match her tit for tat, sweat gleaming on his dark skin as he worked her body as fiercely as he could under the circumstances. He loved the way her entire body jounced, her breasts with their dark coral tips shimmering with impact every time she met with him. It was all so far beyond his expectations that his body reacted uncontrollably to her. At first he used the increasing bite of the wrist cuffs to help draw him away from the rampant urge to rush into orgasm, the warm wetness of his own blood a small price to pay if he could just keep control long enough for what she needed. But soon even that couldn’t help him.

  “Sweet, blessed Destiny, Corrine! You’re perfect! You’re—”

  Kane gasped in a hard, sucking breath as sudden fire broiled through the bottom of his gut, sinking with an acidic burn into the seat of his pelvis. His whole body crashed against a tempest of pleasure he couldn’t contain or control. His back arced off the bed, the power of his muscular body lifting her up with him.

  Corrine felt the impulse of pleasure rushing through his body and mind, and once it slammed into him, it slammed into her as well. Chained together as they were by the power of Kane’s mind, she was snared in the vortex of his explosive release, convulsive and bordering on painful. They both curled toward one another, their heads touching at their temples as they cried out against each other’s ears. Kane’s jolting release felt as if it would never end, and the greedy clutch of her body only perpetuated the situation. Then, gasping madly, they suddenly dropped onto the bed, their bodies nothing more than an exhausted pile of arms and legs.

  Even before he finished catching his breath, Kane let out an irritated growl. Corrine looked at him in surprise when he uttered quite savagely, “Perfect bloody timing, Noah.”

  Then there was a sharp jolt seconds before Corrine hit the mattress face first, Kane having completely disappeared from beneath her. The startled redhead pushed up into a thick cloud of smoke and the heavy odor of sulfur. Then there was another snap in the air and suddenly Kane was on her back, his now-free hands sliding hungrily beneath her to seek out the delicious softness of her breasts.

  “Kane!” she gasped, trying to turn under him so she could look into his face. His remarkable disappearing act had stunned her, but it was quickly overshadowed by the more remarkable feel of his hands on her body at long last.

  “At long last?” He echoed her thoughts fiercely against her ear. “Let’s see you suffer over a week of getting fully aroused every single time the slightest memory of your mate drifts into your mind. Then you can complain about the length of your denied hunger.”

  “Oh, I see,” she breathed, “it’s a contest, is it?”

  “No contest,” he argued hotly. “You’ll never know what I went through.”

  “So you say,” she shot back.

  “No. So I know. You will never know the kind of denial I went through, Corrine. You’ll never know it because I will never let you know it.” As he made the promise, his hands went in different directions, traveling intimately over her slender body. “I can promise you this with all of my heart, sweetness.”

  Corrine sighed and smiled into the bed sheets. It was a promise she knew she could believe.

  Epilogue

  Kane rubbed at his nearly healed wrists, tugging his shirtsleeves down over faint bruises. True, he could have had a Body Demon heal them for him, but there was something poignant about the sight, about touching them, about remembering what he had gone through that Samhain night. He wished he hadn’t healed so fast. He wanted the reminders to last just a little while longer.

  He looked up when he heard a door close softly. She appeared like a vision in a dream, wearing something that flowed like soft, shimmering silk around her. The color was a pale aqua, as though clean tropical water clung to her. The dress was unlike anything he’d ever seen her wear before, other than the gown he had chosen for her in an alternate reality. But he had known it was within her, the desire to wear such lush, beautiful things. And she wore it as though she had been born to it. As she walked down the stairs it was like watching an elegant queen.

  “Hey, Sis!”

  The moment was broken as a raven-haired speedball bolted between Kane and Corrine, throwing herself into her sister’s arms. The sisters hugged fiercely, their opposite colored hair mixing together in an astounding clash of red on black.

  “You’d think they hadn’t seen each other in years,” Jacob remarked wryly as he came to Kane’s side and stood there in his usual stoic pose, his arms folded over his chest. But there was softness in his eyes and a slight smile on his lips as he watched his mate. To outsiders the change in him might seem small, but to Kane the alteration in his older brother was profound. It made Kane smile and put off his irritation at being thwarted from having his mate in his arms. Over these past two days he had come to know Bella much better, had learned how dynamic she was. There was much of her sister in her, but there was a wisdom and reserve in Corrine that made her somehow more special to Kane.

  “She looks well,” Jacob remarked.

  “She’s better,” Kane agreed. “But we don’t have what you and Bella have. I mean, her ability to read my thoughts is limited to times when we are very close and speaking of highly emotional things. And I cannot speak with her from any distance. I don’t like it. I feel that I am missing a key piece of armor when it comes to protecting her. Knowing ther
e are magic users out there and others who might try to harm her to get to me . . .”

  “The odds of that are very low,” Jacob said as he tried to reassure him. “Has she shown any signs of special ability?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “It may take time,” Jacob mused. “We are grateful she is even alive. I am grateful.” Jacob looked at his brother. “It would have crushed me to know I was the instrument that robbed you of the woman who would love you best.”

  Kane felt the power of his brother’s guilt as well as his love for him, all in that single statement. It didn’t even matter to him that Corrine had yet to declare her love for him.

  She would.

  In time, with his love and care coaxing her heart to his, she would.

  Corrine looked up at him, over her diminutive sister’s shoulder, and smiled at him.

  He read her thoughts and his smile grew.

  Go back to where it all started!

  THE NIGHTWALKERS: JACOB

  Jacquelyn Frank

  “I loved this book!”

  —Christine Feehan

  Since time began, there have been Nightwalkers—the races of the night who live in the shadows of the moonlight. Love with humans is absolutely forbidden, and one man makes certain to uphold this ancient law: Jacob, the Enforcer…

  FOR 700 YEARS, HE HAS RESISTED TEMPTATION.

  BUT NOT TONIGHT…

  Jacob knows the excuses his people give when the madness overtakes them and they fall prey to their lust for humans. He’s heard every one and still brought the trespassers to justice. Immune to forbidden desires, uncontrollable hungers, or the curse of the moon, his control is total…until the moment he sees Isabella on a shadowy New York City street. Saving her life wasn’t in his plans. Nor were the overwhelming feelings she arouses in him. But the moment he holds her in his arms and feels the soft explosion of her body against his, everything changes. Their attraction is undeniable, volatile, and completely against the law. Suddenly everything Jacob has ever believed is inflamed by the heat of desire…

  Bring on the night.

  "Jacqui Frank's NIGHTWALKER series depicts an engrossing alternate world, drawn in prose that is lush and lyrical.”

  —Linda Howard

  Available now wherever digital books are sold!

  About the Author

  New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Frank is the author of the successful Nightwalkers series, which first introduced the world to her unique paranormal romances. She has since gone on to create two more successful, bestselling series: The Shadowdwellers and The Gatherers.

  Jacquelyn Frank has been passionate about writing ever since she picked up her first teen romance at age thirteen. Since then, she’s gone on to write over ten bestselling books, with more on the way. Before Jacquelyn became an author, she worked as a Sign Language Interpreter and substitute teacher.

  For more information on Jacquelyn Frank and her books, readers may visit her Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jacquelyn-Frank/371620872548 or visit her website at http://www.jacquelynfrank.com.