J.K. Coi

I thought, since I have just now finished the excrutiating editing process of finalizing my book, that I would celebrate by sharing a juicy little exceprt with you.

Here it is. This is a point shortly after the two have met, and Rhys is bringing Amy back home:

Rhys walked Amy up the steps of her apartment building, and took note of her name on the mailbox. Apartmnet 2D, Amy Bennett.

She looked at him in the soft lamplight of the building's entrance. God, he really was a beautiful man. Oh, not in any classic sense of the word. He was too large and hard core for that. His shaggy dark hair was still slightly damp, and fell to just past the nape of his neck. His eyes, though they seemed to shimmer strangely like silver in the light, held a softness, a tenderness, that was out of place with his strength and the careful control he held over himself.

She realized then that this evening could have ended a lot differently than with the two of them standing at her front door. He had taken care tonight to see that she wasn't hurt from her insane mad dash into danger, and while she was sure that she had hampered him more than she had helped, he hadn’t lost it on her. If she determined nothing else from the events of this evening, she was confident in concluding that he would never have hurt her.

"Thanks for bringing me home."

"No problem," Rhys replied. He seemed to want to say something more, but didn't.

Amy stared at his mouth, wondering if he would kiss her again. She really wanted him to kiss her again. Deciding this was her night to flirt with danger, she didn’t wait for it, and instead went up on her toes, and smoothed her lips over his.

Jeez, he was so tall, he should be playing for the NBA.

Amy pressed her mouth against him lightly, cautiously, then gasped as he groaned and wrapped his arms around her. He deepened her soft kiss into something more, something carnal and hot, and she tumbled into it, lost in her growing desire.

Her arms clutching him, Rhys backed Amy up until she was pressed against the wall of the building. Amy reveled in the feeling of the sharp stone at her back, and his smooth, hard strength pressing into her from the front. One muscled thigh moved between her legs, pressed up against her, and she gasped as her insides melted in response. His lips were traveling down the smooth column of her neck, along her jaw, licking the sensitive spot at the base of her shoulder blade, while his hand moved to cup one breast, kneading and shaping it to fit his palm, the other tangling itself in her hair, which tumbled loosely over her shoulders.

Rhys was on fire. He had never felt this before, this all-consuming need. He wanted Amy with a desperation that was overriding all the good intentions that he had started out with, wanted to take her as hard and as deep as he possibly could. He had never let his body rule him that way. But right now, he wanted--he needed--to imprint himself on her body, mark her, dominate her. He wanted to possess her and protect her at the same time, to hold himself inside her for an eternity.

It didn’t help his self-control to know that she was just as hot for him. Her raspy little moans and the scent of her excitement beckoned to him like a siren’s summons. It would take nothing for Rhys to overcome her lingering inhibitions, convince her to take him into her bed, and once there, he wouldn't let her out of it again for days.

In fact, what better way to keep an eye on her. He could keep her constantly at his side, and perhaps gain some insight into the source of his dreams.

Whoa, he thought. Constant proximity for women always meant closeness and sharing. No way did he want that complication. He had a job to do that Amy could never understand, and a life that she could never be part of...a dangerous fucked-up life at that. He wouldn’t allow any human to become a part of that, especially not Amy, no matter how much he was drawn to her serene strength and frank humour. She would compromise his very existence if he allowed himself to be distracted by those expressive eyes and lush body.

It would be better for them both if he simply let her retreat into her apartment alone. She would never see him again, and he would move into the future as a whisper of nothingness, a ghost, as he had always been to humans.

But first, he wanted to commit the taste of her to memory.