Temptation Rising by A.C. Arthur

praying for sweet release before she drew her own blood.
    “So hot and wet for me. I knew you would be.”
    “Please.” She was begging, her heart hammering in her chest and the persistent need clawing at her.
    If she could just get there, if her feet could finally fall from the edge where she’d tumble into ecstasy, she’d be okay. She’d regain her composure and get back to business. But until then, until that moment, she was lost. Purely and simply lost in Rome’s touch.
    Those sharp teeth of his tugged on a nipple and she screamed. He was driving her insane with need, heat engulfing her as if she’d walked through an inferno and unfortunately survived.
    With persistent thrusts he milked her. She rode his hand, loving the feel of him filling her. And then she was there. Absolute weightlessness encircled her, bursts of light filling her as she tumbled free.
    For endless seconds she seemed to float there, her head lolling forward to rest on his shoulder while she struggled to catch her breath.
    The next thing she comprehended was his hands at her waist, smoothing down the material of her gown on her thighs.
    “You’re home,” he whispered, kissing her temple.
    She nodded, acknowledging that she’d heard him. He’d said she was home. The SUV had stopped moving, and distantly she heard the door opening, felt a tepid breeze entering the interior.
    She was home.
    But home suddenly felt very different.

 
     
    Chapter 6
     
    “Sabar’s gonna kick your ass.”
    “Shut up, Chavez.” Darel snarled, keeping his attention on the road as they drove through the city. They were headed back to headquarters, to check in, give the details of the night, and, yes, to get their nuts handed to them by Sabar.
    There was no excuse for what happened tonight, none whatsoever. That’s the way Sabar would see it. The man was an animal—literally and figuratively. He had no feelings, no reactions except angry and angrier, deadly and deadliest. He was the walking devil if you believed in such an entity.
    Darel did. His mother had believed in Heaven and Hell, a Supreme Good and a Supreme Evil. She died when his father lost his temper and ripped her throat out. No wonder Darel was a little on the off side. Just the type of soldier Sabar had been looking for.
    He’d worked for the leader of the Rogue shifters since he was sixteen, after he’d killed his father. An eye for an eye was Darel’s claim to fame. Sabar said he’d liked that about him.
    After tonight, there was no telling what Sabar would think of him. There was a semblance of hurt at that thought, if he was prone to take feelings seriously, which he was not. Or at least he tried not to be.
    “You gotta laugh, though.” From the backseat of the jeep Chi, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Asian-looking shifter, chuckled. “You had her and you let her go.”
    “I wasn’t the only one who had her,” Darel corrected.
    “Yeah, but you’re the one in charge,” Chavez pointed out.
    It was true, he was Sabar’s lead enforcer. It was his job to supervise all missions directly assigned by Sabar. This mission in particular was beyond special. Sabar had given specific orders. Find the woman named Kalina Harper and bring her to him—unharmed. Darel had no idea what Sabar wanted with her and didn’t dare ask. He was told to do something, he’d had every intention of doing it—and then something happened.
    Not something, someone.
    “Where’d he come from and why didn’t either of you warn me he was coming? We were so caught up in her, he could have snapped all our necks without us doing a damn thing,” Darel yelled, jostling his passengers in their seats as he took a hard left turn doing eighty miles an hour.
    Chavez shrugged. “We didn’t scent him.”
    “And why was that?” They should have scented him. He was a high-level shifter, one of the shadows with a reputation that preceded him. Roman Reynolds might walk in this world as a human attorney, but in their world he was