Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (24 page)

“Oh,” Jordana said, already beginning to shake her head. “No, that’s not appropriate for tonight, and I—”

“I thought you wanted to know what else he said,” Carys teased. “So put it on.”

Given little choice, Jordana accepted the red cocktail dress from Carys’s outstretched hand. The silken fabric was sleek and soft in her fingers, if somewhat shapeless on its hanger.

Jordana recalled the impulse buy with alarming clarity now. She’d bought this dress the day after she’d so recklessly—insanely—forced a kiss on Nathan in the other room of this very apartment.

It wasn’t the kind of dress she’d ever have chosen for herself normally, and she had no idea why she hadn’t immediately returned it.

She gathered the light bundle of fiery fabric over her head and let it
settle down over her body. It felt like liquid skating along her skin, decadent, luxurious. Deliciously sinful.

“Tell me what else Nathan said,” she ordered her friend as the red dress smoothed into place.

“He told me that you’re important to him,” Carys replied from behind her. “He said he cares about you.”

Jordana pivoted around. Cool air caressed her spine where the swooping, low-cut back of the knee-length cocktail dress plunged daringly low. “He really said that? He said I’m important. That he cares about me?”

“Yeah.” Carys looked her up and down, then a broad, slow smile broke across her face. “Damn, Jordana. You just found your dress.”

Dubious, she turned to face the long mirrors again.

She hardly recognized the woman staring back at her. The sleeveless red dress clung in all the right places and showed just enough leg, yet still managed to look tasteful and sophisticated. In front, its draped neckline only hinted at her curves and cleavage, while the real show was in the back.

“My father will choke on his tongue if I walk into the exhibit opening in this dress,” Jordana mused. She shook her head and could hardly bite back her giggle when she pictured all of the stunned reactions she would stir. “Elliott will be completely scandalized—possibly apoplectic.”

Carys shrugged. “That’ll be their problem. You look amazing.”

Jordana studied her reflection, wondering if it was merely the powerful hue of the fabric that intensified the ice-blue color of her eyes and made her features seem somehow bolder, indomitable. Not the good girl held back by propriety and expectation but a fearless woman ready to take on the world.

Or maybe that fierce look came from the way thoughts of Nathan had her blood running hot and quick through her veins.

She felt different. Not simply because of her lost virginity and the incredible passion she experienced last night.

She
was
different.

Changed in a way she couldn’t quite define. It was as if she were evolving into a new skin, into a new sense of herself, and doing it at an accelerating pace that should have frightened her.

Yet it didn’t. She felt strong and alive. And all she knew was, regardless of where she was headed with Nathan, her life now could never go back to what it was before.

“Carys,” she murmured, “do you remember when I told you how Nathan makes me feel?”

“Of course I do.” Carys stared at her with clear-eyed understanding. “Like you’re on the edge of a cliff and he’s a storm about to sweep you over.”

“Yeah, like that. Well, last night … I did it. I stepped off.” Jordana sighed. “I stepped off with my eyes wide open and now I’m falling. What if no one’s there to catch me? What if what I’m feeling for Nathan is sheer, heedless stupidity and I end up crashing and burning on the ground?”

Carys smiled at her in the mirror. “Sweetheart, if Nathan sees you in this dress, the only one in danger of crashing and burning will be him.”

Nathan’s comm device vibrated just as he was about to drop his knuckles on Commander Chase’s study door at the Boston compound. Paused there, he frowned and glanced at the incoming message. Probably Rafe or another member of his team, wondering why he wasn’t down in the weapons room with them, putting the crew through their daily paces.

He stared at the number on the display.

It wasn’t any of the warriors.

Jordana
.

How the hell did she know his private call code?

Curious now, and more intrigued than he cared to admit, Nathan tapped the message open.

Hi. Carys gave me your number. Hope you don’t mind
.

Fuck
.

Yes, he did mind, but that didn’t keep him from scanning to the next short message, his veins going suddenly electric.

Can’t stop thinking about last night. About us
.

Neither could he, and the distraction was driving him out of his damned mind.

I can’t stop thinking about you, inside me
.

Holy fuck
.

Now that hot current racing through him arced sharply south, rendering him instantly hard. He shifted his stance, for all the good that did.

He had a crystal-clear mental image of Jordana lying naked and open
beneath him, and there was no way to relieve the pressure of his huge erection, which strained full and heavy in his fatigues.

Scowling furiously, he glanced to the next line.

I’ll be thinking of you at the exhibit party tonight too. Join me, maybe?

He didn’t miss the real invitation she was extending. Neither did his cock. Every blood vessel in his body lit up with eager agreement. As tempting as it was to pick up again where he and Jordana left off, Nathan growled and tried to push the idea out of his head.

He’d already let his hunger for her trump his good judgment. He may have jeopardized his team’s entire mission by taking Jordana’s virginity last night instead of bringing her in to take her statement as he would any other witness.

That was the reason he now stood outside Chase’s office, fully prepared to take whatever punishment he was due.

He’d placed his own selfish wants above his greater responsibility to his brethren last night. He couldn’t regret a moment of the hours he’d spent in Jordana’s bed, but the fact he’d done it in spite of the hard-won discipline he prided himself on—worse, that he pursued Jordana at the expense of his duty to his teammates—was a failure he intended to rectify by any means possible.

He read Jordana’s message again and groaned at his loss.

He would call her after his meeting with Chase and tell her not to expect him.

Dammit
. He was going to have to try to explain to her that the next time she saw him, it would likely be on instructions to collect her and hold her at the command center as a witness until the Order felt she was of no further use in their investigation.

He could only hope she wouldn’t despise him for not having that conversation with her before she surrendered to him so openly last night.

As he berated himself for that further failure, his comm vibrated with another incoming transmission.

No message this time. Just an image.

Jordana, in a red dress.

A sexy, back-baring, curve-hugging, stupefyingly hot red dress.

And she had to know how incredible she looked in it. Posed from behind in front of a full-length mirror inside her dressing room, she looked over her shoulder at the camera with an expression that was confident, provocative, utterly sensual.

And meant just for him.

Nathan’s fangs punched out of his gums and his already uncomfortable hard-on became unbearable. He stared at her photo in abject lust, his fingers clamped so tight around his comm unit, it was a wonder the device didn’t shatter. All the air left his lungs on a ragged exhalation.

“Holy. Fucking. Hell.”

Without warning, the door to Commander Chase’s study opened.

“Shit.” Nathan jerked his head up, at the same time casually but quickly stowing his comm unit in the pocket of his fatigues. As an afterthought, he shoved his hands into both pockets too, hoping the added bulk would conceal the very obvious evidence of his arousal.

His fangs and amber-flecked irises were equally difficult to hide.

“Nathan.” Sterling Chase’s shrewd blue eyes hit him like twin-focused laser beams, missing nothing. The commander’s deep voice was low, his mouth grave and unsmiling. “I reviewed the reports from your team’s patrol last night. I was just about to call you in here to discuss them.”

Nathan gave a grim nod. “I thought you might, sir.”

“Come in.” Chase turned and strode back to his desk inside the spacious office. “Close the door and sit down.”

Nathan did as instructed, taking a seat in one of a pair of leather chairs on the opposite side of Chase’s desk. Even though he’d arrived there of his own volition, he knew full well that this was a reprimand waiting to happen.

More than likely, Chase had already spoken with Lucan and the two Order elders had discussed his failing … and his fate.

Nathan waited in respectful silence for his commander to address him. And he was glad for the opportunity to wrestle his libido into submission—no easy feat when that image of Jordana dressed in flame red silk was burned indelibly into his mind.

Chase put his elbows on the surface of his desk and studied Nathan for a long moment. “We’ll talk about what the hell you think you’re doing with her—and why she’s messaging you on a secure comm port—after we cover our other business this morning.”

With that, Chase leaned back and pulled up Nathan’s patrol report on the touch-screen monitor perched on the edge of his desk. “As I said, I reviewed the team’s reports on Cassian Gray’s slaying last night. Disappointing, to say the least. Not only did he manage to elude our sweeps and shakedowns these past several nights, but his death provides the
public with a story they’ll be talking about for years. A beheading in the middle of the goddamned city of Boston?” Chase’s eyes crackled with angry sparks. “Fortunately, JUSTIS is operating in typical head-up-the-ass fashion, so they’ve officially declared it a random homicide, subject and motive undetermined. We know that kind of killing, not to mention the victim, was anything but random.”

Nathan inclined his head in agreement. “Whoever killed Cass knew what it would take to end him. They had to understand what he was.” Chase’s mouth pressed flat. “Or they are the same as he was. Atlantean.”

“That would be my guess,” Nathan said. “The question remains, why would someone—particularly one of Cass’s own kind—want him dead?” Chase grunted, his stare unwavering. “I’m informed there is a witness who saw Cassian Gray just hours before his death was discovered. A witness who did not seem to warrant a mention in any of the patrol reports. I wouldn’t have heard about this at all if Rafe hadn’t come to me with the information earlier this morning. Seems he wanted to shield a friend, so he omitted this crucial detail from his findings.”

Nathan struggled to keep his face neutral, but inside he was kicking himself. Damn Rafe for trying to protect him. Nathan hadn’t asked it of him; he would never have expected it.

“Fortunately for Rafe, his loyalty to the Order won out before the breach of trust was discovered on its own, or the consequences for him could be severe,” Chase said. He glanced over at the patrol report still displayed on the monitor. “I’ll deal with Rafe later. Right now, I want to know why this same witness isn’t noted on my patrol team captain’s report—which also wasn’t filed until daybreak this morning. I want to know why one of my best men, a warrior who’s served this unit faithfully, flawlessly, for more than a decade, suddenly decides to defy protocol.” Chase slammed his fist on the desk. “Dammit, I want to know why you’re practically forcing me to remove you from your command of the team.”

Nathan remained calm, knowing he had earned every bit of Chase’s fury. “I can offer no excuse. I failed my team and you. I can only give my word that it won’t happen again.”

Chase studied him silently with a long, measuring look. Then he blew out a harsh sigh. “What the hell are you doing, Nathan? Forgetting for the moment that Jordana Gates is currently a lead in an ongoing investigation
for the Order, she’s also a Breedmate, for crissake. How far do you intend to take things with her? You’ve already slept with her. What’s next? Am I going to find out you’ve blood-bonded to this female?”

Now Nathan’s schooled calm faltered slightly. His lip curled, the barest hint of a snarl. “All due respect, sir, but that’s none of your damned business.”

“The hell it isn’t.” Chase got up. He walked around the desk and sat on its edge, directly in front of Nathan. “This won’t do. You know that. The stakes are too high. If we’re soon to face another rising war—this time against an entire other race of immortals—then we can’t afford distractions. And Jordana Gates is a very big distraction for you. There’s too much at risk for you to allow an emotional entanglement to hamper your effectiveness.”

Although Chase couldn’t have known, the charge he leveled now was a direct hit to Nathan’s soul. Like a tide of black water, memories from his past swelled up around him.

The shattering impact of thick chains striking his back. The threat of sunlight breaking in through the weathered slats of the old barn’s roof where he and the other young Hunters were brought after lessons in obedience and duty had failed to teach them who—and what—they were meant to be.

You are a weapon
.

Crack!

Effective weapons do not feel
.

Crack!

Effective weapons do not bend. Not ever. Not for anyone
.

Crack!

Nathan said nothing, silently working through the vivid, unexpected recollection of his conditioning. He reached for the part of him that was the detached Hunter. The survivor who endured his merciless training and lived to find a better life for himself outside of that other, brutal, bleak existence.

But there was a part of him that would always recall the stench of spilled blood and urine and other offending body fluids … and taste the salty tears of a terrified, brutalized little boy.

“Nothing will hamper my effectiveness,” he murmured evenly.

Chase stared. “Do you love her?”

A quick, sharp denial sat on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t seem to spit it out.