“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself.”

“Always.”

“Oh, and give that scientist a kiss for me.”

Not a chance in hell.

“You should know by now, Wolfe, I don’t share,” he growled.

Chapter Six

Angela was impressed.

So this was what a kitchen was supposed to look like, she wryly acknowledged.

It was more than the hand-carved cabinets, granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances. It was the heavy oak dining table in the center of the ceramic tiled floor and the matching china cabinet that displayed the prized dishware.

This was a place where families gathered to share meals and laugh away the troubles of the day.

It wasn’t a makeshift lab for a distracted scientist. Or a place for a child to sit alone with dinner from the microwave while her mother was flirting with her fellow drunks at the nearest bar.

She squashed the ridiculous pang. She wasn’t that lonely ten-year-old girl anymore and she was perfectly happy with her private apartment and her kitchen filled with microscopes.

Pulling a water bottle from the fully loaded fridge, she was debating between a salad and a tuna sandwich when a husky voice whispered in her ear.

“Did you find anything to tempt your appetite?”

With a muffled shriek she turned to glare at the man towering over her.

“Dammit,” she muttered, pressing a hand to her racing heart. “You really need to wear a bell.”

He flashed his rare, bone-melting grin. “Kinky, but whatever turns you on.”

She swallowed a groan as desire blazed through her with stunning force.

Even furious with his betrayal and unnerved by the disruption of her peaceful life, she still wanted him with a raw, aching need that was frightening.

Against her will her gaze drank in the lean, starkly beautiful face and stunning blue eyes that studied her with an unwavering intensity. His hair was even more ruffled than usual and her fingers itched to smooth the dark strands that shimmered like copper in the fading afternoon sunlight.

Then they could travel down to discover if his body was the chiseled perfection she’d always fantasized.

Abruptly realizing his eyes had darkened, as if he could actually sense her disturbing awareness, she shut the fridge door. Instantly she stepped back as his heat wrapped around her.

“How long did you have to practice sneaking up on people?” she breathed, shivering at the prickles that raced over her skin.

“It’s a natural talent.” He closed the tiny space between them, reaching to pluck the water bottle from her hand and tossed it into the recycle bin. “One of many.”

She licked her dry lips. “Is modesty another natural talent?”

“No, but this is.”

He leaned down to capture her lips in a kiss of sheer possession.

“Niko,” she muttered, the breath squeezed from her lungs as he wrapped his arms around her, moving slowly, as if to give her ample opportunity to step away.

Or perhaps he was worried his superior powers would frighten her, she realized as he gently tugged her against him.

Tilting back her head she met his smoldering gaze.

“Tell me no and this ends now,” he husked.

Her lips parted, but the word was stuck in her throat. “I thought you wanted dinner?” she instead hedged.

His hand shifted to her lower back, pressing her against the thickening length of his arousal.

“You know what I want.”

She shivered, her hands lifting to rest against his chest. “Do I?”

His tongue traced the curve of her lower lip. “I can demonstrate if you need clarification.”

Oh, she wanted him to demonstrate.

She wanted him to rip off her clothes and take her in a glorious storm of pagan passion. She wanted him to kiss her with a hunger that would drown out the voice of insecurity that whispered in the back of her mind.

“It seems—”

“What?”

“Convenient.”

“Convenient?” He made a sound of disbelief. “Trust me, lusting after a female for six weeks is anything but convenient.”

“If you were so overwhelmed with lust you hid it well enough. I did everything but spread myself naked on the lab table and you couldn’t have shown less interest.” She lowered her gaze, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment at the memory of her awkward flirtations and his blatant apathy. He’d only reinforced her opinion she was lacking the mysterious quality that attracted the opposite sex. “Now, when you need my cooperation, you suddenly find me irresistible.”

“Angel, look at me,” he said, cupping a hand beneath her chin, urging her face up to meet his eyes that were darkened with regret.

“I’m looking,” she muttered.

“It might not have been my intention to hurt you, but I did,” he said softly. “You felt betrayed by my charade; can you imagine how much worse it would have been if I’d given in to my desire and taken you to my bed? Not even I am that much a bastard.”

The resentment she’d been nursing for the past few hours faltered at his low words.

“So it was for my own good?”

His gaze slid to her mouth. “It certainly wasn’t for mine.”

He had a point, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. She wasn’t sure she’d ever have been able to forgive him if he’d actually taken her as a lover while he’d been lying to her.

Still, that didn’t mean this wasn’t just another game.

“If you say.”

He frowned. “You can’t doubt my desire for you?”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t be the first man to want to be ‘just friends,’” she said dryly.

“Christ, Angela,” he breathed. “As much as I want to be your friend, I’m desperate to make you my lover.”

Her heart missed a beat as she met his brooding gaze. “Desperate?”

Without warning he grasped her wrist and pressed her hand against the thick length of his erection.

“Tell me, angel, does this feel desperate to you?” he growled.

Her suspicions were seared away as her fingers curled around the impressive bulge. Even through the heavy material of his jeans she could feel the pulsing heat and straining urgency of his need.

It was intoxicating.

Her mouth went dry as her stomach clenched with excitement. She’d never understood why women rushed to the window when the football team jogged past wearing nothing more than gym shorts. The male body was a collection of vital organs surrounded by muscle and bone and hard-wired to a brain that allowed it to function.

It wasn’t until this man entered her lab that she got it.

Just being near Niko was like being plunged into an electrical storm. The heat, the sizzle in the air, and the prickles of anticipation that warned she was about to be struck by lightning.

And worse, her brain shut down until all she could think about was wrapping herself so tightly around him he could never escape.

Dangerous, dangerous sensations.

Her fingers slid down his erection, her heart skipping a beat as he seemed to grow even bigger.

“It feels—”

“Yes?” he groaned, his hands gripping her shoulders as if he wasn’t convinced his knees would hold him.

Angela felt a strange jolt of . . . what was it? Female power?

He wanted her.

Truly wanted her.

Of all the lies he told her this wasn’t one.

“Large,” she murmured.

He gave a choked laugh, his face tight with his barely leashed desire.

“Should I be flattered?”

Her awkwardness was forgotten beneath the heady realization that she could affect this man with a mere touch.

“Not really, I don’t have much to compare it to,” she admitted. “As I said, I’ve never been the kind of girl that attracts the opposite sex.”

“Only because mortal men are blind.”

She snorted. “All of them?”

He studied her upturned face with an undisguised hunger that squeezed the air from her lungs.

“If they had the superior senses of a Sentinel they would have seen what I see.”

“And what’s that?” she managed to ask.

He lifted a hand to tug the scrunchie from the messy remains of her ponytail.

“Thick, sable hair that starts out prim and proper in the mornings, but during the day sexy little tendrils escape to play against your long, utterly kissable neck.”

She trembled as his fingers threaded through the loose strands of her hair.

“Oh.”

He growled low in his throat as he lifted a fistful of hair to press it to his nose, breathing deeply of the apple shampoo she used.

“Do you know how many hours I devoted to fantasizing about releasing your hair from its bondage so it could spread across my pillows?”

“Bondage?” The word came out as a croak as she all too easily pictured being handcuffed to Niko’s bed, her body a willing slave to the promise of paradise.

Keeping one hand tangled in her hair, he used the other to gently trace the sensitive skin of her temple.