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Could that be love? Faith knew it was more than Jacob had ever given another living person. His reputation, even among the Breeds, was for mercilessness against the enemy, and cold hard resolve in all matters. She knew he had backed down many times in the face of her hormonal mood shifts and her anger. Had another Enforcer, male or female, challenged him as she had, he would have reacted much differently. His men weren’t wary of him for no reason.
“Will you let me love you, Jacob?” she finally asked him softly. “I need that much. At least that much, Jacob, or I can’t survive. ”
Chapter Twenty-Four
If he had a heart, it would have broken at that moment. Pain sliced through Jacob’s soul, ripping through his body, clenching every bone and muscle in an agony of protest. Her voice was soft, so gentle and sweet it destroyed him. And in it, he heard her love. As though her soul had opened and from it the nectar of an emotional banquet poured. It washed over him. It seeped into scars and wounds he never knew he had, deep within his own soul.
His eyes grew moist as he held her to his chest, sheltering her smaller body, wanting nothing more than to protest all the innocence and belief she still held. Still. Even after the life she had been raised in. Even after all the cruelties she had seen since their escape. Still, Faith believed in love. She made him want to go to his knees and beg her to let him in on the secret of holding onto that belief. How had she stayed so soft, so delicate inside and out, when he was so hard, so bitter? What act of supreme mercy had saved her?
He didn’t know. But as he held her, he thanked God with everything inside him that she had been protected. That somehow His hand had sheltered her, protected her, held her heart intact.
“You humble me, Faith. ” He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t understand the twisting morass of emotions tearing him apart now.
Unfamiliar emotions. Feelings and sensations he had never known in his life. Equal parts gentleness and sharp chastisement, it flooded his body and his mind as nothing else ever had.
“I don’t want to humble you, Jacob. I want to love you. ” Her hands moved over his back, her nails scratching erotically across the material covering him.
He barely stifled his groan. The scent of her need had increased. As though her emotional storm were somehow tied to the intensity of her arousal. It beckoned him, drugged him until he could think of little else but sinking his cock deep inside her body. But there was a part of his soul that eased as well. Faith was his mate, and in her voice, in her actions, she had accepted him, even without the love that he knew she needed as well.
“You are everything to me. ” He fought his need to ease her, to give her whatever she desired, just because she desired it. But hell, what did he know of love, besides what she had showed him? And God knew, he had never given her the devotion, the depth of sacrifice she had given him for six years.
“It’s okay, Jacob. ” She shook her head to give him the escape he knew he needed.
But he also knew it wasn’t all right. He was failing her. He couldn’t fail her, not Faith. Not again.
“If I knew love, then I know all I would have would be for you,” he whispered desperately. “If my heart were intact, then it would be filled with nothing but my love for you, Faith. ” He held onto her, his arms tightening around her as he felt her breath hitch, felt her tears against his chest. “Dear God in Heaven, Faith, I cannot bear hurting you. Please. Please, trip me on my ass again or something. Anything. But do not cry over me. ”
“Not over you, you buffoon. ” She pushed away from him, wiping desperately at her cheeks as she stared up at him. “I’m crying for you. There’s a difference, you know. ”
She was beautiful. Such a beautiful work of nature that she held him spellbound. Her face was flushed, her eyes so dark and wondrous sparkling with tears and emotions until they seemed filled with a thousand pinpoints of light. A frown drew her auburn brows low over her eyes, and her mouth, so perfectly formed, hinted at just the smallest pout. He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Had never wanted anything or anyone in his life as desperately as he wanted Faith right now.
“Then don’t cry for me, either. ” He shook his head, feeling mesmerized by her. “Dammit, Faith. ” He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling adrift, lost in an emotional abyss he had no idea how to navigate. All he knew was that this was Faith, and that where it mattered most to her, he could feel himself failing her.
There was no way to apologize. No words that could express the wrenching emotional sensations so unfamiliar to him. He did the only thing he knew how to do. Fought to ease it the only way he knew how.
He jerked her into his arms, his lips covering hers, halting any more words, any more tears from her. His tongue pushed past her surprised lips, sweeping into her mouth with a desperation he could barely control. He needed her. Had
to have her. He felt an overriding compulsion to imprint the taste and feel of his body upon her mind in a way she could never deny. In a way that would reassure her. Tempt her. Complete her.
Jacob felt her hands grip his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh as she moaned into his kiss. She was hot and addictive. Sweetness and innocence and a sultry temptation that drove him insane.
He ate at her mouth, her lips, her tongue. The touch of her, the taste of her was burning into his soul. He needed more, needed her so hot, so desperate for him that she would never leave, never regret her love for him. Never regret that he didn’t know how to love.
“Jacob. ” Her cry was music to his soul. Filled with hot need, dazed arousal. She made him feel like a conqueror, a rescuer. She made him feel alive. And Jacob knew that until she had walked into that dirty little bar, her arousal pulsing with each heartbeat, he hadn’t lived. Not really. His life began with that night.
“I need you now,” he growled as he tore his lips from hers, sweeping a path down her neck as his hands pushed beneath her shirt once more. “Right now, Faith. ”
Her breasts were hard, swollen, tipped with pebble hard nipples that pleaded for his attention, his caress. He tweaked the little points, glorying in her heated cry for more. She pressed closer to him, arching against him as she moaned deeply. And Jacob could do no more than give her what she needed so desperately.
He turned, his hands maneuvering her as his lips nipped at her neck, at the mark he left on her. The sensual little brand that marked her as his mate. His woman.
The door to the living room was closed, he knew none of his Enforcers would dare disturb him, but he was to the point that it wouldn’t matter if they did. He couldn’t stop. He had to be inside her, deep and tight, her muscles searing him as she climaxed around him.
She whimpered. A needy, breathy little sigh that made his blood pressure skyrocket and his cock jerk in response.
“Right here,” he whispered, hearing the desperation in his own voice as he turned her in his arms, bending her over the back of the chair.
“The chair?” Amusement and lust vied for supremacy as she wiggled her butt at him.
