Read NocC 018 - Kristin Miller - Forbidden by Fate - Harlequin 2012-07 for Free Online Page B

raven-black hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and, thanks to Damon, her cheeks were flush.

    “What?” She lifted her arms to the sides.

    “When I first saw you, I thought you were going to try to take me out,” Damon said with a laugh. “But your klutzy ass would’ve tumbled over the cliff before you laid a claw on me.”

    She punched him in the side, causing a laugh to spill out of him as he bowled over.

    “So now what?” she asked, as a gust of warm wind vaulted over the edge of the gorge and slammed into them. “Where do we go from here?”

    Once they soared into Timeless Gorge, Sasha would be in Draco territory. She’d be breaking the peace treaty by trespassing—a crime punishable by death. But since Damon had left neutral ground—the hot springs—one step back into the rain forest would call Were guards to his side.

    The starkness of their paths had never seemed more black and white. Her muscles tightened in response, hardening like they did when she shifted into wolf form and prepared for a fight. Startled from the instinctual response of being pinned down, Sasha shook her head, answering her own question.

    They couldn’t go anywhere. Not without persecution from one or both sides.

    The moment they moved from this ledge, they’d shatter shifter loyalty code to pieces and toss them away on the summer wind.

    “That’s the beauty of it,” Damon said, his gravelly voice smoother than normal. “As long as we’re making our own rules, we can go anywhere we want.” He snatched Sasha around the waist and twirled her into his arms, releasing butterflies into her stomach. As a squeal bubbled out of her, Damon hushed her busy brain by planting a feather-soft kiss on her lips. “But first, you’ve got to give me some space.”

    He needed to shift.

    “Of course.” Sasha’s world still felt like it was twirling around her. She retreated into the protection of the forest, more to breathe without the weight of his stare than to give him the room he’d demanded.

    Anticipation rummaged around in Sasha’s stomach, digging up memories of the last time she saw Damon in dragon form. He’d been a beast, massive and commanding, with soft, gray eyes that melted her heart. Would he look the same? And would her body react to him in the same primal manner as she straddled his middle? With flashes of heat scorching across her skin and a slow, delicious burn spreading between her legs?

    As Damon faced the gorge, every muscle still as stone, he stole a glance over his shoulder at Sasha. A mischievous smile slinked across his face, simmering the blood in her veins. Then he pulled off his coat and shirt and tossed them to the ground.

    Sasha sucked in a quiet breath and willed her heart to steady as she drank him in with hungry eyes. His torso was wide and bronze and bursting with twitching flanks of muscle. He was like a Greek statue, molded from gold, designed to take women to the peaks of pleasure from sight alone. From the trembling in her core, Sasha would’ve bet she wasn’t far off…

    But when Damon turned to the side and stripped out of his leather pants, giving Sasha an eyeful of every gloriously long inch of him, she gasped aloud, snapping his gaze back to hers.

    “Like what you see?” he asked, a playful smile curling his lips. Oh, how she wanted to feast on those lips again. “You can come over here and give me a hand if you’d like.”

    Without thinking, Sasha took a step onto the ledge, ready to rub her hands over his glistening body and crush her lips to his.

    Damon tossed his clothes and backpack at her feet.

    Thatwas the hand he’d referred to? Sasha slammed down her sexual thermostat.Typical male , she huffed, shoving his clothes into the bag as hard as she could. She should’ve thrown the bag back in his face. But a Draco rider would be responsible for her dragon’s clothes. A rider would sling his bag on her shoulder and allow him to shift without having to worry about