"You're a blood reader," she replied. "You never knew what your ability was?"
He shook his head. "Dragos made sure all of his assassins knew as little as possible about their heritage or the things that might make them unique. I didn't know my talent until Vachon's foul blood awakened it."
And now he knew her degradation. Good lord, could he possibly have seen all the beatings and violations? Did he see how she'd been stripped and broken, forced to endure unspeakable torture along with the other captives trapped in Dragos's prison cells?
Corinne turned away from Hunter, feeling exposed. She felt dirty and ashamed, embarrassed that he had this awful, ugly knowledge of her ordeal that even she wasn't quite prepared to confront. She drifted into the bedroom, needing space to catch her breath, collect her thoughts.
She didn't realize Hunter had followed her until she felt the warmth of his hands come to rest lightly on her shoulders from behind her. He turned her around to face him. He offered no words, simply wrapped her in his arms and held her against the heat and strength of his body. Corinne clung to him, too needful of the solid protection of his arms to deny herself the comfort of feeling him holding her close. Hunter bent his head, brought her mouth up to his. He kissed her, a slow melding of his lips on hers. His bare chest was warm and velvet-soft under her palms. She felt the faint, raised pattern of his dermaglyphs, felt the quickening of his heartbeat pounding beneath her roaming fingertips.
She drew back from his kiss and met his hooded gaze. His golden irises were hot with amber, their pupils thinning rapidly as the air quickened with the heat of desire. She knew where this was heading. To her astonishment, the thought didn't terrify her as she expected it would. But she couldn't pretend that she was prepared, or that she knew how to touch him - how to be with him - the way another woman might.
He kissed her again, and she felt the gentle graze of his fangs against her lip. Beneath her hands, his glyphs were pulsing and alive, his breath sawing swiftly in and out of his lungs.
"Hunter, wait ..." She could hardly find the words, but she needed him to understand what being with him meant to her. "I haven't done this before. You know what happened while I was ..." She couldn't say it. Couldn't speak the words that would allow Dragos and his sick deeds into this moment that belonged to her and Hunter alone. "You need to understand that I haven't ever ... made love."
He stared at her, something dark and possessive in his hooded, amber-gold gaze. "Neither have I." He gave a slow shake of his head as he tenderly stroked her cheek. "There has been no one, not ever."
Corinne swallowed, struck mute for an instant. "Never?"
His touch traveled along the tilt of her chin, then skated softly across her lips. "Intimacy was forbidden. It was a weakness to want physical contact. It was a flaw to desire anything, especially pleasure." He kissed her again, and a low growl rumbled deep in his chest. "I never knew what it was to crave a woman's touch. Or to hunger for a woman's kiss."
"And now you do?" she asked hesitantly.
"Since I met you, Corinne Bishop, I've been thinking of little else."
She couldn't hold back her smile at that confession, despite that he said it with more than a little bemusement. Perhaps even a trace of annoyance. She reached up and twined her fingers around his nape. He took the cue and bent his head to catch her in another deep kiss. This time, it was searing. She felt his passion in the hungry way he covered her mouth with his and in the erotic demand of his tongue as it swept along the seam of her lips, pushing inside as soon as she parted them to draw a shallow breath.
She moved with him, letting him draw her toward the bed. He peeled away the robe as he guided her down onto the mattress, then spread out next to her. Lips still locked together, hands still exploring each other with avid interest, Corinne felt his fingers trace one of the scars that riddled her torso. Most had healed with the forced ingestion of the Ancient's blood, but there were others, wounds that had been inflicted with the intent that they'd be permanent. Wounds meant to break the spirited young woman who'd fought her subjugation for longer than had been wise.
"Don't," she whispered, her voice choked and anxious. "Please, Hunter ... don't look at them. I don't want you to see everything that's ugly about me. Not tonight."
She hoped to feel his touch move away from the hideous marks, but instead it lingered. He drew up onto his elbow and slowly took her in from head to toe. His hot gaze took its time studying the scars left behind from frequent electrical torture and the various punishments that had often gone on for weeks without end.
She knew how terrible she must look to him, but Hunter was gazing at her with open admiration, as though she were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
"Nothing about you is unattractive to me," he murmured. "The scars are just scars. Your body is soft and strong, perfect to me. I could never tire of looking at you. I know I could never tire of touching you like this."
As though to emphasize his point, he brought his head down to her torso and kissed the worst of her flawed skin. Slowly, he worked his way up to her mouth and pressed another achingly possessive, dizzyingly hot kiss to her lips.
His glyphs were surging with dark color now, the elegant tangling of his Gen One patterns alive with indigo, gold, and wine - all the lush colors of Breed desire. Corinne touched the beautiful swirls and arcs, tracing her fingers down across his abdomen, where the otherworldly skin markings disappeared beneath the waistband of his fatigues.
She ran her fingertip along the edge of the loose black pants. Heat permeated into her palm as she tentatively moved her touch a bit lower. Beside her ear, Hunter let out a low groan. His big hand came down over hers, his long fingers engulfing her, pressing her caress toward the hard ridge of his erection.