And I am no longer Tiss…A delectable laugh escapes me. “I mean, you’re stillyou, but you’re not a woman. Not right now. The day before the lottery was the same.” Anticipation curls and twists in my belly. “So, who are you, priestess?”
The thread between us pulls taut before it ignites. My back arches up from the chair.
“Notthatquestion,” he growls. “Pick a different question.”
Bibi gives a low, guttural sound, plunging her beak into her plumage to groom herself.
But he didn’t deny it.The last tethers of my flagging self-control snap, revealing a steep rift where something primal, something wicked and dominant and insidious, lurks. Hulking, its features are indistinguishable.
This creature, I realize, is power. Beautiful, unfathomable might. And I amfascinated.
My hand draws upward, fingers skimming my stomach to my chest. “It’s all right.” I brush light touches over the delicate camisole covering my brassiere. “I won’t tell anybody, and I certainly don’t mind.”
“And I said I’m not discussing it,” he grits out. “So let it go. Or get out.”
Playfully petulant, I slide down on the chair, letting my knee-length skirt roll up under me until the humid air caresses my thighs.“Do you ever think about that day before the lottery? In the annex?”
Elodie makes a noise.
“Gods,” I sigh, letting my head drop onto the chairback, caressing my sensitive breasts. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Rapacious hunger dissolves my bones, engulfing me as if I’m tissue paper in a blazing hearth. My face and neck flush, my eyes sliding shut. I have no doubt I’m leaking pheromones like a fiend.
Atok-toksound comes from Bibi.
Elodie gives a choked gasp and rumbles, “Cut it out, Tiss.”
When my eyes fly open, he’s scowling at me, twisting obliquely to take me in from where he’s still kneeling by the planters. Realizing what I’m doing, his brows bunch low over chips of polished agate that bore clean through me.
“If you say so.” Holding his stare, I lower my hand. But there’s no going backward and no reining in the hungry predator that is no longer merelyinsideof me.
The predator hasbecomeme now.And I am famished beyond all reason…
Elodie’s gaze drops, fixating on my handiwork. My shirt is wide open over my chest, the chambray linen sliding down one shoulder. I know from experience that my nipples are subtly visible through my thin, white undergarments.
They strain against the fabric, puckered hard.
“So help me, Tiss.Theentiretemple can see you.”His nostrils flare. The glare that glides down my body isn’t unlike a threat.
I love every second of it.
“I believe your exact words were, ‘If I had my way, I’d pick you up right now, throw you on that desk’—”
“Enough.” Elodie shoots to his feet, rage radiating off of him in waves to rival the swirling motes. “Cover. Yourself. The fuck up.”
Bibi flexes her wings from her perch, neck extending with ahiss. The pots stacked behind her shake precariously.
“Now,” rumbles Elodie.
Gods help me, the monster inside responds with a booming, carnal howl that screams through my every molecule, severing the final fibers of decency I’ve been clinging onto—
Although, now that I think about it, I can’t rememberwhy.
“Mmm.” I run my hand down my body, reaching under my skirt and between my legs. “Come over here and make me.”
“Red,” barks Elodie. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Too late,” I sigh, caressing myself through soaking wet panties.
