This thought terrified me, and I shuddered.
I didn’t want to think about the future, not when I could enjoy the present and being accepted despite who I’d become, so I crushed her mouth to mine, snarling at the contact. Her softness and purity unraveled me, as if something inside built with pressure until she became my relief valve. I teased her lips with my tongue, silently asking to be let in, fully and completely.
She complied.
Sliding my hands along her spine, I kneaded the smooth flesh of her shoulder blades.
“I love the way you feel,” I whispered between kisses, unable to sate the burning need filling my veins. “I never want to let go.”
After a few seconds, she pulled back a bit, her breathing as harried as mine.
I refused to open my eyes because I wanted to stay in the moment. I gripped her harder, fighting an urge to force her mouth to my lips, to claim what was mine, what wouldalwaysbe mine. I wanted everything she had to give—her kindness, her lust, her gentle words, and her love.
Tonight, she’d sign everything over to me—not just her soul, but her thoughts, her heart, her body. I wanted to devour her very essence like night swallowing the day.
This is the only way I can move past what I crave so I can focus on my task.
Once I possessed her in every way imaginable, the unexplainable thirst I had for this woman would be sated and I could dump her into Lucian’s lap.
“I feel the same way,” she said, brushing her lips against my chin. “There’s a need in me to feel your warmth, to hold you forever.”
Hugging her tighter, I moved my hands to her round, firm ass and stood.
She wrapped her legs around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “I don’t care what you’ve done, Cain, because I can still sense the decency in you. Let it out tonight, if only for me.”
Growling in response, I leaned down and flipped her onto her back, pushing my body above hers. “I want so much from you, Precious. Should I blink us to my bedroom?” I hovered over her, my arms straining at the control. I wanted nothing more than to strip her bare and run my hands over her skin, to swallow her sighs, to possess her so thoroughly she’d be ruined for anyone else.
“No, I want to be out here with you.” She smiled and pushed the strap of her dress down a shoulder, revealing moon-kissed flesh. “Under the stars, in the open.”
Sucking in a breath, I didn’t need any more incentive to take what she offered so freely.
After all, this was my purpose, wasn’t it? To break her apart so I could be made whole again.
Chapter 22
Phoebe
