His golden eyes glaze over, scanning my face before his throat bobs with a heavy swallow.
“Nyxa,”I send my thoughts to her.“I’m going to need you to disappear for a bit.”
She chuckles softly somewhere deep in the back of my mind, the chuckle fading and fading, until it’s simplygone.
Fuck this “I can’t” shit.
I might die today.
We don’t know what the future holds.
What I do know is the way I feelright now.And what I feel can only be contained byhim.
So I kiss him.
And just like the first time, he doesn’t kiss me back.
Until…he does. He has me off the ground and pinned to the wall so fast, I don’t think a shooting star could have moved any quicker.
I groan as my shoulders collide with the hard stone behind them, but as an Essentari, I can already feel the slightly bruised skin start to heal.
Don’t hold back. I want to say because I need all of him, every part, as untamed as he can give me. I don’t want the masked version of him.
I wanthim.
He moans as his tongue lashes at mine, stroking the inside of my mouth as if he’s painting a canvas. Each brush, every flick, igniting a piece of me that I didn’t even know existed.
Our teeth clash as he moves me from the wall and drops me on the bed. I bounce, scrambling to catch my breath as he stares down at me. A panting, heaving mess that I need pressed against me in every possible way.
“Nova,” he says, breathing my name like a warning, but also like it’s the most sacred thing he’s ever said, and I know what’s coming next.
We can’t do this.I can almost hear his voice in my head, saying those four wretched words.
“We can. Right now, we can. And right now is all I care about, so kiss me, Ryjax, and don’t you dare stop until I tell you to.”
He looks at me, so torn and beautiful, and I can see it. The war that wages inside him. The darkness battling with the light. His need to do—what he would consider—the right thing. To not allow this desire to control him.
But what if thisisthe right thing? What if giving into this desire isexactlywhat we need to do? What webothneed to do?
There’s something here. Something happening between us, and I might not know exactly what it is, but I know I need to find out.
Weneed to find out.
Please, I mouth the word, too proud to say it out loud, and when his lips part and he sucks in a sharp breath, I know I’ve won.
He descends upon me, his shadows pouring from his sides, encircling me,us, completely,and I can feel them.Pressing against me in the most sensual way.
His mouth is everything I ever dreamed it would be, just like before. Warm and sweet, tasting of something I could never possibly get enough of.
He is a dream.
He is everything I never knew I wanted.
And I need tofeelhim.
As if reading my mind, he perches himself on one elbow and tugs his shirt over his head.
Flawless.
