I pull back to look up at him at the same moment his hand rises, and his rough palm brushes a streak of wetness from my cheek.
“You don’t want the alternative,” he murmurs, the words hushed but heavy, warning edged into every syllable. His gaze pins me, sharp and unflinching even as his thumb ghosts another tear away. “Not with me. Not like this.”
It takes me a moment to catch my breath and to understand his words through the haze of my grief. He isn’t talking about comfort. He’s talking about the only outlets he knows being fighting or fucking. Coping mechanisms that burn brightly enough to keep the unwanted emotions at bay, but never long enough to extinguish it.
The knowledge should make me recoil, but a desperate part of me rises up sharp and undeniable, because this is exactly what I want at this moment. Anything to stop the memories from replaying, anything to drown out the thought of her screams tearing through me until I feel them in my bones.
I don’t care if it’s toxic. I don’t care if it’s only a temporary reprieve that leaves me hollow after.
“I need this, Eli,” I breathe out, voice hoarse but threaded with certainty as I clutch at the front of his shirt. “I need to feel something besides pain. I need my brain to be forced into silence.”
The hand that had been cradling my cheek shifts in an instant, his fingers sliding into my hair until they tangle deep, the grip firm enough to sting against my scalp. He doesn’t let me stand free another second, tugging me up onto his body as his boots crunch against the broken belongings scattered along the floor.
The breath is knocked from me as the wall meets my back. He crowds the space between us, broad shoulders cutting off the room, the heat of his body searing against mine until I can’t tell if I’m shivering from the chill of the stone against my back or from the proximity of him.
His palms are wide as they grip my ass fully, and the memory of his hard length beneath me as I fed him my blood comes hurtling back.
His head dips, the scrape of his jaw brushing my temple as he leans down until his mouth hovers just above my ear. “It’s only a bandage,” he rasps out, voice edged with a desire I’ve never heard in him. The words are as much a warning as they are a promise, and it lights my body up, flooding my mind with the exact distraction I need.
“The pain you want to forget will still be there in the end,” he warns. “It might even feel worse.”
My hands lift to tangle in his damp hair, pulling him back enough to stare into his eyes.
“So make the temporary relief worth it,” I whisper before sealing my lips to his.
CHAPTER 27
BRIAR
His mouth crashes to mine and it feels like sparks leap up my spine as heat scorches away the cold that’s encapsulated my heart since the portal snapped shut. His returned kiss feels like a claiming as his hand leaves my hair to find the base of my throat. My head tilts back to deepen the kiss as his fingers tighten, and the feeling of my breath being stolen scrapes against the raw ache in my chest until it almost feels like relief.
His body crowds mine, all broad shoulders and heat, his hand tightening around me like he’s anchoring me to the here and now. The dizzying feeling of it twists the knot of need tighter in my stomach.
I should shove him off and remind myself who he is. That he’s the last person I should ever let in like this after the hell I lived through because of him and his family. Instead, my fingers fist in his shirt, dragging him nearer, because right now hatred feels a lot like oxygen and I desperately need it.
His lips bruise mine as I open for him, his tongue pushing past my defenses like he’s been waiting for this exact moment of surrender. My pulse hammers so fast I swear he must be able to feel it through our brushing chests. My body arches againsthim like it’s been waiting for this moment too–traitorous and desperate, betraying me with every shiver.
His thigh forces between mine, denim scraping against my sensitive bundle of nerves, and the shock of it knocks a small gasp from me. Heat curls low within my core and my hand drops from his hair, letting my nails drag across his broad shoulders, catching on hard curves of muscle.
“You think you need silence, but you don’t really,” he breathes out against my lips, panting slightly like he’s been committed to breathing me in instead of oxygen.
His mouth dips to drag along my jaw then, grazing softly enough to make my breath stutter until his lips rest at the shell of my ear once more. “What you need is for someone else to own every sound you make. You need me to be theonlyreason any cries pass your lips.”
A tremor rolls through me, because he’s right. That’s exactly what I want…to drown, to burn, to let him pull every scream from my throat until there’s nothing left to feel.
I should say no, but I can’t.
My nails drag down to the hard plane of his chest, the vibration of his heartbeat slamming under my palm. My lashes flutter as I look up at him and whisper, “And you think you’re up to the task?”
I barely recognize the husky tone of my voice, but I don’t question the desire that overtakes my mind and body.
His forehead presses to mine, close enough now that our breaths mingle. Heat crackles in the narrow space between us, every exhale fanning across my lips until I can’t tell if the trembling in my body is from rage, grief, or the way he looks at me.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs, pulling back enough to sweep his eyes over me. His gaze pins me, unflinching. “And to think I haven’t even placed my tongue on you yet.”
What he offers is obliteration, the kind that swallows the ache whole until nothing else exists but the fire between us.
And god help me for giving into these urges at the worst possible moment of my life, but I need it.
