“And unofficially?”
His mouth curled, a slow tilt of mischief. “Unofficially, we can do whatever we want.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
Samiel
Iclosed the fridge, bracing my palm on the door, and watched her devour the carrot. The way she chewed—quick, decisive, no hesitation—made me want to pin her against the stainless steel and see what else she’d bite. It had been literal decades since I’d wanted anything this much, and the feeling was both exhilarating and a little terrifying, like watching a storm charge up the valley toward your house and realizing it was never going to change course.
It was almost unfair how quickly she got under my skin. Her eyes held my gaze like the world had shrunk to a point between us, and when she bit into the carrot—deliberate, knowing—my body responded in ways I thought I'd trained out eons ago. Forty years of practice, and none of it prepared me for the taste of wanting. I wanted to chase her, to pin her, to see if her bravado would crack or just sharpen under pressure.
Instead, I followed her into the kitchen and feigned normalcy. She opened cupboards, found the espresso machine, and started the grind with the nonchalance of a woman who’dalready decided she’d outlive her captor. Her skirt swished behind her knees, plaid and crisp, and her shirt was cropped just enough to bare a line of ivory skin when she reached overhead. I wanted to taste it, and the thought shocked me enough to make my tail twitch, knocking a spoon to the floor.
She watched it spiral, then bent—graceful, deliberate, like she knew I was watching. Her hand caught the spoon before it finished clattering, and she set it back in the ceramic caddy with a flourish.
“So, Samiel. What’s on your bucket list for the three days? Besides the obvious.”
She dropped it right there—no innuendo, just a fact. At some point she’d be naked and screaming in at least one room of this house, and the only question was which of us would be in more danger when it happened.
I let my tongue flick just a little, watching her eyes track the movement. “That depends,” I said. “Do you want the real list, or the one I give the orientation committee?”
She set the portafilter back in the machine and leaned against the counter, arms crossed, the weight of her attention settling on my collarbones. “Show your work, demon. I’ll spot the lies.”
The honesty of her expectation was enough to make me nervous. I looked past her, out the window, at the blunt blue sky, then back down to the way her fingers drummed on her own forearm. “I want to see the lake,” I said, surprised to find it true. “I want to cook for you. I want to play chess and let you win at least once, just to see if you’re a good winner or a sore one.” It all spilled out as if I’d been rehearsing, though I’d never dared to believe I’d get this far, never let myself hope I’d get to want anything beyond the basic, carnal minimum.
She stared at me like she was waiting for the punchline. “That’s it? No bone-shattering, no world domination, no pranks on the mayor?”
I shrugged, feeling suddenly transparent. “I thought I’d have to work harder to seduce you,” I admitted. “But you don’t seem like the type who needs the hard sell.”
She cocked her head, rolled her eyes skyward as if consulting a demon herself. “Samiel, I hate to break it to you, but you had me at ‘industrial zipper.’” She took the mug, steam curling upward, and blew across the surface, treating it like the world's most dangerous potion. "Full disclosure, I’m not great at chess, but I promise to ruin your life in Scrabble." She held the mug between both hands, letting the heat scald her knuckles. Her gaze flicked to me again, unreadable.
Then, just as I opened my mouth to volley back, she cut in. “Sam, you want to fuck me, right?”
It was so blunt I almost dropped the cup I’d just pulled from the shelf. I’d spent forty years on Earth, witnessed human courtships conducted in coded language and cowardice, and here she was, stripping it to the bone and tossing it at my feet. Every layer of practiced charm dissolved under her stare. I opened my mouth and tasted the word before I said it.
“Yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” She never raised her voice, but the words landed like a thrown gauntlet, soft and deadly.
I rounded the island in three long strides, and she didn’t move, didn’t flinch, just watched me with a half-smile that bared all her sharp little teeth. I touched her jaw with one hand, feather-light, testing; she tilted her head up, not yielding so much as inviting. Her pulse leapt under my fingers, wild as a trapped bird, and the hunger in me flared so bright I nearly lost my grip on the old self-control I'd been honing since Reagan was president.
Her mouth parted and I kissed her, slow at first—testing, then devouring. She tasted like burnt sugar and adrenaline and something sharp, like the white of a lemon rind. Her hands went straight for my shirt, curling in the collar and hauling me closer, a move so confident it made me want to laugh with delight. But I didn’t, because already she was nipping at my lower lip, and all the air in my brain was being replaced by her.
She broke the kiss first, but only to breathe, and when she did, she grinned up at me with such outright challenge that it kindled something feral under my sternum. I curved my palm to the back of her neck, letting my claws just barely graze her skin.
“If you want me to stop,” I said, “now’s your last chance.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed, not in suspicion but in pleasure. “I’ll let you know if you get close,” she said, and then she was pulling my face down to hers again, greedy for more.
I caged her in against the counter, wings spreading for balance, tail flicking behind me like an exclamation point. She tasted me back, tongue darting quick and sure, and I let my own forked tongue slip out in return, a ticklish, forbidden thing I’d always been careful to hide. I could split it further up at will, or keep it just as a forked tip. I wondered how she’d prefer it. She startled at the touch—a tiny, involuntary sound in her throat, half-laugh, half-moan—and I nearly bit through my own lip. She pressed closer, her hands sliding up my chest, over the ridges of old scars and down along my ribs, winding under my shirt with no hesitation.
"Jesus," she said, when she finally surfaced, her breath gone ragged. "That thing you do with your tongue?—"
I grinned, showing all my teeth this time. "Most mortals run from that," I said, and laid my forked tongue out for her, a slow, deliberate display. Both ends curled, tasting the air, then slid back in.
"Yeah, well," she said, eyes fixed on my mouth, "I'm not most mortals." She bit her own lip as if she wanted to prove it, then said, "Do it again."
