He cupped my cheek in his hand. “I want to. You’ve no idea how badly I want to sleep straight for the next two days so I can be here when you visit. But, like I said, Sterling’s having us take shifts. Next time you sleep, you get Ster. Probably for the best, too. He’ll be more useful than me. His advice might actually keep you alive.”
I leaned into Eros’ palm, my mouth curving into a smile against his warm skin. “You have your uses.”
His demeanor shifted in an instant, turning carnally insidious. “And how can I be of use to my queen?”
I matched his impish smirk with one of my own, baring my fangs and dragging them over his hand. His eyes turned to deadly slivers when I broke the skin and lapped up the few onyx beads his body shed.
“Distract me. Fuck me like the queen of the damned. Because I am, without a doubt, damned.”
And if whatever dark deity watched over someone like me didn’t take pity on my ass and started handing out miracles pronto, I was undoubtedly and unequivocally fucked.
My reaper moved fast. I was sitting across from him on his bed, and in the next beat, I was flat on my back, pinned beneath him.
His shadow swallowed me whole.
I sucked in a flayed breath. “What are you going to do to me?”
He waited a painfully long time to answer me, purposefully, probably, to watch me writhe beneath him as anticipation ate me alive. It was working.
“Eros. Please,” I panted. I was already wet. No, sopping. And he was barely touching me.
“Tell me what you want, baby.”
The question cut through the fog of lust that had descended on me. What I wanted? I wanted him. All of him. I wanted his wild, dark side that everyone kept warning me about, without all the softness he seemed to apply to his every touch.
I needed him raw.
I needed the version of him I knew existed. Until now, I’d been getting the training wheels version of Deathwish. I was coming into my vampire abilities more and more with each passing day.
I was ready for big-girl playtime.
“I don’t want vanilla sex,” I sputtered.
He laughed. “Like I even know how to fuck that way.”
“I mean, I need something that isn’t—normal. Something that would have Sterling clutching his rosary. We’ve acted out my darkest fantasies. Now it’s your turn.”
My mate blinked a few times, then his grin stretched ear-to-ear, brimming with mischief, and his gaze darkened with flecks of smoldering crimson. “My darkest fantasies could easily become your worst nightmares.”
“I seriously doubt that. Not unless your darkest fantasies involve me coming home to the manor in ruins, with yours and Corry’s bodies lynched and dangling from a nearby tree while the vampire king rapes Sterling on the rumble that was once the only true home I’ve ever known.”
Eros’ smile crumbled like the remains of my home in my darkest fears. “Damn...”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to shrug it off. “So don’t bother worrying about corrupting my mind. Anything you fill it with will be an improvement. Trust me.”
“Any specific requests?”
“Give me your worst.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I plan on giving you my best.” His hand slipped under my head as if to cup it tenderly. Instead, he fisted a handful of my hair and yanked my head back, pulling a whimper from me.
He gave a guttural laugh that sunk straight between my thighs. I clenched them together, trying to sate the ache, but he kicked them wide open with his knee, making me squirm as my hips searched desperately for the relief of friction. “Now, what does my little fuck doll scream when Deathwish’s cock becomes too much to handle?”
“Mercy.”
“That’s my good girl,” he drawled on a guttural rasp. Canting his hips, he nudged his pelvis into mine so I could feel his hunger.
I hissed a breath at the sudden pressure between my legs that jabbed into me harder than I expected. Holy shit. He was hard as a rock.
