“What do you want to hear? A promise that I’ll never leave?”
His hips press forward at that—slow, almost tender—and my head tips back.
“That you don’t want to,” he breathes, teeth grazing my throat. “Start with that.”
His fingers roll my nipple, the pinch measured, syncing with my pulse. How can someone be this obscene in the smallest of gestures? It’s like he was made for fucking, and for living too fast.
“I don’t—” my voice catches, “—want to.”
“Yeah? You want to stay by our side, right? Want to be fucked nice and messy by us all as often as you’d like?”
I’m going to regret this. Fucking hell, I’m going to regret this man. But I’m already too far gone. My fingers tighten in his hair, and all I can think about is how good it feels—
To be wanted like this.
To be craved so hard he can’t handle it.
Throwing a fit because he doesn’t want to lose me.
“You slut-shamed me for it,” I whisper, my last restraint teetering between us.
His mouth stills against my throat. Just for a second.
“I know, baby,” he admits. “I’m a fucking fool. A pretentious, unfair little bitch. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
His hips roll forward again, harder this time, and the angle sends a jolt straight through my core. I bite back a gasp, nails scraping against his scalp.
“Will you forgive me?” he asks. “Take pity on this creep who’s losing his mind over you?”
Gods, I can’t expect healthy problem-solving from an actual murderer, can I? But he needs to know he doesn’t have me completely. Not like this.
“I don’t want to be owned,” I say.
“Not even by three men, all equal?”
My pulse spikes. He isn’t joking. His voice is low, certain, like he’s already imagined it: some kind of unholy balance between the three of them. Me with all of them. Claimed in ways that have nothing to do with Death, or Mark, or our pasts. Or just sex. He meansmore.
“Not owned,” I breathe, dragging my nails harder through his hair. “Shared… maybe. But not owned.”
“Shared,” he echoes. “That I can live with. Now please, baby… Tell me what I want to hear.”
My lips part, the truth trembling on the tip of my tongue. I want to keep my walls, keep my cards close. But then his fingersslip lower, tracing the waistband of my sweatpants, and all I can think about is how dangerous it feels to want him this much.
“Show me how it would be…” My voice drops to a whisper. “...if I stayed.”
The look that crosses his face is pure sin wrapped in triumph.
“You got it.”
Talon’s mouth is hotter than sin. He distracts me with it so completely that I’m caught off guard when he bends his knees, hooks his hands behind mine, and lifts me, never breaking the kiss.
My legs lock around his hips, instinctive and tight, and he grins against my mouth like he knows exactly what that does to me.
Newsflash: he doesn’t. I don’t think he’s capable of understanding just how much I want him right now. He’d have to die and come back to life to get it. But maybe he catches a fraction of it, because he needs my touch, too.
“Hold on to me,” he murmurs against my lips, and before I can ask what for, he takes us off the steps and onto the cracked pathway, weeds pushing up through the concrete.
Cold air bites at my cheeks, but it doesn’t matter; not with Talon’s mouth back on mine like he’s starving.
