“How often do you come here?” I asked. The idea that this knowledge sat locked away in waste simultaneously repulsed and intrigued me. He was a mystery I still hadn’t been able to unravel.
“It gets used, librarian,” he murmured, the rich tone sending a shiver through me. “If not by me, then others.”
Who those “others” were remained yet another unknown about this man and this space, but I had a few ideas that circled around, some outlandish and others fanciful. I skimmed the titles on the shelves, and to my excitement, the classics weren’t the same old human ones found in Peregrine City’s library. No, this was a richer selection, many written in languages other than Common. I tugged at one with a deep red cover that featured white whorls like tangled roots. The language wasn’t one I recognized.
“Demonic,” he said. “You’re not going to find much monster representation in the libraries out in the cities or thecountryside. But the stories of my people deserve to have a home. They deserve to be shared.”
I swallowed hard, humbled in the wake of his words. When I thought about what we stocked, he was right. They were mostly human stories, human concerns. We didn’t have tome after tome from werewolf or harpy authors, or non-fiction books about issues pertinent to vampires or minotaurs. Truthfully, we barely had anything at all.
“Then I’m honored to be in the presence of a rare library such as this.” Hunger roared inside me to devour all these unfamiliar stories, all this information I’d never been exposed to. They were similar to the books that had been landing on my nightstand every once in a while.
When I glanced at him, hunger reflected back in his gaze. Except he only looked at me.
“You’re remarkable, Beau Taylor.” His words held a reverence to them I’d never experienced before, as if I were as sacred and breathtaking as this place. He took a step closer, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
I was unable to pull my gaze away, but I found I didn’t want to. Here, in this moment, a subtle tension was exposed, one that had lingered under the surface all along. The air thickened, as if with the secrets this room carried. As if with the laden potential that existed. As if with the sheer life that pulsed beneath the surface, begging to be set free.
I licked my lips, the unspoken words hovering in the air between us.
Mere inches remained between Cillian and me, and my whole body vibrated with the need to close the distance.
He was my jailer. My captor. My guardian.
And yet….
Cillian loomed over me and placed a hand on one of the shelves, bracing himself, and a dark thrill rose inside me as Istared up at him. One of us would walk away. One of us had to. His golden eyes roared with lust, his lips lush, full, and alluring. The magic that existed in this library wasn’t something that could be replicated—a quixotic brew of desire and curiosity. Of fear and lust. Of secrets and truth.
And god, I longed to be set free—if not from him, then through him.
He leaned down, and his lips met mine.
This wasn’t a mere kiss. It was a transformation. Cillian kissed with a firmness I craved, with a fervor I’d always longed for, and I surrendered to him at once.
One moment had always stuck out in my memory. We’d moved a lot growing up, just me and my father, and for as long as I could remember, I’d always lost myself in books, in imagination—in other people, other stories, ones that weren’t as lonely and sad as mine. And I’d never forget the earliest book I fell in love with. When my consciousness was no longer on this plane, my entire self immersed in the magic stirred up by the print on the page. The trembling anticipation, the shockwave of feeling so strong it couldn’t exist in real life.
Yet as those intense sensations, those intense emotions crashed through me, I discovered that they existed here in this kiss.
Cillian let out a low growl and grabbed my hip. With his quick motion, my back thudded against the bookshelf, and he crowded me against it. I loved how he loomed over me, how this predator reduced me to mere prey. His massive hand remained on my hip, radiating heat there, and he kissed me hard and fast again, leaving me dizzy in the wake. His scent consumed me as I drank it in with each gasped breath.
Cillian drove his tongue into my mouth, deepening the kiss. Yet his didn’t just lap against mine. No, his longer tongue trailed along mine with a slithering caress. My whole body melted fromthe way he teased, all while he continued kissing me over and over. His fangs scraped against my lower lip, and a gasp escaped me. My cock throbbed at the sensation, a sudden longing to feel those teetheverywhere.
A live-wire energy zipped through me, awakening parts of me, parts of my body that had been dormant my entire life. He kissed with as much demand as he lived in his normal life, yet he gave even more in return. Like this, sides of Cillian I never expected to see emerged, and I gladly handed myself over.
He pinned me there against the stacks with his hand on my hip, the firm wood digging into my back. His body pressed against mine, and his rigid length against my stomach lit me on fire. God, I was so hard my cock ached, the throb there growing more intense by the second. Cillian ravaged my mouth over and over again, with fangs, with his long tongue, with his lush lips. His kisses were consuming, drugging, and I wanted to lose myself in them.
The brush of his mouth against my sensitized skin, the puff of breath against me when we both pulled back for air—everything elevated me higher. I melted for him, my body putty in his hands as he took me apart kiss after kiss.
This was what I’d feared from the moment I met him.
Because Cillian didn’t kiss casually, he possessed, and from this moment on, I didn’t know how I’d be able to resist the draw. The low rumbles coming from him turned me on even more, and at some point I’d gripped his shirt, not even realizing I’d moved my hands to brace myself. Because as much as I’d fought this, I wanted him with every ounce of my being.
He nipped my lower lip again, the sting sending adrenaline through my bloodstream. My whole body sang under his dedicated assault on my senses. I wanted to roll around in his scent and lose myself in his heat.
Cillian drew back far enough that I could stare into his golden eyes, at the wildness there that had lured me in from the start.
He crooked a brow. “I’m not sorry.”
I licked my lips, a slight tang of copper there from how kiss-swollen they’d become. “Neither am I.”
