CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Roman’s hands tighten around my hips, responding to my kiss by demanding access to my mouth, his tongue swirling across mine until I’m breathless.
He makes a satisfied rumble in the back of his throat as he traces the shape of my jaw, planting kisses along it to my earlobe, drawing it into his mouth before descending down my neck. Every touch sends a streak of pleasure all the way to my core as surely as if he’d stroked me. Reaching the neckline of my shirt, he kisses around it.
His hands find the base of my shirt, easing it upward to expose my stomach, his fingertips playing across my skin while his mouth travels across my collarbone, tasting the pulse at the base of my neck—the very pulse he taught me to use to find someone’s fear.
My own hands rise to his chest, then slide down to his waist. I want to explore his body as thoroughly as he’s exploring mine, but he grips my hands and places them firmly at my sides.
He smiles against my mouth as he says, “You prefer to remain in control, but this time between us isn’t to be controlled. Not by either of us.”
I take a quick breath, a delicious shiver of anticipation thrumming through me when he lifts my left wrist, brushing his thumb against the little rune there.
He has the power to control it, just as he can hijack my communication rune.
He lifts my wrist to his mouth, teasing my skin with his lips, drawing out the moment while I hold my breath…
“Unclothe,” he whispers.
My clothing disappears in an instant. All of it. Just as the rune was designed.
I’m barely breathing, startled, not by my nakedness, but by the way my power plays across my skin, the smoky whorls of darkness shifting as my chest rises and falls and as my heart beats—faster now.
Roman makes another deep, rumbling sound in his throat. He’s barely touching me, still kneeling between my legs, one hand encircling my wrist, but the sound of his satisfaction as he takes in all of me triggers my need.
He said that neither of us can control this moment and I can’t control what I want.
I meet his dark gaze as I slip forward, gliding my hand behind his neck, hooking one leg around his waist.
My mouth clashes with his, demanding his very breath.
Every decision I’ve made since the night I first saw him has been shadowed by a calculation of the odds of survival, the chances of someone I love being hurt, but even with all of my attempts to control my actions, my demon side has pushed forward.
Never so much as when I’m around Roman.
The first time he revealed that he could see my wolves, my darker half went haywire, robbing me of my caution. When he drew me away from Athella’s light, the demon power inside me sought shelter with him. Even having found a place of peace with him here in his home, it’s a peace my demon power aligns with.
Every damn time Roman looks at me, he tugs at my very soul.
My dark soul.
I give in to it now. Fully.
Tearing at his sweats, the tips of my wolf’s claws graze his hips, but he doesn’t flinch, the intense desire in his eyes matching my own. Within seconds, he’s risen to his feet and dispensed with his pants. He’s completely commando underneath, and I catch a brief glimpse of his bronzed thighs, powerful muscles, and an impressive hard length that I’m reaching for when he scoops me up as if I weigh nothing more than a few feathers from his wings.
We crash onto the bed, my hips at the bottom edge of it, but I realize it’s a controlled crash when Roman’s weight barely presses onto me before he adjusts his position, seamlessly kneeling on the bench at the foot of the bed. His big hands capture my hips, lifting them up and hooking my legs over his shoulders.
I gasp when his tongue slides up the inside of my right thigh and the coil of need tightens in my stomach—so tight that I tremble, my breath coming fast.
His tongue flicks over my clit, the briefest touch, making me moan, before he moves onto the inside of my other thigh. At the same time, his hands stroke my lower back, the backs of my thighs, sweeping across my skin before his fingertips brush my center.
When his mouth closes over me, I arch up even further, my arms sweeping up above my head so I can grip the smooth sheets and brace against his touch, giving into the sensation of his mouth and his hands on the most sensitive part of my body.
A moan wrenches from me when he slips first one, then two fingers inside me. Despite his assertion that he wouldn’t use his power, I feel it in every scintillating movement of his hand, in the warmth of his mouth. It’s an ever-present part of him, and it strikes through me.
Pure pleasure rides my body and my head empties of all my worries and doubts. All thoughts except of Roman.Rune.
I cry out when he breaks the contact with my body, the absence of his power like losing a part of myself without warning. My body is on fire, on the edge of an orgasm, so close to a release that I can’t quite reach. I wrench myself upward as he lowers my hips back to the bed, his smile daring me to make the next move.
