“You wanted me dead,” he growls.
“Wanted?What makes you think I’ve changed my mind?”
Our eyes meet, his breath hot against my skin.
I slam my fists against his chest, forcing him to retreat. “Tell me the truth. Was this all a game to you? Did it amuse you to toy with me, knowing you were the very monster I hunted?”
“No,” he breathes, fury lighting the amber in his eyes. “Did I deceive you? Yes. But not for amusement’s sake, but because for one fucking moment I wanted to be something other than the monster. When you looked at me, for the first time I saw no fear in a woman’s eyes. Because of you, I knew want when all I have ever known is duty. And I knew I could never have you. I knew you would despise me. I knew you would be my ruin. And I triednotto touch you. But this?” He grips my chin, capturing my face. “This was never the lie, Zyla. This fire between us burns hot, and even if it is fueled by the fury of your hatred, you can’t deny you want me too.”
“Never,” I hiss. Pain explodes where my golden tattoo sits, and I gasp, shocked. “What?—?”
“Liar,” he breathes, the molten gold of his irises consuming me, even as his fingers dig into my jaw. “Kasaros punishes those who lie in his kingdom.”
He drags a finger across my mark and the pain disappears.
I glare up at him with hurt, rage, fury.
He kisses me.
The action catches me off balance.
The last time he kissed me, he was careful with it. That kiss was a mere stoking of the flames, a touch of tinder to the yearning within us.
This is different.
This is hunger and need and fury. It’s everything we cannot say, words given a new language, one of flesh and touch. Capturing my face in the palms of his hands, Bael consumes me, his tongue stroking against mine and his body pushing me back, back, further against the wall, until I am entirely at his mercy.
The maelstrom of emotion within me whirls in another direction, rage giving way to a flashfire of need.
Mine, his hands and tongue say.
Yours. I grab fistfuls of his hair, yanking him closer.
A hand slides down my spine, cupping me under the ass and then he hauls me into his arms, driving forward until my hips part around his, the hard press of his cock stealing a gasp from my lips. Biting his lower lip, I chase after the sensation, grinding against him, desperate for more.
“Zyla,” he growls, hands kneading my thighs. “Zyla, ease up.”
No. If I let it in, the emotions will drown me. Ineedthis.
And some part of him must sense it. Hand sinking through my loose braid, he cradles my skull, tilting my face back for him to plunder. There’s a new desperation in our kiss, and I slide my hands between us, nails digging into the naked flesh of his abdomen, toying with the trail of hair there.
“Lioness.” Bael moans, drawing back for a moment as if he’s taking stock of my reaction. Stillness settles between us, broken only by our ragged breaths. The same confusion gleams in his wild eyes.
“I hate you,” I whisper, it is both a truth and not, and my mark heats as if the Labyrinth is unsure if it should punish me for the lie.
His eyes darken, as if he takes it as a personal challenge.
“Who’s the liar now? Tell me you don’t want this.” He kisses his way down my throat, pinning my wrists against the hard stone wall as I hiss in thwarted fury. But the sound of it seems to stir something within him, for he presses every last inch of hisbody against me, grinding the thick stave of his rigid cock into my hip. The kiss of his teeth find my sensitive clavicle. My hips jerk, the urge to soften against him damn near overwhelming.Gods, I want to sink my fingers through his hair and haul his mouth back to mine, and Ican’tbecause to do so would be to sign my surrender.
He’s right.
I want him. I want this. Even knowing everything that happened between us, everything that he is, doesn’t change the yearning my body feels.
Somehow he knows, his whisper the sound of midnight sin. “Tell me that if I slid my fingers between your legs, I wouldn’t find you wet and drenched, your hungry cunt desperate for me.”
I groan, shaking my head in denial, but it’s a lie. All of it is a lie.
The burn sears my skin but his mouth eases over it, healing my flesh.
