I yanked myself free and twisted around fully. He looked beautifully confused as he stumbled back a step, tilting his head in question.
I levered myself upward to sit my ass on the vanity, beads of moisture soaking through my panties, then reached for him. He stepped between my parted thighs, and I cupped my fingers around his jaw, drawing him closer to drag my lips along his in a ghost of a kiss. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes,” he hissed, with flames shining in a dark gaze.
His lips parted wider, fingers splaying around my waist.
I arched a brow. “Who says I want to kiss you there?”
The slack-jawed startlement was gratifying.
Leaning close, I pressed my lips against the firm curve of a pectoral, smiling at the flex of muscles at the sensual contact. I brushed an open-mouthed kiss sideways, and a deep groan rumbled from his throat, a tremor against my mouth. His nipples, like mine, were razor-sharp. I licked the tip to taste and tease. And draw a desperate moan and make his fingers tighten on my waist.
Then, cruelly, I dragged my fingernails down his chest, sharp enough to leave red lines with beading crimson.
He flinched.“Fuck.”But it wasn’t barked in anger.
I glanced upward, and though his features had hardened at my reckless act, unease and uncertainty gleamed brightly in his eyes, chased quickly by excitement. He liked it. The fear. Pleasure and pain blending together. He was a little fucked up, but then I suppose I was too, wanting him back.
His voice held a serrated edge, the admission slicing through me. “I’ve endured enough pain throughout the years, little bird, to have mastered it. To like it. To want to bite back.”
I stiffened.
My mind snagged on—throughout the years?
Had there been more than the whipping?
He’d glanced downward briefly. And some dark feeling surfaced momentarily.
I looked to where his sight had skimmed. His wrist.
For the first time, I realized that both of his wrists were covered with thin leather and silver chains. Not a completely uncommon thing. I’d seen them decorating the wrists of celebrities. However, I had only seen a few leather straps on the celebrities who adorned themselves similarly, but Graysen encased both of his wrists several inches from the wrist joint upward with a thick layer of black and silver.
I’d never thought much about it before.
My troubled thoughts split apart when his fingers cupped my chin and his thumb brushed over my lower lip. “But I sure as fuck am not about to let that gorgeous mouth near my—”
I snapped my teeth. Then burst into laughter as he jerked back in fear.
My grin was broad. “You wish.”
I tangled my hands around his neck. He still looked like he didn’t trust me. That I might gnash my fangs at him at any time. And yet, he still gave in to me when I drew him back down, lips inching closer. “I’m going to bring your House to its knees,” I whispered honestly.
“I know,” Graysen replied, spoken just as honestly, but strangely laced with reverence.
The first touch was tentative. Our mouths feathered over each other. “You’ll burn it to the ground,” he continued, the words brushing my mouth with heat. “Delight in my charcoaled bod—”
I closed my lips over his and swallowed his words. He was right. The Keep and every single Crowther were going to float on a smoky breeze, reduced to cinder and ash with my wrath.
The first taste of him had my soul sighing. And without meaning to, I molded my body into his. He tasted sinfully wicked. Of depravity. Longing and lust.
When his tongue licked in, he groaned desperately, the sound so filthy and needy, my entire body burst to life, igniting like fire tossed into bone-dry kindling.
Sensuality was a blustering, blazing inferno that licked and bit and sucked.
The rapturous beat of our twin-hearts drummed in my ears, and I forgot myself, willingly falling into the flames of Graysen Crowther to let myself burn.
Everywhere he touched, he left behind a scorching imprint on my skin. I pawed at him as wildly as he did me. As if both of us were fighting to consume the other wholly. An eerie, otherworldly strain whispered inside my mind with a melodic cadence, urging me to take what I wanted. Claim what belonged to me and only me.
