I don’t understand her.
My heart pounds as she reaches for my chemise and tugs upward.
I lift my arms, letting her remove it, aching to feel her soft touch on my bare skin.
I’m more exposed than I’ve ever been. Not just my skin, but something deeper that I’ve kept locked away since Charlotte’s body went cold beneath me.
God, I don’t deserve Hannah’s gentle hands, her wanting eyes, the way she caresses me. What if this ends the same way? What if I let Hannah touch me, not for feeding but for pleasure, and I destroy her anyway? She is the one person who has dared to see me as a woman instead of a sanguine witch, and I don’t know if I can be that for her.
“Beautiful,” Hannah breathes, and before I can process the compliment, she lowers her mouth to my chest.
The wet heat of her tongue on my breast makes me arch, a sound I don’t recognize leaving my throat. She takes her time, lavishing my breasts with attention until I’m panting, my fingers tangled in her hair. When she grazes her teeth over the sensitive peaks, molten heat rushes through me. I’m so ready for her that every brush of her tongue feels like torture.
When did pleasure become something I am allowed to receive instead of just take?
“Hannah—”
She raises herself up and captures my mouth again, swallowing my protest. Her hand slides between my legs, rubbing through my trousers, and pleasure surges through me at her touch.
My face is hot. Sweat prickles the back of my neck. This is mortifying. I don’t respond like this. I’m the one who makes others writhe and beg. It must be magic at play, all these manipulative spells stripping away my defenses and turning me into someone desperate.
Or maybe it’s not magic. Maybe it’s just Hannah,whispers an annoying voice at the back of my mind.
I need to regain control. I massage her breast, pinching her nipple until she gasps. I run my other hand up her thigh and between her legs, and the wetness I find there makes us both moan. I trace circles that make her tremble, then slide inside, feeling her clench around me.
“Julia,” she gasps, her head tipping back.
She rocks against my hand, mesmerizing in the way she moves and the sounds she makes. When I rub my thumb over her pearl, she cries out, her grip digging into my shoulders.
Her breasts bounce as she rides my fingers, her thighs hot through the material of my trousers.
But the facade of control is brief, and too soon, she’s sliding off my lap. I grab her to pull her back, but she resists. Instead, she sinks to her knees between my legs, looking up at me with greedy eyes.
She slides her hands up my thighs and begins unbuttoning my trousers.
I watch her, dizzy, breathing hard. I don’t stop her.
When she tugs my trousers down, I buck my hips to let her, and the next thing I know, I’m completely naked.
“Spread your legs for me,” she says, throwing my own words from the forest back at me.
I open my mouth to tell her to take that back. I am the one who consumes, not the one who gets consumed. But as she looks up at me with those devastating eyes, I can do nothing but give in.
The smile that curves her lips is absolutely wicked. When did she learn to look at me like that? When did the innocent girl from the backyard become this creature who makes me burn before she’s even touched me?
She leans in, her breath ghosting over where I’m aching for her, and I have to grip the chair to keep from grabbing her head and directing her mouth where I want it.
A desperate sound leaves my throat, and all I can think is “yes.” I need her mouth on me more than I need my next breath.
She looks up at me one more time, holding my gaze as she leans in.
Do I stop her? If I let her pleasure me like this, there will be no more pretending this is just about breaking the spell. I need to take back control before it’s too late, before she reduces me to something weak and desperate and—
Her tongue slides over my center, and coherent thought abandons me entirely.
28
Hannah
