“That’s right, Marietta. Show me what makes you sing.”
I was a marionette on a set of strings, and he was pulling every one. Begging with words was unnecessary, as my body spoke plainly, noises uncontrollable. I would be self-conscious about it later, but right now I couldn’t summon a care.
His thumb grazed me again and one of his fingers dragged inside. A moan escaped. I started to pant. The heat was too intense. Unlike the first time on this table, when I’d been taken by surprise, the buildup was steadier,stronger. He was pushing harder, deeper. The lovely feeling built—but in a maddening, jaw-clenching way as it continued to climb. Like a carriage that wouldn’t go fast enough, or a dream where I kept trying and failing to run.
“Tell me again how I’m going too slow.” I groaned as his thumb pressed. “Yes, just like that. The price of the payoff, love. Open yourself up and let me unlock you more.”
He bent and licked into me. I arched back, grabbing his hair as he bowed between my legs, worshiping, my skirt obscenely bunched around my waist, my knees bare to the air. Everything he touched and licked and sucked burned with fire. Like amagical puppeteer, pulling on veins instead of strings, it felt like he was extending mine.
Reaching into my core, extending the tendrils of my magic, pulling all the blocks free. My stomach clenched as he pulled my magic up into his grasp, then pushed it back through me, circulating my own power around my body in a loop.
My body, my magic, sang.
I arched on the table, suspended. He caught me as I lost control. Tremors wracked me, and he continued stroking me as I rode the lovely feeling. The end of the frustration.
I settled one hand on my stomach, breathing deeply. This was different from earlier, which had been a new experience from the night before. Languid exhaustion softened my body.
He watched me from between my bent knees, arms hooked beneath, hands cradling my hips. There was something dark and dangerous in his eyes. My wrist pulsed.
“Marietta Winters, you are now mine.”
Chapter 12
GABRIEL
“Tell me what you found?” She curled into me as I carried her up the stairs.
I should have reveled in her flushed and breathless state—warm and pliant andmine—and triumphed in her surrender. Instead, the world tilted on end.
I had lost control.
Abandoning my plan to take her against the table because of a simple touch? Even pleasuring her again had gone upside down. The noises she made, the control she relinquished, the trust she gave—I had used her surrender to push her own magic through her and extend the tendrils she had opened on her own.
And I had almost pushedmyselfthrough, sharing in her refinement. Madness.
What would happen if I lost control entirely? Would she entangle a piece of my soul?
I couldn’t let that happen again.
“A man was seen repeatedly lurking around the last victim. We need to track him down.”
I laid her on my bed and shoved the fear away. I was in perfect control. I always was. Nothing had changed.
She slid under the covers. “How did you discover that?”
I wanted to follow. I forced myself to undo my shirt instead. “The necklace on the victim was distinctive. I had inquiries made with several jewelers. One gave a name and address. Neighbors around the address confirmed a woman matching the description lived there and said a strange man had been following her.”
“What about the second and third victim?”
“Still no word.” There hadn’t been. I didn’t count that I already knew their names.
“Will you tell the inquisitor what you found?”
Inquiries into the necklace would lead to Octavia’s father, and a purchase two decades old.
