I swallow and rock my hips back against his very obvious arousal beneath me. “You.”
For an infinitesimal moment, a hint of savagery barrels through me, the taste of it like a bitter poison in my throat, and I falter at the venomous bite of it.Mine, mine, mineechoes in tune with my pounding heart, along with a violent burst of rage that disappears as quickly as it’d come. For a split second, I falter at the strangeness of it.
Is it my magic? But then everything in my head goes brutally—and blissfully—silent, as if some link is snapped. All my tumultuous feelings rush back in. I stare down at my captive prince, whose limpid gaze holds mine. Here. Now.
I exhale; I want this. I want him.
Before I can lose my courage, I lean over and seal my mouth to his.
Chapter Sixteen
God of Night
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
The strain is too much to bear, the call of fate nearly impossible to resist. Gods, how I hunger, how Ineed. It’s my last conscious thought before I succumb to the curse and the beast bursts from my skin, driven only by its mindless, monstrous inhumanity.
And then I am no more.
Chapter Seventeen
What in the scalding pits of Droon am Idoing?
In point of fact, I havenoidea what I’m doing. I’ve never seduced anyone before. Never doneanythingremotely like this before. My lips move over his, sinking into their pillowy contours. Sands, they are as soft as they’d looked. Soft and... unresponsive.
Roshan is not kissing me back, holding himself rigid.
Renewed doubt surges through me and I rear back in horrified alarm. “Don’t you... don’t you want me?”
The heavy groan that leaves him rumbles through his entire body. “Of course I want you. Can’t you feel how much I do?”
I can. He’s hot and hard andbig,cradled perfectly against the softest, neediest part of me. I fight the compulsion to roll my hips, to give in to the urge for friction that’s building like a tumultuous tide in my body. I want to rock, tomove. To ease this toe-curling, torturous ache. “Then what’s the problem? If we both want this?”
“What happens after?” he asks softly. “When we leave here?”
I frown. “Nothing happens. We try not to die, just as we’ve been doing every day. If you’re worried that this is going to change things, it’s not.”
I cringe at the small lie. I have no illusions: sex with Roshan willchangeeverything. Despite my burst of spontaneity, I know what this kind of intimacy will mean, especially with someone like him. When Roshan looks at me, I don’t see greed or a devious agenda... I seemore.
I see friendship and fondness, loyalty and honesty. I see a man with whom I’ve never had to hide who or what I am. I see someone I’ve grown to care deeply about in a short space of time. Someone I can trust withallof me. My body... and my heart, at least for now, if not forever.
And what of your soul?
The multilayered growl is so distant in the back of my mind that I barely take it in. Where had that come from? But I’m too distracted to ponder upon it as Roshan’s hips shift dangerously beneath me. My core throbs, and I bite back a moan.Yes, yes.My soul, too. He can have everything I have to give. Even as I think it, I know that’s a dangerous thought, one that stirs a faint feeling of wrongness.
I swallow hard, sudden uncertainty filling me. What would Laleh do?
Laleh would waste no time chasing her pleasure as long as her feelings were reciprocated, that I know. It’s one of the things I love about her. But it’s not a matter of what Laleh would do... it’s whatIwould do. I bite my lip, the delayed sting of Roshan’s reluctance finally hitting me and my earlier confidence dissipating when he doesn’t move or reply.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t...” Heating with mortification, I try to rise, but the hands that were on my waist fall to my spread outer thighs, stalling me.
“Wait, Suraya,” he whispers, his fingers convulsing on my goose-pimpled skin. “Are you sure this is what you want? There are things about me you don’t know.”
“We all have secrets,” I say. “But let’s leave those outside. In here, we’re just Ro and Sura. Can we do that?”
