Falling into lust.
“What if I asked you to get on your knees for me,” he says, the growl in his voice deepening, making me tremble. “Undress me. Touch me. See how you arouse me.”
A moan leaves my lips. How can I fight this? My body strains toward him without conscious thought.
His hand slides around my neck, while his thumb feathers over my throat, pressing lightly. “What if I commanded you and you obeyed my every command? What if you begged for me to bruise you and then kiss it all better, take you against the wall and make you forget your own name?”
“Roane…” His dirty talk bypasses reason and dips straight into a primal need.
His head dips, his mouth so close, casting a long shadow over me, his wide shoulders caging me, the spice of male sweat winding through my body, reaching and yanking on my desire.
No matter what I said earlier, if he told me to kneel, to beg, to touch, to spread my legs for him, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s scary how readily I’d do anything he asks just to have his skin slide against mine, his mouth move over my mouth, that muscular body rock between my legs, his cock pushing into me.
I’ve fumbled in the dark before, in back alleys and stables. But those were boys, not men. This is a man, no mistake about it. He’s not the kind who’d tease me, caress me, give me butterfly-light kisses, laugh awkwardly as he gropes me through my underpants, as he enters me without knowing what he’s doing.
Roane is unlike anybody I’ve ever met. Nothing wholesome about him. Nothing half-hearted. It’s go all in, or quit the game.
His other hand slides into my hair and yanks, tipping my head back. His gaze is hungry and feral. “I’d take you right here and now. Wreck you. Destroy you. Make you scream until you’rehoarse. Have you ever been with a fae male before? I don’t know if your tight little pussy can take my cock.”
I’m gasping. His thumb is pressing down, cutting most of my airflow, but I’m not scared. I’m aroused. I want him so much it hurts. I want him to press me down and push into me, to make me feel every inch, to pull harder on my hair and bite my flesh. Mark me as his.
Make me feel everything.
His lips part in a snarl, those sharp teeth flashing. No, it wouldn’t be like the sex I’ve had with anyone before. It would be unhinged, savage, painful. It would shake my soul free of my body. Shake all sense out of me.
And it scares me how much I want that.
Reaching up, I trace his ear to its sharp point where those dark dots mark its shape. A shudder goes through him. Then I slide my hand down to his neck where the edges of that mark I’d noticed peek out from under his long hair. I push his hair back, dreamlike, marveling at how close I am to him, how I can see everything, from the small vein thrumming in his jaw to the edges of the scar in his cheek.
Suddenly, my hair is released, my neck freed, and I stagger back, lifting a hand to rub at the bruises his fingers have left.
“Dammit,” he breathes and stumbles back, too. “No.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NEVER BETTER
ADELINE
“Roane?” I hurry after him back into the ruins of the cabin, or whatever this place is. I don’t really care at this point, the only thing I care about being… “Roane! Stop.”
He doesn’t reply. He grabs his belt with all the sheathed knives and the scimitars and buckles it around his narrow hips. Then he starts braiding his hair, fingers flying over the dark strands. He throws the finished braid over his shoulder and starts for the door again.
“Roan! Damn.” I gather the book and the egg and hurry after him. “Wait for me.”
I run outside and he’s already climbing down the slope. What is going on with him? I thought we were over the mistrust and glaring.
Gritting my teeth, I slip and slide down the path he helped me climb last night. He was so… nice then. And this morning he was so cute, cutting up water-apples for me. If only I hadn’t touched him, made him realize I want more…
“Roane. Come on, slow down.”
But he doesn’t. He sets a punishing pace all the way down to the river bank. By the time we reach level ground, I’m tired, annoyed, and close to tears.
Which is unbearable.Heis unbearable. My body was so wrong about him. I don’t want him. Don’t want anything to do with him.
Finally, he stops and I catch up with him.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” I demand, the book nestled back in my bosom, the egg clutched to my side. “Why are you acting like this?”
