“I made you a promise,” he said. “Do you remember?”
I nodded. “You said you’d fix it.”
Beck smiled. “And I’m going to make good on that.But first, I need you to know that I’m not giving you up. Not in forty-eight hours. Not to that bastard Maslow.” He caught my chin to hold my gaze level with his. “And as much as all that, I need you to hear me say that I’m sorry too.”
“What for?”
“For being afraid. Of you.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out small. “I’m not scary.”
“No.” He smiled again, thinner than the last. “I’m just a coward.” His thumb stroked along my jaw in the pause before he said, “I was afraid of something else too.But I’m not anymore.”
“What is it?” I searched his face.
He leaned in and, for a heartbeat, I thought he might kiss me. I pushed toward him, as hungry for that as everything else, but the sting of previous rejections made me flinch back.
“What about the poison?” I asked. “I don’t want to?—”
“Zephyr.” Beck’s golden eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ve been enthralled by you since the moment I saw you. Incubus venom had nothing to do with it.”
The city glittered beyond the window, all heat and motion, but this room felt removed from it. Like we were the only two people in the world.
“Zephyr,” Beck said again, as quiet as a secret. “May I kiss you?”
It was the first real choice I’d been given in a long, long time.
I swallowed hard.
“Yes, Daddy,” I said.
Color blossomed above the dense stubble on Beck’s cheeks. Then everything went soft.
The sheets tangled around us as we pressed skin to skin on the plush mattress. Beck’s lips found mine, and it wasnothing like the rough mouths and careless hands from the poker table.
There were no teeth. No bruising pressure. No sense of being claimed or consumed. Just a kiss—slow and reverent. Like he knew exactly what had been taken from me and was trying, in his own way, to give it back.
Still, my body tensed. The memory of being used and forced clawed its way to the surface, warning me to shrink, retreat, and protect what little of myself was left.
But then Beck made a soft sound against my mouth and offered me the purest taste of desire I’d ever known.
I devoured it.
Parting my lips, I leaned in, and Beck responded with a hum of approval. He slid his fingers into my damp hair and snagged them there like he’d been waiting to do this forever.
I’d been waiting too.
I pushed up onto my elbows, pressing my chest against Beck’s while our legs tangled together. Knees dented the mattress as Beck shifted to get on top of me, boxing me in. When my cock grazed the bulge in his underwear, I moaned, and Beck slipped his tongue into my mouth.
I’d imagined it was him before, earlier.Histongue lashing against mine,histaste invading my senses,hishands holding on to me. Now it was, and the sensation was divine. My back arched, and I rocked my hips forward so my hardness touched his again.
The scant friction drove out another groan, and I thrust against him, rising needfully off the bed until Beck broke the seal of our lips at last. He hovered overhead, eyes like twin flames, mouth slanted in a smile. “Colette told me I was your first,” he said.
I gave a wobblynod.
“No regrets, I hope?” He looked nervous, eyebrows pinched and worry tugging at his lips.
I rushed to reassure him. “None.”
