Panting, he brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. “Is everything okay?”
She frowned, staring between her fingers as if she could see the heart underneath. Rising heat distorted the air, but underneath, there wassomething. Deep and pulsing and yanking. Familiar, foreign, and frustratingly out of reach.
“Do you feel that?” she whispered.
Finger trailing over her brow, cheek, jaw, Cason didn’t tease her for the question. “I feel… I just feel you…”
All thought left as his finger found the collar of her shirt—his shirt—and shifted it over her shoulder. Thumb brushing over the obsidian in her collarbone, Cason leaned down and pressed his lips against the bone. Against every cracked edge where shard met skin.
Ridiculous. Of course he didn’t feel the tug, because he’d already accepted that feeling. He assumed it was related to the shard, some dull ache that affected his magic. She was the one resisting that final pull because she knew the truth.
He only saw half of her. She wanted all of him, even the parts that would hate her.
But right now, all she could focus on was shimmering warmth and sparks running through her body. The Veil shard seemed to have forgotten he was a dragon. Her magic seemed to have forgotten, too.
Good.
Brela lifted her chin as his lips trailed up. Up to the hollow of her throat. Up to her jaw. Up to the sensitive skin of her neck.
His mouth hovered over her ear, breath hot against her skin. “Will I ever be able to stop thinking about you?”
She might have frozen if that gods-damned torturous touch of his hadn’t trailed over her breast a second later.
Teeth nipped at her ear as those fingers traced slow, torturous circles over her nipple. “You are…eccentric.”
Cason leaned away, that darkened steel blue gaze roaming her body like the hand that now caressed down, down, down. Until there was no more fabric separating his skin from hers.
“Exasperating, erratic,” he whispered, still studying her body. Smirking at her desperation while his fingers moved so deliciously slow toward her center. Lazily exploring as his tongue ran over his lips with each soft breath she released.
“Excruciatinglychaotic,” he purred.
When his touch finally met her wetness, he leaned closer, that hand lingering just outside what she wanted.Needed.
Cason licked up the side of her throat, then breathed onto her lips. “I find it…exhilarating.”
And with that word, his finger slid inside her and his mouth captured her cry. Continued to nip and taunt and steal every breath and moan as he continued to plunge. One finger, then two, pumping in and out as pressure built.
“Electrifying,” he panted between kisses. “Ecstatic.”
Brela continued to ride the hand and fingers that had learned every gods-damned thing about how to make her melt. She dug her nails into his back, gripped his hair as she kept his lips on hers. Starving for that hickory smoke that drove her closer and closer to release.
“Exceedingly and extraordinarily exquisite.”
She barely had a breath to moan as his fingers curledperfectly, his hips thrusting that hand deeper and sending her over the edge.
Stars and fire and bolts of lightning exploded through her body. Glorious, mind-melting release streaked through her muscles as Cason continued to stroke each cry. Until she was panting and whimpering as he slowed his pace inside her. His lips finally left hers to hover over her ear.
“You drive me absolutely insane, Brela, and yet I’ve never felt more in control.”
Four hells. She would beg for an eternity to hear him say her name every day for the rest of her life, just like she had the power for his undoing.
“Cason.”
His name was just a tangled mess of breath, but she saw the smile that tilted his lips. Would have fallen to her knees if he hadn’t been holding her up.
That beautiful, beautiful smile.
Brela had no trouble with the belt of his pants, even as he continued to thrust her against the wall. No hesitations as she slipped the fabric below his waist while he kicked off his boots. Definitely no arguments when he somehow removed her shirt while keeping her upright.
