“God help me, Calliope. Say it now or never say it at all.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Yes. Hell. Yes.”
She chuckled even as her belly twisted, a battle of uncertainty and need raging inside. But in that moment, with his arms caging her, his kiss still burning her lips, she did not want him to. And although a part of her feared him, feared this, she could not ignore the way her pulse quickened at his touch. How this man, seemingly obscured in darkness, chased away her own.
She wanted him. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted someone in her life before. More than escaping that household. More,perhaps, even than her breath.
“I won’t push you away,” she whispered, her fingers clenching. “So don’t push me away either.”
“Calliope.”
The tone of warning made her smile.
He cursed, and she yelped when he lifted her without warning and carried her across the chamber. The world tilted before steadying after he lowered her to the bed. He caged her between his arms as he stared down at her, looming over her. His hand lifted again, almost as if hecouldn’t help it, and tracing the bow of her mouth. The scrape of leather reminded her that he still wore his gloves. He was still hiding.
“Remove them,” she whispered against his touch.
His brows crashed together, and his eyes flickered, startled, the muscles in his throat working as though she’d asked for something utterly intolerable. “What?”
“Your gloves,” she repeated softly. She parted her lips against the seam of leather. “Remove them. I want to feel your hands.”
He went still, utterly still, as though she had stripped him bare with nothing more than those few words.
“Is this your way of seducing me?” he said roughly.
“Yes.”
“Christ.”
For a moment she thought he would refuse. Then, slowly, like a man stepping into fire of his own free will, he tugged one glove free, then the other, tossing them aside.
How could her breath not catch?
His hands were scarred, inked, branded with violence. She was keenly attuned to his gaze on her as she reached out first, catching one in both of hers. She lifted his hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to the ravaged flesh.
He stilled.
Absolutely stilled. As though she had unlaced him with that single touch.
She kissed his hand again, letting her lips linger on the curve of scar tissue, on the dark sweep of ink that branded him as Brighton’s beast. “These hands carried me to safety today,” she murmured. “You don’t have to hide them from me.”
“If you’d been hurt . . .”
“But I wasn’t. I won’t be hurt with you here, will I? Although, you should probably deal with the wreckage that is Peregrine.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll deal with the wreckage.”
“Well, in that case...” Calliope murmured, recklessly, bravely. “Wreck me, then.”
A sound broke from him—half groan, half curse—and then his bare hand cradled her face. She leaned into it, closing her eyes, letting the touch sink into every hollowed, bruised place inside her.
And then his mouth found hers again, nothing held back this time. It was as though by kissing the beast’s scars, she had kissed the man beneath them. She pushed her free hand into his hair. She welcomed the storm, the danger, the wreckage of it. Because in his scars, in his kiss, she had found something truer than any name she could claim.
She’d found herself.
*
