Two full minutes of silence pass before she says, “Yes, I meant yesterday. You don’t have to do that again.”
“Yesterday,”—I come to stand in front of her—“you were unconscious.”
“Well.” Red splotches spread all over her neck, her face. “I wonder whose fault that was.”
“Careful.” Another step, and she has to look up to see me.
“No, I won’t be careful.” She scoffs. “We need to talk.”
“We are talking.” Fuck this pain. And fuck—no, dammit. I can’t sayfuck her,not even in my own stupid head. “And we’ll keep talking, while I show you just how flawed you are.”
“Damn you, Duncan.”
I curl my fingers around her throat. “Damn me?”
“Yes.” Her pulse beats hard and fast.
Our foreheads almost touch, her sweet, natural scent sending me back to the past as if ten years haven’t passed.
As if she’s still the girl I remember. The same trembling one who I thought looked at me like I was good. Like class, wealth, or her brother meant nothing.
The one who pretended to like me.
That reminder is all it takes for me to snap out of it.
“Damn you too, El.” I slide my hand up, dragging my thumb over her lips and dipping it between them.
It looks like she tries to bite off my finger, but she’s failing. Elowyn’s so fucking gentle that she just presses her lips around me.
Innocent little thing, she has no idea what she’s doing. What ideas pulse through me.
How I’m this close to burying my cock in her wet, hot mouth.
Soon.
A growl reverberates in my chest, and I pull away.
“Elowyn,” she huffs as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Not El. Definitely not Elly.”
“I see we’re done with insults.” I wind a hand in her hair. Tug. “And have moved up to orders.”
“No.” She gasps when I tear my mask off and toss it to the floor. “But you called me El and made it sound derisive. Like we’re strangers.”
“That’s because we are.” My lips twist in a snarl.
I hate this hole in my chest that has her name on it.
“No, we aren’t.”
When I pull harder on her silky locks, angling her head to the side, she whimpers, sounding both aroused and scared.
“Fine, I won’t call you El or Elly. Won’t call youlittle mooneither.” I sink my teeth into that tender spot where her throat meets her shoulder. Suck. I let go, and she’s still breathing hard. “Never again.”
No matter how good she tastes. What memories she evokes.
I’m done.
All that’s left of us is this.
