My lips crash against his.
A kiss that destroys myshields.
A clash of my mouth against his.
A crash he returns, his hand slipping from my throat to the back of my head, crushing me against him, his lips consuming me until I’m caught in a battle of souls that tears through my barriers, fed by every remembered torment of his songs. Every drop of blood he shed in front of me. Every quiet touch and gentle press and wordless glance he’s given me.
Oh, but his silence tears me apart.
I want to rip his silence to shreds, just as it rips me to shreds, shattering the ice around his heart.
All I can do is fill the silence with intent.
A moan wrenches from me, painful and needy, fueled by the ache in my heart.
It’s like a trigger.
His other arm whips across my back, wrenching my hips to his, my pelvis pressed against his hard length.
Desperate with need, I rock against him, a near grinding as I try to get closer.
Needto get closer.
“You found the sound.” He forces space enough between our lips to snarl, his voice so icy cold that I should fear his sudden fury, the sharp contrast to the heated message his body is sending me. “Now control it, Thyra. Before you destroy us both.”
My eyes fly open, a cry of protest on my lips that he’s keeping his mouth from me.
At my cry, the silver dress opens up around me. Every thread slips away from my chest and legs and arms, sliding out from between us and stretching out at my sides, leaving me completely naked.
My breath catches.
My breasts are crushed to his chest, my thighs pressed to either side of his waist.
The threads form a swatch of material, a gauzy sheet gently swaying at my back and curving around my sides, stretching forward as if it would wrap around him and bind him to me.
“Control your sounds, Thyra.” Stellen’s jaw is visibly tight, the tension in his muscles turning his arms into a cage around me. “BeforeIlose control and fuck you on this cold stone floor.”
His pants are the only barrier between us and my overwhelming need threatens to consume me.
I catch hold of the desire thrumming through me to hum another note, at which the threads curl inward, angling for the space at his back.
A seductive movement to a sultry moan.
He told me to control my sounds and I did, but it doesn’t seem to ease his fury and, damn, that’s probably because I’m arching into his chest.
I can’t stop my challenge to him. “Would fucking me be so bad?”
I crash back to his lips, but he jolts, keeping his mouth separate to mine.
“Yes,” he snaps. “It would.”
My eyes widen, but his arms don’t soften.
Neither does his voice. “In the Alak-Teah, boundaries were blurred. When we were out in the snowstorm, the song I first sang to force your soul to return to your dying body was one of the darkest songs of my people—forbidden because of its cruelty.
“But after that, the music I used to keep you alive for long enough to reach the Alak-Teah, that music was something else entirely, and it had consequences. A heat from which you needed release or it would have consumed you. I gave you that release to ensure you were free from those consequences.”
“What are you trying to say?”
