CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Maybe it was because Mireille hadn’t been properly kissed in decades.
Maybe it was because Ronin hadn’t yet given up on her. Had taken all her vicious barbs and thrown them right back at her. As if he enjoyed the challenge. As if he enjoyedher.
Fuck, maybe it was just because he’d called hergood girl.
It could have been for any of those reasons, or maybe none of those reasons, why she curled her hands around thoseridiculoussuspenders and pulled him closer, sealing their lips together.
He pushed his tongue into her mouth with an aching groan. Like he’d been anticipating this moment as much as she had, desperate for any excuse to perform their fake roles.
Her wolf loosed a victorious howl.
He cradled her cheek in one hand as he slid the other down her body. Heat flared in its wake, too brief passes along the side of her breast and the curve of her hip. His fingers crept up her shaking thigh, slipping through the slit in her dress and hauling her leg around his waist.
“Mireille,” he murmured on her lips, eyes closed, as lost in this show as she was. He dove back in again, drinking her down in tiny sips, savoring her with slow strokes of his tongue. Flavorsof frosted evergreen and sugared lemon filled her mouth. Fresh and sweet and sharp.
Why in Ethyrios had she waited so long to taste him?
A moan slid up her throat and he hardened against her as his fingers coasted beneath her panties, squeezing her ass. So dangerously close to exactly where she wanted them. She released his suspenders, gripping his shoulders as he thrust against her, pressing her into the wall.
He broke the kiss, pinning her in place with a raw, heavy-lidded stare, then fisted her hair and yanked her head back.
It fucking hurt.
She loved it.
He nipped down her throat, across the mounds of her breasts. Jolts of electric pleasure zapped through her each time his cool, wicked fangs met her heated skin.
Fuck. Yes.More.
She panted against his soft hair, his fingers at her ass drifting lower as he bit down harder on her neck. A callused pad grazed the bottom of her slit, but before he could push in fully, find out how real this was, how wet she was for him, the hidden door crashed open.
The two men from the crypt strode through and her wolf barked out a curse.Impeccable fucking timing, assholes.
Ronin removed his lips and teeth from Mireille’s flesh, resting his forehead against her collarbone. As if he needed a moment to compose himself.
She tried to remember how to breathe.
Reluctantly, Ronin slipped his fingers from her panties, then rested his palm on her hip.
A hand appeared on his shoulder.
Ronin grabbed it and spun, angling the tall man’s arm behind his back and baring his teeth against the man’s throat.The servant didn’t cower, his instincts dampened by whatever spell Otto had woven over his staff.
“Take your party to the privacy of your room, please,” the man intoned. “The parlors are closed for the night.”
A low growl burbled up Ronin’s throat, the tips of his fangs digging into the man’s flesh, nearly hard enough to break skin.
Mireille placed a hand between Ronin’s tense shoulder blades.
Thank the High Gods, her touch worked. Ronin looked as if he’d been seconds away from ripping out the man’s throat.
Shaking his head and releasing the servant, Ronin said in a calm voice that belied his earlier aggression, “We were just about to.”
The man’s gaze flicked to Mireille.
“It’s true,” she piped up, watching the hairs on the back of Ronin’s neck prickle at her voice.
