“Your brothers are going to try to separate us.”
“Let them try.” I lower myself back down, pulling her against my side. She doesn’t resist, just fits herself into the space like she was carved for it. “I’ll kill them all before I let them take you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Want to bet?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then, “I’m a little scared.”
I freeze on her words.
She continues. “Of what I might become with you.”
“And what’s that?”
“Worse than I am now.”
The smile I give her probably looks like a threat to anyone watching. Good. Let them watch. Let them see what happens when you give a monster his favorite snack.
She kisses me, and it’s nothing like the violence we trade in daylight. Her mouth is soft, searching, and I let her take what she wants even as my hand finds the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair. She tastes like a battlefield, and when her tongue slides against mine, my grip tightens.
She makes a sound—fuck, a tiny broken sound—and I swallow it whole, pulling her closer until there’s no space left between us.
My other hand spans her waist, feeling the way her breathing hitches when I angle her head back, when I take control of what she started.
When she pulls back, we’re both breathing hard through swollen lips.
“Your brothers are right about one thing,” she says against my mouth with a smirk, and I feel the words more than hear them.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to destroy you.”
I grin. “Can’t wait.”
…
Haide
He’s ridiculous and completely serious. His next words prove it when he reaches out, his knuckles gliding along the slope of my breast.
“Fuck the little flower quest,” he purrs. “Let’s stay here instead,” he purrs, pressing closer.
“Don’t push your luck,” I whisper, but my voice is already betraying me.
“Worth a shot.” He smiles, slow and pleased. Two fingers press lightly over my sternum, where that strange pull always seems to live when he’s near and where my body reacts in ways my mind doesn’t understand.
“Are you mine, monster?” he asks, voice low and gravelly. “Can you feel me here?”
My breath catches hard at his question. They’re words I’ve heard from him before, asked or said in different ways, but still familiar from his lips.
This time, though, anxiety curls through me, tight and bright.
Excitement.
Fear.
Hope, which is the most disgusting of all.
