Page 131 of Reaper’s Curse

She wet her luscious ruby lips and shook her head, her wide, bright eyes never straying from mine. Again, she bit that inviting lower lip and―

Reaping gods. Those lips.

I blinked and cleared my throat.

“Yesterday, after that prick of a prince knocked me out and spirited you away—” My voice caught in my throat, and I dropped my gaze to the feathered skirt of her gown.

Her otherworldly, goddess-made gown.

When I awoke in one of the pub beds to find her gone, my mind had crowded with an army of unthinkable scenarios and actions. But she was here now, alive, breathing, and in good health.

I swallowed hard.

The warmth of her palm caressed my cheek, drawing my gaze back to hers.

“For a moment,” I confessed, “I feared you might have died.”

“No,” she mouthed, and I wanted to capture that word, that breath, with my lips.

I stepped forward, pressing into her, collapsing the open space. She glided back, matching the distance. A predatorial dance between the goddess of death and her god of war.

I curled my finger around a few strands of her hair and gently tugged them forward through my loose hold. She sighed, her long lashes dusting her cheeks.

“I cannot let anything like that ever happen again.” My voice was more growl than reaper. “I can’t see you harmed.”

I spoke the truth I’d been slowly realizing ever since our first specter attack. And now… Now I was beyond done with all the pretenses.

I pressed forward once more, and this time, she didn’t retreat. “Do you understand?”

She nodded, her lips parting, screaming for me to seize them. Make her mine.

“I… May I…” I couldn’t push words past the song that was everything Raven now filling my head.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Not a question, but what? Permission?

My restraint was slipping. The line blurring between how I should act and what I desired. Her lips called to me, and her starry-midnight blue eyes hypnotized me, led me to forget myself.

I detected no hesitation or indecision on her part, and none certainly existed where I was concerned. My want and need for her had become a fierce lifeforce within my soul, deepening my hunger for everything she was willing to share.

I wrapped my hands around her waist and dragged her flush against my body, needing to feel her near. Yet no near was near enough. Her hand slipped over the savage beat of my heart, sending a jolt through my nervous system.

Her name growled in my chest with a rumble, and her returned murmured “yes” snapped my control.

I drove us, bodies intertwined, against a wall, between two spiraled cypress trees. My lips crashed over hers, and she opened for me, moaning a welcome. Her lips upon my mouth were infectious, fatally so. The taste of her, the feel of her, the glorious scent of her, obliterated me in so many ways. Ways I openly welcomed.

I needed to experience her with every single one of my senses so that I might alleviate any lingering worries about her wellness.

I simply needed her―everywhere, in every way.

Our kisses deepened, became eager and devouring. Greedy and raw. A primal need for connection and reassurance. Reassurance of safety and shared emotions. And yet so much more. My hands and mouth venerated the lines of her face, the curves of her body, and my name whispered like a prayer on her lips.

Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling taut, as my lips coasted along the stretch of her swan neck and brushed the exposed, soft upper swells of her breasts. Her breathy sounds shot straight to my cock and…gods below…I was incredibly hard for her.

My mouth found hers once more, soaking up her responses. I discovered a new favorite pastime: coaxing gasps and moans from her lips. Lips that were deliciously sweet and so godsdamn dizzying.

She pulled and yanked at my vest, baring my chest and sending shivers across my skin, a pang above my heart. I was losing myself to wild abandonment, and soon I might not care where we were. I’d pull her to the ground, right here in the royal garden. Or take her against the wall.