Ryodan, open, is indescribably addictive.
He kissed me like I was the empire he was sworn to protect and would die a thousand deaths to keep secure. He kissed me like I was a woman with a deep dark wildness that needed to be fed and he knew just how to do it. He kissed me like he was dying and this was the last kiss he would ever taste. Then his kiss changed and his tongue was velvet and silk as he kissed me like I was fine bone china that needed exacting care and gentleness. Then the storm built in both of us and I ground myself against him, and he was searching with his kiss and his hands sliding down to my ass for the part of me that was a savage animal and so was he and we were going to forget the world and become two primal, uncomplicated beasts fucking as if the universe depended on our passion to fuel it. And I was pretty sure we could. I felt something building in me, a hunger that was exhilarated to be alive and knew it could come out and play as hard as it wanted, because I could never break this man. Not even with all my superpowers. I could dump every bit of myself on him and never have to worry about giving him a heart attack or breaking a bone or giving him a black eye by accident. He could handle anything. My high temper, my need for adventure and stimulation, my intellect, rages, and rants, my sheer physical strength, even the darkness of my shadow-self. He was a broad-shouldered beast. He was hard and capable and permanent and had an immortal heart. A frenzy of lust exploded inside me and I met the savagery of his kiss with all the savagery in my soul, and there is one fuck of a lot of it. With a distant part of my brain, I thought about Dancer and wondered if he could handle perhaps a small portion of this part of me and if maybe I was holding back not just because I was afraid to be so damned fucking vulnerable but also because I was afraid I might hurt him and—
Ryodan broke the kiss and pushed me away so abruptly that I stumbled backward over the chair behind me and nearly went down. My body was cold where the heat of his hands had been. My legs were shaking and I was so full of heat and need that I couldn’t even speak for a moment. I just stood there, wanting him back, touching me again, holding me, taking me apart inside and waking every cell up. What would it be like to get naked with this man, shut the world out and let go of everything, knowing he could handle all of it for me? Walk away from responsibility, let him take over, feel safe. Get to rest. Recharge. Go out into the world whole.
I regained my balance and stood, staring blankly at him. He’d opened a box inside me that I couldn’t shut. Not fast anyway. “Wait, what?” I shook my head, trying to clear my stupor. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You need to leave. Now,” he gritted.
“That’s not what you mean. Your body doesn’t remotely mean that.” I hurt from the lack of contact with his body.
“You’re a fucking virgin.”
“Oxymoron. I’m a nonfucking virgin. And there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin. I kept it for a reason.”
“Get out,” he repeated, and his silver eyes went cold and hard as ancient coins. The open, unguarded man disappeared right before my eyes and it pained me to see him go. It felt like being cut off from something sacred. Like being deemed not sacred enough to get to see it.
“Right, so now you get to be Jada?” I snapped.
“Jada had purpose. I just didn’t want you to be her all the time.”
My hands fisted at my sides. “I don’t get it. You kiss everyone else. For fuck’s sake, you kissed Jo. I’m as pretty as Jo.”
“You. Aren’t. Everyone else.” He paused, then said in a rough voice, “And you’re not pretty. Goddamn it, Dani. You’re beautiful.”
“And there’s yet one more reason why what you’re saying makes no sense,” I said angrily. He could die! “What if you die and never get to kiss me again?”
Silver eyes narrowed, glittering with anger. “That’s why you wanted to have sex with me? Because I might die sooner than Dancer and you figured you might as well fuck us in the order of who would die first?”
I bristled. “I didn’t say I wanted to fuck you. I was just kissing you. And you were kissing me back. And you were liking it.”
He stepped back and the light fell in such a way that half his face was shadowed, one side clear and easy to see, the other concealed by darkness. “Come back in three days with Dancer,” he said as tonelessly as I’d ever sounded as Jada. “We’ll save Shazam. You’ll find a world and make a home with Dancer and never return to Earth.”
“Fuck you, Ryodan,” I said, stung by his rejection, his icy remoteness, and my return to being on the other side of his infernal walls. For a few minutes I’d been in the garden. And I’d been evicted.
“Just said no to that,” he said coolly.
I whirled and kicked up into the slipstream.
Nothing happened.
I was shorted out.