It was then I knew. I already had.
He’d taken me piece by piece until there was nothing recognizable. Until I didn’t know who I was except for his.
Eyes roved, voracious, as if he needed to memorize me the way I’d memorized him.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Those sounds wheezing from his lungs came harder and shorter and faster.
Whatever had been holding him back snapped.
Sheared.
Or maybe Lyrik cracked.
He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. Arms encircled me. His kiss overpowered. His body prevailed.
“Red,” he muttered against my mouth, twisting a hand in my hair and yanking it back to gain him access to my jaw, to my neck, to the disfigured heart that seemed to have come alive. He pushed me back on the bed, and he twisted out of his underwear at the same moment his mouth latched onto my breast.
He sucked hard and I bucked my hips. A pleasured pain shot through my body, pumping fuel to the desire that became a steady beat between my thighs.
“I’d never hurt you, Blue,” he murmured softly just before he bit down.
You already have.
“Don’t call me that,” I implored, low and wispy. One last-ditch effort to cling to Red, the girl who couldn’t be touched. The one who wasn’t vulnerable and trembling in his arms. I cinched my hands in his hair, yanking and tugging and demanding more.
He growled, his dick heavy and hard and more than ready where it pushed at the inside of my thigh. Inches from where I needed him most.
This was the one thing I knew for sure. Of all the things I was certain about.
I’d found freedom in Lyrik’s touch.
Gained the belief not all hands were vicious.
The assurance not all touches were vile.
The rest was a mess of confusion and disorder and doubt.
He pushed up onto his hands, his hair as wild as his eyes. My chest rose and fell. As if our hearts had caught time. Both quick and jutted. Intense and free.
He ran his fingers through my hair. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “You were sent to torment me, weren’t you?” he asked.
The words slid out close to a tease though it rode on the current of the madness he’d provoked within the room. “Always lookin’ like my favorite fantasy.”
He almost laughed, but the intonation was sad. “Temptation. That’s what you are. An angel wrapped up in a demon’s body. Heaven and hell. A gift and my greatest demise.”
Confusion narrowed my eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Not much to get, baby. One look and you win.”
Despair clotted, heavy on my chest. “Then why does it feel like I’m going to lose?”
“Fuck…fuck, Blue.” His shoulders bunched up as he pushed up onto his hands and dipped down to kiss me, our lips just barely brushing, tongue licking against mine. So, so soft. “If I could, baby, I’d give it all to you.”
My spirit ached. It groaned. A muddled turmoil ushered in by the abstract assertion. Questions swirled on the tip of my tongue, silenced by the sudden assault of his.
“Red.”
I yelped when he suddenly hauled me up from under my arms. He guided me onto my knees and turned me facing away.
That big body eclipsed mine from behind, and he leaned over and curled my hands close together around the metal frame of my headboard. One hand held me captive by the wrists.
Erratic, my pulse sped, a hammering thunder beating out from every cell.
Oh God.
I whimpered.
His mouth brushed the shell of my ear. “All you have to say is no.”
Shivers spread far and free. My body alight. Shuddering, my hands fisted tighter onto the metal. “I can’t.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted him and everything he had to give. For him to mark me and scar me, to leave me with the memories of what he’d taken the time to erase.
My breath hitched when I felt him running the tip of his cock up and down the crease of my ass. The only barrier my black lace underwear.
“Blue,” he murmured. He shifted and placed the palm of his free hand flat on my chest. Against the battering roar of my heart, the same as what I felt beating against my back.
Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.
That’s all we had, and I leaned back, into the scorching heat of his body. An entreaty for more.
“Please.”
My gaze tipped to watch as his tattooed hand explored downward, dragging over my breasts. My stomach quivered as he pressed against my belly, before his fingers dipped into the front of my panties. Gently he brushed between my folds, exhaled against my ear.
“So warm. So soft. So good.”
I panted.
On a grunt, he released his hands from my wrists and began to remove my panties. Like I weighed nothing, he lifted me enough to drag them down my legs and free them from my ankles.
“You’re mine,” rumbled from his mouth.
The sound at my ear sent an electric charge racing down my spine. It gathered low. I could feel it building and building and building. The excitement and the thrill. The flashes of energy in the air. The anticipation thick. A consuming cloud disorienting my senses.
Mine.
I wanted to be.