Chapter 6
Talon’s mouth is hotter than sin. He distracts me with it so completely that I’m caught off guard when he bends his knees, hooks his hands behind mine, and lifts me, never breaking the kiss.
My legs lock around his hips, instinctive and tight, and he grins against my mouth like he knows exactly what that does to me.
Newsflash: he doesn’t. I don’t think he’s capable of understanding just how much I want him right now. He’d have to die and come back to life to get it. But maybe he catches a fraction of it, because he needs my touch, too.
“Hold on to me,” he murmurs against my lips, and before I can ask what for, he takes us off the steps and onto the cracked pathway, weeds pushing up through the concrete.
Cold air bites at my cheeks, but it doesn’t matter; not with Talon’s mouth back on mine like he’s starving.
He presses me against the building, the rough brick scraping lightly at my back through my clothes. My hips tilt forward. I grind into him. He grinds back.
It’s so simple. There’s nothing eloquent or complicated about it.
Just him and me.
Just our bodies.
And the damn pieces clicking into place between us.
Talon’s hands are everywhere. Under my top, sliding up my spine, spreading heat in greedy sweeps. His mouth trails down my jaw; teeth graze, then his lips find the spot beneath my ear and suck.
The sound that escapes me is embarrassing. It’s beyond needy. His grin brushes my skin.
“Remember this moment, Little Grim.” His voice is husky, almost smug, but his hips never stop rolling against me. The hard line of him drags right where I ache. “This can be your life now.”
I shouldn’t believe in romance anymore. Not after everything. I shouldn’t let myself get caught up in the moment, forsaking reason for the simple notion of how it feels.
Shaky legs. Racing heart. Sweating palms.
I shouldn’t crave this sensation beyond measure, shouldn’t let it consume me from the inside out.
But his offer shines like a lighthouse on a cold, dark sea.
And I reach for it.
My hands slide under his shirt, fingertips skimming the hard planes of his stomach, tracing the faint trail of hair that disappears beneath his waistband. His skin is warm, alive, thrumming with the same tension coiling low in my belly.
Talon exhales hard against my neck like I’m knocking something loose in him.
“Fuck… you feel—” His words break off when I shift my hips, pressing harder into him.
I’m unspooling. Breaking apart. Craving this.
He kisses me again, rougher this time, tongues clashing in a messy, hungry rhythm. His hand finds the waistband of my sweatpants and slides inside, gripping my bare ass.
“I’ll kill for you, Skye,” he breathes. “Tell me that’s what it takes, and I’ll do it.”
He’s not thinking clearly. There’s too much desperation in his voice. Too much devotion. It can’t be real. It’s the haze. It has to be.
Because if I let myself believe it’s not, I’ll burn.
But fuck, hearing it…
“I’ll cut up that bastard who killed you,” he goes on, voice ragged, dripping lust and fury. “I’ll make him suffer first. He’ll beg for death.”
His fingers dig into the curve of my ass, yanking me tighter against the thick press of him. Sudden. Rough. It rips a gasp from me, and his mouth is right there to swallow it.
“I’ll tear the world apart, Little Grim, until there’s nothing left but us.”
My fingers fist in his shirt, nails scraping his skin as he grinds me harder against the wall. His hips jerk forward, almost clumsy now, off rhythm.
Talon. Talon is losing the rhythm.
The guy who had me all wrapped around his finger the night we spent together.
Is this… could he mean it?
His hand between my legs shifts, the heel of his palm pressing through the thin fabric. One more move, and his fingers find my clit. And I’m at his mercy.
“Talon…” It’s half a moan, half a whimper. My breath stutters out, fogging in the cold air.
“Anytime you want it,” he murmurs. “Any fucking time, Skye.”
His thumb flicks over my clit, sharp and perfect, and I gasp so hard it’s almost a sob.
His other hand slips under my sweatpants, too, latching to my ass. His fingers tighten there, holding me open for him as his other hand speeds up. Every drag and press sends shocks through me, my head tipping back against the wall, my breath coming faster and faster.
“You with me, Little Grim?” he asks. “Tell me you are.”
“I’m—fuck—yeah, I’m with you,” I pant, clutching his shoulders like he’s the only thing holding me up.
“Good.”
His mouth crashes back to mine.
The orgasm tears through me, hot and blinding. For a moment, it erases everything bad that’s ever happened. It’s all heat and thunder and light, shaking me to my core. So consuming that I don’t even notice there’s no power surge this time—
not until much later.
This one is pure.
Human to human.
Real.
“It gets even better than this,” he says. He eases off me just enough for his eyes to find mine. What I see there burrows deep, leaving a question I won’t forget anytime soon.
What are we, me and him?
Because as much as there’s reckless abandon in his body, there’s none in his gaze. His eyes are dark, consuming—but painfully present. Like he’s here with me in every way: body, mind, soul.
I drag in a shaky breath, trying to slow my pulse, but Talon doesn’t give me room. He drops to his knees and slides my pants off.
“W-Wha…” The word barely escapes before his palms spin me around, my hands catching on the wall. He hooks his arms beneath my thighs, spreading me open against the rough brick.
Cold air licks at me from every side, freezing and teasing at once, cruel against already-hypersensitive skin.
I glance over my shoulder.
He’s already watching me like I’m some private sin he can’t believe he gets to touch. Long lashes. Parted mouth. Devotion in his eyes.
And fuck—
He leans in and drags his tongue against my pussy. My knees nearly buckle, but his grip keeps me in place, keeps me right where he wants me.
“Talon—” It’s a warning, a plea, a mess of both.
He just groans, the vibration shooting straight up my spine. Then he does it again, slower this time, like he’s tasting me for the first time and committing every second to memory. I feel his nose brush against my ass, and my toes curl.
Fuck, Mark could never. Never in a million fucking years…
“You taste like you were made for me,” Talon murmurs.
I glance over my shoulder again, my hair catching on my lips with every shaky exhale. His eyes drag to mine. Still painfully present and utterly burning.
“Delicious,” he breathes.
Oh, I’m falling. I don’t know into what, but I’m falling.
Every stroke of his tongue pulls another sound from me, and every sound makes him hungrier. One hand slides from my thigh to my hip, anchoring me as he works me harder, faster. The other moves lower, his fingers slipping in effortlessly.
I’m hot and cold.
Restrained and free.
Dead and alive.
My head drops forward, breath fogging the wall. “God—Talon—”
“Focus, Skye,” he orders. “Make the most of it.”
I force myself to meet his gaze again, and then he does something—fingers curling, tongue pressing just right—that turns my knees to liquid.
If this is him trying to convince me to want to stay at his side, he’s doing it just right.
The problem, though?
It’s not even what he’s doing to me. It’s how he’s doing it.
I’m not an object.
I’m not a thing.
I’m not something to be owned.
Every touch of his says it. He’s begging. Asking me to give myself to him. Convincing me. Caressing me. Showing me he won’t waste me if I decide to give myself over to him.
The thought jolts through me just before his tongue pushes me over again. The orgasm hits sharper, faster than the first. It’s ripping my breath away, leaving me clinging to the brick for the life of me.
He groans against me, low and satisfied, like my pleasure is his personal reward. Then his mouth slows, easing me down from the shuddering high.
When he finally stands and I turn to look at him, his mouth is slick and his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them. Not just lust-dark—storm-dark. Like he’s holding back a thousand things he can’t let out yet.
He unbuckles his belt, and I realize the pinnacle of his persuasion is still to come.
“Stay,” Talon whispers. Just one word.
I should tell him I can’t. That there are wraiths, and Death, and a hundred reasons why this ends with me gone.
But my voice doesn’t work.
So I just kiss him. Hard. Deep. Like maybe if I pour enough into it, he’ll understand.
“I want to,” I whisper into his mouth. It might just be the most dangerous thing I’ve admitted in a long, long time.
His breath catches. He cups the back of my neck and kisses me like he can drag that want out and make it permanent.
His belt falls open with a snap.
“You do?” He presses forward, pinning me tighter to the brick. “This is not a lie, right?”
“It’s not. I really want to.”
He hesitates, just a beat, before his mouth curves in that reckless grin I know too well.
“Then what did I just tell you, Little Grim?” he murmurs. “I’ll tear the world apart to make it happen. As long as you want it.”
And then he picks me up.
Like I’m nothing and everything all at once.
I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I don’t understand what’s happening, not really.
But maybe I don’t have to. Because there’s a new force in my chest, one that feels just like the Grim Reaper’s pull to reap souls, to take lives from this plane—except it’s my own.
It has nothing to do with the afterlife. It’s raw and electrifying and fierce.
I want to be alive so damn bad.
It’s like a switch flips inside me.
One moment I’m lost in his eyes, and the next I’m fumbling with his zipper—inconveniently positioned right where my bare pussy presses into him.
Chaos erupts.
He holds me still as I try to get us both ready, both aligned. The zipper finally gives, his pants sliding to his thighs, and my hands go everywhere. Spanning the heat of his stomach, the taut lines of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders.
His cock springs free, sliding between my ass cheeks.
“Oh, shit,” I breathe.
He rolls his hips once, rubbing there. My nails dig into his shoulders.
“You feel that?” he asks, his forehead pressing to mine. “I’m about to fuck you well, Little Grim.”
I swallow, but the lump in my throat won’t move.
“Stop teasing me.”
“I can’t.” His grin is a knife’s edge. “You’re the one holding me hostage here.”
He’s right. My legs are locked around him so tightly he’d have to pry them apart. I shift my hips, feel the blunt head of him catch right at my opening. The sound he makes is pure sin.
He thrusts up, hard, and I gasp so sharply it slices through my lungs. Then again. And again. Until the world narrows to the slam of his hips and the brutal rhythm of my pulse.
Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Alive.
That’s all I can think about.
The rough brick scrapes my back, but it’s nothing compared to the burn blooming low in my belly. Each thrust lands harder than the last, heat, ache, and an unspoken demand in every motion.
His grip tightens under my thighs until I feel his fingerprints in my bones.
“I could fuck you like this forever,” he says.
I bet he could.
He makes me believe it.
My fingers twist in the back of his hair, pulling, needing. I don’t know if I’m trying to keep him here or keep myself from coming apart.
“You said once…” I breathe. “You’d ruin me.”
His mouth curves.
“Yeah. I will.”
The words land like a promise, like a threat. My pulse ricochets through every vein.
“But you’ll ruin what I hate more?”
His eyes catch mine. They’re molten.
“Every last thing,” he growls, driving into me with a force that shatters my breath. “Every fear. Every ghost. Every reason you’ve got to disappear.”
My chest tightens. Just like that, I forget everything Pain said. I forget suspicion, deceit, defense.
My little undead heart cracks, and I let his words in.
I was right.
I really was.
We’re the same, my guys and I.
“Talon—” My voice is shredded. My back arches without my permission, pressing me harder into him, into the rhythm that’s eating me alive.
His hands drag higher under my thighs, angling me so deep I gasp.
“And fuck,” he groans, “if you have to disappear anyway, maybe I’ll just disappear with you.”
The admission slips under my skin like a brand, searing deep. It’s not romantic. It’s not soft. It’s raw and ugly and so fucking real it makes my eyes sting.
And just like that, I see it—like he’s been carrying it in plain sight, only I was too busy surviving to notice.
Every outburst. Every jab. Every sudden temper.
It wasn’t just the job. It wasn’t just the danger.
He’s terrified.
The man who treats his own life like it doesn’t really matter, the first one to throw himself in front of a fight, to volunteer for the most reckless plan, to joke about not waking up tomorrow—
He’s scared of this.
Of what we’re doing.
Of this… connection.
And still, he’s here.
His hips slam into mine. His forehead presses to mine, damp strands of hair sticking to my temple. The sound he makes when I clench around him is torn straight from his chest. He’s unraveling. I can feel it in the way his hands shake on my thighs.
“You’re mine in this moment,” he growls. “Say it.”
“Talon—” My voice cracks, high and pleading.
“Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
That breaks something in him.
He groans, head dropping to my shoulder, teeth grazing my skin like he’s fighting the urge to mark me.
The next thrust hits so deep my vision whites out. His name leaves my mouth in a broken gasp, and his pace turns punishing.
“Talon—” My nails dig into his back, dragging down, leaving red half-moons over hard muscle.
“Come for me,” he rasps, voice almost shaking. “Right now. Let me feel it.”
The command hits harder than the cold air biting at my skin. I feel myself falling, unraveling, heat bursting through me so violently it steals my breath. My head falls back, a raw sound tearing out of me, and Talon watches it all.
He follows with a curse, hips jerking hard, spilling into me with a groan that vibrates through my bones. I take every drop. I want it all.
And when the haze fades, when breath finally drags back into my lungs, nothing changes.
We just... stay there. Pressed to the wall. Raw. Tangled in each other like neither of us remembers how to let go.
Then, softer, almost against his will, he presses his lips to my temple.
“I hope you know I meant every word, Little Grim.”
And fuck me... I believe him. Honest to god, I do.
Which is exactly why I should be terrified.
Because this, whatever this is, might be even deadlier than any wraith.