Chapter 28 Bryony #2
There’s no room for thought or breath. Nothing exists outside this: our lips meeting, the rain on my heated skin, the way he curls his hands into my shirt to yank me closer.
As if he’s starving for it, ravenous. I want to sink into this feeling and never come up for air.
There’s no history here. No future or complications.
Nothing but the drag of his fingers through my wet hair and the friction of my hips connecting with his.
He kisses me as if he’s been dying for a taste and wants to savor it.
He kisses me like maybe he wants to keep me.
He kisses me like a liar.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he breathes.
“You’re not,” I pant against his mouth. “We’re just pretending. None of this is real.”
Some complex emotion flickers in his features. Then he pushes his lips to mine, shutting me up, shutting us both up. The Wolf’s tongue slides against mine, gentler now. Exploring. Enjoying me. One of his hands cups my nape, gentle as he angles my head to kiss me deeper.
“Confess something,” I rasp, shaking now. Wanting. “A secret you’d tell her, but never me.”
His fingers tighten in my hair. “When you weren’t talking to me, I’d pace outside your room late at night, trying to think up ways to get you to say something.
I heard your soft sighs through the door one night.
Trying to be quiet, muffling your sounds.
” He nuzzles into my neck, whispering, “You make the prettiest noises when you come.”
Oh, gods.
Images flash of all those times he’s healed me—left me aching and wanting. And after he’d leave, I’d lie face down on the mattress, slip my fingers into my pussy, and pretend I was riding him. I’d shout my climax into my pillow, thinking he wouldn’t hear. But he did.
Heat gathers between my thighs as I picture him standing outside my door, listening to all those intimate sounds. Was he ever tempted to come in? To touch? To do all the wordless things I wanted in the dark?
“Tell me more,” I say.
“When you start, your breathing gets shaky.” He kisses along my jaw, his hand grabbing at my shirt and sliding underneath to graze the skin of my stomach.
“A little uneven, like you’re holding it in.
Like you can’t get in enough air. I wondered how many fingers you use.
If you start with one and work your way up to two, then three, as your breathing quickens.
If you grip the sheets and imagine it’s me. ”
I almost say his name. Evander. But then that would make this real. Shatter the game, force us to confront the reality of who we are.
He’s relentless now, tearing down barriers. “How often? How often do you fuck your fingers in my bed?”
I swallow. “After you heal me.”
He groans, nuzzling my pulse point. I know he has to feel how fast it is, how unsteady. “What would you have done if I knocked? If I came in?”
An exhale shivers out of me. “I would have said yes.”
His eyes flash with heat, and then his mouth is on mine again.
I lick the rain off his lips. Savor the taste of him.
Lightning streaks across the sky, the rumble of thunder lost beneath the roar of blood in my ears.
We’re connected at every burning point, and I can’t think past the heat of his hands, his body caging me in, the taste of rain on his mouth.
I’ve never been touched like this. Rough and reverent, coaxing and commanding. This is madness. Mutually assured destruction. This must be what damnation feels like—wanting the thing that will inevitably annihilate you.
But I can’t stop.
“Tell me what you would have done to me,” I say. Drunk on sensation and aching to see how far I can push. “Tell me how you’d take me if I belonged to you.”
He goes still and pulls back, expression suddenly clear and sober. “We’re just fooling around, right?” The words land like a fatal blow. “Just playing pretend?”
Reality seeps in, dousing the flames. What am I doing what am I doing what am I doing? I forgot myself. I forgot what we are.
If you’re worried about breaking my heart, you shouldn’t be. I’m not in danger of giving it to you.
But I am. I hadn’t been honest because it’s so much easier to feign indifference than to let the Wolf realize he’s burrowing into my vulnerable places and making me forget armor.
My expression shutters, a wall slamming down. “Of course. What else would it be?”
Something flickers across his face, there and gone too quickly to catch. “No getting attached. No catching feelings,” he says firmly. “Just games.”
The reminder twists like a knife. He’s letting me down easy, as gently as he’s capable of. I’m the fool who forgot myself.
I lock down those messy, inconvenient feelings until my voice is steady. “I already told you, I’m in no danger.”
I can lie just as easily. There are no soft places between predator and prey. No kindness to be found in the space between the blade and the killing stroke.
“Take me back,” I say. “Maybe something will nudge loose about Rhosyn later.”
Lightning flashes across the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder. The Wolf lifts me into his arms, but his touch is perfunctory, indifferent. The rain falls harder.
I’ve never felt so cold.