Chapter 50 A Thin Line
CHAPTER FIFTY
A THIN LINE
ADELINE
His braid flying behind him, Roane stalks past the ashes of the fire, cracks opening under his feet. He advances on me, a cold darkness in his gaze. “What have you done?” he growls. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch that book? Why won’t you listen?”
“I’m not your puppet,” I manage, defensive and hissy, ashamed of myself and hating it. I scramble out of the niche, the journal and the knife in my hands, abandoning the nest in favor of being able to run if necessary.
He lets out a dark laugh, still coming at me. “Put it back where it was.”
“Why? What other secrets are you hiding?”
He stops, looming over me. His dark brows bunch together and his eyes seem to glow in the temple’s dimness. “Why can’t you just stop meddling in my affairs?”
I lift the knife and point it at him. “I just want answers.”
His laugh is as dark as his expression. “The hells. Give me the journal.”
“Not before you answer me. Why did you stop writing thirty years ago?”
“Stay out of it, Aline.”
I lift my chin. “Tell me.”
“I ran out of ink,” he drawls.
“Bullshit.”
He points a finger at me. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
“Why didn’t you mention Ardruna and Talton in your journal?”
“It must have slipped my mind.”
“You pulled them out of their books around the time you stopped writing. But why then…?” Realization dawns. “Something made you snap and you pulled them from their stories. What was it?”
“What part of ‘stay out of it’ don’t you get?” He reaches for the journal, but I twist away from him.
“You didn’t have problems herding the monsters back into the pages before,” I say, thinking out loud. “You fought the occasional escapee but worked mostly on maintaining the library and writing your journal. And the doors of this world were open.”
“Your point being?”
“What happened to change that? What happened thirty years ago?”
He shrugs. “Nothing.”
“Gods, Roane, stop lying!”
He snarls and grabs my arm, hauling me against him. “Stop pushing!”
“How’s this for pushing?” Letting the journal fall, I press the tip of the knife to the middle of his chest. “Get back.”
But he leans into it and smirks. “Do it, then. Finish it.”
“What are you doing? Stop.”
His gaze bores into mine as he starts walking me backward. “Push more. Hurt me. Only you can end me, Ellin. Fucking do it.”
He doesn’t stop until my back hits a column, and then presses the full length of his tall body against mine. Muscular thighs, flat stomach, hard chest, and my knife is still pressing into his sternum. His gazes down at me, his gray eyes mesmerizing, dark strands clinging to his neck and temples.
“Roane…” I breathe.
“I thought something had happened to you,” his low voice rumbles, long lashes fanning on his cheeks. “And so I ran back here. I panicked. I don’t ever panic.”
“Don’t you?”
“Only when it comes to you, why… Why is that?” he breathes. “I forget myself, forget… that you’re here. That it’s not only monsters and animals watching me. That some things do matter, even if I thought they don’t, not anymore.”
“Like table manners?” I hazard. My mind is firing random thoughts. “Or lack thereof?”
His generous mouth tilts up to one side in a smile. He lifts his hand and I tense, but he only strokes a lock of hair out of my face and gently tucks it behind my ear. “You’re so soft for such a nosy, obstinate human.”
“Thanks.” Reluctantly, I lower the knife, afraid to hurt him. “And you’re hard.” I wince. “That didn’t come out right.”
The other side of his mouth lifts, and I’m breathless looking at him.
How is he so gorgeous? It’s not fair. My thinking processes shut down when he’s close, and boy, is he close now.
He isn’t wearing his belt hung with weapons, I realize, the soft leather of his pants doing nothing to hide his arousal.
He’s hard, all right. Aroused because of me. He wants me, and all that fury he arrived with seems to have melted away, turning into dark honey. It fills his gaze, his expression, his every move. It slows down time.
His head dips lower, and he inhales deeply. “Your scent… Sweet and light, like… like blossoms and honey.”
His mouth brushes over my neck, and I’m burning where his lips touch. His breath moves over my skin and I melt. Shiver. Need.
The knife falls from my nerveless fingers, clattering against the tiles.
This is the start of a wildfire, a spark jumping into a flame. Having him so near is too much and yet not enough. Never enough. Now that I have a taste of that powerful body against mine, even clothed, even dressed in leathers, I want all of it.
All of him.
All of his body and half of his soul, if I can’t have everything. It’s a hunger, a thirst that can only be satiated by having him, and even then, it won’t suffice. He’s too beautiful by far, every inch of his chiseled face and powerful body hitting me like a punch.
Violent beauty. Too strong to handle, too hot to keep, and yet.
“The way you’re looking at me,” he growls. “I need you and I shouldn’t be near you.”
“Why not?” I breathe.
“Too many reasons. Front and foremost, I lie, and you want the truth.”
The liar and the thief. “Then give me the truth.”
“If only it were that simple, Ellin…”
“Make it simple. Hold me.”
He shudders. “Why can’t I resist you? You torment me and I keep coming back for more like a fool. You hurt like a wound and I can’t keep away, needing that pain. Needing you to hurt me, remind me how good it can be and yet I can’t have you.”
“Why not?” I’m losing my mind, losing all rational thought. “Why can’t you be with me?”
“Ellin… Fuck it.” His mouth descends on mine, sealing my mouth, taking my breath away.
Right now, I don’t give a damn about the riddles and questions. The mysteries of this world could link hands and dance around me for all I care.
Roane is kissing me and that’s everything. His large body covers mine, his hand landing on the column beside my head and his muscular thigh pressing between my legs, awakening a sweet ache in my belly. I gasp against his lips and his tongue slips inside my mouth, tangling with mine.
It’s so pleasurable, it twists my mind. I can’t get enough of it.
I want more, I want to explore and slide against him like water, I want to climb him and caress him, I want to know him…
know what he has lost and what he needs, what breaks him and what puts him back together.
What makes him howl, beg, demand, what makes him writhe with pleasure.
He slides a hand over my shoulder to circle my neck, tilting my head back, and he breaks the kiss to trail his mouth over my pulse, then up to my temple. Sharp teeth sink into my earlobe and I jerk in surprise and pain, even as pleasure zings down to my core.
His thigh presses harder between my legs and I claw at his shoulders, needing him, needing more.
All the things we said, the insults we hurled at one another, all the times he ran to save me and I turned toward him, all the moments we shared walking, talking, riding, bickering, touching, they are crashing together.
I don’t know if the world is shaking or if we are shaking the world.
If I ever doubted how much I want him, how drawn I am to him, how deep my feelings run, I’m convinced now.
It’s a thin line between love and hate. But I don’t hate him. So it has to be love.
I blink at the thought, then blink again when he goes down to one knee. Without a word, he unlaces my leather pants and yanks them down. Then he curses and yanks down my underpants, too, hauling both off me together with my shoes, and presses his face between my legs, nuzzling.
“Roane…”
He pulls back, frowning. “What?” Then he draws a jagged breath. “Fuck… I should have asked first, right?”
“Asked what?”
“About eating out your pussy.”
I choke a little. “I… don’t…?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. The thought of tasting you is fucking up my mind.” He lifts a hand, pressing it into my lower belly, and pleasure shoots through me. “Thinking that I’ll make you come so hard, no other man will ever satisfy you.”
I moan. His dirty talking is addictive and I’ve never been so aroused in my life. My inner thighs are slick with it. His long hair tickles my bared skin. His mouth… he wants to put his mouth on me.
“No other man will touch you,” he growls now, “ever again. You’re mine, Ellin.”
I’m at a loss for words.
“When that centaur threatened you,” he goes on, his voice a gravelly growl, “I’d have cleaved him in two. I’d have split this world asunder to save you. You don’t know what you’ve done to me. You owe me a parting gift. You owe me your pleasure. Say yes.”
“… Yes…”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, only that the need to come is becoming painful. I need him to make me come and when his mouth tugs into a feral grin, I’m undone.
“I’ll make it good for you, I fucking swear it. I want you to ride my face and come on my tongue.” He laughs softly, darkly. “Oh yeah. I’ve imagined it a hundred times since you arrived.”
I blink, but before I process his words, he slides his hand between my legs, flicking my clit, and I jerk as the pressure rises. “Roane…”
“Yes,” he murmurs, “yes, say my name as you come…” Then his mouth follows his fingers and he lifts one of my legs over his shoulder, opening me up. “You have a little scar here… and you smell like fucking honey…”
I stare down at his dark head, dumbfounded at this turn of events, my body thrumming and throbbing with every pass of his rough tongue, the press of his long fingers into me.
“Sweet,” he says, and indeed something sweet is spilling into my chest, making my throat tight and my eyes burn—but he’s skilled at what he does, and I think he’ll keep his promise.
Every stroke of his tongue and every pump of his fingers makes me tremble and gasp. I place a hand on his head, fingers tangling in his long locks, and I bow over him when he groans against my pussy.
Gods…
His fingers spear deeper, his lips close over my clit and suck, and I jerk, crying out. I think I’ll fall, my knees giving out, but he pushes me against the column, his other hand gripping my hip, shoring me up—then he’s diving back between my legs, licking and sucking and pumping, and…
Sharp pleasure rolls through me, over me, crushing me, wrenching a shout from my throat. More waves crash over me, rolling and shaking me. I’ve never come this way before, not by my hand, this hard, nor with any of the boys I’d fooled around with.
I lose track of time and space, lose control of my body, black edging my vision. It’s not until he moves that I remember the position I’m in. Roane lowers my leg and I slide down the column, falling on my ass.
Roane groans. He gets up, his hand going to the bulge at his groin and pressing. His cheeks are tinged with red, his eyes dark pools. “Touch me, Ellin.”
Tentatively, I reach out and put my hand over his leather-covered erection. I gasp at the feel of that thick, hard cock, hot even through the leather.
“Harder,” he breathes. His gaze is glued to my hand. A crash sounds deep in the temple, but he seems lost in sensation. He puts his hand over mine, covering it, pressing.
I scramble to my knees and put my other hand on his arm to steady myself. With his head bowed like this, it’s possible for me to kiss him as I stroke him through the soft leather and he moans in my mouth.
His lips taste musky and sweet. They taste of me. The realization jolts me.
“Fuuuck…” His cock jerks under my palm and the groan he lets out is deep and sexy. It almost sounds as if he’s in pain. “Oh yeah…”
Another crash sounds, closer this time. The column across from us cracks and pieces fall to the floor.
He jerks away from me, eyes wild, his expression mirroring my shock. Turning, he stares at the column. “No…”
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“What the fuck am I doing?” He hunches over, face going deathly pale. “What am I doing?”
Alarmed, I reach for him. “Roane?”
But his mouth settles into a hard line. “This was a mistake. It can’t happen again.”