Chapter 17
EIRA
‘Wait!’
His hand is still at my jaw, holding me still, fully and utterly in control.
The silver in his eyes flares with impatience that should terrify me and somehow only makes me feel more awake, more painfully present, every nerve pulled taut and tuned to him.
And right now, his eyes are bright, his nostrils flared, his attention so intent it feels like a hand at the back of my neck.
‘No. I will not.’
‘I just want to say…’ I manage, because my voice is mine again and I’m going to use it, even if it comes out breathless and betraying. ‘No fangs. Give me your word or no deal.’
For a beat, the air hangs charged and expectant.
Then his gaze drops to my mouth, slow and deliberate, granting himself the pleasure of looking before he takes. His thumb shifts along my jawline, barely brushing the corner of my mouth.
‘You think me incapable of restraint,’ he murmurs, low and velvety, almost offended.
‘Valentin,’ I breathe, and saying his name feels dangerous, a warning and an invitation tangled together.
His pupils contract, then expand. ‘I am capable,’ he says, ‘but you are not to test it.’
My laugh is shaky and unfamiliar. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’
Because while he loftily praises his restraint, I feel him.
The thick imprint of his cock against my belly. Hot steel he’s not doing a damn thing to hide.
He answers by leaning in.
The first contact isn’t the crash my mind braced for. Not the devouring my fear insisted would come. It’s controlled and almost slow, the press of his mouth to mine firm enough to steal my breath while still feeling measured.
He’s proving a point. That he can take without tearing, claim without wounding.
I tense on instinct, and he makes a sound against my lips. Not quite a growl. Quieter. More dangerous because it suggests fathoms-deep pleasure held on a leash.
His hand leaves my jaw and slides to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair with unhurried authority. The kiss deepens with patient inevitability, his mouth angling to fit mine as if he’s already mastered the shape of me.
I should pull back. Remind myself this is payment. A wager. A boundary line I drew in panic and arrogance.
Instead, I open.
Barely snatch back a moan.
The moment I do, silver flares in his eyes like a struck match. He takes that invitation with devastating precision, lips parting, breath brushing mine, tongue touching mine in a first, testing sweep.
Patient.
Terrifyingly patient.
As if he’s tasting not just my mouth, but my response. My surrender and defiance.
Heat blooms through me in a rush that has no business being this intense from a kiss. But nothing about him is simple. Even restraint has weight. Even control has a pulse.
My fingers clutch at his shirtfront before I can stop myself, gripping expensive fabric because it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
His tongue slides against mine, slow and wet, then firmer. Coaxing. Insistent. My breath stutters into his mouth, and that sound seems to unravel something in him.
His hand tightens in my hair, edging delicious pain without crossing the line, claiming the angle of my head as the kiss turns deeper, fuller.
Possession made exquisite by restraint. Violence flirting with the edge without stepping over it, coaxing me closer until my own control starts to fray, unleashing this manic desire that surges out of nowhere.
No. Not nowhere.
This feels older than dirt. Older than time. Which is mad.
Right?
So why am I fighting another moan while he swallows the first like he’s feeding on my breath and willingness?
Valentin’s tongue sweeps against mine again, slower this time, dragging a deeper, drugging, pussy-clenching lust through me.
And not once, not even for a second, do I feel the scrape of fang.
I hate that I notice, hate that relief floods me so hard it turns into need.
My tongue meets his, tentative at first, then bolder, because if we’re doing this, we’re doing it on my terms too.
He makes a gruff sound in the back of his throat, like he approves of my audacity even as he refuses to grant permission.
Hunger threads through every controlled stroke of his tongue, every slight pull of his lips against mine.
The room narrows until there is only us.
His mouth.
My heartbeat.
The wall of heat and stillness pinning me in place.
I should be thinking about escape routes.
Instead, I’m thinking about how his mouth feels like power. Like consent turned into something exquisite. Like my traitorous body has been waiting for this without telling me.
I inhale him, and it’s a mistake.
His scent deepens everything, that dark clean warmth turning my thoughts blurry at the edges as I tilt closer, searching for more, chasing it like I’m starving too.
He shifts, and suddenly I’m pressed harder against him, his muscled thigh slotting between mine just enough to steal my balance and make me cling.
Making me searingly aware that my bare pussy is right there, pressed against his thigh.
Hot on hotter.
Scent rising between us and he pulls back abruptly, silver edging closer to overtaking the darkness of his irises.
‘Sweet demons of Netheris, you’re intoxicating,’ he mutters.
Then he swoops back in.
His tongue slides deeper, his mouth claiming mine with a rhythm that feels like the beginning of something neither of us can afford.
My breath breaks.
His follows.
Then, without warning, his lips lift from mine.
The loss is brutal.
My mouth aches as if he’s left a mark there, and a small sound of protest escapes before I can kill it. Humiliation burns through me instantly, but his eyes catch it.
Satisfaction glints in the silver.
He holds himself close enough that his breath brushes my mouth, close enough that if I tilted forward an inch, I could steal another kiss.
His hand remains in my hair for one beat longer, fingers splayed like a restraint he’s choosing to keep.
‘No,’ he says, quiet and absolute.
And I sense he’s speaking to himself as much as to me. Then his hand drops away, slow and measured.
A man letting go of a blade by the edge.
We stand there, both of us breathing too hard, the air thick with what just happened. With what still vibrates beneath my skin like aftershock.
I can feel my pulse everywhere. Throat. Wrists. Jaw. My overheated pussy.
His gaze stays fixed on my mouth and, for a second, I see the strain beneath his control, the tightness at the corner of his lips, the minute tension in his jaw as he clamps down on something feral.
The hot, thick imprint of his cock still presses against my belly.
Gods, he would feel insane.
Incredible.
No. Not thinking about that. The Earth has moved beneath us, shifted its rules and tossed us over a line.
It would be pure madness to take this further.
Still, my tongue flicks over my lips, not checking for blood because there’s no sting, no cut, no injury.
Only taste, and the need to keep the last trace of him on me for one more second.
I drag my fingertips to my mouth, touching lightly.
His gaze follows the movement with a focus that makes my stomach dip.
‘You are not bitten,’ he says, and the formality of the statement is almost absurd when his mouth is the thing that did this to me.
When his cock still shifts subtly against my belly like even he can’t fully help himself.
I swallow.
Still disgraceful.
Still too loud in the hush.
‘No,’ I say, voice huskier than I mean it to be. ‘I’m not… checking for cuts.’
His eyes flare, and for one second, I think he might lean back in. Might break his own ‘no’. Might let hunger win.
Instead, he growls and remains still.
That restraint is its own kind of intimacy. Its own proof that he wasn’t lying when he said he was capable of it.
I breathe again, deeper this time, and my gaze slides down his throat, following the elegant line to the open collar of his shirt, where pale, smooth skin shows.
Until I see it.
A sliver of something at the edge, just beneath the fabric.
Something darker.
Too alive to be a tattoo.
My mind, fogged with heat and taste, latches on to it with instinctive sharpness.
‘What’s that?’ I blurt, my voice catching because my gaze is stuck there now, on that glimpse of something that shouldn’t be there.
And I’m dangerously aware of how close my mouth is to the dip of his throat.