Chapter 10 Aurora #5
Ezra exhales a low, shuddering moan against my ear. One hand slams against the bookcase near my head, while the other grips a shelf with so much restraint I hear the wood crack behind me.
His mouth parts against my skin, and when he speaks, his voice barely holds together.
“What … are you?”
His lips graze my throat as he breathes me in, slow and greedy, like he’s trying to sear the scent of me into his lungs.
He’s so close. Too close.
Everything—his heat, his scent, the way he bows his head into the crook of my neck—is fucking intoxicating. He’s obviously holding back, and I wonder if normal, boring Jameson can compare to this wild inferno I feel when I’m near Ezra.
A shudder rips through me as my mind scrambles to stay ahead of my stardust meat suit. But I don’t stand a chance.
My fingers find his biceps, digging into the muscle as I drag him closer, pressing his body hard against mine.
His breathing stops for a moment, while the chaos of his shadows dances wildly behind him.
I don’t know what the fuck he is, and right now, I don’t care.
My lips graze his ear as I whisper, “What happened to the possessive asshole who grabbed my hair and sank his teeth into my neck this morning without asking?”
His jaw tightens against my cheek, control straining against instinct.
“You seem a little lost, Ezra. Can you feel it? That pull between us—the way my body aches for yours?”
I drag my fingers down his arms, savoring every tense muscle beneath my touch.
“You’re fighting it. Holding back. My wild Grim, suddenly so tame. All bark and no bite, huh? How disappointing.” I lean in, my lips brushing his jaw. “What are you waiting for? Because it sure as hell isn’t my permission.”
I run my tongue along the ridge of his ear, which causes a deep, satisfying groan to rumble in the back of his throat. I’m not sure where this sudden confidence comes from, but fuck the boundaries, fuck the shadows, and fuck this man’s self-entitled attitude.
Fuck it all, because the truth is … I want him.
He runs a cool hand up my neck and gathers the hair at the back of my head, pulling slightly to bare my throat.
Ezra runs his tongue up the length of my neck and nips at my earlobe.
My whole body tightens, begging for more. Two years untouched, and now a wet dream with teeth is looking at me like he’s starving.
I want to tear into him.
I want to feel his skin under my nails.
I want to fucking bite his lip until I taste blood.
“I feel the pull, Aurora. It’s unmistakable and unlike anything I’ve felt before.”
Ezra growls, pulling my head back further as he runs feather-light kisses up one side of my neck and down the other.
His mouth drags along my jaw, his breath hot with barely contained restraint.
“You think I’m all bark, do you?”
He growls, then sinks his teeth in just enough to bruise.
I arch into the bite, not away. Fuck trembling.
Let him rend. Let him break skin. If this is how he touches—how he venerates—then let him write his name in blood.
“Careful, mo chailín milis. Keep tempting me, and I’ll leave my mark so deep it’ll scream my name for days.”
A growl builds beneath my ribs, my pulse drowning out every thought that isn’t him. If he thinks he’s the only one who can leave a mark, he’s dead fucking wrong.
I’ll sink my teeth into his shoulder, dig my nails into his back, burrow myself so deep under his skin that he feels me every time he breathes.
“You don’t have to hold back, little vixen. Allow me to indulge your every fantasy. I would fucking worship you. Just say the word,” he says against my lips.
Ezra’s promises make me shiver with delight because I want everything he’s offering.
I trace his lips with my tongue, and he answers by tightening the fist in my hair, tugging just enough to make my scalp burn.
“Vittu, Aurora, you’re everything. The silence and the screams. The wound and the balm.
The beginning and the fucking end. You’re what I’ve been waiting for since light first kissed the dark billions of years ago.
Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.
I must hear the words. Arjouk …” Ezra’s shadow flickers across the wall while a few tendrils slither toward us, curious and hungry.
Some primal part of me knows this should freak me out.
But I’m too turned on to care.
My quick, shallow breaths hitch in my throat when I realize he’s asking for permission.
Ezra takes what he wants, but he’s holding back, his lips a whisper away from mine, waiting for me.
Why? This morning, he took what he wanted without saying a word.
But the fire scorching through my body quickly consumes that quaint, rational thought.
Ezra’s other hand now rests on my hip. His long, cool fingers creep under the fabric of my sweater to caress my hot skin.
“Ezra …” I whisper against his lips, my eyes locked on his. “Worship me, please.”
With those words, Ezra drags me in, the last thread of his restraint finally snapping. When our mouths crash together, it’s carnage—teeth dragging over lips, breath shuddering between us, tearing into each other because anything less would be a goddamn lie.
The hand that rests on my hip follows every dip and curve as it moves up the side of my body. He gently cups my breast, then runs his thumb over my nipple, causing a desperate groan to rip from my throat.
“Sensitive little thing,” he rasps, pulling back just enough to drag his teeth across my jaw. “You want to break for me, don’t you?”
When I open my eyes, Ezra stares at me with a starved, predatory expression on his face.
The hand that was torturing my nipple only a few seconds ago moves to cup my face while his knee works its way between my thighs. The friction against my aching clit makes me groan, and my eyes drift shut again.
“Fuck, yes. Just like that. So greedy for it. Rub that pretty clit against me. Use me, sweet girl. And when you fall apart, I want my name dragged from your mouth like a fucking prayer.”
I’m a complete slut for dirty talk, and Ezra’s words send fire tearing through me.
I grind against his thigh, desperate for the snap of teeth, the heat of him, the goddamn everything.
I’ve lost my mind. I know it. I don’t care.
The need is too big. The ache is too loud. And this feels like coming home to something I never knew I was missing.
“Fuck …” I gasp. My orgasm builds, flames curling low in my belly, ready to swallow me whole.
“Ezra …”
His name belongs to me now. I rip it from my throat like I’ll starve if I don’t taste it one more time.
“Fuck, Aurora.” His voice is gluttony and starvation. “Rub that greedy little cunt on my thigh. Keep going. Make a mess for me.”
He leans in, breath hot against my ear. “Naughty little thing. Are you thinking about my cock? How I’d stretch you open, slow and deep, until you’re screaming my name?”
I whimper. I can’t help it.
“Is this what you want? You want to come like an animal? Want to mark me, Aurora—claim me like you fucking own me?”
He grabs my hand and drags it over the thick line of his cock. His skin is flushed and fever-hot beneath my fingers. I wrap my hand around him, and he moans into my neck, obliterating my last rational thought.
I match my strokes to the slow, grinding roll of my hips against his thigh, clawing toward that peak, nothing else left but this.
Everything shakes. My nerves burn, my body screaming “yes” in every language I don’t remember knowing.
“You feel that?” he growls, breath hitching. “That’s what you do to me. You make it impossible to think straight. I want to taste you, fuck you, own you. I want to bury my face between your thighs and fucking drown in you.”
But then something shifts. His breath catches, the edge of madness dulling to a softer kind of ache.
He mutters a curse, the hunger in his voice cracking. He pulls my hand from his cock and stills my hips, the sudden loss tearing a broken whimper from my throat.
“Shit,” Ezra breathes, more to himself than me. “For some dumb fucking reason, I want to do this right.”
His hands slow, tracing instead of taking, his breath stuttering against my skin.
“You gave me permission to worship you, Aurora. And I will. With a fervor you can’t begin to imagine.”
He looks at me like I’m made of fire and starlight, like I’m something he’s only dreamed of touching.
“But I want to pleasure you with every part of me. So, I need you to listen.”
His words drop into a dark, unholy register that makes me want to bare my neck and run my fingers over his sweat-slick skin.
“I know you’ve seen my shadow, little goddess. The way it dances along the wall … the way it reaches for you now, desperate to touch you. Allow me to worship you—with all of me. Please.”
He releases my hair like he’s offering me back to myself, and then he sinks to his knees.
He unzips my jeans with shaking hands, groaning as he pushes them down.
“Let me taste you, little lupine. I want to earn every breath, every sound, every piece of you as you fall apart for me.”
His eyes lock onto mine as he licks his lips and traces a single finger up the inside of my thigh. But just before he reaches my underwear—just before I thread my fingers into that ink-black hair and pull him to me—a strange chill cuts through the heat.
Not fear, but something sharper. Something he just said …
The haze fractures and it clicks.
I still. It’s barely a pause, a breath held too long, but Ezra notices.
His hands slowly fall away, like he felt the shift in me before I did.
But I’m not looking at him, I’m hearing him.
Little lupine.
My stomach flips. That name.
But that’s …
I push him away and quickly pull my pants up.
If I weren’t so angry, I’d probably die from embarrassment.