86. Rafe
Chapter Eighty-Six
Rafe
“ W hy don’t you take me to your room?” she purrs.
Others are finishing breakfast and coming out to enjoy the beach.
They are trickling down to our secluded stretch of sand and sea, and we aren’t alone anymore.
Taking her hand, I lead her out of the water.
We grab our clothes before heading back to the hotel.
I don’t let go of her hand once as we navigate the resort, and neither of us says anything until we are inside our suite.
I shut the door behind us, and Mira smiles at me as I pull her toward my room.
Again, she doesn’t resist, and her anger seems to have simmered off her skin like the steam still wafting from her.
“This is really nice,” Mira says, wandering around the palatial room.
“Alice chose it,” I say with a shrug, wholly focused on her.
“Is that the vampire or the weird fae?” she asks as we step into my room. I close the door behind us and pull her into my arms, needing to touch her. I need more of that addicting warmth and fire that makes me feel clean. Almost whole.
“Alice is the vampire, and Summer isn’t weird. She’s Seelie.” The words slip out of my mouth unbidden. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”
Damn, what is it about Mira that I have this need to explain every detail, no matter that I should keep my mouth shut? I am the aloof Morningstar, the loner, the different one, but around Mira, I feel?.?.?. normal. Something I didn’t realize how desperately I craved.
“Your secret is safe with me,” she whispers, twining her arms around my neck again and pressing against me .
Is it? I still don’t know anything about her. Besides, I like being around her, and I already want to fuck her again. A lot.
“Why?” I ask, my hands on her waist. “Why keep her secret? My secret?”
“Because I like you.”
Is that enough? Can I trust her with my secrets and my sisters? Or am I thinking with my dick here?
“People don’t usually,” I admit.
She chuckles. “I find that very hard to believe.” Her fingers find the curls at the nape of my neck, and she gently scrapes her nails through them. My eyes practically roll at the simple caress, and the demon preens. Her hands are so warm.
“People find me unapproachable and angry.”
“I find you sexy?.?.?. irresistible,” she says, pressing even closer. I widen my stance and slide my hands down to her hips, fitting her against me as she steps between my feet.
More truths spill from my lips.
“Before you?.?.?. I’ve never?.?.?. I wasn’t interested in that.” It wasn’t that I didn’t notice people. They just didn’t interest me enough to pursue.
“That?” she says, pressing onto her toes to brush her lips against mine, tasting the vulnerability the words left behind.
“I thought I was broken.” That she shattered me as a child and into adulthood.
I thought I was dead inside, broken by the past and allowing what happened to break my present.
My hands slide over her hips to her lower back, my fingers brushing idle patterns against the bare skin above her swimsuit bottoms. “But you burned through me.” She arches a little at my touch on her lower back, embers sparkling to life in her dark eyes.
“What if it consumes me?” I lean closer, our breaths mingling. “What if you consume me?”
And what if I love it? What if I can’t live without it? What if you leave when you realize how worthless I am? How broken I am in every other way?
“Kiss me,” she breathes.
I hesitate for a moment before dipping my head and kissing her softly, a little unsure.
She moans but doesn’t deepen it, letting me explore and experiment.
I can feel her holding back, but I can also feel her skin warming against the bare skin of my chest where it meets hers.
I don’t want her to hold back. Not anymore.
I want to burn .
Keep. Pursue.
I grab her around the waist and lift her against me.
She wraps her legs around me and tunnels her fingers into my hair.
She fists it with one hand and strokes over one of my horns with the other.
The bite of pain in my scalp, combined with the pleasure of her caress, has fire shooting down my spine.
I walk across the room and lay her back onto the bed.
Following her down, I pin her beneath me and bite her lower lip.
Flames flare to life in her eyes when she looks up at me. Scalding heat radiates from her grip on my horn, feeling as if it is setting every bone in my body alight. I sink into the heat, letting it warm every bit of cold in me.
“There are things I want that I don’t understand, but I think I want them from you,” I murmur, resting my forehead against hers.
I want you to run, and I want to chase you. I want you to fight, and I want to take you even as you do.
Are these my thoughts or the demons?
“Take them,” she says, arching against me.
“What if I hurt you?”
She moans. “What if I like it?”
My fangs ache, and giving in to the voices in my head, both mine and the demon’s, I sink them into her shoulder like a viper, holding her still.