36. Chapter 36
Milo
Evie’s hands knot in the front of my shirt, but mine are already beneath her thighs. One clean lift brings her legs around my hips, and I set her on the butcher block before stepping into the space she’s opened for me.
My claw catches beneath her apron tie and severs it with a quiet snap. The fabric falls loose between us.
“I’m beginning to understand why these concern me.” I stare at what I’ve done.
She drags me back to her. “You can apologize after.”
I kiss her until neither of us is breathing properly. Every time I pull back for air, she follows, catching my lower lip between hers like she has no intention of letting me get far.
Evie reaches between us and attacks the buttons on my flannel. Her knuckles brush my chest through my undershirt. She gets stuck on the third, huffing against my mouth when it won’t give.
“I hate buttons.”
“They’ve been successfully fastening human clothing for centuries.”
“They’re in my way.”
She yanks the flannel off my shoulders with enough force that I have to help or risk losing a button to her determination.
It drops to the kitchen floor, and her hands are already at the hem of my shirt, pulling upward.
I raise my arms and let her strip it off me.
The cool air hits my bare skin before her palms replace it.
My tongue slips back into her mouth, the kiss turning greedier as I try to give her everything she asks for without words. A black claw curves from each fingertip and catches in the denim beneath her thighs. I pull away at once.
Evie catches my wrist. “Don’t.”
“I could hurt you.”
“You won’t.” She turns my hand over before I can retract it and pushes the heel of my palm beneath her shirt. I hold perfectly still.
The tips hover just above her bare skin, close enough that her breath makes her soft belly swell against them.
Not a flicker of fear crosses her face. She guides my hand higher, until one claw slips beneath the trim of her bra, and keeps her eyes on mine while she does it.
“Evie.” I mean it as a warning, but it sounds closer to a plea.
“It’s okay.”
I barely touch her. The point traces the outer swell of her breast through the lace, light enough that the fabric doesn’t even pull. Her lips part, and I repeat the stroke just to watch it happen again.
The reaction cuts straight through me. No one’s ever taken the parts of me built to frighten them and asked for more. Evie peers down at my hand with the same hungry concentration she gives anything she has already decided she wants.
A treacherous part of me wishes I were easier to want. No horns or claws. Nothing that makes wanting me an act of courage.
Then she takes my wrist and drags the point over her nipple, hard enough that the lace scrapes with it, and the thought disappears entirely.
Her back arches, chasing the contact. Through the thin fabric, her nipple catches against the curve and slips free with every pass. By the third, my fingers are shaking so much that I brace my free hand on the counter.
“Again,” she demands.
“I don’t think you appreciate how little control I currently have.”
“Oh, I appreciate it exactly the right amount.”
A sound escapes me that’s embarrassingly close to a whine.
I repeat the motion, slower this time. The claw traces the edge of her areola, circling inward until the sharpened curve catches against the hardened peak. The fabric pulls taut around it, and her eyelids sink shut as she presses into the next pass.
“You like this,” I say, more stunned than anything.
Her eyes open. “Try to keep up.”
“I’m doing my best under hostile conditions.”
“Hostile?”
“You’re sitting on a kitchen counter asking me to touch you with claws.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Absolutely not.”
I slide my hand around her back and hook the curved tip beneath her bra clasp.
The fastening resists, then flicks free with a quiet click, the cups loosening across her breasts.
I ease the straps down her arms until the whole thing falls between us, and then I can only look.
She’s flushed everywhere, her nipples hard and peaked from the teasing.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” I murmur.
“You’ll know.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you seem to think it is.”
I draw the flat side of one claw beneath the curve of her breast, skimming the skin with its unnatural coolness.
Her fingers tighten around the counter when my palm follows the same path, heat flooding the line it leaves behind.
I alternate between them without a pattern until gooseflesh rises across her skin and she starts leaning into each change before it arrives.
I hesitate with the point beside her throat until she tips her chin higher, deliberately giving me the vulnerable stretch of skin.
Only then do I let the cool tip settle there and drag it slowly downward.
I use barely enough pressure to leave a mark, but the trust required to let me do even that makes my cock throb hard against my jeans.
“You’re going to be the death of my composure,” I tell her.
I bend over the faint pink trail and cover it with my mouth, my tongue tracing the mark as if I can soften the sharpness after.
“Keep going.”
I map her slowly, following the ladder of her ribs until her laughter breaks into a gasp at the dip of her navel.
From there, the claw traces her waist and skims the sensitive hollow inside her hip, leaving faint pink in its wake.
I chase every mark with my mouth, heat replacing coolness until the sound she makes is filthy enough that I’d sell my soul to hear it again.
She’s a manuscript I want to memorize, each response annotated, and every broken sound cross-referenced.
I tell her so between passes, the praise dissolving into incoherent worship.
By then, Evie’s trembling, flushed dark, and rocking against me with nothing standing between her and satisfaction but my concentration.
“Do you want me to stop?”
She answers by pulling me closer, and the last of my hesitation disappears.
I kiss her as the points make their final path over her skin, every broken sound disappearing between our mouths.
She keeps pressing closer instead of shrinking from the claws, trusting me to know the difference between pleasure and pain, and whatever control I had left is rapidly becoming theoretical.
“I need you,” she pants.
“You have me. Evie, you have all of me.”
The counter creaks when I rock forward. Her legs tighten, holding me there while she presses closer.
“Bedroom,” I manage. “Can I take you to your bedroom?”
“No.”
For one awful second, I think I’ve misread everything.
She kisses the corner of my mouth. “I mean, I’m not waiting.”
“Here?” I wait for some sign I’ve misunderstood.
“Don’t you dare take me anywhere else.”
My hands settle against her bare stomach. A tremor catches beneath my palms, then returns when she drags in another uneven breath. I find myself following the movement instead of the kiss. Until now, I’ve never paid attention to something this small. Never wanted to until her.
I’ve had sex before. Enough of it to know what it usually feels like.
I’ve been with demons who kissed with their teeth, fucked like it was a fight they had to win, and left before I’d even caught my breath.
I’d lie there staring at the ceiling, thinking this empty, mechanical thing was all there was.
Evie stays open beneath my hands, naked and trusting, and for the first time I understand what was missing.
There’s chocolate smeared across the pad of her thumb, dark and glossy from where she gripped the counter near the batter bowl. I turn her hand in mine, and her attention drops to my mouth.
I lift her thumb until it brushes my lower lip. The chocolate leaves a faint streak on my skin. I taste it there first, tongue passing over my lip while her fingers tense in my hand. Only then do I draw her thumb into my mouth and suck the sugar from her skin, tracing the crease beside it.
Her free hand closes around my shoulder, nails sinking in by degrees. When I finally let her go, her pupils are blown wide enough to swallow most of the green.
“Jesus,” she breathes.
“Just Milo.” My tongue traces the same spot. “I thought we established that already.”
“Terrible joke. Don’t care. Do that again.”
I release her hand with a pull. “Do what?”
“Everything. All of it.”
My knuckles strike something cold behind her. I glance over and find the knife block sitting inches from her hip.
I pull back.
The protest Evie makes is so indignant I almost smile, but I’m already scanning the counter. The knives are only the first problem. There’s a baking tray, several glass ramekins, and enough olive oil to turn the floor into a death trap.
“Are you cleaning up?” she asks, her voice flat with disbelief.
“No, I’m making sure you don’t end up in the emergency room.” I shift everything dangerous to the far side of the kitchen.
Evie sits bare from the waist up with her arms folded beneath her breasts, watching me clear the space with mounting disbelief.
“I’m not letting you get hurt because I got distracted and we got carried away.”
She hooks two fingers through my belt loop and yanks me back between her knees. Her teeth catch my lower lip, a sharp sting she soothes with her tongue.
“That was the hottest thing you’ve done all night.”
“Moving kitchen hazards?”
“Being careful with me even when you’re desperate.”
I catch her wrist just above my waistband, because my cock is already straining against the denim, aching, and one more inch of friction from her would end this faster than either of us deserves.
Her hands sweep up over my bare stomach before sliding around my sides. I kiss her again, but when my hand starts lower, toward the open space between her thighs, I stop.
Evie watches my claws shorten back into ordinary nails. “You didn’t have to get rid of them.”
“For this, I did.”
“Milo—”
“I know you trust me.” My fingertips skim the inside of her knee. “I also know exactly where I intend to put my hands.”
The flush across her cheeks deepens.