Page 118 of Creatures that Breathe

It takes shackles and cuffs, and a pulse of power to get me to slow again, to gentle my touch, to give her what she wants. Methodical, even. Gentle.

Leni sputters beneath me, cries out, hips bucking against me. I thrust my fingers deeper, sensing the tension coiling inside her, kissing my way up her clit, circling gently before taking it in my mouth and sucking.

Her pants fill the air. The room is dark, lit by only the tealights. Cool air blows down my exposed back. Slow is a constant scream against the storm I feel under my skin.

“Stop!” she cries suddenly.

I break away from her, fall back, mouth and hands wet with her. “Fuck. Did I hurt you?” A sick lump lodges in my throat. Regret slams through me. “I’m so sorry. Leni, Gods. I’ll—”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she rushes out. Relief floods me, but the feeling is short-lived. She pushes up to her elbows, hair a crown of faded sapphire, and she tells me the last thing I want to hear, “I want harder.”

30

Leni

close. So close

It feels like I’m losing.

My body’s strung painfully tight, a taut wire ready to snap. Each breath burns my lungs, leaving behind a lingering ache. I’m overwhelmed. Flooded with this sticky, all-consuming want, and yet there’s a gap between what I desperately need and where I am.

Cross’s breaths match mine, rapid and heaving as we lock eyes, soak in the command stripped from my heart.

Harder.

My lips part and then press together again.

I haven’t touched him.

I should.

I will.

Sweet Hera, I want to. There’s no doubt the male has spent his life in battle. Sculpted and hard. Muscles I’m positive no mortal has, thick and bulging. Dark power thrums beneath his skin, scorching the air between us, but his fingers are only just overly warm against me.

On the floor, knees spread, chin down, Cross claws his muscled thighs like they’ve done him wrong. His lips are bloody red and slightly parted, eyes liquid with wild desperation, as if he’s halfway insane. His chest heaves, every coil of muscle in his torso pronounced and straining.

He’s struggling.

I bend forward, lift up off the bed to help, and he jolts back like Zeus’s bolt found its mark.

“Cross?”

“Fuck,” he groans, teeth sawing. The muscles of his throat constrict as he swallows. He retreats further, and half the candles on the bookshelf blow out, sending a waft of vanilla and amber through the air.

The windows are covered in a screen of matte undulating black, claw like tendrils snaking out across the ceiling. Cross groans again and they recede, rushing back to the window. “I’m trying to be gentle, Leni. I really am. Just…” He pulls his disheveled curls, directs a silent plea to the candlelit ceiling. “Give me a minute to settle and I can … I’ll be gentler, do better. I—”

Wasn’t he listening? “I don’t want gentle.”

“But—”

“I did,” I tell him, searching for the words. End up sighing. “This isn’t us, Cross.” This is not the male who gathered me in his arms in the rain, who made me stand across a room to keep from pouncing on me, who ended an interrogation by burying his face between my legs and praising me for it.

This cautious seduction, it’s polite. It’s everything I prayed for when I was trapped in the palace, staring down Draven’s barrel.

Flickering candlelight and sugar-coated words. Champagne and pools of sunlight. Tender, fleeting touches.

He’s given me everything, and it’s all wrong.

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