Page 121 of Creatures that Breathe

Without warning, his tongue slips inside of me, where his fingers left me wet and empty. I yelp, burying my face in the pillows, utterly surrendered to his control as he tastes me, licking and teasing.

The room is silent, except for the rough groans he makes without seeming to realize. My hair blocks out my vision as he pulls my ass higher, bends me, devours me, as my knees shake on the mattress.

“Gods, Leni, you don’t know how you tease me.” Fingers replace his mouth, hard and deep, finding a gliding rhythm. I moan at the devious wet noise of us, pulse skipping and stuttering in my chest.

His voice is cosmic devotion, wanton and unashamed. “That lingerie.” Another bite, another thrust. “I thought of it ten times a day. But now.” He curses quietly as arousal begins to seep down the back of my thigh. “Now, I picture you in my shirt. And I’m at fucking war with whether I like you in it or out of it more.”

“Shouldn’t have ripped it then,” I groan, blood loud in my ears.

“Fuck, you are so beautiful,” he hisses, hooking his fingers inside me. Lending his mouth to the mess leaking down, cleaning every drop off my thigh like it’s freshly warmed syrup.

His fingers slick back and forth rhythmically, purposefully, and just when I learn it and buck into him, he hits a new spot.

I gasp.

The pulse in my stomach magnifies, spreads as I shove my face into feather heaven, and groan. I don’t have to say harder.

He does it himself.

Doesn’t relent as I vibrate, tremble under the intensity of his thrusting fingers. Doesn’t stop the hard, biting plunge, knuckle deep, the perfect curl of his tongue over my swollen clit as I fly over the peak and into a heart-stopping freefall. I cry out his name.

Always his name.

This male that I’ve come to love.

A love that defies the Fates, an emotion that serves me no points in a greater game.

Yet I long for it to blossom and spread like vines overtaking a skyscraper.

“Cross,” I gasp it, I savor it, imprint it deep within me. I swallow as my body tumbles from its euphoria, as my fingers numb and my thighs ache.

He withdraws momentarily, murmuring how I taste like heaven, how I taste blue and watery, like honeysuckle and with a guiding, sticky hand on my stomach, he spins me again to settle back onto cool sheets.

The entire room is black. Packed with his power, blocking out the sun. None of the candles have survived. I bet even the hall is slick with it, darkness stuffing cracks like spilled ink.

“We can stop here,” he rasps suddenly, voice like gravel. Pulse throbbing beneath his tattoo.

I hesitate. Only for a moment, just enjoying the male looming above me. Hands braced on either side of my head, knees tucked tight against my thighs. Hard muscle and cut valleys, no signs of the bullets he took for me, of the chains, the needles, the slash of his nails in his throat. He’s healed. just while he’s been here, with me.

It gives me a sweep of hope. Maybe the curse won’t hurt him if we’re together. Maybe we can live in his darkness and he’ll be safe. Maybe I can stay. “Come closer,” I whisper.

His breath hitches.

We entwine like the loose ends of a sail, knotting in a way that feels innate, as if nature itself has brought us together.

I tilt my chin up to caress his cheek and shut my eyes against the sudden ache of yearning, of feeling like this is what I’ve missed my entire life, and it’s still somehow out of reach.

He lowers his body against me, heat and muscle.

Then he holds me. Ungently. Too tight, too heavy.

I laugh, and he doesn’t wait to join me, snuggling into my neck.

Like we were in a pillow fight and now we’re breathless. Like he didn’t just make me come so hard, I got closer to the sun than Icarus. Like his mouth isn’t still wet with me. Like I can’t feel the cycling pulse of desire hard as steel against my stomach. Like we have nothing to say.

Like we have time.

I don’t want to cry, so I lick the curve of his ear. “I want more.”

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