Page 79 of Creatures that Breathe

odds of beach: dwindling

His hand is whip fast, snaring my throat, pushing, shoving me until the back of my thighs collide with the solid edge of the dresser. As if possessed, Cross utters something thick and Slavic under his breath, a command, a curse, a last effort. The prayers hadn’t worked.

Power ripples off him in sheeting black waves, lifting the hairs on my arms.

I offer no resistance as he pins my hands behind my back and squeezes my neck, grip so tight I can’t breathe.

“Why did you have to remember?” Tears gather in his eyes. He’s furious, but his arms tremble.

I try to tell him, mouth opening, fail.

He groans, harsh and raw, loosens his hold, granting me a moment to catch my breath.

“I didn’t,” I rasp. “I didn’t kill Kadmos.”

It’s not enough.

Cross’s hold returns to punishing, and I lift a leg between us, slide over the top of the dresser and kick him square in the stomach, send him rearing back. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s fighting against the violence in his blood. I’d never manage to thwart him if he were truly untethered.

“I wasn’t—” I swipe out again when he charges closer, blood on his lip. He grabs my ankle, yanks. I slam my palms into his chest, try to ram him with my knees, give him everything in me.

He doesn’t budge.

“I wasn’t even alive when the king was!” I shout.

He catches both my wrist in one hand, lets the other clasp high on my thigh.

“I didn’t do it,” I pant. “Please. Cross.”

He kisses me. The abrasion of his mouth achingly familiar.

There’s not a half second between my leaning in and the crush of his body. Cross’s mouth is brutal against mine, prying my lips apart and assaulting me with sweeps of his unrelenting tongue. Taking without restraint.

He’s controlling and tortuous, fingers pressing on my throat, body a heavy, greedy weight on mine. I grasp his elbow to keep him close, to trust this is real.

It doesn’t feel real.

He’s cold. Practically endothermic against me, sucking out heat he’d only just poured into my skin.

His power is heat, and for him to feel like ice—I wonder how ferociously he battles it.

His hands sink into my hair, fingertips caressing my scalp and then he’s not on me. Instead, I’m in the air, clutching him, his arm anchored around my waist, my feet dangling at his sides. He gives me a single look of fascination, looses a breath of frigid air against my lips, but I don’t feel the sting before he’s tasting me again.

Differently.

Not gentler. This version of Cross doesn’t understand gentle.

He kisses me more deeply.

As if he’s shattered the ice on the lake and is now plunging us into its frigid waters. His hold on my waist borders on painful, but he dives deeper, plummets us further, pulls me with.

Then my ass is on the windowsill, my knees hitched at his thighs, head tilted back as he exhales icy air on my neck like he’s mad he has to breathe before submerging again, before engulfing us both in the harsh, freezing pressure of this kiss.

It’s not enough.

The thought invades my mind like a spiked vine. This kiss. One night. It’s so short.

Never in all my plans did I consider wanting to stretch time for this. Yet here I am, dreaming of more time, of other rooms, of locked doors, and flimsy do not disturb signs, ocean views and black overtaking all of it.

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