Page 69 of A Sword of Shadow and Deceit

Theos untucks the band of my bindings, but when he realizes I’ll have to lift up for him to unwrap them, he growls out a curse and bends to his boots. I tense as he yanks out a blade from one of the two and slices right through the bindings. The glint of sharp metal so close to my skin makes my pulse race and my hands snap to his waist, half intent on flipping the script in an instant. Instinct wars against physical desire.

It isn’t until he tosses the blade down onto the sheets next to my head that I relax marginally. I’m not even all that concerned with my bare breasts now in his view as he sits up and looks down at me. Black eyes no longer cloaked in gold are fixated on the reveal. Why? I couldn’t say. From what I understand, Theos is quite the rogue when it comes to those he beds. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I know that he’s seen breasts before—bigger, smaller, rounder, wider, with darker areolas. It doesn’t matter as they’re all essentially the same.

As he continues to look, I just lay there and let him. I don’t move to shield myself or hide. There’s no use in pitiable modesty. In the past, I’ve been stripped bare of my clothes and sprayed down with water that would take your skin off if it were any more powerful. I’ve been tossed about, slapped around, beaten, starved. Nothing is more important to me than life, and right now, that’s what I choose.

After several more beats of silence, I start to move. Reaching up between us, I cup my breasts and squirm. “Are you just going to look all night, Theos? Or are you going to touch?”

“I’m going to do more than touch.” As he speaks, his voice sounds farther away despite the fact that he’s hovering right above me. From the darkness in his eyes, long tracks of black veins etch out, growing deeper and longer as the black in his gaze remains. His tone has dipped into a throaty baritone.

“Then what are you waiting for?” I ask.

Against my palms, my nipples are hard. Goosebumps rise up along my biceps and down over the flat of my belly. The wetness between my legs is still there. I rub my thighs together and as if he senses what I’m trying to do—press against my clit—Theos backs up and grips my thighs, parting them to make way for his own body.

He comes back down over me, chest to chest. His skin is burning hot whereas mine feels frosted in ice. My lips part. Hunger swells within me. “You don’t seem afraid.” That one sentence strikes through me with all of the raging power of a tidal wave crashing against a cliffside.

“Afraid?” I repeat. “Should I be?”

Surprisingly, his lashes are dark rather than the same pale of his hair. I suspect, were they the same color, they would appear ghostly in this light and with the gold irises now swallowed by the darkness. Hands trail down over my sides and move up until Theos takes each of my wrists in his grip and raises them over my head.

My throat tightens as his fingers clamp down. While I know some feel satisfaction from being tied down during sex, I am not one of them. I’ve done it too often to others right before I slit their throats to feel entirely comfortable.

“Yes,” Theos whispers, coming closer and closer as he pins my hands above my head and leans down into my face until his lips are grazing mine. The weighty need that’s bloomed inside of me clenches against my insides. The closer he is, the more irresistible it is. “You should be utterly terrified, Dea.” Theos presses a light kiss to my lips and when I crane my neck for more, he pulls away. “You should have run screaming the first second I put my hands on you, but you didn’t. Instead, you threatened me—told me that if I wouldn’t give you what you wanted, you’d find someone else. Another man to put his hands on you this way.”

“Does that bother you?” I ask breathlessly. “I’m not making any promises here, Theos. This is just sex. Nothing more. I know that the moment I walk out of that door, once it’s over, I’ll go back to being your Terra and you’ll go back to being Theos Darkhaven, a Mortal God of Divine descent.”

“Will you be doing this with someone else then after all?” The question is confusing.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly with a casual shrug. “Probably? Not right away, obviously. It’s not like I’ve sought it out, but life happens and sex is a part of life, isn’t it?”

His upper lip pulls back over perfect white teeth. All Gods and their offspring are so damn pretty, it would be infuriating if I didn’t know it’d be hypocritical of me considering my own origins. He transfers both of my wrists into one of his hands and I know, logically, that I could fight his hold if I truly wanted to. That, though, would reveal far too much and so, I merely lay there and wait, curious as to what he’s planning. It’s rare for me to be so interested in someone else—much less a Mortal God like Theos Darkhaven—but it’s even rarer for me to find them difficult to read.

I find Theos and his brothers as enigmatic as my own heritage. Whoever my God parent is, she certainly left little in the way of hints to find her and I fear that, even if she had, I wouldn’t want to.

With his newly freed hand, Theos finds his grip around my throat. He squeezes tight, pressing against the sides with the pads of his fingers. I swallow roughly and tilt my chin up, showing him that this, too, doesn’t scare me. Feigning fear is beneficial in some instances, as I’ve learned over the last ten years, but Theos is like a wild animal. He can smell it and it only makes him want to tear me apart that much faster.

“From tonight on, you let no other touch you,” he growls. “Terra or otherwise, Kiera Nezerac, the second I fuck you, you’ll be mine.”

I laugh at that. I can’t help it. “You couldn’t stop me if you tried,” I reply. I don’t say it to goad him, but because even if I’m lying about who I truly am, I won’t lie about this. His grasp becomes harder, growing restrictive, cutting off my airflow.

Small breaths wheeze from my lungs. Still, I keep my eyes on his. “I told you what I expect from this night,” I tell him. “One night. No holds barred. No restrictions. In the morning, we go back to the way we were.”

For a change, his lips quirk up. Since my first initial claim that I’d fuck someone else if he won’t do it, he hasn’t cracked a smile. Now that he does … well, I find myself feeling a little apprehensive.

Theos bends over me and kisses my lips once more. I open for him, unabashed by my own need. His tongue invades, tangling with mine. He starts slow rather than fast and heavy and then alters, growing harder and deeper the longer he kisses me. Yes, he certainly has experience. By the time he releases me, I’ve no air left inside of me and I’m trying and failing to pant around the palm at my neck. My head feels light, dizzy.

“After tonight,” he says, dropping another kiss at the corner of my mouth before moving to my chin as his grip finally eases ever so slightly. I gulp down a fresh breath of air. “You won’t want to look for someone else.”

So confident. “We’re not engaged, Theos,” I tell him. “This is just one night of pleasure.”

He licks over my jawline and removes the hand at my throat completely to set his teeth in the crook, the place right between where my neck and shoulder meet. “You won’t want to go back to the way we were,” he warns me. “You’ll want to be in my bed every night from this one forward.”

I chuckle. “If we didn’t already have a bet going, I’d offer another wager that you’d be wrong,” I mutter. My breasts rise and fall and I grit my teeth as he bites lightly at my throat and moves down. When his teeth settle over one hardened nipple, my back arches off the bed.

Sharp, violent tendrils of pleasure shoot from the tip of my breast down into my cunt. I strain against the hand still holding me down, fighting to not do so too hard. I move against him, undulating my hips, enticing him to drag my pants down and thrust inside me.

“Theos…” His name is a plea on my lips. One he ignores as he switches to my other breast and bites it rather viciously. A half scream echoes out of my mouth and I feel the curl of his lips around my sensitive flesh. “Bastard,” I growl.

He laughs, the sound playful. Finally, he seems to decide something. He releases my hands and I lower them to his upper back as he ravishes my breasts. Kiss after kiss is pressed to my soft skin and then down between them as he peppers them over my ribs and the markings left behind from the bindings. Theos moves further still until his chin bumps against the waist of my pants.

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