Page 69 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

I hesitated before asking, “What does it feel like when Vain is in control?”

Rory paused, then said, “On a good day, it’s like I’m strapped into the passenger seat of a car and he’s behind the wheel. On my bad days it feels like I’m at the end of a long tunnel, and the black is closing in around me with only a pinprick of light to focus on in the distance. But I can always feel him with me. He never makes me do anything I don’t want to do. His wants are my wants. And mine are his.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his knuckles glancing over my skin, a touch so soft I nearly melted into him.

“And what do you want, Rory? Not what Vain wants, but you.”

The distance between us was so small that I could feel his shallow and uneven breaths against my cheek as he studied my face.

“Right now? I want to feel something. I want to know what it feels like to have my lips on yours. Not Vain’s. I want to know how you feel under my hands and not his. I want to know if this is real.” His hand cupped my jaw, and he drew me closer to him. Rory kept his eyes locked on mine, a dangerous yearning set in his gaze. “What do you want, Ava?”

When I stared into his eyes, noting the tender strokes of his thumb against my cheek and how his touch ignited the blood thrumming through my veins, it was easy to forget the demon that lay beneath his surface. I knew all too well the pitch-black that swam behind Rory’s stormy gray. And yet, I didn’t want to care. There was a compulsion gnawing in my chest that I was no longer willing to ignore the more I studied the curve of his mouth, the creases between his dark brows, and the strain feathering the muscles of his jaw.

I was done pretending.

“You.”

His lips parted, and my eyes tracked the movement. “Can I kiss you?”

I didn’t remember saying yes; I think I nodded or mumbled an acknowledgment. I must have, because Rory guided me forward to close the already small distance between us. His lips brushed my mouth with a softness I wasn’t expecting from him. My skin prickled, and I shivered at the touch. He seemed tentative, a little hesitant even, almost as if he were afraid of breaking me. I reciprocated each movement of his mouth against mine, a careful dance. Tracing my tongue along the seam of his lips, I sighed into him when he slid his tongue against mine. The taste of him was intoxicating.

In each breath, I inhaled the warm, spiced scent of him mixed with a hint of apples from the shampoo still clinging to him. I sank my fingers into his hair, tangling them through the strands as I pressed my body closer to his, further deepening the kiss.

Rory matched my enthusiasm with an insistent need all his own, his fingertips digging into my hips like a pulse that echoed his desperate heartbeat. There was a warmth to his touch, a balance of eager sureness and wavering hesitancy. His hands quickly turned greedy. The one at my hip fluttered over the fabric of my T-shirt and skimmed down until he met the bare skin of my thigh.

Heat pooled between my legs, and I wondered if Rory could feel it through his sweatpants.

“You shouldn’t feel this good,” he whispered against my swollen lips. “Why the fuck do you feel so good?”

My answer came out as a groan against his mouth which only drove him to take from me with a far wilder kind of desperation.

He pulled back an inch, panting, his eyes full of pure lust. “Fuck it,” he growled. “I want to do a whole hell of a lot more than kiss you right now.”

Rory gripped my hips and shifted me into his lap so that I sat facing away from him with my back against his chest. With my legs hooked over his knees, Rory knocked them open, spreading me wide.

I gasped as his mouth worked across my jaw and then to the sensitive skin at my neck. The sharp graze of teeth and the warm flutter of his tongue sent a wave of goosebumps to pepper my flesh underneath his touch.

Each breath I drew in was dizzying and full of unrestrained desire.

His hand traveled up underneath the hem of my T-shirt and tentatively grazed the underside of my breasts, and when I sucked in a surprised breath, he drew back slightly.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

“No,” I rasped.

He cupped one breast in the palm of his left hand, teasing the nipple with the swirl of his thumb while his other hand wandered further and further up my thighs until he was met with the slick heat that had already left my panties soaked.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he breathed out heavily against my skin.

Rory pressed against my clit through the fabric, and I moaned as his fingers made tight circles over the aching bundle of nerves. He kept a patient pace until I was squirming against him, silently begging for more.

It was impossible not to notice the hard length of him beneath me, and I could feel Rory stiffen every time I shifted over him, the restrained groans vibrating in his chest as he bit them back.

He methodically hooked his finger into the fabric over my core and tugged it aside.

With one finger, he dragged it slowly up through me, swirling it lazily as he explored his way back up to my clit, still throbbing for more of his attention. The whimper he dragged from me turned into a heady sigh as I closed my eyes and ground myself against Rory’s hand.

As he continued to explore the blazing heat below my waist, his other hand drifted past my breasts and reached up through the collar of my shirt until it settled gently at the base of my throat.

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