Page 108 of Death is My Ride or Die

“Am I wrong, then? Do you not want me?”

“Are you even hearing yourself? Do you not know me at all? I am not going to be your sex buddy, your sex slave, and wherever the hell else your sick fantasies lead! In fact, I think we should be platonic!”

Death’s eyes darkened, raking a scorching path up my legs. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that’sso,” I sassed. “Welcome to the friend zone, angel. Population: you. The last thing I want to do is waste my time and energy getting involved with an immortal fuckboy.”

“How can so much annoying be packed into one mortal? It’s beyond comprehension. I’m curious, how the hell doyouknow what a fuckboy is? You sleep with a teddy bear and own more cartoon pajama bottoms than a Disney gift shop. Not to mention, you cerebrally explode at the mere insinuation of sex.”

My cheeks burned.

“Nothing?” Death held out a leather-gloved hand. “Not even a laugh? You know that was funny.”

“I think it’sfunnyhow you think you can keep me around like a prisoner and toy with my emotions when I had every intention of helping you get your scythe back!”

“Believe me, if it were up to me, you wouldn’t have beenmyprisoner at all. You’ve managed to make three weeks feel like a millennium of agonizing, unrivaled torment from a termagant misandrist.”

My jaw fell open. “How dare you use complex offensive words that I happened to learn for the SAT! I apologize for not living in Death World, where women fall to their knees before you in ecstasy and scream, ‘Take me, D!’ I apologize for the fact you’re a two-thousand-year-old antisocial jerk who gets exasperated like an old fart after only a brief conversation with someone who wasforcedfrom her normal life,forcedto live with you, andforcedto deal with your infuriating personality!”

Death leaned into the fence so that our faces were close. “Get off your high horse, Faith,” he seethed, his voice fluctuating between man and beast. His pupils were merely slits, and sweat misted the edge of his hairline. “I don’t need you and your precious morals and your ridiculous giggly laugh and your naïve perception of how life is supposed to be constantly reminding me that I’ll never be good enough for you. I’m already well aware!”

He blinked. He couldn’t believe he’d said that, and I couldn’t either.

“I abjure any inkling of interest I ever had in you,” I said. “You’re a coward.”

Death manifested in front of me like a violent storm in the night. A cynical smile showed his razor-sharp teeth. He grabbed me, and everything whirled. We landed somewhere else in the greenhouse, the darkest part, I assumed, where shadows collected from snakelike plants that reminded me of Death’s shadows. He backed me into the hard bark of a tree, his head stooped to reach my height, heat firing out of his body like a furnace.

“I am not a coward,” Death said, his accent velvety thick. “Do you want to know what I am, Faith? If I will a creature with all of my might to cease its last breath, it dies. If Ibarely toucha living creature without these damn gloves, it dies, and if I hate a living creature and have even the tiniest slip of control, it’s dead. Everything I am leaves destruction and pain in its wake. Peel away my skin and see what little lies beneath. I’m a monster with a razor-thin layer of control and a selfish, deep-rooted hate for a world that keeps saving me.”

I turned away, unable to take the intensity of his soul staring into mine.

“That’s not true,” I whispered, despite all the hurt I felt. “You’re more than your curse.”

“What you see is an illusion of a man,” he said coarsely. “All I am is death.”

“Then why do I feel your heart beating when we kiss?” I pressed my hand against his chest. All I felt were the cold buckles of his intricate armored vest and the hard wall of muscle beyond it. Death went rigid beneath my touch, and my whole body felt electric from the strange energy charging between us.

He reached up a gloved hand and started unbuckling his vest beneath my fingers. One by one, the clasps undid. I forced myself to look away from the trail of dark hair leading into his leather pants.

“What are you doing?” I asked breathlessly.

Death’s head bent down, his cheek nuzzling the side of my face. “Making amends,” he said hoarsely.

I tried to remember why we’d fought and the things he’d said, but all was lost when I felt his fingers gently encircle my wrist and guide my hand back to his stomach. My fingers trembled as I pushed the rest of the clasps aside and spread the material until the scorching, bare skin of his tattooed abdomen met my fingertips. He released me, and my shaking fingers spread out, sliding down his taut stomach. To his belt. His zipper. To the place my mind went to in the dark, no matter how hard I tried to deny it.

He inhaled sharply.

The stubble on his jaw grazed all the way down my neck as I explored him through his leather pants. “Faith . . . ” My name left his mouth like a prayer. He kissed my throat and then licked a slow path up the hollow of my neck to my ear. “Keep doing that and you’ll lose your virginity against this tree.”

I shivered so hard that my teeth rattled. “We shouldn’t be doing this . . . ”

“What’s a few bark splinters in your ass?”

He swallowed my laughter with another kiss. His mouth sought mine and devoured it like a punishment. My chest arched toward him as his hands slid down my spine and pulled our bodies together. Our tongues crashed in a fierce battle, tasting, wanting. His kiss was my favorite toxin, a slow, agonizing poison. When I bit down on his lip, he released a throaty growl and grabbed my butt with both hands.

Death hoisted me up into his arms like I weighed nothing and slammed me back against a tree with his hips. “Like that,” he said, demonstrating again. “Except your panties are off and in my mouth.”

I couldn’t help but laugh again as he kissed down the hollow of my neck to my collarbone. He slowed to a sizzling caress as his lips brushed mine once more, a good night kiss. The need for more friction overcame me as my mouth came down on his again and sought him in a darker, rougher way. I took control, crazed and fascinated by the monster holding me. He made me feel like I was sinning, permitting my lips to possess him over and over again. A fever spread throughout my body, the need to dig my nails underneath his clothing, rake my fingers through his soft hair. The crowding presence of his strong, protective body cocooning me in desire. His hips ground into mine again, and my palm spread out over his pounding heart.

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