Page 106 of Shade of Ruin

“Trust me,” he whispers, and my eyes flash open. His gaze is on me, glowing embers instead of ice-blue eyes, and he kneels in front of me. My shadows hold me in the air and make space as he presses his lips between my legs.

Never have I felt anything like this. I’d thought that I understood desire. I’d been wrong. “You taste,” he licks me again, “so delicious.” I lay back and the cloud of shadows becomes a bed at the perfect height for Cole to do whatever he wants to do with those magical lips of his.

Nothing in almost three months of a magic-filled life has compared to the way they make me feel.

His hands run up my thighs, leaving goosebumps in their wake, and he pulls me tighter to him, his tongue diving deeper inside me. I wish I had a blanket to ball my fists in because I need something to hold on to. Something to anchor me to the world. I feel like I’m going to explode or fly away or just break. The sensations raging through me are too much.

Then I find his hair. The gorgeous, long, black hair that I’ve admired. With both hands, I ball my fist in that hair, and I don’t let go.

“Yes,” I groan as he moves back to a more sensitive place. His fingers dig into my thighs as he keeps me from squeezing my legs together. I look down at him and see those orange embers staring back at me. Watching me writhe in his hands.

Inside me, I can feel a raging inferno building. It threatens to burn me alive, and every lick that Cole’s magical tongue makes only drives it higher. Somehow, I still pull his face tighter to me. I still beg for more.

Cole looked at me like he was going to consume me, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. He is that fire. He is that inferno. I’mnot sure that the woman I was before tonight will survive this, and I don’t know that I want her to.

“I’m yours,” I whisper.

And Cole doesn’t respond. His tongue is too busy. My hips know what they want, and they buck, grinding against his tongue. Cole’s fingers dig into my thighs, spreading them wide and holding them in place. My body wants to grind. It wants to push him harder against me, but he’s too strong.

He has been in control since the moment he kissed me, and that’s not changing. The storm inside me rages, begging for something. Something I don’t know.

Then he pulls his mouth away from me. I want to kick and scream. To beg and cry. Whatever it takes to make him keep going. “No,” I moan. “You can’t stop now. You have to keep going.”

But he ignores me, those magical lips leaving kisses up my stomach until they latch onto my nipple, feeding that inferno inside me. His teeth press against it, just hard enough that it sends a bit of lightning through me, and I buck my hips.

Until I feel his hardness press against me. My eyes open wide at the sensation. His eyes don’t leave my gaze as he sucks harder on my nipple. My body shivers with every touch, but it’s frozen, not knowing what to do.

I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood, every inch of me confused and overwhelmed and absolutely desperate for whatever Cole is going to do. But I’m not ready for any of it.

I don’t know if I could ever be ready for it, though. Which is why I don’t struggle when I feel him press against me. For the first time, terror takes hold. Shadows swirl around me, trying to protect me, and Cole lets go of my breast, moving directly in front of me.

“Do you trust me?” he whispers. My legs are shifting, moving, trying to escape the pressure between my legs. And yet, they’re not pushing him away.

I don’t want him to go anywhere. I don’t want him to stop kissing or sucking or licking. I want all of it. And maybe I want this too, but… “I’m scared,” I whisper.

It’s the first time I’ve ever said those words in my entire life. I’m scared. Not of monsters or death or pain or even tying my soul to someone.

He kisses me then. Hard enough that I close my eyes. He’s not consuming me now. He’s not trying to fan the flames inside me.

Instead, I see the obsidian tower in my mind. A foot away. The scent of cedar and salt swirls around it, but then I touch the stone and realize that it’s not stone at all. It’s shadows.

My shadows.

I smell something completely different. Rain. Summer rain after it’s been dry for so long. “What is that?” I whisper.

Then it’s all gone again. “It’s you, Maeve. The thought of you is what’s kept me from giving in. When I met you… I didn’t have very much hope left. You saw how many times I lost control. I… I was breaking. Then I met you and everything changed.”

I stare into the flames in his eyes. I feel every bit of the outpouring of his emotions. The trust and… Something else. Something that I can’t quite believe.

“I trust you,” I whisper, and my body relaxes. He kisses me, and I melt into it. My legs don’t push him away as he pushes past my resistance. A twinge of pain slices through me, but it’s nothing compared to so many pains in my life.

There’s something else, though. Something less tangible. The woman I was before tonight is gone, and someone else is here.

And then Cole kisses me harder, and the thoughts are gone, burned away by the passion in his lips. My hands slide over his body, feeling every inch of him without even a touch of fear.

His lips and hands are everywhere. Biting, grabbing, kissing, licking. Like he can’t get enough of me. But something changed with that pain.

Shadows swirl around me, just like when I was afraid. Except that this time, they don’t want to protect me. My body shifts, the bed made of darkness growing under us, pushing Cole fully onto me.

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