Page 57 of Grave Curse

“This.” I dug into my back pocket and handed her the pearl-handled razor. I heard her breath catch as she took it, and for a moment I wondered if this was the right thing to do. “Piece by piece, I’m taking everything away from him, baby girl.Everything. As I do, I swear to you that I’ll lay each piece at yourfeet, so you can see how his world is crumbling while ours grows with a strength he’ll never defeat.”

“I’ve had nightmares about this blade. In my dreams it’s huge. But it’s really so small, isn’t it? Like Hades. He’s so small. So fucking beatable.” A slow, vicious smile carved her expression, and for a moment I felt genuine pity for my uncle for being the focus of her pretend-goddess wrath. “Thank you, Tyr. I love it.”

God fucking help me, she was so insanely hot, but never more so when she had murder on her mind. With a growl I bent and pressed my mouth to hers, only to wince. Shit. Forgot about the bruised lip.

“Oh, baby.” Her murmur of concern was so sweet, like healing waters soothing over that thing I liked to call a soul. Gently she reached up and touched a finger to the corner of my mouth. “Are you all right? Seriously, are you hurt?”

“It only hurts when I laugh.”

“Where?”

“Here.” Absently I rubbed my aching jaw, then held my breath when she rolled up on her toes and trailed her lips along the exact path my hand had taken.

Jesus fuck, Ginger kissed me. Without prompting, or bargaining, or straight-up coercion. She just… kissed me.

My dick got so instantly hard it was a wonder it didn’t make a damn cartoony springing noise.

“Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Oh, the possibilities. “My cheek’s kinda messed up.”

“Yeah, you’re going to have a bruise there for sure.” She made the cutest little sound of sympathy before cruising her lips very carefully over the swelling I could now see under my left eye, her hands coming to grip my shoulders for balance. “Anyplace else?”

“A couple places.”

“Where?”

She asked for it. “Got socked in the mouth pretty good.”

“Aw.” Once again she rolled up on her toes. “I’ll be gentle,” she whispered, and for the first time, she kissed me on the lips.

I had no frigging clue why it felt so different, Ginger choosing to kiss me, but it did. It was better than any fantasy, and I’d cooked up so many fantasies about her over the years that I could qualify as a fucking chef. But this, the feel of Ginger’s mouth molding to mine like her life’s goal was to create to most perfect seal, was enough to make my spine melt.

She was enslaving every part of me, and it was only a kiss.

The flutter of her tongue slipping between my lips to caress my tongue wrenched a deep groan of pleasure from me. She pulled back in an instant, while every cell in my body howled in protest.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?”

“Oh, I’m hurting, and you’re definitely the cause of it.”

Awareness flared like fireworks in her pale eyes. Yeah. She got the message loud and clear.

And she was good with it.

Hot damn.

“Okay,” she whispered, and I heard her swallow. “Where else are you hurting, Tyr?”

“You know where.” I sifted my fingers through her hair before tightening my fist with gentle savagery. “Get on your knees, Snap.”

With her gaze never leaving mine, my rebellious, fiery Ginger sank to her knees before me. It was such an unbelievably beautiful sight I was certain I’d remember it until the day I died.

Wordlessly I reached for my buckle and fastenings of my jeans. Wordlessly, because anything I said now might break the spell and she’d remember she’d been programmed to hate me. Or that I just trashed her store. Either way, I wasn’t about to distract her from what she was clearly willing to do.

Thank fuck.

The sound of my zipper lowering seemed loud in the trashed front room. My pulse paused in its faithful beating when she raised up on her knees, and for a fraction of a second I thought she’d changed her mind. That would have been par for the course for our rocky relationship.

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