Page 55 of Guarded By the Phantom

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He nodded sharply, his eyes flashing red. His voice was unnaturally calm. “Take your time. We’ll go inside when you’re ready.”

I rubbed my arms with a sigh. Honestly, I didn’t want to get back in there. My face hurt from smiling, and I had no desire to talk to anyone at the gala. None of those people were truly my friends. Some were allies at best.

“You’re cold,” Phantom said in that same eerily calm voice. “I didn’t bring my jacket.”

I shrugged, shivering. “No, that’s okay. I can’t keep taking your clothes. I’m fine.”

He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head. “But I’m not.”

I heard a series of rapid clicks, similar to those he emitted when he removed his armor from his palms. At the same time, something moved under his tight shirt, the clicking growing faster while his chest, his arms, and his stomach rippled in small waves, as if some living creatures slithered under his clothes.

“You’re not crazy. I am,” he whispered hoarsely when the clicking stopped.

Before I had time to answer, he put his arms around me, pressing me to his chest. I gasped at his audacity, and then gasped again, because he was sowarm. I remembered how he’d felt before, cold and hard to the touch. This was completely different. It felt… It felt like touching a man.

“Did you… You’re not armored.”

“Mhm,” he murmured, his throat vibrating against the side of my head. “Are your hands cold? You can put them under my shirt. Here.”

He reached back to yank his shirt out of the waistband of his pants. I opened my mouth to reply but released only a hoarse, meaningless sound. When he’d embraced me, I put my arms around his middle, and his skin burned my palms even through his clothes.

I was hot all over, but not just because he held me. It was a different kind of heat, and it felt like it seared my thoughts into nothing.

Hesitantly, feeling a bit like I was drunk, I slid my hands lower down his sides, caressing the hot, male muscles that flexed under my touch. I lowered my palms until my pinkies grazedhis belt and reached back, slowly, tentatively, sliding my hands under his shirt.

We both gasped at the same time, both with violent shivers.

“So cold,” he hissed. “Keep them there. That’s a good girl.”

“I’m not good,” I protested in a hot whisper, shivering again, because his skin was so hot and smooth, and God, this felt good and forbidden. I’d touched boys when I was younger, but it dawned on me now that I’d never touched aman.

He was a man. He was strong and corded with muscle, he smelled of smoke and cologne, and that scent, which must have been mostly trapped under his armor, enveloped me whole now that it was released together with his body heat.

When I ran my fingers closer to the center, still low on his back, I jolted when they encountered a hard, raised line of armored plates running down his spine. So this was where his armor went.

“You’re my good girl, then,” he murmured, sending shivers down my spine. “Let me say this, doll. Let me do this just for a moment. We’ll forget it happened after we’re done, okay? But for now, I’ll hold you.”

I shook my head helplessly, not really understanding. It felt so good, so indecently intimate, and all his jokes flashed through my mind, a crazy thought tingling the ends of my synapses in temptation. What if… What if they weren’t jokes? What if he really meant it? What if he wanted me?

With a sudden burst of determination, I pressed closer, pushing myself into him. He gasped, his hand sliding to my hip to hold me there. I felt his arousal, hard and unmistakable against the front of my hip.

“You’re hard,” I gasped, my head spinning.

“I told you, doll,” he said, nuzzling my hair with his bony face. “That’s what happens when a man is attracted to someone. You’re my someone.”

I released a shaky breath, tentatively running my palms up his back. Where his lower ribs started, I found more lines of stacked plates, not as protruding as the one on his spine but still prominent. They overlaid his ribs.

He grunted, flexing his hips until he bucked into me, and I explored him further with trembling fingers. The expanse of his back was intoxicating. So broad and strong, corded with muscle and hot to the touch, it was like art. I longed to see it stretched out on my bed. That thought seared me, and I whimpered softly, pressing into him. Need coiled in my lower belly, arousal so hot and insistent, I had no idea what to do with it.

“I know I can’t have you for myself,” he murmured into my hair. “But at least you won’t get married yet. I’m not sure I could stand to see you married. I’d probably kill him, and then you’d hate me. I still want to kill him, even now, and your mother, too, for forcing you to do things you hate. So hold me. Hold me so I don’t slaughter everyone in your life and make you despise me.”

This didn’t sound like a joke. I sensed he was perfectly serious, and violent shivers tumbled down my back. Should I be scared? I wasn’t. All I felt was gratitude and want that grew hotter with every breath, as if the oxygen I inhaled fed the fire between my legs.

“Okay. I’ll hold you, and you hold me,” I said, because it was the only thing I knew for certain: I wanted this moment to last as long as it could. Until morning, if possible.

“See? You are a good girl,” he murmured. “But I’m bad, doll. All I want is to bend you over that balustrade and rail you until you scream. I bet paparazzi would rush here and take pictures, and it wouldn’t make me stop. I’d keep going until both you and I came hard. And the whole world would see you belong to me, even if just for a few minutes.”

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