Page 21 of For Love and Blood and Fury

“I did try. I don’t know how to heal you. You don’t think I would if I could?”

Elena considered her words for a minute before her attention returned. “You said your ability responds to fear?” Something that could only be described as a bad idea skittered over her expression. “What if I scare you?” Lips – full and tempting – inched into a smirk.

There wasn’t a shred of doubt in Marisol’s mind that she should leave. That she had to leave. It was madness to stay. Elena was her patient. It was her duty to care for her, not wonder what her kiss might feel like.

It didn’t matter that Elena wasn’t human. She wasn’t going to think about that now. Elena was a living being in her care, and that was enough to make entertaining the thought of getting close to her unacceptable.

Elena moved to one side of the narrow bed as if Marisol had accepted the proposition and she was making space. She’d said no, hadn’t she? Said it with conviction, she was sure.

“Do you have mind control powers?” The question slingshot out of Marisol’s mouth.

“Yes.” She admitted it so freely that it should have made Marisol nervous, but anticipation was the only thing coursing through her tense body.

“Have you used them on me?”

“No, but I can if you want me to.” Her voice was low, the call of a jungle cat stalking the night. Marisol should run instead ofdrifting closer. “If it will absolve you of any guilt, I’m happy to oblige.”

Marisol’s mouth was dry when she swallowed. Her pulse pounded in her neck and chest and throat.

“How do you plan to scare me?” Marisol’s voice was too soft. Too weighed down with intrigue and desire.

“Come closer,” Elena whispered, eyes darkening and voice deepening.

When Elena moistened her lips, a flash of a fang raised the temperature in Marisol’s body. She considered asking Elena to take over her mind. To give her permission to do what she wanted despite it being against everything she was supposed to want. It was wrong. Categorically. And yet, she was moving again, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Are you going to bite me?” Marisol asked, palms sweating and heart hammering against her rib cage.

Elena’s hand was on her jaw, her eyes dark and mesmerizing.

Before Elena answered, Marisol asked another question despite it being impossible to steady her breath. “Will it hurt?”

“Do you want it to?” Elena pulled her closer. There was no question that if Marisol leaned in, she was going to meet her waiting lips.

Marisol stopped herself before she whispered a breathlessyes. She wasn’t that kind of person. She’d never been intrigued by pain.

“Are you controlling my mind?” Marisol asked from the crumbling edge of a mistake.

“No, baby. Those desires are all yours.” Elena’s whisper landed on parted lips.

“I thought you were supposed to scare me. I thought you were in agony.” Marisol was slipping. Falling into the current and doing nothing to save herself.

“There are so many different kinds of pain,” she replied, pulling off Marisol’s hair tie to send her hair falling below her chin. “And connecting to your body might bring back those pretty wings.”

The way Elena ran her fingers through Marisol’s hair was a revelation. If this is what her touch did, she wasn’t going to survive her lips.

Each stroke was electric, sending a current down her spine and igniting a fire in her belly. It was as if Elena’s touch awakened something deep inside of her, something primal and untamed. Marisol’s breath hitched, her body trembling with so much potential energy she was breaking at the seams. It was wrong. Wrong wasn’t even a strong enough word, but she couldn’t pull away.

Elena’s thumb brushed against her scalp, sending a jolt of pure desire coursing through her veins. Marisol’s eyelids fluttered closed, her head tilting back instinctively, offering herself to the intoxicating touch. It was a surrender, a silent plea for more.

Marisol’s lips parted, her breath a shallow pant as she erased the space between them. She couldn’t help herself. The pull was too strong, the desire too overwhelming. Elena’s eyes, dark and alluring, drew Marisol in like a riptide, dragging her under the surface of reason and rationality.

Elena didn’t show the hesitation of a first kiss. She made a fist in Marisol’s hair and kissed her like she’d done it a thousand times before. Kissed her like she already owned her lips, her body. Kissed her into a collision of yearning and desire.

Elena’s tongue brushed against her lips, parting them before kissing her so deeply Marisol lost her connection to her body. And then Marisol felt the sharp point of Elena’s fang. A hint of danger amid the intoxicating pleasure, and Marisol was undone.It dismantled her like a hand to her throat and fingers tearing off her clothes.

“I can’t,” she moaned against Elena’s mouth without an ounce of conviction.

“You already have.”

---