Page 44 of Obsidian Prince

He chuckled, tickling her ear with his warm breath. "You could just ask."

"I don't always understand what people mean when they use words. When I look inside people, I understand them."

He drew back enough that he could look at her face. "You've already seen inside my head."

"I have seen who you are." Enough of his buttons were undone that she could slip her hand in to feel the heat of his skin through his thin t-shirt over his pounding heart. "I have seen your soul." She ran her hand up his neck to his face, cupping his scarred cheek. "But I only see what you think and feel in the moment when I look. You would have to think about why you like me while I’m looking at you with my third eyes for me to see."

Alexander swallowed as she touched his scars, her fingers careful so as not to hurt when she caressed the bumpy slick skin. His eyelids fluttered closed.

He held her hand against his face. "What is inside my head isn't always pretty. Some of it is dangerous for you to know."

"I already know a great many dangerous secrets, my very dangerous prince, including some of yours. I have never betrayed your secrets. I never will. I try very hard not to betray anyone’s secrets."

He opened his eyes. They were filled with some intense emotion, some longing she couldn't identify.

"Let me in," she asked. Her fingertips delicately touched his scars. She wondered what made permanent scars on a Sidhe who could heal nearly any injury. But she didn’t look. He would tell her when he was ready.

He nodded. “You can look inside me whenever you wish.” Fear flashed in those fathomlessly deep brown eyes.

She looked. He was afraid that each time she looked inside him, she might find something so ugly, so dark that she would no longer want him. But that fear was balanced by a longing, a hope that someone could know him, all the layers, all the secrets and hidden dark corners of his soul, and still want him.

No, not just someone.

Her.

Inside Alexander's mind, Liliana saw herself looking back with exotic eyes like wise and magical jewels. Her head cocked sideways with eyes on the floor, thick wavy dark hair framing an elfin face as she asked him if he would send Wolfhounds to kill Pete. She soared through the air, the essence of grace and power, as if gravity didn’t apply to her. She walked out of a cage, splattered with blood, head high like a queen. She trembled and went pliant in Alexander's arms as he kissed her, right after she danced the deadliest lion in the pride to death.

A tender seriousness filled her face as she told him she desired all that he was. She fully intended to risk her life to fight for him. The raw truth of that still shook him to the core.

This man wanted Liliana. He wanted to possess all that power and beauty, unselfconscious grace and honest desire. He wanted her so much he could hardly think of anything else but her.

Liliana had a hard time believing it was true, but she could see it with her own eyes. She couldn't tell a polite lie to save her life, was prone to sudden violence, and had strange eyes that she hid so they wouldn't make people uncomfortable. He liked all those things. Quirks that others saw as odd or disturbing, he saw as desirable.

Liliana slipped her hand up to pull him closer. The fine short hair on the back of his neck tickled her palm. For the first time, rather than just letting him do the kissing, she gave her prince a proper kiss.

As the kiss deepened, she filled her third eyes with the hot red of his desire. She pulled him hard enough against her lips to hurt, and didn't care. She kissed him like she would die if she couldn't, like she needed his lips and tongue to breathe, to live.

He groaned into her mouth, kissing her back with the same desperation. His hand moved up her bare thigh under her skirt until it cupped her bottom.

She ripped the rest of the buttons off his shirt, so her hands could explore his chest. Her fingernails raked against the thin t-shirt material, wishing she could claw it off him so nothing would separate them.

He crushed her tight enough against his hard body to make her cry out involuntarily from the pain. A shock of horror/disgust ran through him like a bucket of ice water over all that fire. He pulled away from the kiss, breathing hard.

"It's all right," Liliana said. He had hurt her, but between the painkillers and the spectacular need inside his head, she was so drunk she didn't care. No one had ever wanted her that much. It made her feel giddier than any drug.

"No, it isn't." A shuddering revulsion doused his passion. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and let it out, regaining control. She caught a flash of memories, nothing clear enough to catch more than the impression of pain and sex mixing in a very bad way to make something ugly, before he slammed that mirror of shielding over his mind, shutting her out. "I'd better go."

"I really want to bite you," Liliana said, disappointed. She knew she wasn't thinking clearly with the drugs in her system, but she wasn't sure she’d ever wanted anyone so badly either. This prince of shadows and secrets was the most fascinating man she’d ever met. Waiting until her body healed to claim him seemed like a form of torture.

He raised an eyebrow at that. "You want to bite me?"

"I want to share venom with you very much." She nibbled on the strong column of his throat down to the prominent collarbone that his open shirt revealed. He had so much muscle, she could bite him almost anywhere.

"That's not what I had in mind," he said. His body tensed against her. He would have pulled away from her if he could have without dumping her injured body on the floor. As it was, he took a firm grip of the hair at the base of her neck so he could pull her head away from his skin.

Liliana giggled. "I know exactly what you had in mind. I want that, too. But it would hurt right now, so can I just bite you?" She stroked the short, rough dark hair on his unscarred temple where gray hairs mixed with the black, one of the first signs that he was no longer young. If he let her bite him, he would be hers. The gray would soon fade away. If she had her way, his hair would stay dark forever.

"What would your venom do to me?" His voice returned to unconcerned boredom, hiding how he felt from her.

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