Page 54 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

My hands find her waist, pulling her closer as frost spreads up the walls around us. She burns against me like a living flame, and I welcome the heat. Welcome the way she makes my frozen heart beat faster.

Welcome the way she melts through every barrier I've constructed.

In this moment, I don't care about fate or prophecy or the salvation of my world. I care only about the taste of her mouth under mine, the way she arches into my touch, the soft sounds she makes as I claim her lips more thoroughly.

Let my carefully crafted plans crumble to ash.

Let my world melt and burn.

Right now, there is only this. Only her. Only us.

And for the first time, I let myself admit that perhaps this—this heat, this hunger, this impossible connection between us—might be worth the price I’ll surely have to pay.

I crush her against me, one hand tangling in her hair while the other spans her waist. She tastes like sunshine and forbidden magic, like everything I’ve denied myself for so long.

The ribbons at her wrists flare with power, pulling her closer as if they have a will of their own. As if they understand my need better than I do.

Frost spirals out farther, spinning across the floor.

Not enough. Never enough.

Her hands slide up my chest to curl around my neck, and the heat of her touch burns through layers of cloth and whatever might be left of duty and restraint. I growl against her mouth, deepening the kiss until I’m drowning in her warmth.

Ice crystals dance in the air around us, catching moonlight like diamonds, but they melt before they touch her skin. She’s heat incarnate, melting everything I thought I knew about control. About purpose. About destiny.

When she scrapes her nails against my scalp, electricity shoots down my spine. My hips buck involuntarily against her, and she gasps into my mouth. The sound undoes me completely.

She arches into me like she needs me as desperately as I need her.

“Ivrael,” she breathes against my lips, and the sound of my name—not my title, not ‘Your Lordship’—breaks something loose in my chest.

My kisses turn savage, claiming her mouth like I’ve wanted to since that first day in the market. She meets me with equal fervor, all that defiance channeled into this moment, this kiss, this surrender that feels more like victory.

The temperature in the gallery plummets, but Lara doesn’t seem to notice the cold. If anything, she burns hotter against me, her body molding to mine as if we were made for this.

We weren’t. We can’t be.

This will end in blood and betrayal, in sacrifice and salvation.

But not Lara’s salvation.

Never hers.

But right now, with her soft and willing in my arms, with her taste on my tongue and her scent in my lungs, I can almost believe in another ending. Almost believe there’s a way to save my world without destroying her.

I break away to trail kisses down her throat, addicted to the little sounds she makes. My teeth scrape against her pulse point and she shudders, her hands fisting in my hair.

“Please,” she whispers, though I don’t think she knows what she’s asking for.

I don’t know what I’m offering.

Only that I’m falling, drowning, burning alive in her kiss.

Because when this moment ends—and it must end—I’ll still be the Duke of Starfrost Manor. Still have my duty, my purpose, my carefully laid plans.

And she’ll still be my sacrifice.

But for now, I let myself have this, let myself taste and touch and take everything she’s offering.

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