Page 137 of Dance of Deception

Shocker beyond shocker: it doesn’t.

I like having her here. I like watching her sleep. In fact, watching my wife sleep might be my newest obsession.

My eyes slide over her bare body as she curls next to me, sunlight playing across her skin. Across the marks I left there last night, like ink on a once-pristine page.

Fingerprints blooming across her thighs, bite marks at her throat, shadows of my grip staining her ribs. A masterpiece in black and blue.

She's covered in me. Butnotcovered by a sheet. I pulled that off the second I woke up. Yes, my new favorite pastime might be watching her sleep. But I prefer to take in that viewunobstructed.

My gaze lingers on her closed eyes; on the way her lips purse just slightly as she sleeps. I pull my eyes lower, over her body, across the taut pink points of her nipples, over her athletic body toned from years of dancing.

Her calloused toes. Her strong legs.

…The way I catch just enough of a glisten on her pink pussy to make me wonder what she’s dreaming about.

It’d better fucking be me.

I reach over and drag my fingertip up her slit. She murmurs quietly in her sleep, shifting.

Opening her legs a little more.

Greedy fucking girl.

I slip my finger into her, stroking in and out shallowly. I don't want to wake her up, but Idowant a morning taste of her. Which is exactly what I get when I pull my finger back and wrap my lips around it.

Fucking delicious.

I reach for her again, stroking my finger into her wet pussy and coating it with her glistening arousal again before I lick it clean and sink back against the pillows.

I should feel satisfied.

I don’t.

I lift my hand, flexing my fingers. The knuckles are raw from last night; from the satisfying crunch of bone under my fists, when my body welcomed the violence like an old friend.

I should be at peace after what I did to Marcus Chen. After wiping his existence from the world. Instead, I wantmore. More vengeance. More violence.

I only ever feel this way with family. That’s how it’s always been. My blood is my blood. My circle is small, unbreakable. My rage and extreme protectiveness are for them and no one else.

So why the fuck do I feel it with her?

If the way I’ve lived my entire life up until now is any indication, I should be done with her. That’s the way I operate: I take, I use, I walk away.

But she’s still here. And the thought of her anywhere else—in someone else’s hands or bed—sends twisting ugliness crawling down my spine.

I shift, running a hand through my hair, exhaling slow. The control is familiar. But the need to keep her, protect her, and destroy anything that even looks at her wrong—that’s new.

New, insatiable, and fuckingsavage.

I start to catalog the threats against her in my mind.

Marcus is gone. Good. Fuck him. Grigori Popov is also history, as are the two motherfuckers he sent to collect whatever ridiculous debt he wanted Lyra to pay in Arkadi's place.

There are the more…fervent…family members of Arkadi’s victims, like the fucker I was about to also kill last night beforeLyra intervened. The other conspiracy theorist lunatics, who followed Marcus’ click-bait "blog" and idiotic podcast.

They still exist, even if their false idol of a leader's head is splattered over a dive bar in Alphabet City.

Then there’s Kir Nikolayev. That threat might have more to do with me or the Black Court. But in my current mood, I’m lumping that Russian fuck in with the rest of the perceived potential threats against Lyra.

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