Page 122 of Veil of Death and Shadow

“Oh,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “Right.”

The back of Kieran’s hand brushed against mine and I gasped at the sensation, my chest heaving like I couldn’t suck down a proper breath.

He stilled, body coiled with restraint, then he bent his head down to my ear. “Tell me, Agony,” and I swear his whisper might as well have brushed directly against my clit for all the liquid it had coating my thighs right now, “did Dr. Mediocre’s touch make your heart race like mine seems to?”

“I—” I blinked. “Who?”

His mouth tipped into a wicked smirk. With a ragged breath, he trailed his finger slowly over my hand, then skirted against the outer edge of my thigh.

My breath came out strangled, and my knees, working without permission from my brain apparently, dipped apart, the invitation clear.

A couple sat a few feet away from me, their lids hooded but smiles warm as they whispered to each other.

“Eyes on me, Agony,” Keiran said, and the command pulled my focus back to him, like a leash only he controlled. With agonizing slowness, he trailed his fingers beneath my dress, and my body lit on fire when they brushed against the lace of my underwear. “Fuck,” he hissed, “you’re soaked.”

“We said one time,” I said, my voice little more than a whimper. “I don’t mess around with anyone twice.”

No one I actually liked being around anyway. And as annoying as Kieran was, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy his company for the most part.

“Right,” he said, his eyes filled with daring. “The curse. Everyone you let too close to you dies.” He leaned into me until his lips brushed the shell of my ear. “Good thing I’m already dead then, isn’t it?”

“I—” Whatever argument I’d been about to forge died on my lips when his finger slid over me again.

“You shouldn’t feel this good.” Too soon, he pulled his hand back and brought his glistening fingers to his lips for a taste. His eyes were wild and dark with desire. “Shouldn’t taste this good. Shouldn’t make me,” he shook his head, “feel like this. I’m not supposed to feel anything. I don’t get it.” When he looked at me, there was genuine curiosity in his stare, bleeding through the heat. “How do you do it?”

“It’s—” I whispered before fumbling for the rest of the sentence, my entire body pulsing with need, desperate for his touch, for him to fuck me like he had last week, before everything got so . . . complicated. “It’s not me that’s doing this to you, it’s this place.”

“Trust me when I say this, Agony,” he shook his head, his expression strained, almost sad, “it’s you.” He shook his head, a strangled breath releasing from his lips. “I can’t want you.”

The tightly wound control I’d been keeping over my libido since he’d bowled back into my life unwound. “Who would know?”

His eyes, dark and wild, latched onto mine, searching.

“Kieran.” My lungs were frozen, my gaze dipping to his lips, then the bulge in his pants, my mouth ravenous to taste him, too.

As if the plea was written in script across my face, he shook his head, then rubbed his hand over his forehead, looking pained.

“Are you oka?—”

“Fuck it.” Without another word, he slid off the booth and onto his knees, until he was kneeling in front of me. The table hovering above my thighs moved through his chest, as if it was the immaterial thing not of this world, not him. Then, careful not to lift my dress up entirely, he slid his hands up either side of my thighs and pulled me closer to the edge, until my legs were on either side of him, then he tugged my underwear down.

With a wicked grin, his eyes met mine, waiting.

It should have been a ridiculous suggestion, an absurd scene—this dead man between my knees, with a table lodged through his body like he was made of nothing but air. But he felt solid and warm and so fucking good to me.

And no one could see him. So as long as I kept my shit together, we’d be fine.

I gave him the world’s subtlest nod, half my brain aware that people could see me, the other half not giving a fuck if they did—both halves fully in agreement that they would deflate and die if he didn’t fulfill whatever dark promise was hidden in that look.

He dipped his head down, and I watched in amazement as it sank through my dress, his tongue solid and confident when it met my opening.

I swallowed back a moan and fought the urge to full on start riding his face in the middle of this club.

My fists dug into the edge of the booth as I tried to keep my body still, my expression flat, but when he slid two fingers inside of me and brushed them against me in a come-hither motion, like he’d been given a 3-D map to every nerve-ending in my body, all pretenses of composure went out the window.

There was a new set of performers on the stage now, and they held most of the room’s attention, their moans and screams a suitable enough soundtrack to couch over my own desperate whimpers.

When he sucked on my clit, applying just enough pressure to make my vision blur, I gripped his shoulders, digging my nails into his back.

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