Page 26 of Defy Me

Whatever Jett had just done to her had turned her into a big ole pile of flaming girl goo. She couldn't talk, she couldn't think, she couldn't think about talking. All she could do was hold him in her arms and hope that he would never ever stop.

"Yvaine? I'm sorry if I hurt you." His voice was dark and husky, but with an edge of worry.

He didn't have anything to be worried about. "Don't stop. Whatever you're doing feels incredible. Do it some more."

She pushed her hands into his beautiful black hair and pulled him back for much, much more kissing or maybe this was what they called necking.

He stopped before he his lips and teeth touched her again and hissed out a breath. "That's not what I thought would happen."

"That I want you to make out with me some more? Why? I thought we did a pretty good job of it." Granted she didn't have a ton of experience. He was her first real kiss and all. They both seemed to like it though. That was good. If she was honest with herself, she hoped kissing would lead to other fun activities she knew she'd been missing out on.

"Not that. I do want to spend a lot more time doing that." He licked his lips and stared at her mouth making her go all weak in the knees again. "And a whole lot more than just kissing you. That's not what I'm talking about. Look."

Ooh. Yay. He did want to do naughty things with her. She could hardly wait. But where were they going now? Jett took her over to the window and pointed to her reflection. On her neck, where Jett had gotten deliciously aggressive with his kissing, she thought she'd see a big ole hickey. Instead there was a sparkling black dragon with eyes that literally looked like they were little balls of fire.

She reached up and touched it. Her skin was smooth, the mark as much a part of her as anything else on her body. "Jett, it's beautiful. Thank you."

Jett blinked, surprised by her appreciation. "Yvaine. No. I'm afraid I've cursed you as I am. That mark binds us together. I've claimed you and no other dragon or any other beast in the supernatural world will ever want to mate you."

"That's so sweet." She'd never felt a connection to anyone else like this. Several times she'd tried to walk away from him, told herself she was feeling nothing more than a crush. Ciara implied that it was more. Yvaine wanted very badly to believe that. She'd never belonged to anyone and no one had ever belonged to her. She'd pushed down that particular unmet need her entire life, pretending that it didn't matter that she didn't have any family, no one to love.

But it did matter.

Jett scowled at their reflections. "You don't get it. I have nothing to give you. I'm a rogue with no Wyr. A bastard of the King of Hell. I'm cursed. I have no soul to be your mate."

Yvaine turned from the reflection to make sure that Jett didn't misunderstand anything she said to him. "You listen to me. I don't care about your past. I barely have one myself. I've never known my family or who I am. Today I found out I don't even know what I am. None of that matters. Because I like who I am when I'm with you."

She didn't know that was true until the words came out of her mouth. Until recently she'd been a scared little girl who used her special power to hide and run away from people. With Jett, she could be something different, someone better than before. Instead of being the girl who ran, she could be the girl who fought back.

Jett closed his eyes in a very long blink. "What are you talking about? Since we met you've been hunted by mermen, another beast I haven't yet identified, the Black Dragon, and you were killed by a demon dragon. Killed. Your life has become a complete shit show in the past twenty-four hours."

Her life had been that way long before yesterday. She just hadn't realized it. Now it was filled with magic, and the potential of love and family. She was going to embrace it all. "Really? Mermen. Cool."

The ever present fires in Jett's eyes changed from being fueled by fear and anger, to the tiniest bit of amusement. "Thats what you got out of what I just said to you?"

"No." How could she put this? She wanted him to understand that he wasn't to blame and that they were in this together now. "I also got that you've been helping and protecting me even though I stole your beer and basically sexually harassed you in the first minute we met. So I was murdered a little bit. It turned out fine."

There was his smile. He had no idea how it lit up his whole face. How it took her breath away. "I don't think one can be murdered a little bit."

She pointed to the hole in her shirt. "Case in point."

He glared at that hole for far too long, the angry fires returning to his eyes. "I still have nothing to give you. I don't have a soul, Yvaine. How can I be your soul mate without a fucking soul."

She didn't believe that for a hot second. Someone had taught him that he was worthless. How could he not see how shiny and bright the fire inside of him was? She wasn't going to convince him here and now of it. She'd work on him for as long as it took. "Soul, schmoal. I'll just share mine with you."

For the briefest of moments, the fire in Jett's eyes burned blue and then white hot. If she hadn't been staring into them so deeply, she would have missed it. They flickered back to his usual reddish yellow flame and he blinked at her, twice, three times. "I don't think that how it works, love."

"Aww. You called me love." She was going to have to come up with a pet name for him too. How exciting.

"Yvaine." He growled her name and it sent lots of fun shivers through her.

"Jett." She did her best to match his tone, but couldn't do it. She was too giddy with these new found feelings for him to sound lustfully cranky.

His eyes flicked back and forth between hers, searching for something. Maybe that soul business. "I'm still afraid I've cursed you to the darkness with me."

She tried to refute him again, but he held up his hand to stop her and all she got out was a tiny grunt. He dropped his fingers to her mouth and caressed her lips. "But I don't think I can give you up. I guess we'd better go find that unicorn and break all the curses we can with it."

Finally. Uh-oh. He'd said curses. Plural. Maybe unicorns had blood banks. "Are there more curses than the one that's on me, that you want to break?"

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