Page 35 of Unholy Nights

I shake my head, my face hot. "No," I whisper. "I don't understand any of this."

"Oh, Emerald." His thumb strokes my inner thigh.When did he pull the blanket off me?"Let me show you."

His hand slides higher, tracing the line of my underwear, and I freeze, every muscle in my body tensing. He hesitates, his fingers so close to where I ache, and I don't know what to do.

"Relax," he soothes. "I won't hurt you. I'm just going to take this ache away. I promise."

And because I trust him—despite everything, despite the danger—I force myself to let go. To relax, like he asked. To give myself over to his touch.

The second I do, his fingers slip inside my underwear, and he groans again when he feels the slickness of me. "Fuck, little one. You're so fucking wet for me. I knew you would be."

A flush of shame heats my cheeks, but then his finger finds a place that sends off more of those fireworks, and I gasp, my hips lifting off the bed. He circles that spot slowly, and the pleasure is so sharp it's almost painful. Almost too much to bear. I clutch at his shoulders, my nails digging into his bare skin.

That makes me stop and I pry my eyes open and study him. He's wearing sweats but nothing on top, and his chest is broader than I realized. The muscles defined. I can see the ink swirling over his ribs and up his shoulder and the sight of him looming over me, half naked, only makes that ache worse. "What are you doing to me?" I manage to say, my voice thin and strained.

"Showing you how good we're going to be together," he murmurs, his breath hot against my ear as he keeps playing with that place between my thighs. "How right."

I'm lost in the sensations he's drawing from my body, in the heat and need and hunger that's building inside me. When he slips a finger inside me, I can't hold back a cry. It's too much. It's not enough.

He covers my mouth with his, swallowing my cries, and I cling to him as he works me with his hand. His thumb stillcircling that spot while his finger moves inside me, deeper, faster. The pressure builds until it's unbearable, until I'm shaking and panting and begging him without words.

"Come for me, little phoenix," he whispers in my ear. "Let go and fly."

I don't know what that means, but my body does. I break apart, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces, each one brighter than the last. My vision goes black and I'm flying. And then he's there to catch me, his arms wrapped tight around me, holding me close as I come back to myself.

When I can breathe again, when I can see, he's looking at me. His gray eyes glint in the moonlight, and there's that smile again. That soft, almost boyish grin that makes him look younger and more gorgeous than he has any right to.

"How was that?" he asks, his voice low and rough.

"Amazing," I breathe, still floating on the high of whatever he just did to me. "I didn't... I've never felt anything like that before."

"Good," he says, brushing a lock of hair off my forehead. "Because that was only the beginning. There's so much more I'm going to show you. So much more for us to discover together."

My heart stutters in my chest at his words, and I'm not sure if it's from fear or anticipation. Maybe a bit of both.

"But not tonight," he says, kissing the tip of my nose. "We have to be careful. Patient." His fingers tighten in my hair. "No matter what your mother says tomorrow, remember this moment. Remember how this feels."

I nod, unable to form words past the lump in my throat. He presses one more kiss to my forehead before untangling himself from me and standing.

"Sleep," he orders. "I'll see you in the morning."

I sink back into the pillows, feeling his absence like a physical ache. But then his lips are on my forehead again, and I don’tknow how I’m going to fall asleep tonight. Not when I have his words echoing in my head, and the memory of his touch burned into my skin.

Sleep isimpossible after Cohen leaves. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face in the darkness, feel the ghost of his touch on my skin. My body still tingles in places I didn't even know could feel like this.

When morning comes, reality hits me with a cold slap. I can't believe that actually happened. That Cohen snuck into my room, touched me the way he did. That I liked it so much.

And now, the weak winter sun is streaming through my windows, and I have to go downstairs to face my mother. To pretend nothing has changed, even though everything has. How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to look her in the eye, knowing what her husband did to me last night?

I dress carefully in one of my mother's approved outfits—a gray shift dress the color of Cohen’s eyes that has pearl buttons down the back—hoping to appease her before whatever lecture she has planned. My hands shake as I try to do up the buttons.

A knock at my door makes me jump so hard I nearly rip one of the stupid buttons off.

"Come in," I call, expecting my mother's assistant Kendra with some new schedule change.

Instead, Cohen steps in, closing the door behind him. The sight of him makes my heart skip a beat. He looks devastatingly handsome in a perfectly tailored navy suit, his hair still damp from a shower. He takes in the sight of me in my dress, his gaze sweeping over my body, and the memory of what he did to me last night has heat creeping up my neck.

"Having trouble?" His voice is soft, and when he touches a finger to the blush on my chest, the heat intensifies.

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