Page 87 of Elven Throne

The need building between them broke through the wall of their self-control, and it was the only thing that existed. Swelling into a ravenous darkness billowing with desire.

This thing they knew they shouldn’t do, consuming Rebecca from the inside out.

Every inch of her lit ablaze with the energy of this thing that had held them together for months now urging her forward. Urging Maxwell. No longer tempting them but now cheering them on. Pouring gasoline all over an already blazing fire.

Rebecca could hardly breathe until she realized she didn’t have to. Neither of them did.

They could suffocate in this, kept alive and wrapped up in each other by the thing their connection had been waiting for. This moment, right here.

Maxwell pulled away from her ever so slightly, his eyes wide with longing, hunger, and a tantalizing horror at what he’d done.

Rebecca didn’t give him a chance to slip further into it.

With a feral hiss, she grabbed his face and pulled him again, pressing her already sore, burning, aching lips to his. Not just letting herself go beneath the surface this time but actively joining him there.

Submerging them both. His breath inside her and hers in him. Hands and blazing skin like sparks before an electrical fire that took the whole world down with them.

It was exactly what they’d been trying so hard and for so long not to do.

It was dangerous without all the other missing pieces.

It was dark, and endless, and nothing like what Rebecca had wanted from anyone before, because she hadn’twantedlike this.

It could destroy them both if they let it.

And it was so fucking perfect.

That third presence between them, the thing that wanted their annihilation and their salvation, pulled them along, urging them forward and past the uncertainty and self-control. As if now Rebecca and Maxwell had handed the puppet master their very own strings, and there was no cutting themselves down.

The sharp rip of tearing fabric filled the room, and she didn’t know what it was until she’d stumbled over what remained of Maxwell’s button-down shirt around her feet. Her back thumped painfully against the wall again with a snap and clatter as something dropped from the wall and shattered on the ground somewhere beside her.

But Rebecca only had room for this, her fingers clawing at the base of Maxwell’s head, the back of his neck, the searing heat of his chest, and Blue Hells take all of it.

His lips burned agonizingly perfect holes into the side of her neck and across her collarbones. Her shirt was gone. Of course it was. And everything else could fuck off right along with it.

She needed him. She neededthis. The world would end without it, and that was all that mattered.

They bit and clawed and tore at each other, their need no longer their own, their actions disconnected at the source by their unknown third wheel. The invisible passenger now fully in the driver’s seat, while everything they wanted and required and couldn’t get enough of from the other surged through their connection, heightening every blistering touch and every aching kiss. Every scratch and tug and painful embrace.

But it still wasn’t enough.

Maxwell’s violent growls shuddered through her untilshecould’ve been the one growling too.

Something sharp she hardly felt jammed into the back of her legs before Maxwell pressed her backward over the edge of…what was that? The dresser?

It shuddered beneath her. The light in the room spun and toppled before winking out with a flickering buzz and more shattered glass.

Rebecca couldn’t pull him to her fast enough, deeply enough, not completely enough…

Her feet left the floor. Maxwell’s arms were hot and hard and blistering around her while she tried to devour him, and why not? They’d come this far…

But itstillwasn’t enough.

She caught a flash of silver in the darkness before her back sank onto the mattress, limbs hooked around him and pulling him down on top of her. Because if she let him go, if she backed off an inch, the universe would ease to exist.

He never backed away, the heavy weight of him blazing down on top of her, and she gasped for air beneath him, holding him ever closer.

She neededmore…