Page 124 of Feathers of Ash and Hope

I knock again.

The door is flung open, and I find myself facing Tate’s chest—his very carved, very bare chest. I swallow and drag my eyes up until I meet his. His eyes are wide.

“Sunshine?” he whispers, and just like that, I want to fling myself at him again.

He is not playing fair.

I clear my throat.

“Can I come in?” I ask and can’t help but let my eyes wander over him again.

Steps echo down the corridor, heading in our direction. Tate pulls me into his room and closes the door softly, before he strides to the middle of the room as if to put space between us.

Tingles race through my body when I realize for the first time we are truly alone… in a room… with a key… and a bed.

Heat explodes low in my belly, trickling down. Tate turns to me, his body taut with tension, and my fingers ache with the need to touch him, run them over the swells and dips of his muscles, and feel his smooth, warm skin.

For the first time, his face is unguarded, and I don’t need to ask the question I came here for.

He wants me.

He knows my darkest secret, and still, he wants me.

The realization shocks me, and I take a step back. As if the tension ties him to me, Tate follows.

“This is such a bad idea,” he growls, his voice low. Heat pulses through me.

He is right. My mind knows that, but my body disagrees.

There is a fire in his gaze and… hunger. I bite my lip, and he groans.

“Now is your chance to run, sunshine,” he rumbles while he slowly prowls toward me, giving me time to slip through the door behind me.

“I can’t fight this any longer.” He shakes his head, keeping up his slow advance.

I just watch him come closer, my heart racing.

“Then don’t,” I tell him, my voice husky with need.

His hands land on the door next to my head, and he closes his eyes, resting his brow against mine.

“I’m trying to do the right thing here, sunshine.” His chest is rising and falling with his breaths. “But you make it impossibly hard.”

“That’s because I don’t want you to do the good and noble. I want the bad and wicked and—”

His mouth crashes down on mine, swallowing my last words and the moan clawing up my throat.

Thank the gods… he’s done fighting.

I bump into the door behind me, and Tate’s hand slides from my jaw to the back of my head, cradling it. His other arm hooks around my waist, pulling me to him. The warmth of his body seeps into me, and I melt.

I bury my hand in his hair, my nails scraping over his scalp, and I revel in the shudder running through his body.

I thought our kiss in the library was hot, but this…I bite his bottom lip, and his groan runs through me like liquid fire. His need is hard, pulsing evidence between us, and I need … I … closer.

I push off the ground and wrap my legs around him, humming in approval, when my throbbing ache meets the ridge of his cock.

“You are playing with fire, sunshine,” Tate warns against my lips before his mouth travels down my throat. “I’m just a breath away from fucking you right here against this door.”

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