Page 127 of Gemini Kings
That’s what made his betrayal all the more wrenching.
These words of love I never believed he’d be capable of uttering—not for me, his co-alpha—God, this confession only deepens my endless craving to be possessed and despoiled and ravished by this complex and treacherous rival.
My body burns for him.
My soul bleeds for him.
“Blood of Christ!” I cry. “Why must you tell me thisnow, of all possible times? Oh, perhaps you do… believe… you love me. But how can I ever again trust you?”
He searches my agonized gaze with his own probing stare. We’re linked so tightly now that my agony is his.
God help me, I can hide nothing from him. My secrets are his secrets.
“Ah.” Slowly his brow smooths and his lips part to reveal the tips of those pretty incisors I’m so wild for. Clearly, he’s just experienced some sort of revelation. “Well then.”
Far too swiftly to avoid, he snakes in to snatch my agitated hand and presses it to his chest.
Beneath my palm, his furious heart beats hard and fast.
Under all his baroque finery, his body is a siren song luring me to ruin on the rocks. Dear God, this is madness, tormenting ourselves this way.
I groan in absolute despair. “Vasili…”
“Darling pet,” he breathes. “Don’t you see? You and your wolf are holding my heart in your carnivorous paws. I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m trustingyou.”
All my resolve breaks like a dropped and shattered plate. My fist knots in his velvet coat and drags him close. He dives in to seize my starving mouth in a vicious kiss.
Saints in Heaven, he has undone me. This declaration of love from my intolerable alpha has disarmed all my defenses. I can deny him nothing. I can deny myself nothing. I am finished with denial.
I am ruined.
Fiercely I clutch at his clothing. His arms sweep around me and drag me up against his body. Underneath he’s wearing a corset that cinches his waist and flares his hips and generally makes me desperate to cut him out of it with one of his own knives. But he’s ready for me (because I’ve done that before, to his intense displeasure). He seizes my wrists and pins my hands behind me and bends me back and kisses me like he’s going to crawl down my throat and gut me.
He tastes like juniper and he smells like sin. His tongue plunges and pillages, his lips suck and savage, his fangs are a constant menace that makes kissing him a game like Russian roulette.
Like no one else, he is dangerous to kiss.
My own fangs descend for others but retract for him, making myself vulnerable, letting him inside. My wolf whines and rolls and bares his belly in submission. The room reels around me until I’d surely fall on my backside if not for his strength holding me up. He finds the knot of hair at my nape and tugs it loose to spill down my back, because for some reason, that seems to be always how my mates want me, untidy and undone.
“For the life of me,” he breathes between long drugging kisses, “I can’t decide whether to take you hard and fast against the wall, snarling and fighting me the whole time, or whether to bend you over your proper professorial desk and pump into you slow and long and make you come all over your student papers. Now… it seems… I’m feeling indulgent. Shall I let you decide?”
Finally he releases my wrists, steadies me on my feet, and allows me to surface for a desperate gasp of air.
I gather my legs under me, pull in a long inhale to slow my pounding heart, and do my damnedest to clear my head. I grip his lapels in my unsteady fists and bow my head for a breath against his chest. He strokes my fallen hair and nuzzles the top of my head. The dark spice of his mating scent envelopes me.
Damnation. I can’t even speak. This dreadful creature has stricken me speechless.
For once in his infernal life, this alpha of mine is actually behaving as a proper alpha should.
He is steadying me.
Supporting me.
Loving me.
I can still scarcely believe he’s admitting it. But he has, and now this endless menace needs something from me. Something that I alone can give him.
My forgiveness.
