Page 22 of Darkness and Deceit
We’re still in the fucking hallway. Anyone could walk by. Any second now.
And Kai knows it. He wants them to.
He reaches up, and brushes a lock of hair behind my ear, before trailing those fingers down the curve of my neck.
His other hand slides up my thigh, and I don’t even realize my pants are half undone until he’s already there, claiming space like it’s always been his.
“Is this okay?”
I nod without hesitation.
He watches me for a heartbeat. And right before I start to saypleasesomething in him snaps. His mouth crashes into mine with an aching kind of control, a careful desperation that nearly unravels me on the spot.
It isn’t soft. It isn’t sweet. It’sclaiming. Like he’s branding the taste of me into memory. Like he needs to remember this if the world ends tomorrow.
His hand tightens on my thigh, dragging me flush against him. His body is all heat and tension, corded muscle pressed to every inch of me. I gasp into the kiss, and he swallows the sound greedily, deepening it until I forget where we are and how to breathe.
I brace myself against his chest, not to push him away, but to anchor myself. His heartbeat is steady beneath my palms—steady like he never is. LikeI’mthe thing that calms him.
His fingers slide lower, until he’s pressing exactly where I’m aching, and gods help me, I let him. Want him. Need this proof that under all the silence and steel, Imatterto him.
When he finally pulls back, it’s only by inches. Just enough to speak.
His forehead rests against mine. His voice is rough, wrecked, low. “If someone touched you—if someonetriedto harm you—I wouldn’t just make them disappear,” he says, breath hot against my lips. He kisses the corner of my mouth softly. “I’d bury the entire reason they existed.”
A shiver rolls down my spine and I open my mouth—no idea what I’ll say—but he moves faster.
His hand wraps around my jaw, tilting my face up. “You asked if I’m all right,” he says. “I’m not. Not since they put their hands on me. Not since they put their hands nearyou.”
And gods, thatundoesme.
That it wasn’t pain that broke him. It wasproximityto my danger.
“I need you to know that if I ever have to choose between the Balance andyou…” His lips press to my throat, just beneath my jaw. “There won’t even be a choice.”
My knees go weak and I cling to his shoulders to keep from collapsing. I’m enveloped in his scent—pine, stormy air, and something deeper. Something that belongs to me.
Kai pulls back only slightly, his eyes devouring mine. “Say something,” he murmurs, breath ghosting against my lips. “Or I’ll take this as permission to keep going.”
I answer by grabbing the front of his shirt and yanking him back into me. His mouth is back on mine in an instant and thistime he’s rougher, like I’ve torn the last thread of his control. He kisses me like he wants to drown in me.
His hands are everywhere now. One fisting the fabric at my waist, the other dragging up the back of my thigh until he hooks it around his hip. He presses against me, hard through the fabric, grinding into the exact place I’m aching for him.
I whimper into his mouth, and he growls, the possessive sound vibrating through me.
“Say my name,” he says against my neck, nipping when I open my mouth and no sound comes out.
“Kai,” I gasp, gripping his shoulders like I might float away if I don’t hold tight enough. “Kai—please.”
He bites my lower lip, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make my legs shake. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” I whisper. “Here. Now.”
He tenses—ready to move—but I catch his wrist before he can. My fingers wrap around his wrist, guiding his hand lower, until his palm rests against the heat between my legs.
“I want to feel all of you,” I say, breath hitching. “And how wet I am for you.”
His breath shudders out of him. “Lilith…”
