Page 72 of Misfit Monsters
27
Periwinkle
Iwould never lock you in a cage.
Raze’s words sweep through me, sparking glimmers of elation. How could he think he puts me in danger when he understands me that well, cares that much about making me feel cherished?
I run my fingers along his powerful jaw, reveling in the strength that emanates all through the body I’m pressed against. “Right here, right now, I only want you.”
His mouth crashes into mine with a needy rumble that sets all of me alight. It might be more than just my hair glowing now, but I don’t feel awkward about it.
I’m his Glowbug. He likes me just as I am.
A tremor ripples through my nerves at the brightness expanding all through me, but with each kiss and each caress, any trace of anxiety melts. This doesn’t feel like the manic happiness that’s burst out of me before in a chaotic blaze. Theaffection we’re sharing and the pleasure it provokes stay wrapped close around my heart, focused just on the two of us.
It's a more selfish kind of joy than when I’m lighting happiness in strangers, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I yank at Raze’s T-shirt, and he pulls it off. The sight of the sinewy sculpted expanse beneath makes me even giddier. I trace my fingers over his chest, grinning at his groan.
He dips his head again to chart a teasing path along my neck, with the gentlest graze of his teeth and little flicks of his tongue. His voice comes out in a husky murmur that sends a fresh jolt of desire straight between my legs.
“I’m going to make you feel so good, Glowbug. We’ll take it slow so there’s no pain at all.”
He pauses, nuzzling my shoulder. “You’ve done this before?”
There’s no accusation in the question. I tease my fingers through his thick hair and give him another kiss. “Yes. A few times. But this is already better. I didn’t really know them. I’ve never… I’ve never felt close to anyone in all the different ways you can. I was always moving around and exploring too much, and then…”
The thought of the basement and the cages cuts off my voice. Raze growls as if he can scare those memories into submission and captures my mouth even more tenderly than before.
We peel off my shirt together, and it occurs to me that I can shed my jeans as quickly as thinking it. When I blink into the shadows and back in an instant, returning fully nude, Raze gives an awed chuckle.
He slides his hand up my thigh. As he strokes his fingers tentatively over the aching spot between my legs, a moan shudders out of me. I yank his mouth back to mine.
It does feel incredible—even better when I know howmuch this moment matters to him. When it matters to me beyond the momentary pleasure too.
I want to do this with Raze over and over. I want to cuddle next to him in the courtyard and talk about what we’re learning in our classes and join him on his hunts to taste the thrill of his feeding.
It’s true that he isn’t the only one I’ve started to get close to in the ways that run deeper than colliding bodies. I’ve never had a friend like Fen before. I’ve never started to recognize the patterns of joy and pain in another being the way I do now with Jonah and Mirage and even Hail, a little.
I’ve stumbled into a new dimension of happiness and connection that I only had a vague idea of from depictions in TV shows and fleeting observations of humans. All because I got dragged here to this school.
Even with all the rules and the beings who’ve picked on me, this place is the opposite of a cage. It’s given me more than I’ve given up.
And now I get to experience a bodily bliss I didn’t even know was possible. Raze slips a finger right inside me, and the pulse of pleasure has my head sagging backward. When my grip on his shoulders tightens, he gives another approving rumble.
It feels so good, but I crave even more. His matching eagerness washes over me like sparkling lemonade and peach pie.
I reach down his massive body to rub the bulge behind the pants he hasn’t yet removed. Raze’s groan reverberates into me with a carnal need as rich as toffee pudding.
He eases another finger inside me. Each pulse of them deeper sends another rush of pleasure up from my core.
“I don’t know if you’re ready yet,” he mutters.
I yank at the waist of his pants. “I am. So ready. Please.” I’m going to disintegrate from wanting so much.
Humans have to make this moment so much more complicated, but shadowkind don’t get pregnant or sick. We can follow this bliss as far as it’ll take us without a single worry.
With a ragged breath, Raze kicks off his pants. When he eases the head of his erection against me, I shiver in delight.
