Page 205 of Intense
He leans in, dragging his tongue along my cheek. The sound I make is half-whimper, half-need.
“Do you forgive me, love? I can’t take back what you’ve seen. What you know about me. What I do. The evil under my skin. Can you forgive the man who could have killed you?”
I breathe in, the air shaking in my chest.
“I always saw your darkness. That’s what drew me in. Now, it just makes sense. We’re not too dissimilar, Dr. Quinn.”
His fingers tighten on my thigh, claiming me.
“That is my fear, temptress. You can still count your kills on your hands. I could own an entire graveyard. There is nothing good inside of me, Stephanie.”
He grips my chin, forcing my eyes to his. My body shivers under the pressure of his touch.
“There is only goodness in me when you’re inside of me, Finn.”
I bite my lip and bat my lashes, watching the smirk climb his mouth.
“I’m deadly serious.”
“I know. So am I.” My voice is sweet as I open my legs wider.
“You think maybe we could forgive each other?”
His gaze moves over my face, deliberate and heavy.
“I think that is possible, love. Only if—” he pauses, sliding his hand beneath my panties “—you pass this last test.”
I lift my hips in answer, and he chuckles low.
“Remember who’s around your throat, Stephanie. Remember what she can do. The risk. The pleasure.”
I suck in a breath.
Nyx shifts against my skin, her body flexing with slow, deliberate power. Each movement is a whisper of scales, a reminder that one wrong signal from me—or from him—and this moment could end in death.
Finn’s fingers stroke over the edge of my panties, dragging the thin fabric against my skin until my breath hitches. His otherhand rests on the arm of the chair beside my cuffed wrist, his weight caging me in completely.
“I can feel your pulse from here,” he murmurs, his mouth hovering over mine. “It’s racing, temptress.”
“Maybe I like the risk, or maybe it’s just you,” I breathe.
His eyes darken, and for a moment I can’t tell if it’s lust, amusement, or that lethal edge that has always lived inside him.
Nyx adjusts her coil, the pressure feather-light along my throat, and my heart rate spikes again. He notices, of course he notices, and his lips curve into something dangerous.
“That’s the thing about fear,” he says softly. “It sharpens everything else. Every touch. Every sound. Every taste.”
He presses his mouth to my jaw.
“She knows you now,” he continues, his voice low, his fingers slipping beneath the lace. “But, you haven’t earned her trust yet. So she is still a threat to you; she will be reading my reactions, going off my cues to keep you alive. ”
My thighs tense, but I don’t pull away. If anything, I push into his touch, the cuffed restraints biting into my wrists as I strain toward him.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, his lips brushing my ear, the question nothing more than a taunt.
I shake my head. “No.”
Nyx’s tongue flicks against my skin, tasting my accelerated pulse, and my breath stutters. The combination of the deadly caress of her body and the claiming roughness of his fingers is overwhelming, blurring the edge between panic and pleasure.
