Page 43 of A Bride for the Winter King
“A glamor rune could be as small as the tip of a signet ring,” he breathes. “You must have hidden it well.”
He sounds so certain that I’m lying, but his hypothesis that I could have hidden the runes anywhere on my skin is flawed. Only a fucked up witch would carve glamor runes into herbreasts. Gods!
When his gaze finally falls to my dark, erect peaks, his cheeks become slightly hollowed out, and he pauses.
His throat bobs, the pressure of his fingertips more gentle than it was when he first started. He bites his bottom lip again and glares at my breasts like they exist solely to torture him. Like he’s furious with me for having them in the first place. My damn belly squeezes in anticipation without a single consideration forcommon sense. I want him to stop playing chicken and fuckingtouch themalready. He’s clearly thinking about it, the bulge in his pants becoming more obvious by the second.
The fever’s getting to him, too.
I’d feel thwarted if it didn’t. No one wants to burn alive alone. When ice itself is ablaze, you know that the flames were quite unstoppable.
I bite back a moan as he finally,finallyghosts his index and middle fingers across my chest.
“You’re totally enjoying this,” I say in a scalding tone.
The corners of his mouth twitch. “So are you.” He punctuates his statement with a sharp squeeze of my left breast, and I moan in a totallyfuck, yesand not at allget off meway. My mouth hangs open at his boldness, and I want to curse him to the seven hells, but the fire is still raging.
Are we going to continue to pretend this isn’t actually happening?
Even if he followed a strict process, never lingering too long in one place, his breaths have grown shallower, and his glacial blue eyes are now pulsing with something dark and foreign.
When he curses under his breath and falls to his knees in front of me, I stiffen from head to toe. “You’re not serious?—”
“Either I check every inch, or I shouldn’t have bothered at all.”
He seems about as angry with himself for not thinking it through as he is with me. His fingertips slip under the lace of my thong, and I mold my back to the mirror, my legs about useless at this point.
He might kill you after he’s done. Focus on that.
But the reaper king is on his knees in front of me… No matter how much I try to rationalize it, he’s still the most powerful Fae in existence. His hair shines in the dark, and the stiffness of his shoulders does nothing to calm my nerves. The coiled musclesof his abdomen move as he breathes, and the slope of his neck is peppered with snowflakes. All I can think about is licking them off his skin.
Burn them.
Burn him. Make himseeyou.
Damn fever.
Never mind the feel of his cold, blistering touch. My entire body shakes, and I force myself to close my eyes.
But it doesn’t help.
With or without the fever, his insidious lure is made to seduce mortals even though we know better. Power electrifies the air the same way it does after I kill a nightmare, but instead of melding into me, the restless energy glides along my skin, hovering like it doesn’t quite know where to go.
Long fingers trace my inner thighs in search of runes as Elio clicks his tongue. “Do you fear me, little spider?”
“Yes.”
He caresses my legs up and down, all the way to my feet and back. “Is that why you’re trembling?”
I shake my head no, staring up at the ceiling. His touch grows even softer, and goosebumps riddle my neck.This is beyond embarrassing.
“I hate you, and yet…” He slips a hand outside his strict search area to the flesh of my thigh. His nose ghosts along my leg, and he inhales deeply. “You smell…perfect. What’s your real name?”
“Lori,” I cry out, my eyes darting down to Elio.
He digs his nails in my skin. “Your entire name.”
Giving him my entire name means that he’ll own me from this day forward, and yet I can’t refuse him. I feel like I’m being sucked in by his gravity. I want him toseeme. Ineedhim to know who I am. “Lorisha Pari Singh.”
