Page 103 of Thief of Night
Red’s rough fingers slid into her hair to cup the back of her head. He moved to kiss her cheek. Her eyebrow. Her hairline. She shivered with sensation. Her skin felt starved. She wanted his hands everywhere at once.
“You should go back.” His voice sounded as ragged as if he’d been shouting.
“Well, I’m definitely not doing thatnow.”
This time when he kissed her, it was a hard, bruising kiss that she met and matched. She pressed her mouth to his in a snarl. Moving up onto her knees on the seat to angle closer to him, she dipped her fingers into the waistband of his suit pants. His hands slid beneath her coat, cold against the silk of her dress and her overheated skin.
Then his hands were pushing up her slip dress, finding the hot skin of her thighs.
She shivered against him.
Headlights swung around the curve. He pulled back from her abruptly, looking at her as though he’d woken from some enchantment. As though she was the villain who’d put the spell on him.
The car sped past, a Mercedes, driving faster than it should on these roads. Another gloamist, checking in. Soon the place would be full of them.
“We should stop,” Red said, closing his eyes against the sight of her, disheveled, with kiss-swollen lips.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Definitely should.”
His eyes were coals, burning in the night. He leaned toward her again, pressing his mouth to hers. He licked over her lips and then parted them, his tongue hot in her mouth.
She shifted, swinging her leg over him so that she was straddling his thighs. His hardness pressed against her stomach and she moved against him, in a pantomime of what she wanted, a promise.
Red gave a soft, pained groan, his mouth on her throat. His teeth scraped over her skin.
His gaze on her was hot and hungry as his hands pushed her dress higher. She gasped as the cold air hit her exposed skin. The spark of desire was so sharp that it hurt.
“Nothing scares you,” he whispered against her neck. “Not even monsters. But what if I horrify you?”
She saw the hard edge of his features in the moonlight and felt a jolt ofnerves. Felt the firm grip of his hands. She stilled her movements, although the thrum of her desire felt like a second heartbeat. “You won’t.”
“There are things I could show you.” He shifted a little, blurring at the edges. Eyes sparking coals, body half shadow.
A thick, warm fog slid over her skin. Her eyes went wide in surprise and she sucked in a sharp breath as it moved over her belly, over the knot of scarred skin where the bullet had struck her, over the curve of her breasts. It was hot and strange and absolutely terrifying. She felt as though some midnight god had fallen to earth.
“Tell me to stop and I will.” His voice was in the air around her, making her shiver with something that wasn’t at all cold.
“I—” Charlie started. “Can you enjoy this?”
“I want your desire,” he said, and never had his otherness been so clear. “For me. As I am.”
“I want your desire too,” she said and closed her eyes, because despite him calling her fearless, part of her was very, very scared.
Scared, as shadow stroked over her nipples, shadow tendrils glided up her thigh, touching her impossibly, all at once, in so many places. Afraid, and filled with wonder too, as though the night sky itself had descended to lie with her in all its spangled glory.
She had to look, had to see him. She opened her eyes to his burning gaze.
“I have never wanted anyone more than you,” he said and kissed her again. She tried to focus on his mouth, to hold on to one solid thing in a blur of sensation.
She whimpered against his lips as shadow touched her everywhere, over the curve of her backside, pooling in the hollow of her throat, parting her thighs, parting her slickness. It was like being touched with a thousand tongues, a thousand licking flames. Her whole body throbbed.
Then he moved over her, and inside her, and all around her. He was the chasm and the firmament. He was the air she breathed.
Charlie became a candle that needed no wick, because the wax was aflame. She forgot to move. Forgot the cold. Forgot not to cry out as inhuman pleasure broke over her, obliterating all thoughts of anything but sensation.
30Fool’s Gold and Real Gold
Charlie returned to her cottage on shaking legs, flushed despite the cold, alone.
