Page 45 of A City of Emeralds and Envy
“I bought us some time together.” He reaches out, caresses my jawline with his fingertips.
I knock his hand away. “I don’t want time with you.”
He cocks his head. “Your heartbeat says otherwise.”
“Anger tends to make a heartbeat quicken.”
“True. So does lust.”
“That was—I don’t wantthatagain. And you’re sick, wanting to fuck someone you plan to kill.”
“But that’s what makes it so exciting.” He moves into my space, his chest against mine, and his hand thrusts between my legs, cupping me roughly. “I know this tight little pussy won’t exist much longer, so I want to enjoy it while I can.”
I can barely breathe. My entire existence centers on the curl of his fingers through the fabric of my skirt, the possessive grip between my legs.
Why do I feel most alive at the touch of the enemy who wants to kill me?
He ducks his head, his lips at my ear, his low tone hoarse with desire. “Give me your cunt, Dorothy.”
My mouth is dry, scanty breaths skipping over my tongue, and my entire skin vibrates with awareness, with sheer quivering delight at the visceral need in his voice.
“No,” I hiss, more to see what he’ll do than out of actual reluctance.
With a growl he wraps his other arm around me, yanking me tight to his body. “Give me your mouth then.” His lips ghost over mine, hot and hungry.
“Why are you fascinated with me?”
“I told you. Your transience, your impending death at my hands—it makes the game more interesting.”
“But that isn’t the only reason, is it?” I tip back my head so I can meet his eyes. “We are similar, you and I. We both carry that vision of an endless Nothing, one that grows until it swallows us whole, cuts us off from everything and everyone else. We both dread being locked away from adventure, from experiences—abandoned with nothing to entertain our minds. Doomed to endless boredom and uselessness…and loneliness.”
“I’m not lonely.” His lip curls in a sneer.
Into the space between his bared teeth and my trembling breath I confess something I’ve never spoken aloud. “Iam. I’ve been lonely since I lost the one person who understood who I am, inside. He understood how apathetic and wicked I can be, how dark my thoughts sometimes are, but it didn’t matter to him.”
West frowns, dark eyes sparking savagely. “It didn’tmatter?That’s bullshit. Who you areshould matterto the person you love. They should love you because of it, not in spite of it. They should celebrate it, revel in it, devour it—” His lips graze mine, soft and wild and scorching.
“Maybe,” I murmur. “I don’t think anyone could love the wickedness and carelessness of me. I hurt people, or I watch people hurting—and I don’t reallycare. I try to care. I pretend to care. But so often I don’t, not really. Not deep inside where it matters.”
“You’re Unseelie.”
“But that’s no excuse, is it? Because I’m also human. I should have more compassion, but I’m broken, wrong. I’m missing something that everyone else has.”
“Not everyone.” His mouth closes over mine, a velvety-smooth press. Just a moment of that glimmering contact, and then a breath of space and he speaks again. “Unseelie are supposed to be capable of a few deep attachments. I’ve never formed one of those. Not once. Not with any of my siblings, or our parents. I’ve been watching them—” he jerks his head toward my slumbering companions— “seeing how they interact, the power of the bonds they’ve forged. I hate it, and I want it. Part of me wants to unravel them and watch them bleed pain, because I can’tfeellike they can. I want to triumph over them and laugh and know that I am better because I don’t feel such things. But at the same time I envy them so badly that I want to seize the world and crumble it into dust between my fingers, out of sheer rage.”
“Yes!” A frenzied understanding seizes me and I grip his arms. “Sometimes I have this cool, blank apathy, and at other times I have so much rage, discontent, and envy. How does that make sense? And then sometimes I feel so wildly joyful I think I could soar straight up out of my body—but that feeling is usually linked to an experience or sensation, not a person. Except when—”
I bite my tongue—literally bite it—to stop the confession I nearly allowed to escape.
Except when I’m with you.
West studies me for a moment, then tips my face up and kisses me again. His tongue sweeps between my teeth, sliding over the bloody spot where I bit my own tongue. He hums with delight, savoring the wound.
“Exceptwhen,” he mutters into the hot darkness of my mouth.
My arms snake around his neck and my fingers twist into his hair, pulling until I know it hurts him—he bites my sore spot in return, and my soft yelp disappears into the wet slide of his tongue.
He angles his head, opens his mouth wide to fit all the edges of mine, as if our souls are screaming to crawl up our throats and slither down into the other’s chest cavity. As if I could swallow his heart and it would settle warm between my lungs, pumping slow and heavy, feeding me something better than blood.
