Page 102 of Fanged Embrace
“I—” She hesitated, hands reaching for me and faltering halfway. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me… But while I have this, while I have you,” her gaze flicked to my mouth and she sucked in a rattling breath, fighting with herself to get the words out, “I want to make the most of it.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant.
I wanted to get down on my knees and beg her not to talk like that, like we didn’t have much time together. I wanted to remind her that the memory extractions wereworking, that she would make it through this. I wanted to tell her that I’d be by her side, for as long as she’d have me and that she would always have my heart.
But I didn’t say any of that. Because something told me that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. My declarations of love anddevotion would fall on deaf ears. They would hurt her more than she was already hurting. I couldn’t give her every piece of my heart—she couldn’t carry it—but I could give her this. I could give her this moment.
I leaned forward, the slightest shift. Silent permission for her to do what she wanted. Laurie bridged the remaining inches between us and I held myself still, so very still—eyes wide open and locked on hers, until she kissed me.
Her lips started a slow and careful exploration at first. Her fingers traveled to my jawline, fluttered at my cheek. I shut my eyes and let her lips press softly to mine. I let her teeth scrape along my bottom lip, and I let her tongue lick along the point of my fangs.
Her hands slid to the nape of my neck, thumb gently stroking along my skin, sending cold shivers trickling down my spine. We moved in slow motion and heat pooled between us, building to a steady burn that put the fire in the grate to shame.
She’d been so unsure the first night, all stuttered touches and uncertainty. Tonight, there was a shy boldness in the way her lips traced the line of my jaw, in the tentative flare of arousal in her eyes when she pulled back to assess my expression. I answered with a gentle smile and felt her melt under my touch, felt her shiver under my fingers trailing lightly down her arms.
But even as her confidence unfurled, I caught flickers in her gaze whenever the firelight struck. Brief shadows of conflict. Want surged in one heartbeat, hesitation smothered it in the next. Something was wrong. Something was weighing down her shoulders, rendering her eyes glassy with tears. She looked away, bit down on her lip like she had to hold herself back.
I cupped her cheek and captured her wandering gaze, bringing her attention back to me. To this fragile moment. “Laurie, what’s going on?”
Laurie said nothing, but the look in her eyes said it all. Shewas at war with herself. Wanting to let herself want, and simultaneously terrified of how it could hurt me.
But I could handle the hurt, I would hold her for as long as she let me. I tipped her chin back and said as much. “You don’t have to hold back. I won’t break.”
She let my thumb brush her bitten lip, and her breath hitched in her throat. I saw the decision solidify in her eyes. She looked at me and she was so perfect. So goddamn beautiful she stole my breath away before her mouth had even crashed to mine again.
But even as she surged into me—hands reaching to grip my collar, lips melding to mine with a sudden fierce intent—something beneath my breastbone was splintering. Because the way she kissed me felt too urgent, desperate.
Like it was the last time she’d get to do this.
Operating on instinct I pulled her closer, enveloped her, hands fisting in her shirt like if I could just hold on tight enough she’d never have to leave my arms. Laurie lay back on the sofa, pulling me with her and I went willingly, lips trailing up her throat, across her cheek, over her damp lashes. Her breath brushed hot against my ear, her sighs laughing out with the rush of pleasure.
I wanted to believe I could pry the sorrow from her by simply kissing her tears away.Stay, I wanted to whisper, even though she was right there.Stay with me.Because even as she gave her all to me, this felt like losing her.
Her mouth found mine again and the fracture in my chest cracked wider. Her lips were soft and sensual, hungry and wild all at once. The slide of her tongue against my own sent arousal skittering through my body. I flattened myself against her, pressing her into the cushions, and we became a tangle of hands and hair and breathless, heady need.
I kissed her until I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began.
The heat between us erupted in a raging blaze, and I was happy to let it eat me alive, let the flames lick along our bodies, flay us both down to the bone so long as I never had to let go. It was a union forged in fire. Pure and perfect and everything I didn’t know I’d been looking for all my life.
Laurie’s fingers dug into my back, yanking me closer like there was any space left to spare. She murmured my name, whispered words that sent me spinning into space.
“I want you,” she said, and her words came out choked with emotion. “I want you and no one else, forever,” and I believed her, wholeheartedly.
Why then, did this feel like a goodbye?
50
Laurie
My heart was breaking. It was a statement which, in any other context, would be a sappy, overdramatic thing to say, but this time it was true. I could feel it. Shards splintering in my chest, slicing me up from the inside. My heart was breaking, and it was all my fault for leaving it so vulnerable in the first place.
Come home.
The words pulsed behind my eyes like a curse, and the urgency grew with every violent thud of my fracturing heart. The organization that had taken so much from me was still here—and fully capable of taking more. They had threatened to carve up the only good thing I’d managed to find in my two short years of freedom.
River.
She was kissing me. Kissing me like she knew what was coming. Like she knew I was going to leave. I kissed her back with equal force, equal pained desperation, equal desire to explore every inch of her before my forty-eight hours were up.
