Page 64 of Dance with Death

I throw my head back against the wall, digging my fingers into my hair from the roots. “Fuck. That’s not…it’s not—” I stumble over my words. “Death isn’t the only escape. I have faith in that. And I need you to have faith in me. Don’t you have faith in me?”

She turns toward me, moving to sit on her knees. She reaches out to brush her thumb along my jawline.

“I have faith in you, Ezra. All the faith in the world. But I can’t have faith in you finding a way out when I know there isn’t one.” She sighs, her head falling to the side as she watches my expression shift. “I can’t believe how much I…”

“What?”

“How much I need you. All my reasons made so much sense to me when I cut myself. But now, alone with you…the only thing that Iknowis how much I need you.”

Everything in me softens.

I reach for her and she reaches for me. She climbs onto my lap, hiking her dress up toward her hips to straddle me. Both her hands grip my cheeks and she bends to kiss me with a fierceness I couldn’t have expected in her current state. But I meet her with fierceness of my own, a heated passion for her that’s been bottled up deep inside for far too long.

Her tongue seeks mine out, battling to taste me as if she’s been starved and is finally being fed. If I thought her fragile body could take it, if these stupid chains weren’t so goddamn heavy on our necks, I would flip her, slam her to the floor, and bury myself deep inside her until someone forcefully dragged me away.

I need to be inside her—as shitty as it is to admit in this hell—and I would feel bad for feeling that way if I didn’t know how much she needs it, too. Every part of her body hums for it, a tingling, pulsing aura that flows from her and electrifies me with every brush of skin on skin.

She and I are meant to touch.

Our souls demand it.

Our hearts beat for it.

Maybe it’s arrogant or cocky even to think it, but I know that our separation did this to her—more than Vigo’s torment, whatever it is he did to her, because our separation was worse. And seeing each other before, in the ballroom, knowing we would only be torn apart again…that’s what broke her.

My heart can’t handle that.

I need to mend her, put her back together, make her whole again.

Her lips break from mine only to land on my face where she presses fevered kisses on every inch of exposed skin.

“Mine?” she whispers, her voice suddenly heavy, powerful with desire and need.

“Yours,” I reply, sliding my hands across her back.

I hold her close as I sit up straighter, scooting my ass all the way back against the wall. Her arched back presses her body against mine as I move my hands to run up her thighs, slipping beneath the bunched fabric and reaching for her hips. My fingers skim across skin, nothing but skin, even where the fabric of her panties should be.

If this were the real world, I’d think it was hot, but it’s not the real world.

This is all real.

It’s just not the real you want to know.

“He doesn’t let you wear—”

“Shut up,” she snaps, leaning back to look at me. “Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t say another word about him.”

She snatches my wrists in both her small hands and yanks them away from her body. I think she’s going to scold me, yell at me, move away and stop touching me.

Instead, she grips my wrists tighter, pushes my hands to the wall on either side of my head, and bends to kiss me, holding me in place.

Fuck.

I won’t say another fucking word.

She leans into my hands, letting the wall support her weight. Our kiss becomes a frantic, heated devouring of each other, and I’m losing my mind with how much I need her, every part of her.

Her hands slowly loosen their grip on my wrists. Her palms slip over my palms and our fingers lace together. Her hips move as she inhales deep through her nose and our lips break. She drops her forehead to mine.

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