Page 15 of The Demon Crown

He suddenly leaned up on an arm, looming over her and staring down at her face in the darkness. “Are you giving in?”

“Giving in to what?”

His next words were little more than a growl. “Me.”

She rolled too, looking up at him with all that golden hair spilling around her head. “The only thing I’m giving in to is your body heat. You’re taking this in the wrong way, Greed. I should go back to my shadows.”

But she wasn’t moving. She was staring at him with a look in her eyes that he was oh so familiar with.Hunger.

And his breath caught in his chest at the sight of it because it was so infinitely beautiful, even if she wanted to deny herself. He licked his lips, then looked down at his hand still on her thigh.

“Greed isn’t always a bad thing,” he mumbled. He tracked the movement of his hand as he slid it back up her hip to her flat belly that flexed underneath his fingers. “Sometimes greed is giving in to what we really want. To what we really desire.”

His hand moved again, sliding in between her breasts and up to her throat. She swallowed hard against his palm, and he looked back into those lovely blue eyes that were filled with so much hunger it sparked his own.

He leaned a little closer, her breath fanning over his lips. “So what do you want, little thief?”

Oh, he hoped he knew what she wanted. He hoped it was that she wanted to warm herself on him more than they were now. To send their hearts racing together as they beat the cold and the darkness away for a few moments.

And gods, he was right.

She grabbed the back of his neck with a surprisingly firm hand and slammed her mouth into his. They tangled together, lips and teeth and tongue. He tasted her, all bitter and acidic as she was sweet. She nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth, and he gladly opened for her.

This first time, he’d let her think she was in control. He’d let her take what she wanted, and the woman took with all the ferocity of the lioness he’d once compared her to. This thief devoured him whole.

She kissed with her entire body. Her hand holding him in place, her other trailing down the bare planes of his chest. One of her legs came up and coiled around his thigh. Not enough for him to rub against her as he desperately wanted, but still enough to connect them even further. As though she couldn’t stand to be so far from him.

And through it all, he held himself still and careful above her. Letting her take. Letting her touch. Letting her learn his body in whatever way she wished.

Until she pulled back, her cheeks darkening in the silver moonlight. Doubt warred on her features, and it seemed as though the world slammed down upon her.

“I shouldn’t,” she whispered, but then she licked her lips and stared at his. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Ach, my turn now,” he growled.

Greed lunged for her. He’d given her time to learn him, to take what she wanted, and now she owed him the rest.

He scooped the back of her neck with his palm, not caring that she let out a hiss of pain as he pulled her hair. He dug his other hand into her waist, yanking her up against his chest as he hovered over her like the animal he was.

And she met him. By all the seven kingdoms, she met him in the middle and unleashed all his dreams upon him. Her legs curled around his hips, giving him the perfect opportunity to place himself between her thighs where he wanted to be. He ground into her, spiking pleasure nearly into pain as he bit at her lips.

At some point he’d pinched her jaw between his fingers, too hard, but she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. Her hands gripped him back, her nails digging into his back, and it was perfection.

She was exactly what he’d been waiting for. This wondrous, impossible woman who would fit into his collection better than he’d ever thought possible.

Heat consumed him. Desire burned through his body and he couldn’t think. Couldn’t be anything other than the animal who bit at her, devoured, and needed to slide down her body and eat until they both were satisfied.

But the moment he shifted, he felt all those wounds on his back and ribs opening up once more. Warm blood slid down his torso and dripped over her hands, onto her skin, and he hoped she would ignore it.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to fuck covered in blood. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, she was as messed up as he was. But she wasn’t. She stopped him, her hand holding onto his ribs and forcing him to freeze.

He stared down at her swollen lips, her eyes that searched his features, even though she had to know what was there. He wanted her. Gods, she could feel him pressed up against her inner thigh if she just focused.

How could he not want her? How could anyone not want her?

She slid a hand up between them and held her fingers up to the moonlight. Her hand was coated in blood, slick and thick, dripping from her palm and down her wrists.

“We have to stop,” she whispered, still staring at the blood.

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