Page 45 of Dark & Dreadful Brutes

For some reason, his presence soothed the panic I’d initially felt at being trapped.

His lips brushed my ear. “Tell me, and I free you. Stay silent, and you force me to figure it out myself.”

How would he figure it out himself?

“What does that mean?” I demanded, though my chest was rising and falling rapidly. The dress clung to nearly every inch of my skin, highlighting the hard buds of my nipples but concealing my core, just barely.

“You think a dip in the water could wipe a male’s scent from your skin entirely? I can find out exactly where his body touched yours without releasing you, Lae.”

He wasn’t giving up on the nickname.

I wasn’t sure I wanted him to, as insane as that probably made me.

It was time to lean on my sarcasm again. “So you’re going to smell me?”

He chuckled, but didn’t answer me.

Instead, he lowered his nose to my neck and inhaled deeply. His chest rumbled unhappily, and I breathed in sharply when his tongue dragged slowly over the sensitive flesh there.

My body clenched as heat flooded me.

His tongue left my skin, and I relaxed for a moment—before he inhaled against my ear.

A snarl escaped him, and the silky heat of his tongue dragged over the curve of it.

A moan escaped me, my body clenching again, tighter.

I swore silently, and he chuckled.

He must’ve heard my curse in his mind.

If he was going to lick every part of me that smelled like the guy I’d been pressed up against…

Veil, he’d lick every inch of me.

My ears.

My belly.

My breasts.

Which meant… I was going to have to give in.

I was going to have to let him win.

Because if he tasted me like that, I wouldn’t want it to end. And I’d grow too damn attached to the man who had lied to me and used me without even bothering to let me know what he was doing.

If I told him what I’d done with the fae in the hallway—Toveo, according to Ravv—it would still piss him off.

The whole goal of my revenge plot was to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. Telling him the truth might achieve that, too.

Especially if I embellished a little.

“I asked Toveo to be my first kiss, so I wouldn’t have to give it to you,” I breathed.

Ravv’s body went still.

The man absolutely froze.

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