I wound my arms around Bryce’s middle, holding on tightly. “Why can’t the twins be like you? You’re always reasonable, mature.”
He laughed, and I frowned.
“I’m not laughing at you, angel.”
“Then what?”
“If you only knew how many times I wished to change places with them before I met you,” he mused with a pensive head shake, “to have human touch, to roam like a king, towering and fierce, the creature in me fearless, free.”
“I can understand that.” I gripped his shirt and snuggled my face into his chest to hide how hard I had to fight back a sob as I said, “Atthe den, I would wish for claws, for wings, for the strength to fight my way out instead of just enduring it.” I dabbed at my eyes with the back of my satin glove as I sat up, then straightened his bowtie.
He ran his warm palms up and down my bare shoulders and arms, teasing a finger along my collar bone slowly. “The strength to endure is far more powerful than any supernatural ability, Serenity,” he murmured as his touch sent tingles up my neck and all the way down my spine.
I took his face in my hands and pulled his mouth to mine with a watery gasp.
His arms enveloped me, bringing me flush against him, practically in his lap, as his mouth moved with mine like a matching set.
When he pulled away an inch, he brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear, watching the simple movement with wonder. “For all of my life, I’ve told myself I didn’t deserve this. The unremarkable ability to just reach out and touch another person. I felt cursed from birth. In my darker hours, I began to wonder if perhaps I deserved it, that something about me was unsuited for the world, that people had to be protected from me. And then you walked into my life and broke the hex, and I feel like I’m truly living for the first time, thanks to you. You can never truly understand how special you are to me, Serenity.”
Bryce had all the money in the world, but the simple touch of my skin was more valuable to him than all of that.
Could I really keep pondering leaving if it meant denying him that?
And then it hit me. Why did I find it so easy to deny myself the pleasure Bryce and the others brought me, when the thought of denying Bryce the same thing horrified me?
I’d learned to be as cruel to myself as those monsters in the den had been to me. It had to stop.
I took off my gloves.
“You’re special to me, too, Bryce,” I murmured, pushing backhis hair with my bare fingers, relishing the flutter of his lids at the sensation. “You’ve opened doors for me I thought I’d never unlock. Thanks to you and Hunter, I’m free to choose the life I want for myself, and I’m starting to realize that whatever future I reach for, I want you in it. If I have my way, you’ll never be deprived of touch again.” I looked away as I trembled out the words. “And you can touch me anywhere you like.”
His eyes darkened as he closed the short distance between us kissing me deeply again.
When I massaged his thigh, he groaned against my mouth, palms sliding down my curves to take handfuls of my ass. I threw back my head with a soft moan, and he kissed my jaw.
“My neck. Kiss my neck,” I whispered.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I rasped. “I want you to rewrite the marks.”
He spoke my name between kisses trailing down my throat, and my blood ran hot.
I slid my hand inside the spaces between his shirt buttons, stroking his firm muscles and soft skin. Then I felt him go hard in his pants beneath me.
“Please, I want you to kiss me everywhere,” I sighed in a sultry whisper.
He let out a low, breathy sound—half pleasure, half frustration—that made me want to tear open his shirt. But he removed my hands by gently taking my wrists in a trembling grip. “It’s taking every ounce of self-control to say this, but…” He kissed my finger between words. “I think we should tease a smile from Hunter and have him mend things with Seb first. Who knows? Maybe we can all do something nice for each other…?”
Hunter was in the next room over, in the suite’s private bar and dining room, sipping strong liquor. Seb was standing out on the wrap-around balcony, staring off into the stars. Dagger was down at his precinct, writing a full report on what happened, determined to get aninvestigation opened into the affairs of Alexander Winterborn, preparing to plead a new case to his lieutenant, come Monday morning.
I wanted to encourage some healing but… “I’m not sure what to do?”
Bryce stood and took off his tuxedo jacket, folding it over the couch’s arm. “Let me talk to Hunter first,” he said, still breathing hard, “then I’ll go out and speak to Seb. It’ll all work out, I promise.”
“And Dagger?”
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow. He and Hunter always act like they’re nothing alike, but if I can show them both they want the same things when it comes to your best interests, that all of this is because they’re equally protective of you, they’ll come around.”
