“You stole my memories, Lee,” he whispered. “I want them back.”
“We can re-create them.”
“We’re going to do more than that,” he vowed, his palm a brand against her skin.
Confidence and charisma created an intoxicating combination that was all Balthazar. She lost herself to his aura, his touch, hisexistence,and allowed him to draw her deeper into this dangerous game.
Taking his memories had been more painful than she could ever have anticipated.
But it’d also been the right thing to do.
She’d made a promise to protect Stas, pledged a fealty bond that couldn’t be broken, and had put fate before personal desires.
That didn’t make Leela a bad person. If anything, it made her a martyr.
Balthazar hummed in response to her thoughts, the Hydraian Elder not even attempting to give her mind a second of privacy.
She supposed he saw it as his due, considering what she’d done to his memories.
Or perhaps he couldn’t turn it off.
Mind reading had to be overwhelming.
And useful, she thought.
Particularly in bed.
His lips ghosted across her neck, his tongue pausing to trace her pulse. “I don’t need access to your thoughts to understand your desires, Lee. It’s your body that tells me what I need to know.”
She shivered as his palm skimmed her abdomen to her hip, his thumb gently caressing the bone before finding the pleasure point beside it. Her lips parted on a contented sigh, her veins heating from Balthazar’s sensual prowess.
He still wore his black boxer briefs, but nothing else. Her mouth watered with the notion of exploring his fine physique and showing him just what she could do with her tongue.
However, his mouth was already moving downward to her collarbone. Licking, nipping, teasing. So tempting and deliriously perfect.
He avoided the areas most men would go for, choosing the path between her exposed breasts and around to the side to caress her rib cage.
Her nipples hardened in response, the teasing caress lighting a fire deep inside.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, not to guide him but to hold him. Her opposite hand fisted the comforter at her side as he continued his torturous trail downward to where his thumb rested against her hip.
“Mind reading is my oxygen,” he whispered against her skin. “It’s as natural to me as breathing. And you’re right; I can’t turn it off.”
His nose grazed her lower abdomen, his lips barely brushing the top of her lace thong. It was all she wore, leaving her almost entirely naked beneath him. However, Balthazar wasn’t the type of man to let a little nudity persuade him to act. He would draw this out as long as he desired—a notion he proved via his gaze.
Vivid determination shone in his swirling chocolate depths.
He would wait her out for as long as it took to make his point.
And she’d enjoy every minute of the torturous descent into blissful insanity.
I’ll make you work for it, B,she thought at him.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way, sweetheart,” he murmured, his palms sliding down to grip her thighs and forcing her to spread for him.
But he didn’t go for the apex between them.
No, he went to his knees and stared down at her instead. Hotly. Intently. Wickedly.
