“Now.”
With a bone-rattling growl, he crushes our lips together.
I let my hands drop and open myself, a willing victim to his lashing tongue while he pours thick, throaty sounds past my poisonous lips.
But I don’t just need him to kiss me …
I need him toswallow.
He tips back for breath, his hands a cradling prison for my face, and I pull my lip between my teeth and bite so hard warmth dribbles all the way to my chin.
Releasing a sawing sound, he lunges forward again, digging his tongue so far into my mouth I can barely breathe. His hands maul my hair, like he’s purposely screwing it up so he can spend hours untangling it later.
Breaking the kiss, he leans back on his heels. “You’re adeliciouscreature,” he grinds out. His throat works, and I picture a mix of noxious blood slipping down into his belly as his eyes turn inky. “Mine.”
I battle the urge to flinch.
The word wounds—every time. Because I’m not his. Not anyone’s.
Not anymore.
I belong to the silver-licked shadows of my own mistakes.
He moves to grab my right ankle, but I shove the left one at his chest instead, stuffing the other beneath a pillow.
A hungry smile stretches across his face as his hand tightens around it, fingertips grazing up my calf. “Pushy tonight, aren’t we?”
I nod.
He releases a dark chuckle that rattles my bones, then plants a kiss on the arch of my foot. I want nothing more than to rip away from his touch as he pecks another upon the inside of my ankle …
Just above it …
My heart sits in my throat like a rock.
I hold the saliva pooling in my mouth, knowing where those kisses are heading. Knowing I’d rather swallow this poison than feel his lipsthere.
Watching me, he peppers a haunting trail all the way to my knee, my heartstrings fraying a little more with each too-hot peck upon my crawling skin.
I want him off me.
Want him off, want him off—
His next kiss wavers, and my stomach flips as his pupils swell. A black, bubbly froth leaks from the corner of his mouth, and the backs of my eyes sting, my face threatening to crumble. My knees wobble with the urge to squeeze together, like they’ve been released from a catatonic spell.
He drops my leg. Claws at his throat.
My entire body begins to tremble.
Blood rushes to his head, the veins in his temple and forehead swelling to the surface as his chest heaves deep, gurgling breaths—reminding me of the people he’s condemned to rot on the outskirts of his city.
A drop of satisfaction drips upon my chest.
A bubbling, choking cough, and something flashes in his widening eyes as he shreds at the skin around his neck—a mix of emotions too complex for me to trace.“You—poisoned me—”
Checkmate, asshole.
Lids drifting shut, his limp body sways forward, making my heart vault. I try to scramble backward—
