Page 155 of Taken By Shadows

He flexed his fingers until shadows lengthened and touched the bedsheets beside me. They rippled their way up the creases and folds of the silk until they found their path to my hands clutching the fabric.

The shadows nuzzled along my fingers and found my wrists, swirling around them, not tightening. Just circling like a school of fish shimmering in the water.

The weight of the mattress shifted under me as Kaed knelt one knee onto it. He braced a hand on the headboard and leaned in as the shadows swirled all over me. “Your choice, peach.”

“I always have a choice?” I repeated what he’d told me before.

He said nothing to that but moved until his entire frame caged me.

My breath hitched. How many times had I thought of exactly this? Of him above me, pinning me to his bed.

Unbidden, my tension flowed from me, and my body unspooled to accommodate his.

Kaed swallowed once as he watched me. Inviting him to make good on his threat.

In a single movement, Kaed was kneeling over me, straddling me until he pressed into me. His shadows wove around me and forced my back to arch into his body.

“What are you—” I forgot my question as I felt the length of him press into me. A moan escaped before I could rein it in.

A low, gravelly sound rumbled in his chest at that. “You always have a choice.” He leaned over me, taking my hands in his, twining our fingers together.

A single exhale was all I could manage in response, but my eyes said everything I needed him to know.

Yes. I choose this. Whatever this was.

Hot breath poured from me as I tried to arch closer to him. But he held his body just out of reach. And then his mouth was kissing me. Everywhere. His lips scorched my skin like a brand.

“You—” He kissed my neck. “Make—” He kissed my collarbone. “It—” Then just above the curve of my breasts, the skin tightening a little as his lips sealed over the delicate skin of my decolletage. “Very—” He nipped at me until my skin pebbled and cooled, “Difficult—” Another kiss to my neck. “To protect you.” Another kiss.

I panted uselessly under his lips as they marked me.

“But … I suppose.” He paused, examining me as I writhed, hands pinned in his, hips held under him. “I’ll just have to try harder to protect what is mine.”

He growled and released my hands but claimed my mouth.

His length pressed into me as his tongue savoured what it tasted.

For a moment, I forgot how I’d gotten here. Where we had to be. What troubles lay around us. And all I could feel—all I wanted to feel— was all of Kaed.

I gasped for air between exploring the confines of his perfect mouth as it devoured mine.

But then I pushed down the red-hot coals in me that were threatening to burst into flame. “You can tie me to your bed another time,” I said, trying to push him to make some space between us. One more minute, one more touch from him, and I wouldn’t be able to think straight.

“Or …” His voice shuddered low as the shadows around my wrists formed again and tightened, as he tugged them to wrap around the headboard. “I can do it now.”

I forgot how to protest. I forgot that I wanted to. Did I actually want to get up? To end this? There were things I knew I needed to say to him, but I was finding it hard to know anything other than his touch on me.

I pulled at his shadows, but in pulling on them, I felt something settle into me. They were him, he was wrapped around me, and I sank into that comfort.

“What was it you were saying, peach?”

I lost all words to his eyes and how hungry they were as his fingers grasped the bed sheets and pulled until nothing separated us other than the clothes I was still wearing.

I had conflicting feelings: grateful for the barrier between us, and cursing it at the same time.

Kaed’s fingers skimmed down my hips until they slipped under my skirts.

“Do you want me to stop, Imogen?”