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“You aren’t very appreciative of my kindness. I could have let you die.”
She sobered, pulling her knees up to her chest.
“Why didn’t you?” her voice had quieted as her mood did.
I shrugged. She scowled. I smirked. Her scowl grew more pronounced. Oh, I loved how her face gave away even her slightest reactions. She was easy to gauge, a trait she would have to break, for my world would, in turn, break her instead.
“Why were you outside the gates during lockdown?” I asked, trying to understand why she had put herself in such reckless danger. Whatever had killed that scout was still out there. If it had been Lucifer, he would have sent something to do it for him, and that thing could very well still be here.
She sighed but remained resolutely silent.
I decided to go with a different approach. “That was far too great of a risk to take just to see a pack of mongrels.”
“How did you…”
“They were all over that lovely scene you left behind yesterday. It positively wreaked of animal interference.” I said as I pulled the two small threads of hair from my pocket. “Care to explain why your presence was all over a scene where a now-dead man almost died?”
“I’d rather not,” she replied as flippantly as she could muster.
“What you’d rather is of no relevance. You were detected at the scene of near-death; that man is now dead, and you were found outside of the keep.” I moved toward the bed, kneeling on it as I ran my fingers over her brow to clear an errant strand of hair that clung stubbornly to her perspiration. “That would draw anyone’s suspicions on you.”
“No one would have known I was gone.”
“Not no one,” I took a chance, lowering my head towards hers, eliciting a subconscious shiver from her. “I found you. Now tell me, what should I do with you now that I have? By all rights, you should be punished for disobeying an order to stay put.”
“Just try it,” she hissed, her head slanting toward mine in fiery repose.
I slipped my arms around her, her body tensing but not resisting as I encircled her.
“And besides - the rules about lockdown apply to everyone,” she said. “You shouldn’t have been outside either.”
I chuckled from deep in my chest, nuzzling away the hair on her neck just below her ear as she lifted her hands to rest on my pectorals. “You’ll find my Little Thief that no rules apply to me. Not when I don’t want them to.”
“And why is that exactly?”
“Because they don’t have to,” I replied as flippantly as she had before. I nuzzled her into her neck, drawn like a moth to a flame. There was something about this woman I couldn’t understand, my longing for her at a near visceral level that called to the very soul deep inside me. I knew little about her, but I knew enough to know she was the prize I had been foretold to collect.
Her breathing hitched, and just as I began to relax into her, she surprised me, pushing me back with a burst of sloth that took me off guard. She scrambled out from beneath me and rushed for the door as I recovered, diving across the room to scoop her back up into my arms. She hissed and struggled as I halfheartedly subdued her. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until I allowed it.
Chapter Eleven - Round Four
Aeryn
I didn’t want to enjoy the strong arms that gripped possessively at my waist. Or the chest that rose and fell in perfect sync with my own. But even the Hells below knew I did.
There was a pull tugging at the entity deep inside me, but for once, it was content. Before I knew it, my hands came to rest on his, and ever so tentatively, I wiggled my fingers the tiniest fraction to rest just between his, the gentle friction sending a flare to my belly. Unlike the butterflies I had felt the night before when Corbin had smiled at me, this was raw warmth from my scalp to the tips of my toes.
Before I knew it, I had pulled his hands to circle more firmly around me, resting them just below my belly button. He purred, and my womb clenched. I released a tentative answering purr of my own.
I vaguely watched through hooded eyes as Felix peaked his head in, looking between us before silently closing it again. Seconds later, Marik sunk his fingers into my tank top and yanked me around, crushing my chest against his hard-muscled abdomen. I gasped, and the fingers that had so gently been entangled within mine just moments before twisted into my hair and pulled it roughly back, forcing my face up to meet his heated metallic gaze. I had only a split second to register the fire that licked at his irises before he brought his mouth crushing down on mine, the force of it clacking our teeth together before he pulled back enough to devour my mouth. This was not the way I had ever expected my first real kiss to go but fuck if, at that moment, I cared. It’s not like I was a girl that had ever believed I could have chocolate-covered romance and happily ever afters.
I wrapped my arms around his waist as a brief flash of self-deprecation crossed my mind. I had no clue what the hell to do with my hands. But instinct raged at me to touch him, the dark entity yearning for me to rake my nails up his back. He growled when I did, releasing one hand from my hair before bringing it down to grip the small of my back with his forearm, pressing me impossibly tighter to his frame.
I brought my hands around to frame his face, but he nipped at my lip in a gentle reprimand. So I began moving them again, this time running the nails of one hand down the broad bicep and corded forearm that gripped me with a rough, tantalizing possessiveness before entangling the other in the disheveled hair at the nape of his neck and twisting. I took his responding rumble as a good sign and, oh so tentatively licked my tongue against his bottom lip. I could feel a tug at the corner of his lips, the scar there gently rubbing against mine as he moved his arm down to lift at the bottom of my ass, raising me up so I had no choice but to brace my legs around his waist. I gasped at the delicious friction as he rubbed against my jeans. He took full advantage of my opened mouth, his tongue diving in to dominate me. This time, when self-doubt would have claimed me, a wave of reassurance traveled through that tentative thread between us, and I entwined my tongue with his own, a sensual duel ensuing between our parted lips. Everything felt like a challenge between us, and this electrifying animalistic mating of lips was no different. And if all the blood hadn’t been rushing straight to my core, leaving my mind a jumbled mess of sensations, I would have been proud of just how frenzied I was making him.
When he momentarily pulled back his tongue to breathe, I bit down on his bottom lip, craving its viciously sweet return to our duel. But the taste of iron and spice assaulted my tongue, and he pulled back further, releasing the hand that had still been tugging at my hair to run fingers along his bottom lip.
I opened my eyes, my breathing ragged as if I had been forced to run a mile uphill.
