Page 92 of Grim Tidings

She doesn’t answer. I clap the palm of my hand lightly against the curve of her hip, and her body jolts.

“Darcy. Tell me how I give you what you need.”

“I told you, I don’t—”

I growl, frustrated, and slip my hand over the damp material of her underwear. I press my thumb where she’s warmest and wettest. “Does it ache? Right here?”

She drops her head back and pants, open mouthed at the ceiling. “Yes,” she whispers.

“Do you want me to make it go away?”

“Yes.” She nods, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Please,” she breathes.

I rock my forehead back and forth against hers. “Fuck,” I whisper. I underestimated how much I’d like hearing that word fall out of her mouth. Darcy, who never asks for anything. Darcy, who is stubborn to a fault. Darcy, who buries all her hurts and writes down her wishes on a shitty piece of faded notebook paper to carry with her.

She never asks for anything, but she’s asking me for this.

I lean back and consider her. Her knees are tipped wide, her hair wild, her silk shirt and her bra hanging from the crook of her elbows.

“Tell me to stop,” I warn, my fingers digging against her thighs. One last attempt at holding myself in check. “If you don’t, I’m going to be selfish with you. There won’t be anything left for anyone else.” It’s the most possessive I’ve ever let myself be, and I’m almost ashamed of it. But a switch was flipped when that Ferryman came looking. No one is taking her from me, I tell myself. Not now.

Magic fills the space between us, and her eyelids grow heavy.

“No,” she whispers. Her voice echoes and rolls, like storm clouds over water. “Don’t stop. That’s what I want.”

“You want me to be greedy?”

She nods, reaching for me. Her fingertips trace the lines of my face. “When’s the last time you took what you needed, Gabriel, hm?” She tips forward, her mouth barely brushing mine. “Let me give you what you need.”

My eyes flutter shut with a broken sound. With everyone else, I have to be temperate. In control. Polite and well-behaved.

But not with Darcy.

Darcy wants me exactly as I am. She wants the rough and broken pieces as much as the shiny, perfect ones. In fact, I think she likes those pieces better.

Grateful, I drop to my knees, yanking her legs even wider. When I dip my head between her thighs, there’s a small wet patch on the front of her underwear. I start there first, pressing the flat of my tongue against it and making it wetter.

Darcy gasps. “I—” She doesn’t seem to know where she wants the rest of that sentence to go. “I—”

“This is how I want it,” I tell her, keeping one hand on the inside of her thigh, the other going to work at my belt. “I want you just like this.”

I’m so fucking hard and all I’ve done is breathe against her. I pull myself out and give my cock a firm, slow stroke. Her breath shudders, and her eyes slip shut.

“No,” I say, and I drag another slow kiss against the front of her underwear. “Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

She’s frustrated, I can tell, but I hold myself exactly where I am until her eyes open.

“Good,” I tell her, my hand still working lazily between my legs. “Stay just like that.”

Her chin dips once in acknowledgment. I dip my chin, too, and bring my mouth back against the damp material. I kiss her through it the same way I’ve been kissing her mouth. Slow and steady. Deep and wet. I want her to come this way first, and then I’ll let myself feel her.

I stay patient. I go slow. I let her hand in my hair guide me where she wants me, and then I hold myself there, working my mouth against her until she’s squirming. Darcy is responsive and vocal and both of those things have me rolling my hips into my hand, chasing relief.

“I’m—” Another hiccupping sigh that lodges itself under my skin. In that place where my magic seems to come from, glowing and warm. “I’m really close, I think, and I—”

“If you have to think about it, I’m doing something wrong.”

I wrench her legs wider and drag her closer. I’m rougher than I should be, but Darcy lets out a wild, wanting sound.