Page 97 of Veil of Blood and Bone

I wrap my hand around her throat as I deny her touch. Teasing. Tormenting.

I want more than my fucking hand on her. I want her to move where I guide her.

We lock eyes as my shadows drag across her chest, her clavicle, her arms. And without breaking eye contact, I kiss her, nipping at her lower lip until her moan grows in intensity.

This makes it all worthwhile. This scene. This woman.

This adoration is intentional. It manipulates everything I do.

And if I could die for it…I would. Which is deeply inconvenient for me.

Chapter 20

Helene

I’m buoyant.

Wren kisses with the control of someone who understands what it’s like to lose it all.

And he’s terrified of having it happen again.

The thought disappears when the kisses gain force, our tongues tangling, his shadows splaying over my skin.

Something easy to break, not dangerous. A touch but not.

I’ve never had a man hold me this way before. My entire fucking face is in his command.

Like he expects me to move when he wants. To perform on command.

Why do I like it?

There’s no panic when his hand wraps around my throat. He’s the one leading this exchange. His power messes with my head.

He squeezes lightly in a reminder I don’t need.

Hysteria refuses to settle when he pushes me further into the couch and angles himself on top of me between my legs. His arm cages my head and black hair cascades round his face. Through the strands the tips of his pale ears jut out like javelins. The entire line of silver on the right one catches the gray light from outside.

He kisses the tip of my nose, still squeezing my throat, exerting enough pressure on my windpipe to force my breathing to go shallow.

“Hey. Wai—what are you doing?” My words grind together. “Get off.”

We never agreed on a safe word. Hysterical laughter traps itself beneath my sternum. Who needs a fucking safe word with a man you just met? Who lets a stranger who controls shade touch them this way?

Those slivers of darkness have snaked their way higher, dragging my knees open to further accommodate him.

Wren is built like a streetfighter. Lanky and tall, but athletic, muscled in ways people won’t see. Yet the girth of the hardness between his legs is impossible to ignore.

The shadows tug at my limbs until I’m splayed open, and he settles between them, his erection jutting up to my abdomen and contained only by our clothes.

I lift my palms to his chest and they catch in midair, more darkness coming out to play.

The struggle is real but not at the same time. I fight but not hard.

“What do you need?” he breathes. “What do you want?”

A part of me wants to lose to him. I want to let him take me to some kind of different place, one of quiet focus and intensity.

He kisses me again until my lips tingle. Shit, to be kissed with such hunger. There’s a difference to the way Forest devoured me. There were no pretenses with his touch. He wanted, he took. He plundered, rough and direct.