Page 1 of Ascension

IN THE DARK, SHE CLAIMED MY SURRENDER (PROLOGUE)

It starts the way sin always does, soft, slow, and sweet enough to make me forget it’s wrong, but decadent enough to make me need more.

I’m somewhere I’ve never been, wrapped in luxury, but hidden in the shadows. The air radiates with warmth, the kind that slides beneath your skin and settles in your bones. I can feel him first, James, the rigidity of his sculpted body pressed to mine from behind, breath steady, touch deliberate. His hand glides over my waist, down the curve of my hip, like he’s tracing every line he’s already memorized.

But it’s not his touch that unravels me, not completely at least, it’s hers.

She’s in front of me. A vision carved from heat and mystery. Her beauty doesn’t make sense, it’s too much for this world. Skin the color of burnished bronze, eyes that glint like amber lit from within. Her lips are red, full, parted just enough to promise something I shouldn’t want, but only she can deliver.

My pulse stumbles, my breath catches. I’ve never wanted a woman before. Never even wondered what it might feel like. But the second her fingertips graze my skin, everything I thought I knew about myself begins to slip.

She smells like something forbidden, smoke and honey and night-blooming jasmine. The scent curls around me, dizzying,familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. I can taste her on the tip of my tongue as her hand finds the side of my neck, thumb brushing the base of my throat with quiet possession, and the sound that leaves me doesn’t feel like mine.

James whispers against my ear, his voice rough and reverent, telling me to let go. His words fade into her breath as she leans closer, her gaze steady and unflinching. I can feel her studying me, seeing past the layers I wear in waking life. Past the smiles. Past the control.

Then her lips meet mine.

The kiss is slow, deliberate, devastating.

It’s nothing like I expected, gentle, yet commanding. Her tongue teases the edge of my mouth, coaxing me open, and the world narrows to the taste of her warmth, the intoxicating yet impossible to forget taste of her. James’ hand anchors me at my hip, his presence grounding, but my mind is already lost to her.

Her lips move from my mouth to my jaw, then lower. Every place she touches feels baptized in in pleasure. I can hear my own heartbeat, too loud, too fast. I can’t decide if I want to flee or fall apart in her hands.

There’s something about her face, something I can’t quite grasp. The way her expression shifts between power and tenderness. The faint curve of a smile I swear I’ve seen before, or have I? Her beauty should should comfort me. Instead, it terrifies me.

She leans in until her breath dances against my ear.

“Breathe, Princess” she whispers. The word slides down my spine like Mulberry silk.

And I do. I breathe her inc consuming everything she has to give until I can’t tell where she ends and I begin.

Then everything shatters.

The light breaks. The room dissolves.

Her warmth fades from my skin.

I wake tangled in sheets damp from sweat and my thighs sticky with want, my pulse still sprinting, my lips tingling with the ghost of her kiss. The edges of the dream slip away, but her voice lingers, low, calm, commanding.

“Breathe.”

I lie there in the dark, trembling.

Because even as the dream fades, I know one thing for sure: Whoever she was, she felt real.

Too real.

And somehow, I know I’ll see her again; hell, I need to.

By the time the sun crawls across my blinds, I’ve already given up on sleep. My sheets are twisted, the air thick with the ghost of the dream I can’t seem to outrun. It’s been three nights now. Three nights of the same woman, same voice, same lips, same impossible warmth that leaves me aching and awake.

I stare at the ceiling, trying to shake it off, but my chest feels tight, like I’ve swallowed something heavy. When I finally drag myself out of bed, I know I need to talk to someone who won’t laugh or judge or tell me to pray it away.

Lena’s voice answers on the second ring, still scratchy with sleep. “Girl, it’s eight a.m. You’d better be calling with news of a promotion or a pregnancy.”

I groan. “Neither. But it’s bad.”

“Bad how?” Her voice sharpens, not with fear, but curiosity.