Page 37 of Ballad of Nightmares

Fuck the painting. Who was the woman standing in front of him? How was this person the same one that had been so evil and seduced so many influential people on her way to power? Sent missiles flying into castles and destroyed legions of soldiers…

He wondered if maybe this was more of her act.

Ana looked twice in his direction upon finding him staring at her, and she smiled. “You have that look on your face again,” she said.

“Which one?”

“The confused one,” she replied.

Sam sighed a huff and shook his head. “You puzzle me,” he admitted.

“Do I?” she asked, turning into him. “How so?”

Her fingers grazing the top of his pants had his abs flinching. “I’m not sure… I don’t think I’ve met anyone who gives a damn about the people behind the art.” His thumb brushed her cheek, and Ana tilted her chin back, opening up to him. “You… Are you sure you’re not a witch?”

“Says the demon,” she mocked.

Sam’s eyes hardened on her. “Who told you that?”

“Jay likes to talk… alot…” she replied. “He has quite a few stories.”

Sam’s arm snaked around her waist, the other still resting by her neck. Everything made sense then. Why she had actually texted him that day. The only reason she was going on dates with him.

She was using him.

Sam’s body tingled at the realization.

He’d have to work harder to distract her from this.

“Does that scare you?” he asked, deciding to play along and pretend to be the demon she thought he was.

“That you’re employed by Death himself?” she asked.

“Indirectly,” he said. “He stays to himself, but yes.”

And he waited on her to question it more.

Ana seemed to contemplate it, and Sam’s thumb stroked her skin. “No,” she answered. “That doesn’t scare me. But you…” Her eyes swayed over him like she was taking in the whole of his soul or whatever she thought was left of one. She sucked her bottom lip behind her teeth and lifted her chin higher, granting him further access to toy with that pretty neck should he want to.

So perfectly delicate. How he could have crushed it right there and swept her up in shadows before anyone could stop him. Not that they would. Death and their king revealing himself would be more of a story to any onlookers than the ceased existence of one lonely woman who had only just appeared in their kingdom.

Her green eyes flashed up at him, head tilting slightly. “You could scare me,” she finally said.

Sam shifted on his feet, their chests flush, and his tongue darted out over his lip as he fell for the lust rising between them. He reached to her neck like he might enclose his hand upon it, but he backed the grasp away to a brush of his knuckle against her jaw, and Ana’s eyes fluttered.

“Tease,” she muttered. “I thought you were going to grab me right here… Give all these old people a reminder of a good time.”

Sam stared at the rose and flower tattoo on the side of her neck, and he resisted pressing his fingers into her skin. “They’d all have heart attacks from the excitement of that display.”

“Twenty people dropping dead at the same time just from the fantasy of you choking me might be exciting,” she said in a low voice.

His palm enclosed over her tattoo, and as he held her gaze, just his thumb pressed down on the nerve there, at the small indention on the side of her trachea. His fingers wrapped beneath her hair, and he stilled her, wholly at his mercy.

Her chin stretched, throat opening as he teetered forward, his bang brushing her face. “Should we find out?” he breathed.

The air around them thickened even more. Her hands wrapped his belt, and she whispered, “Yes,” with a close of her eyes.

Sam’s smile lifted the right corner of his lips. “I’m going to hold you like this tonight while you suck my cock until you pass out,” he rasped. “And then I’m going to fuck this pretty mouth…” He leaned forward and kissed her nose, slowly releasing that tension on her.