Page 91 of Bitten & Burned

“They’ll keep,” he murmured, grasping me and pulling me back, his fingers carding through my hair as he leaned down to kiss me again.

I pecked his lips and grasped his hands, plucking them from my head as I darted down the corridor towards his suite. “You’llkeep,” I said, darting down the hallway. “I want some peaches now.”

“Gods, you are a little minx, aren’t you?”

I should’ve been frightened. The last time I’d opened myself this way, I’d nearly bled out on a library floor. But Anton wasn’t Quil. He didn’t look at me like he was afraid of himself. He looked at me like I was already his favorite indulgence.

I opened the door and looked around. The room had indeed been prepared. The bed had been dressed in silk sheets, where it had been bare before. Electric lanterns, crafted to mimic flickering candles, cast golden light around the room… and, most importantly, a cart right near the bed where I spotted a bottle chilling in a bucket of ice and several silver platters covered with domes. It was in the second one of these that I peered under and found the peaches.

“Mmm,” I hummed, taking a bite of the sweet fruit and feeling the juice drip down my fingers.

“Oh, that’s cute, you think you’re eating now,” Antonsaid with a smirk as he entered the room, leaning against the doorframe.

“Ummm, I don’t think I am. I actuallyam,” I replied haughtily, popping the rest of the peach slice into my mouth.

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to have dessert first?” he asked, sauntering closer, his gait coming dangerously close to how a hunter stalks prey. Except, in his eyes, I didn’t feel like prey. I felt alive. Sparkling, pulsing, wanted.

I stuck my tongue out at him and took another peach slice from the tray. “What are you going to do to stop me? Force-feed me my…dinner?”

“I’m not planning on forcing anything tonight,” he murmured, moving closer to me, stepping behind me. I could feel him pressed against my back. He slid both hands down my arms, fingers curling around mine, his grip warm and firm.

“Oh, believe me, you’re not going to have to.”

He leaned in, his mouth tickling my earlobe when he spoke. “Hold on to me.”

“What?” I asked. And he spun me. I had just enough time to wrap my arms around him before we were seemingly flying through the air, hitting the silk sheets and bouncing on the mattress.

“Anton!” I shrieked, still clinging to him, laughter bubbling out before I could stop it. “You tackled me!”

He smirked. “No peaches for you until I’ve had mine.”

I inhaled sharply at the catch in his voice when he said “mine”.

“Oh, you wantyours, huh?”

He grinned wickedly.

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you,” he said, crawling up my body. “Are the best thing to ever happen to this yacht.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh gods, please… don’t use that line on anyone else ever.”

“Oh, I won’t. That’s the best reaction I’ve ever gotten to it.”

“What, me laughing?”

He nodded, eyes deep and searching mine. “It’s the most glorious sound I’ve ever heard.”

I laughed again. Hard. Guffawed. “Anton, my laugh is the most obnoxious thing...”

He kissed me, making me squeal into his mouth. “It’s not,” he murmured. “It’s beautiful. Like you. Like everything about you. Beautiful… and gods,delicious…”

He began kissing down my collarbone, his hands coming to unbutton my blouse. I pushed up to kiss him, pulling his hands away. “I’ll do it.”

“I already was,” he countered, still kissing me.

“I know, but you’re slow; I could have had it off by now.”