Page 87 of Cursed Evermore

And that’s when I realized she thought I meant something else. The thing we never got to do the night I took her—fuck.

“Touch?How tame.” I chuckled, infuriating her even more. “I don’t touch. I fuck. And I wasn’t talking aboutfucking. Interesting, though, how you thought I was.”

I didn’t think it was possible that her skin could turn any redder than it was, but it did. This time out of embarrassment.

“Get away from me.” She tried to move, but I blocked her path with one arm, then braced the other above her head. I moved closer, close enough to kiss her again. The way I’d been dying to.

Fuck.

This fucking woman. I didn’t know what in the bleeding hells she’d done to me, but I couldn’t control my mind when I was around her. “Why the fuck aren’t you eating the food?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Humans need to eat.”

“Good thing I’m only half human, then.”

“Magesneed to eat, too.”

“I don’t want your food,” she huffed.

I grinned down at her. “So, you plan to starve yourself?”

“Only the gods know what you may have put in the food.”

A hearty laugh rumbled in my chest. “Think I would poison you or cast a spell on you?” Obviously, she must have considered that.

“Who’s to say you didn’t?”

“I do.” I let my gaze drag down her frame, slowly enough to make her squirm. She was barely holding on to the edges of her courage as it unraveled with every passing second. “I would have no need for you if you were dead. Or spell-struck. So, eat the fucking food.”

“I’m. Not.Hungry.”

Fuuck!She must have really thought she was brave, facing me like this.

Foolish girl. I cradled her jaw, and the shadows licked across her skin like a lover’s tongue. Her breathing quickened and there was no use pretending she wasn’t afraid of me now.

“Ah, Ziyka,” I murmured. “You’re not nearly as afraid of me as you should be.”

I dragged my thumb across her bottom lip, slowly, deliberately. Her pulse jumped beneath my touch and something primal unfurled in my chest.

“You thought this was the worst of me?” My voice dipped low in a venomous whisper. “You haven’t seen anything yet. I’ve had decades of practice. I haven’t even begun to show you what I can become.”

The shadows rose with my mood, slithering up her throat like hungry dragons eager to taste her fear.

“Let me go, you asshole.” Her panic finally exploded and she shoved me.

I allowed her to. I had another lesson to teach her.

She ran just like I thought she would, but didn’t get far before my shackle took over. The invisible chain that linked her to me pulled her right back when I waved my hand.

To her surprise, she slammed back against my chest like a spring snapping into place.

Anyone else would have accepted they were vastly outdone and had no hope.

She did not.

Instead of yielding, the clever little thing grabbed the plate of fruit from the tray and hit me across my chest with it.