Page 97 of Dance of Thorns

“A cunt? Yeah, I know,” I mutter.

A wry smile twists his lips. “She really is. I’ve been trying to coordinate with her to get this stuff for a few weeks. She didn’t make it easy.”

My eyes shine as I survey it all again. Then I blink and turn back to him. “You went and got all of this for me?”

He nods. “I’m not using this room for anything. So…” He lifts a shoulder. “It’s yours. For?—”

I don’t know what prompts me to do it. Gratitude, I guess. But it’s not just a trade for the favor he’s done for me. It’s not payment.

It’s just something I want to do.

So I do it. I turn, grab the front of his shirt, and lean up on my toes to kiss him.

Bane freezes, coldness radiating off him. I let the kiss linger another few seconds before I pull away, my face red. I turn away from him, coughing nervously as I quickly walk back to the table full of paints and art supplies.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I know that’s probably not part of our arrange?—”

Strong hands grab me from behind, lifting me off the floor and twisting me around. I whimper as Bane's mouth sears to mine, his kiss fierce and wild and unhinged as my arms and legs wrap around his hard, muscled body.

We go crashing backward, and I’m barely aware of the easel falling over. It takes the stack of oversized canvases with it, and I shriek into his mouth as we go toppling over into a riot of oil paints splattering across one of the giant canvases on the floor.

His mouth is hungry and warm, and his tongue tastes minty and sweet as it darts in to swipe against mine. I moan into his lips, dragging my nails over his back muscles through his t-shirt. I cry out as his teeth nibble, suck, and scrape their way down my jaw to my neck.

His powerful hands grab the front of my tank top, shoving it up over my breasts before he tears my bra open. I moan as his finger and thumb find an achy, pebbling nipple.

I claw at the hem of his shirt in the slippery madness of the spilled paint, listening to his low, fevered, masculine growls. His shirt and shoes get tossed away. So do mine, followed by my ruined bra.

Bane’s paint-slicked fingers wrap around my throat as his mouth slides down to my nipples, taking one between his teeth and biting. I scream in pleasure, my back arching off the messbeneath us as my eyes roll back in my head. I reach for his belt, but he’s suddenly licking and sucking his way down the hollow of my stomach as he starts to peel my jeans off without even undoing them first. Denim scrapes across my hips, his hot breath teasing down from my navel…

I wince.

“Wait,” I groan, grabbing his hair. “Bane…”

He ignores me, wrenching the jeans down my legs and sliding them off before I can stop him. He's pushing his huge frame between my legs and reaching for my panties when my voice cuts through the madness.

“Stop!” I blurt, clawing at his shoulders and his hair, trying to drag him back up. “You don’t want to?—”

“Oh, I can promise you,” he rasps, sliding back up just long enough to kiss me until my lips hurt and my breath catches, “I do.”

His muscled body slides back down mine, his fingers hooking into the front of my panties.

“I’m on my period!” I blurt.

Bane yanks my panties down to my knees.

“Bane—!”

“I heard you,” he murmurs. He starts to nibble up the inside of my thigh, growling and shoving my legs apart when I try to close them.

“No, I’mliterally?—”

“And I literally don’t give a fuck.”

I watch in horror as this manreaches for the string of my tampon…

…PULLS IT OUT…

…and tosses it behind him onto the canvas we’re tangled across.