Page 81 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

“More,” he demands of me.

Sadistic fucking prince .

If it wasn’t for my crew, I would slit his throat right now. But I made them a promise and I would not let them down. I’d meant what I said, by whatever means necessary.

So I straddle him, bringing my body down flush against his. My voice takes on an edge of real panic, making the pleas I emit sound truly distraught. “Please kiss me, Agni, ” I murmur softly against his mouth, desperate as a prayer, my fingers gently tracing the golden lines of his scar.

“I need—I want you to kiss me— please, ” I urge him, my teeth lightly grazing his bottom lip.

“Kiss me—kiss me please— I’m begging you, Agni, kiss me !” I finally cry out.

He chuckles darkly onto my lips. "Alright, alright, I’ll kiss you, Boreas.” His voice is rough, almost strained. Alarmingly cold hands find my hips and he turns us over abruptly, dragging me down beneath him. “But only because you begged me ever so sweetly.”

Before I get the chance to brandish either blade or retort, Agni brings his lips down to mine. I quickly discover his mouth is every bit as soft as it looks, even while ice cold. The familiar scent of spice ushers within me a tide of something truly perilous.

I allow for him to part my lips without hesitation. His tongue finds mine with expert precision and I pray to whichever heathen god blessed me that whatever traces of the antidote left inside my mouth are enough.

Agni’s hands find themselves cupping my jaw, around my throat, down my sides, and at my waist, like he can’t figure out where he wants to touch me first. Said touches rouse in me a fervor that is alarmingly similar to the tidepool hallucination. Except this time I know it’s real.

That awareness only makes my involuntary response to him all the more horrifying.

Sickening desire ambushes me like a well-trained assassin and I begin returning his kisses with mortifying ardor. He tastes even better than I imagined, like cardamom and orange groves and dusk . It is truly alarming to realize just how easy falling into addiction would be.

That eagerness, to my eternal chagrin, is not lost on him. A soft chuckle slips from Agni, causing my insides to twist with shame. I lash out at his smugness by biting down on his lower lip hard enough to split skin and taste copper.

I’m neither expecting nor prepared for the response it brings.

Agni groans into my mouth, deep and raw and carnal. Then his sordid lips set about devouring mine with a kind of hunger I can scarcely even conceive.

Kissing him is entirely different from any of my previous experiences. So different that, in a way, it feels as though I’ve never really been kissed before. It doesn’t erect the expected fluttering's I’ve received from other boys. Nor can I compare it to the stimulating electricity with Kerau.

This is unmistakably other .

It's more similar to the feeling of surfing a great and terrible wave during a summer storm. It provides me the same high as riding a freshly broken kelpie. It fills me with a forbidden pleasure akin only to sneaking out in the dead of night to steal a speeder.

It’s like I’m being injected with the exact same stimulant that led me to break The Order’s rules time and again. The same dangerous, reckless, heart-racing thrill, I chased after repeatedly just to feel something. Anything . Other than my own crushing misery.

“Tell me what you think of me,” Agni suddenly demands, low and insistent against my lips. “Tell me what you really—honestly—think of me.” His voice is hoarse.

“I find you— deplorable ,” I gasp out truthfully in between breaths as one kiss slides into another and another. He groans low again in response, deepening the angle he has on me. The hand he moves back to grip my throat is noticeably warmer.

“What else?” he bites out.

“I think you’re despotic,” I admit, my hands threading into his wet, maddening hair with a feeling of dark and secret indulgence.

Agni kisses me harder.

“You’re loathsome—and conceited—and terribly insolent,” I say, one hand now clinging onto the front of his uniform.

“Yes,” he agrees in earnest.

“Downright despicable,” I pant.

Agni pulls away slightly, revealing the fire returning to his eyes and the golden hue to his skin. The expression on his face is one of pure ruthlessness as he firmly plants his knees between my thighs, hooks my legs up around his waist, and returns his mouth to mine with a vengeance.

He sets about capturing one of my wrists next, pinning it to the ground above my head.

My breathing hitches through the constant collision of our tongues at the unexpected confinement.

“ Volo facere inenarrabilia sunt ad vos, ” he murmurs sinfully upon my lips before restraining my other hand so that they’re each held prisoner inside one of his iron grasps.

The feeling of combustion becomes concerning.

“Is that all?” Agni taunts.

His vicious scar flashes in the corner of my vision, like real lightning. The image invokes a daunting chill that rises up and over my body like a shroud. “I think you might be a nightmare,” I whisper, hardly recognizing my own voice. It's so horribly thick with lust.

Something about that comparison seems to strike a cord for him. Agni shudders above me as if he too can somehow feel the chill of my morbid reverie.

“ More —tell me more.” His debauched command sounds like a devotion. His wicked mouth finds my jaw, then my neck, all the while my hands are locked up tight. I think I could die from this. It feels like some sort of preordained sacrilege.

“You’re so—completely—'' I can barely think with his lips avidly pursuing my throat. I manage to land on " excruciating ," in the same instant he finds that spot where my pulse beats most noticeably. The word comes out as a traitorously loud moan of indisputable pleasure.

Every inch of my body feels as if it’s just awakened from a thousand-year slumber.

My audible hedonistic enjoyment has the effect of unraveling whatever small increment of restraint he evidently had left. Like the swipe of a match, I feel a spark of undeniable heat physically jolt within him.

Agni’s mouth returns to mine like he has some sort of score to settle.

Without breaking contact from my lips, he firmly switches over one of my wrists so that both are now held in a single grasp. His newly freed hand begins traversing the sinuous planes of my body in torturous exploration. I can do nothing but writhe beneath him as he ravages my mouth.

“I’ve never—hated anyone—like I hate you,” I confess around his skillful lips.

The sound he makes in response to that admission is dark and depraved.

Agni’s hand moves next to my hair and I tense.

Faster than lightning, he pulls out the pin, securing the golden accessory atop my head. My hair tumbles down in damning white waves around me. His lips leave mine and I glance up to find eyes of scorching amber devouring the sight of my newly freed mane.

An old wound twists my gut painfully and causes a pricking behind my eyes, so I look away.

In a blink, he's cupping my jaw and turning my head before bringing his lips flush against my ear. “ Gorgeous, ” he growls murderously low, suddenly furious. " You’re . Fucking. Gorgeous. ” I shiver into the sound of his voice.

It’s darker and more terrifying than any monster my night terrors could ever hope to concoct.

His nose traces the outline of my ear before his mouth begins pressing searing kisses all the way across my jawline. “So. Gorgeous. It’s. Fucking . Criminal.” Each one evokes from me a horrifying moan and he uses the last one I omit to recapture my lips.

Agni’s free hand slips beneath the thin fabric of my uniform and the tight bindings around my chest like a thief in the night.

A calloused palm cups one of my bare ample breasts to find it already taut. Arching reactively into his gentle squeeze, I let out an aching whimper against his mouth while my hips rock upward in response. My core is met with what I can only guess is a godsdamned broadsword at his waist.

No fucking wonder he’s so insufferably arrogant.

The friction makes us both gasp.

“ Mer — Boreas—fuck. ” Agni chokes on a strangled growl, drawing away from my lips and body once more. I look up through a heady gaze to find him scanning down my person with an almost murderous shine to his blazing eyes. I wriggle against his unyielding hold to no avail.

My heart is slamming so violently inside my ribs that I think it will probably leave bruises of evidence atop my skin. A fracturing sensation cuts down deep along that icy wall beneath my caged affinity, more severe than ever before.

I ignore it.

“What are you doing ?” I seethe, enraged .

He replies in a voice like smoke, " Committens hoc to memoria ." His gaze rakes over me continually while a war I’m not privy to rages in his eyes.

This is a whole new kind of torture. It’s quite possibly the very worst form of heat I’ve ever experienced. I’m torn between demanding to be released immediately and the feeling that if he does not continue touching me, I will in fact die.

Biting down on a lip against my own damnation, I give in and plead.

“ Please Agni —more .”

His kesar-ringed eyes widen before rolling skyward with a painful sounding groan. He draws in a deeply ragged breath and I notice for the first time that there are tremors raging violently through his body.

His hand finds my jaw, a gold-beringed thumb roughly claiming my lower lip. “ Quomodo sunt vos melius etiam quam mea phantasiae? ” he whispers.

With his chest now pressed against mine, I can feel his heartbeat, every bit as violent and savage as my own.

“You’ll be my death , you know that?” he asks angrily, amber eyes searching mine.

I only manage to nod, too terrified of what might come out of my mouth if I should speak, but not really understanding at all.

His lips take mine, more blistering and volatile than ever before, and I drink with damning eagerness from the delirium of dusk.

This cannot happen ever again.