Page 24

She unfurls from the couch and walks over, quietly, like a predatory cat.

She hasn’t adjusted her t-shirt. I can’t stop staring at her shoulder peeking through.

Her collarbones are on display, delicate and lovely.

My mouth waters when I think about latching my mouth there and tasting her, kissing my way up her neck to her sweet lips.

I’d have a mouth full of pomegranate seeds. If she wanted to taste them, I’d be happy to oblige.

Maybe she knows exactly what’s in my head. Her eyes are golden with sunlight. She moves with a lithe grace, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, her concentration fixed on one thing only. Me .

She’s going to pose me or show me what she wants.

I focus on that thought and it stops me from moving away out of that direct line of intensity. I have great reflexes, a gut instinct that I’ve pretty much always been able to trust, and a sixth sense for danger developed over years of putting myself straight in the line of fire. It all fails me.

Kael dips her fingers into the fruit. It hits me what she’s going to do, but I can’t save myself and I can’t save her.

She lifts her hand and feeds me those seeds.

Not gently, but it’s the surprise of the action that causes my lips to part, not force.

Saliva jets at the back of my mouth as the tart, rich fruit hits my tongue.

I think that’s the end of her surprises, but I should know better.

This is Kael.

Nothing she does is expected.

She grabs the lapels of my shirt and falls into me, jerking my head down with her free hand while she sticks her fingers further into my mouth.

She removes them quickly when she has herself in place.

She fuses her lips to mine, kissing me almost brutally, her tongue parting my lips.

I swallow so I don’t choke, though fuck me, I’m close to doing that anyway, because what the fuck ?

“Mmm,” she hums, tasting the lingering juice on my tongue. “Maybe I get it now. Why people don’t just buy the juice. The real thing is much more fun and far more delicious.”

There’s not a bit of me that’s not buzzing. The violence of it is in my bloodstream, overheating me, creating manic energy, a thunderstorm brewing in my body and in my head. And my cock? There’s no stopping it this time. The fucker is as hard as a steel pipe and just as obvious.

Still kissing me, Kael draws her finger over the outline of my erection.

My whole body jerks, but in the wrong direction.

Towards her, not away. Her hand closes over my cock, the heel pressing in hard, trapping it against my leg.

She never looks down once. She keeps kissing me.

I can’t tear myself away from her. Not from her mouth, not from her touch.

I can’t escape. I don’t want to escape. I want to cup her face and claim her mouth.

Bury my tongue inside of her the same way I want to bury my cock inside her snug pussy and fuck her until she shatters all over it.

I want to unleash myself on her, knowing that physically, she’s strong enough to take all of it and more.

I might not be able to pull away, but I can’t let that happen. I stand here, letting her touch me Letting her stroke my dick through my pants while her tongue strokes mine in the same rhythm.

“Kael,” I groan. Meaning we can’t, but it comes out all wrong.

I know I need to put a stop to this when she breaks the kiss and glides down my body, her palm scraping over the buttons of my shirt, down to my zipper.

I try to cover her hand with my own, but I’m uncharacteristically clumsy. Instead of knocking her hand away, I graze hers. It doesn’t stop her from doing anything, certainly not tugging down my zipper and thrusting her hand inside.

Her bare skin against mine, hot and eager, is the rawest, truest thing I have ever felt.

I jack forward, folding nearly in half as she wraps her hand against the base of my cock and pulls me out.

I’m so swollen that we both make the same noise of surprise at how painful it looks.

If I stop lying to myself about all of this, I could admit that it feels every bit as bad.

I want to be in her. In her hand, her mouth, more .

She slicks her hand down to the base of me and nuzzles her face forward. She tucks her cheek against my pants and inhales, her hand cupping me tighter like she’s blissed out by the scent.

It’s so animal that it breaks down something inside of me, and when she drags her hand down m length and squeezes at my tip, I leak shamelessly all over her hand.

“Kael…” I try one more time. I can’t call this wrong out loud. I know how much she’d hate that. “This is… complicated.”

“Undoubtedly.” She has the nerve go flash me a grin when she looks up. “This whole situation is. But I don’t think this has to be.”

“Yes, it does. It is. It’s always going to be.”

She tsks, shaking her head. “Are you saying what you think you should be saying, or what you truly feel?”

My answer is there in my hesitation. She nods. “I actually meant to just paint you, but then you walked in here looking hotter than Hades himself, darker and far more delicious. If I’m going to truly bring you to life, I need to make you come alive.”

“This was a trap.”

“I swear, it wasn’t.” She gives me her most innocent expression.

I groan. “Stop looking at me like that. I believe that you didn’t realize you were going to thirst trap yourself beyond your own resolve.”

“What resolve?” She giggles. “I had no such resolve or reservations. I can admit that my head is a mess, my life is worse, everything is complicated to the point of fucked, and I still want you. From what everyone says—all the great poets and masters of language right on down, from the dawn of fucking time, desire doesn’t follow logic. ”

“That’s the problem.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” She inhales me again, slicking her palm down my length, leaving the tip of me red and engorged. “Dravin. Just relax. We’ve already talked this out.”

Fucking did we?

Where the hell was I during that conversation? If she’s talking about the other night, I’m not sure how she got to that conclusion.

“You’re beautiful. Your desire is beautiful. You’re living art and you have every right to be. Stop worrying about what you should do. Denial only makes for greater desire. Just let it go.”

“It’s really hard not to do as you say when you have my cock in your hand. Literally.”

“That’s sweet.” She blinks at me, a devious grin spreading across her face. She’s so fucking pretty when she smiles. She’s pretty always, but I haven’t had a chance to see her truly happy very many times since I first met her. “Here most people would use the word heart .”

That’s the real problem. If I spend any more time with her—and it’s inevitable that I’m going to have to—she’s going to get that part of me too. The only way to keep it from happening would be if I was heartless. I’ve been many things, but never that.

“It’s too…” I want to say fast, but I can’t. Not when I’ve spent a year hovering all over the periphery of her life. Telling her that it’s too soon for her seems like something only a massively presumptuous asshole would do.

“Dravin…” She implores, bringing her face dangerously close to the tip of my cock. I watch her tongue sneak out to wet her lips.

“This is unfair manipulation.”

“This moment is, yes. I can agree with that.”

I close my eyes and let my head fall back, releasing a breath that cleaves my lungs in half and keeps on slicing, cutting me right down the middle.

“What do you want me to say? Do you want me to admit that I think you’re gorgeous?

That I can’t stay away from you? That I want this as badly as you do? ”

“It’s a good start.”

I cup her face, tilting it back up. “Hurt comes in many forms. I would never betray my word, but I’d also never betray you. That means never, ever harming you. Physically, I know I never would, but I can’t promise that I can give you what you—”

“Shh.” She turns, grazing my fingers with her hot lips.

Inexplicably, she spits into my palm. My dick betrays me, getting even harder right there in the chokehold she has on it.

“You need to stop worrying about that. You’re betraying no one and nothing.

I know you’d never hurt me. Just take a breath and put your hand on your cock and touch yourself for me. I want to watch.”

I can’t believe I really heard that right, but of course I did. This is Kael and there is nothing of the expected about her. She doesn’t follow form or function. She’s not someone you can just box up neatly. She’s an artist in all parts of life.

She guides my wet hand to my own length and makes a fist around mine. I squeeze so hard that my tip goes from red to almost purple, a slick stream of precum leaking from the tip.

Kael and I both watch, but I go from watching me to watching her as soon as I see her lick her lips. Her face hardens with renewed determination and desire. Fuck .

“Don’t worry,” she assures me again, although by this time most of the blood has siphoned from my brain to the point that I can barely remember my own name let alone why I shouldn’t do this.

“I’m way more likely to break you than you.

Once I decide I want something, I can be quite set on getting my way. ”

She moves my hand, stroking down the length of my cock right to the tip before she pushes it quite aggressively back.

“I don’t think that’s true at all.”

“Alright, well, once I decide I want something, I’m not changing my mind and I’m known to be an incredibly creative person.”

I hear what she’s not saying.

Why take the long, slow, torturous way around where you fight and fight and fight against yourself, only to end up in the same place. It would be far less masochistic just to go for it.