Page 9 of Spicy Little Curses (Scared Sexy Collection #3)

Eight

Dax

Mark of the Dead

I didn’t mean to follow her.

Didn’t mean to slam the door, to back her against the desk, to devour her like a man possessed.

But Petra had a way of driving me to the edge, teasing me with her fire, taunting me in a way no woman ever had.

And when she looked at me like she couldn’t decide whether to kiss me or wrap her hands around my neck and choke the life out of me, every ounce of control I’d been so tightly holding on to snapped.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for feisty women.

She gasped against my lips as I lifted her onto the big oak desk, scattering books and papers onto the floor with a sweep of my arm. She pulled me in, parting her thighs. When she wrapped her legs around my waist, I knew there was no stopping this. Not tonight.

“Hurry,” she whispered, digging her nails into my shoulders.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

I yanked her panties down her legs, tore my zipper open, and released my straining cock. Fully clothed except for where it mattered, I shoved inside her.

She moaned and arched back. Her eyes slid shut behind her mask. Taut beneath the bodice of her dress, her nipples were impossible to resist—I sucked hard on one rigid peak, right through the silk.

Then we kissed passionately, our bodies finding a rhythm older than any curse, more powerful than any warning Celeste Leclair could utter.

Petra gasped, “You’re so lucky I’m not a flowers-and-foreplay girl.”

I growled, “And you’re lucky I’m not a man who minds sass.”

“Mind it? Are you kidding me? You love it, Sunshine. Now shut your pretty mouth and make me forget I don’t like you.”

Grinning down at her, I obliged.

I drove into her wet heat over and over, loving her hoarse moans of pleasure, losing more than just my mind with every second that passed. I felt tied to her in a way I didn’t understand.

Physically, it made sense. But what I felt inside my chest—that aching, softening, melting sensation—made no sense at all.

Another thing that made no sense was that my tattoos were oddly silent. Every other time she’d touched me, they’d writhed and burned. But now they were silent and still, as if watching and waiting. Biding their time.

Petra’s body jerked. She cried out, the sound raw. Broken. Then she began to convulse around me—hard, rhythmic contractions so powerful and pleasurable, I lost my breath.

Then I lost myself . I spilled inside her, my body shuddering, deep grunts of pleasure working from my throat.

When she moaned my name, a shiver ran over my nerve endings, a kind of rippling animal awareness that she was no longer just a smart-mouth journalist who wandered into my shop one rainy night. She wasn’t a stranger anymore. Or an adversary. Or even the key to unlocking a curse.

She was mine.

And she was always meant to be mine, no matter how impossible that seemed to either one of us.

I took her face in my hands and stared deep into her eyes, claiming her body as I let her see the truth in my gaze, that this wasn’t the end of the itch we’d both felt since the moment we met ... this was only the beginning.

From now on, nothing could separate me from her.

We lay stunned and silent together on the leather sofa in the dim light of the library, our masks discarded to the floor, the musky scent of sex and old books wrapping around us like a spell. The weight of what had just happened lay heavy on my chest.

There was no going back now.

I’d kill to protect her.

She murmured, “What do you think Celeste meant about the blood magic? About me?”

I exhaled slowly, running my hand down her arm. “It sounds like she thinks your blood is the key to unlocking the curse.”

“My literal blood ?”

“Yeah. As if you’re somehow related to the caplata who cursed us. I know it sounds crazy.”

She propped herself up on an elbow and stared down at me with a strange expression. “Maybe not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I don’t know anything about my birth family. I was adopted when I was just a few weeks old.”

I stared at her. My mind started to spin with possibilities. “That means ... that means you could be—”

Petra stiffened, her breath catching. She gasped and clutched her wrist.

“What is it?”

“Dax,” she said, her voice tight with pain. “Look!”

I sat up fast, pulling her toward the firelight. I took her wrist in my hands and stared at it in disbelief.

Where her skin had been unmarked moments ago, a faint sigil now glowed red hot, etched into her flesh like a brand.

Beneath the bandage on my own wrist, the ink that formed her name began to burn.

A cold dread settled in my gut. I stared at the sigil on her skin, my heart slamming against my breastbone. I knew that mark. I’d seen it before.

It had appeared on my mother’s wrist less than an hour before she died. Emmie’s too.

Which meant only one thing.

We were out of time.