Page 51

Wonder

Wonder gasps. Or maybe it’s a sob.

Whatever dire sound she makes, it causes her lips to fly open. As they slam together, Malice captures the noise, smothering it in the harsh grip of his mouth. The demon’s snarl tangles with her cry, each wild echo conducive to one another, a chemical reaction.

This pent-up kiss is a lifeline and a punishment. It’s a refuge and an abduction.

It’s hatred and perhaps a seed of the opposite, a perplexing enigma deities aren’t supposed to feel.

Perhaps this is something that hides in a crevice between the past and future, something having to do with the heart.

Because no matter how broken, somehow that organ still functions. Still pounds, pounds, pounds.

Her pulse bursts to life. It’s primal, ramming from her chest into his.

The honed tip of Malice’s infuriating tongue cuts across the edge of Wonder’s lips.

Keening, she unfurls under that hungry mouth, yielding for him, for herself, for this.

His tongue spears into her with swift, frenetic jolts, and her hands shred into his hair, seizing the roots as though he’s a ledge, as though she’s dangling over a bottomless summit.

If she lets go, she’ll fall for eternity.

Slinging her arms around his shoulders, Wonder scrambles her fingers into his hair, ransacking the sharp layers. She matches his pace, her own tongue lancing, setting a rhythm. An animalistic groan travels from his throat to hers, the depth of his mouth hot and heaving.

An element that should be impossible for them to feel scorches her flesh, because Malice was once human, this part having remained with him, dormant until now.

The outbreak surges up her limbs, searing between her pussy and the plank of his cock.

Her damp nightgown and the parted flaps of his pants radiate thick swatches of air, entire degrees hotter than the rest of their bodies.

Wonder gyrates, her curves fitting into his muscles, needing to feel more of this phantom heat, more of this resurrected god.

Frustrated with everything, with herself, with him, she lets go.

Her reservations dissolve, and the books dissolve, and the library dissolves.

All of them are replaced by his palms clamping onto her waist, his mouth latching to hers.

She submits to months of pain, stress, yearning, attraction, and desire.

When she does, power washes through her veins. It soaks Wonder like a tempest to soil.

Malice’s palms span her ass, gripping her hard, his saber nails pricking into the swells. Pleasure buzzes up Wonder’s spine. She yelps against his lips, the clamor melting into a whimper, and he grins against her lips.

This devil has likely poked holes into the nightgown and broken her skin yet again.

Yet it feels good. So incredibly, patently good.

And how she’d like to bite him for the damage, to pay him in kind.

So she does, yanking her mouth away and snaring his bottom lip with her teeth, the copper tang of blood leaking across her tongue.

There, now they’ve made one another bleed.

Now they’re even.

Malice unleashes a throaty sound. He grabs her cheeks and seizes her lips again, his tongue accelerating in tempo, the point sliding across the roof of her mouth. It tantalizes and vexes Wonder, the stimulation acute.

By the Stars. The demon god is kissing her. And she’s kissing him back.

Yes, they have already done this once. Yet it’s different now. He knows who he is, who she is, and what they are to each other. And they’re still here, still reaching, still wanting.

No lies. No trickery. No hatred.

Their rampant mouths grab onto another, sealing and rocking.

Their tongues whip, instigating lawless noises.

Malice bears down on her lips, one hand abandoning her ass and dicing into her locks.

Locking Wonder’s head in place, the demon flexes his tongue with precision, plying sensitive areas thus far unknown.

It shocks her anew, drawing her into another fever dream.

His tempo is both savage and sensuous, the strong cadence of his mouth both ruthless and sexy, a culmination she hadn’t imagined was feasible. That it could be like this. Harsh and erotic. Severe and seductive. Even Wonder’s vivid conceptions had never gone there.

This god’s kiss breaks rules. It dismantles assumptions, beliefs, and barriers. Or rather it smashes through them, shattering to bits everything those lips touch.

The smoky, sinful taste of Malice floods her head like an elixir, filling her with the essences of burning fires and pomegranates. Her nipples ruche into his pectorals. Every tug of his mouth douses Wonder further, turning her aching cunt into a soaked mess.

The unbridled kiss escalates, darkens, and deepens. His possessive mouth clutches her own, their lips hauling into one another, fusing like something combustible. Malice growls against her tongue, the vibration rippling into her, peeling away years of discretion, decorum, and discipline.

With this devil, Wonder plummets into a subterranean world of flames and lost inhibitions. With this fallen god, she descends into someplace forbidden, without restraints or boundaries. She plummets into beautiful madness.

On a jagged hiss, Malice reels his mouth away.

His black pupils eat up those irises, the bottomless wells reflecting Wonder’s heady countenance.

With the zeal of an addict, his gaze relishes every plane of Wonder’s face, his expression as devout as it is mercenary.

He looks as she presumably does, spent before they’ve begun, yet unwilling to stop.

Never stop. Please.

Sensing her plea, the predatory instincts ravaging his features make room for another reaction.

His mischievous nature resurfaces, a fiendish glint alighting those eyes.

Either it’s some form of uncharted magic, or Malice is able to discern more than Wonder’s thoughts.

Indeed, this god can read between them, between the lines.

They pant for breath, laboring for barest slices of oxygen. The stone slab of Malice’s chest hitches, the contents of which pound like a mighty hammer. Wonder’s lungs pump, drafts of air sawing through her.

Starlight plates the shelves in a metallic sheen. Nightfall laminates the darkness.

They can let go. They can make each other scream until the cacophony fills the library. They can do that because no one will see them, hear them, or find them.

Malice tightens his grasp on Wonder. Tacking his gaze to hers, the demon gives her one final chance to save herself. “Yes or no?”

She’s given him yes after yes tonight. But there’s one more left.

Nodding, Wonder mouths her reply. And it’s enough.

Malice loses it. With an unhinged growl, he steers Wonder backward, stalking so fast that her ass bangs into the bookcase, the structure teetering. As it regains balance, the demon snatches her backside and tears her off the ground.

She pops into the air. Her legs bend on either side of his hips, heels finding purchase on the rim of a lower shelf, shoving books deeper into the recess. A few lesser fortunate titles dislodge and topple on either side of them, the ancient texts smacking the floor in clouds of stardust.

Everlasting Fates. They might have damaged some of the precious volumes!

Wonder opens her mouth to reprimand Malice, but then his forehead jams against hers, his irises swallowing her vision.

The nightgown bunches up around her waist, thin strips of air sweeping across the crease in her pussy.

Beneath the sagging pants, his turgid cock rubs the split of her body, the trio of bar piercings rubbing her uncovered clit, the friction extracting another whine from her.

Malice’s hipbones slope like a set of ramps into his waistband, the front vent undone like a tease. The pants slump far down, the decadent shadow of his ass rising into partial view. Soon, that ass will be snapping. His lower frame will be pitching Wonder to the ceiling, driving her to the brink.

But first, her eyes devour the rest of him.

The smooth muscles. The toned arms. The cobbled abs.

There was a time when she would have rather auctioned off her soul than admit it, but she’s been yearning to lay her hands on this body since The Celestial City, even when the desire rebelled against every moral objection.

Back then, Wonder had a reason, including other memories attached to this male. Yet tonight, she has no such excuse. Nor does she care.

Pasted to the facade, Wonder releases Malice’s hair and drags her fingers down his chest. He chuffs air, his chest twitching, his ashy irises cemented on her.

The pads of her digits carve a path over his throat, clavicles, expansive torso, and the grid of muscles stacked across his navel.

Her hands shake, his flesh hot against her fingers, like nothing she’s ever felt.

Chiseled physique. Sculpted ridges.

Angel’s face. Devil’s spirit.

And scars like her.

Wonder’s fingers trace a puckered scar along his ribs. Then another down his forearm. And another circling from his abdomen to his back.

Malice’s eyes hood, her exploration lifting his cock higher. Fates almighty. How they’ve both been wounded.

When she dips her hand and brushes her thumb over an angry red welt slashing along his pelvic bone, Malice grunts. He thuds Wonder firmer into the bookcases, dislodging her fingers. His frame spans her own, shearing her limbs farther apart, pinning her open.

A grin plays at the corner of Wonder’s lips. Malice likes having her trace his scars. Matter of fact, he likes it too much.

The demon squints, registering her smugness. Except Wonder’s glee falters, the gleam in his eyes quickening her pulse. She gasps as he snares her wrist and stamps it into the bookcase beside her head.