Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
I stalk after her and grab her arm. “You can’t do this. Me leaving doesn’t mean I don’t give a damn.”
“No, but the fact you refuse to be honest about your reasons for avoiding magic does.”
Blast it, she’s too clever by half. I yank her against me. “I won’t let you get hurt—or worse.”
“You may be fine running away, but I’m not. I can help prevent others from suffering like Aquarius or Anka. Since you and I are through, and you won’t battle Mathias or fight for us, we’ve nothing left to say.”
Fear clogs my throat. She doesn’t truly grasp the danger. I have to stop her. If Mathias hurts her… The thought nearly brings me to my knees.
“The hell we don’t!” Protective rage surging through me, I scoop Sydney against my body and carry her into the library, slamming the door behind us.
Sydney writhes against me. “Put me down, damn you!”
Her movements send lightning through my veins. No matter how badly I want her, we need to talk. She has to see reason.
I deposit her on Bram’s sofa. She glares up at me, sprawled and furious. Desire ignites in my blood. I struggle to ignore it.
“Let me be very clear, Sydney: You. Are. Not. Transcasting.”
She scoffs. “I’m a grown woman. How will you stop me once you’re gone?”
Her challenge hits like a sledgehammer. She’s right. If I find Anka, right Lucan’s life, and depart as planned, I’ll be leaving Sydney to her own devices.
Not bloody likely.
“Until you see reason, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Piss off.”
Her dismissal stokes my mating instinct, especially when I drink in the human signs of her arousal—her sweetly musky scent, her peaked nipples, the heat in her eyes.
“No. I’ll stay so close, you’ll feel my breath on you. Constantly.”
She stills, her breaths turning ragged. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“No, you need a keeper. That’s me.”
With an outraged gasp, she starts squirming again. Her arching and bucking inflame my already sizzling nerves.
“Stop!” I growl, my hands like vises on her hips.
“Make me.”
Her dare ignites an inferno inside me. Heat surges through me, primal instinct obliterating reason.
Mine. Take. Now!
Panting, I cover her body with mine, our lips a whisper apart. Her mouth, that luscious red temptation, beckons. The need to taste her, to finally claim those lips, nearly shatters my control. Just one kiss...
But one would seal my fate.
Would that be so terrible? a traitorous voice whispers in my head.
What if we mate, and I lose her to reckless bravery? I would become a mirror of my broken brother. Her determination to fight evil she can’t comprehend will be her death.
Gripped by fear, I clutch her tighter, as if I could absorb her into myself for safekeeping. Electricity pulses through me. She’s so warm, so alive, so perfectly female. My need for her borders on madness.
I trace kisses along her cheek, daring to brush the corner of her mouth. Her intoxicating scent nearly overwhelms me. One hand white-knuckles the sofa. The other digs into her hip as I fight the urge to devour her. Desperate for distraction, I trail kisses down her throat to the soft swell of her breasts, heaving with each rapid breath.
“Caden, this is mad. We should talk.” Her words are wise, but in my head her voice is pure sin.
“We did.”
Shoving her T-shirt aside, I inhale deeply. Since transition, my sense of smell is keener. Though I know she’s showered since we last made love, I smell myself on her, and it arouses me out of my mind. Skin. I need her bare skin—filling my hands and against my tongue.
“But—”
I yank on the clasp of her bra. It snaps into pieces. I push it aside and lave her nipple.
Sydney moans, and I smile in grim satisfaction. She can try to deny that she wants me, but her reactions—her panting, her accelerated heartbeat, her nails in my shoulders—all tell me the truth.
“Damn it, how do you reduce me to a puddle in moments?”
I pull my shirt over my head. “You do the same to me.”
With a quick tug, I remove everything she’s got on above the waist. I’m grateful she’s wearing an easy-to-flip-up skirt. Her knickers beneath are not a problem for my determined hands. Then I’m burying my fingers inside her and thumbing her clit, thrilled at how wet she is. I’m counting the seconds until my cock fills her.
Everything about this woman entices me—from her little pebbled coral-pink nipples, to her fingers tangled in my hair, to the way she looks at me as if I’m her whole world.
I rub her mercilessly in all the sweetest spots. In seconds, Sydney teeters on the precipice of ecstasy, her body a livewire under my touch. I hold her there, suspended in that exquisite moment between agony and bliss, refusing to let her tumble over or retreat. She’s mine to command, to torment with pleasure, and I revel in every tremor, every gasped breath, and every whimper.