“I don’t have platitudes. ” He buried his face deeper in her hair, inhaling the scent of peaches and of fear. He had to get rid of that scent of fear. “I don’t have excuses. ” His lips brushed her ear. “It will never happen again. ”
“I survived. I always survive. ” She jerked her head to the side, and he had no choice but to follow. His lips grazed her neck, and for less than a second, he smelled her response.
“You always survive,” he whispered against her ear. “It was your father’s favorite mode of punishment, burying Breeds alive. He released you. He never released a Breed. ”
A low, keening moan left her lips as her head lowered and a tear dropped to his arm.
“You survived, Scheme,” he whispered. “For this. ”
Long, rough fingers touched her cheek, turning her face to him as Scheme felt the regret, remorse, the destructive emotions t
hat always came with the knowledge that she had survived. She had survived when so many had died.
“I have always survived. Even death. ” She stared into his eyes, gold and green, shifting with lust, rage and undefined emotions.
She fought back the sobs that wanted to escape, that wanted to break from the self-imposed exile she had placed them in so many years before. “Sometimes, it’s the only way to succeed. Sometimes, failure is an option, Tanner. ”
“You don’t fail. ” His lips touched hers, and she swore she wouldn’t respond, that she didn’t care. She didn’t need the pleasure; she didn’t want it. Not now, not ever. It weakened and destroyed from the inside out. “You survive. I won’t let you die, Scheme. ”
What was he doing to her? He was a liar. A deceiver. He was created and trained to deceive and to kill. He was created to destroy her. Because only destruction could come of the pleasure whipping through her from just the touch of his lips. Slightly rough, like dark velvet, brushing over hers as his tongue peeked out to dampen the seam.
“I want to taste you. ” His eyes stared into hers, darkening, filling with heat. “Just like this. ”
His tongue lined the seam of her lips again as they parted, flickering, caressing with damp heat.
“All over your body,” he sighed as she felt herself melting.
She couldn’t melt.
“Don’t,” she pleaded roughly, feeling another tear as it tracked down her cheek and his hold shifted, lowering her further back in his arms as he leaned over her.
“I have to, Scheme. ” One hand moved below the quilt, flattening on her bare stomach. “Don’t you see, pretty girl? I can’t fight it. Can you?”
“I’m not weak. ” The shudder that raced through her body belied her declaration and she knew it.
“Never weak,” he agreed, his voice roughening, rasping. “So strong. Show me how strong you are, Scheme. I can’t defeat you, can I? No matter what I do. ”
No matter what he did.
Her lips parted as his brushed against them again.
“Be strong for me,” he growled. “Because I don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive knowing what he did to you. ”
Her cry lacked fear; it lacked strength. It was filled instead with hunger. With need. Her lips parted fully, her arms reaching for him, curling around his neck as pleasure began to swamp her.
“Yes. Fuck yes. Take me, Scheme,” he growled again between nips to her lips. “So strong. ”
And she was devouring him. Had any kiss ever been so good? Enraptured. She could taste his arousal, smoky and dark, causing her senses to reel as she reached for more.
Her tongue twined with his, drew it in and savored the wild taste that filled her senses. It was so sharp, so deliciously intense that when he filled his hand with the heated weight of a swollen breast, it felt natural—his fingers on her flesh, surrounding her nipple, pressing in on it and sending fiery shards of sensation to tear through her pussy.
She needed to be touched. Sweet God, from the inside out, she needed his touch. The hunger for it, the overriding desperation was ripping through her body, making her not just need, but crave.
“I’m going to make you scream for me,” he growled as his lips pulled from hers, his teeth scraping over her jaw before moving to her neck. “Beg me. I want you to beg me to hold you, to take you. Beg for my cock pushing inside you. ”
Her head fell back on his arm as his explicit demands sent spasms of destructive need to attack her vagina.
“I don’t beg,” she moaned.