Not. Yet.
Sweat broke out in tiny beads across her decolletage. I licked at them, taking in the sharp tang the salt elicited, overriding her natural sweetness as my features returned to my human-looking side.
“Should have stayed so sweet. Pity,” I murmured and slashed my claws straight through her clothes, shredding first the ribbons then the material into a flurry of glittering confetti and leaving her bare before me.
Sweeping curves highlighted alabaster skin that almost glowed in the darkened space. Dusky nipples budded tight against the gentle swell of small but full breasts that matched her bald little pussy already glistening with her need.
Needs I fully intended to fulfill tonight.
She drew in a sharp breath, and my gaze returned to her face to find her swollen lips half open and her eyes glazed with lust.
Perfection.
Chapter Four
Josie
My captor is a giant freaking Tasmanian Devil.
If I didn’t think I’d pass out from that fact alone, I would have gratefully left my body. But the man who’d thrown me over his shoulder in a sack, who’d trussed me up in a storeroom away from everyone else … had also massaged my feet.
And licked my leg.
It should have been icky, a strange man tasting me like I was a degustation platter laid out before him. And the way his eyes fixed on mine as he drew his tongue over my calf. I wondered what else he might taste, if he had any other talents than massaging feet and leg-licking.
And turning into a ginormous, sharp-toothed, deadly, clawed monster.
That same clawed hand that had shredded my clothing and left me naked and shivering closed around my throat. All the way around and stayed there, tipped with razor-sharp spikes and loosely encircling the one thing that left me breathing.
He stared down at me, tipping my chin up to make sure I met his gaze, his threat implicit.
Be a good girl, and keep your snark trapped well away.
Or what? I had no idea. Sometimes, it felt like he was having fun, and this was just a game to him. Right now, nothing seemed to be a game, and my situation—tied, unable to run, and afraid—was all too real.
I whimpered, and his black, fathomless gaze sharpened into something predatory.
A shiver drifted its way languidly along my body, starting in my aching feet and working its way upward in fingers of ice that contrasted with the heat pooling between my legs, tightening my nipples in an invisible caress until they tautenedinto hard beads. Light, aching pain slipped across my breasts, mirroring the throb between my legs.
My captor inhaled, his gaze locked on mine as his hand, hisclaws, for fuck’s sake, slowly closed around my throat, restricting my breathing while my body betrayed me.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. Please let me go—” Words tumbled from between my lips, cut off when he sealed his mouth over mine.
My words kept flowing, apologies and panic melding as he pressed his mouth against my lips, breathing in my terror like it was life breath. Maybe to him, it was.
“You haven’t screamed yet,” he whispered against my mouth in an intimate caress. “Why haven’t you screamed?”
“Do you want me to?” I asked—or tried to ask—but his tongue sliding between my lips ruined my response.
The man might look like a cream puff on the outside and a monster hidden within, but by all the gods, could hekiss.
He slanted his mouth to slide across mine as his tongue danced and twirled, leaving me heady and legless. His bare chest pressed to mine, his heartbeat matching my own rhythm as it raced to keep up with the sensations assailing my body against his head-spin-worthy kiss.
A large, warm hand closed over my hip, massaging each sensitive spot as he had my feet earlier. I moaned into his mouth, arching up and needing more of him pressed to me. My mind tried to send a different message, but my body ached and pulsed, ignoring all but the high need washing through me. Liquid heat deluged south as I rose higher on my toes, pressing my mouth harder against his—only for my progress to be halted by the claws that bore sharp pressure against my throat, pushing me back to where he’d tied me.
The arrogant ass drew away, licking his lips, and held me at bay as though I’d been the one trying to take advantage ofhim. Mind, with a defined jawline like his and the Sahara version of chests bared, he made the traditional daddy Santa figure a whole lot sexy. Add in the claws and another whimper tore from my throat, the same one being held hostage by the razor-sharp tips that could end my life in less than a heartbeat.
The corners of lips turned up, and he dropped his hands—claws—from my throat.