Page 40 of Nocte

Then I smell her. Her body exudes a newer scent. Instinctive. Hormonal. Arousal.

Fuck.

I can’t stop touching her. I can’t keep my fingers from seeking out that strip of flesh between her thighs, shrouded by a thatch of dark curls. Damn. The lips of her cleft are soft, so soft I go against my own intentions. I won’t rip and claw her here. I prod. I test. I taste. With the tip of one thumb, I tease the inside of the little fae.

She is molten. Too fucking hot to be contained. My fingers will melt if I probe any deeper. Should I try to fuck her, I’ll set my cock on fire. The interior of this fae is scorching.

But damn…

It feels good to burn inside her. Too good. Can’t stop. I slide a whole finger inside her all at once, and she clutches at my shoulders with tiny, scratching nails. Her voice breaks around a sound. Not a cry. Not a scream. Something else.

A series of rasping syllables that explode over my eardrums and render me deaf to every other sound but her. I need to hear that sound again. I crook my finger through her flesh, trying to coax her into making it again. Fuck, I need that sound.

Another gasp. Another whimper. More. More.

I keep stroking her, and the fire grows hotter. It’s like velvet, how tightly she grips me. My finger strokes her again, and she’s wet. Damp. Drenched. I can’t stop. Not until she goes limp and her knees buckle. Not until she utters a string of noises that echo through my skull. Not until her nails dig at my skin—as if she could ever pierce it. Hurt me. Mark me.

I’ve already marked her. I’ll always be the first man to make her head rear back, and her eyes roll in her skull. The first creature to have her panting and breathless and broken.

The first monster to make her bleed. She’s a virgin, so tight she’ll rip when I shove my cock into her. So tight she might swallow me whole. So fucking tight, I’ll never hear Cassius in my head again…

My cock is throbbing, swollen and needy, but I don’t free it yet. I step back and watch her shiver on jellied legs, her hands braced against the stone, dark hair tangled and wild.

More words spill onto my corrupted, broken mind. Cassius’? Mine? A torrent of descriptors.Rosy nipples. Glistening skin. Taut flesh over incredible bone structure. A work of art. Art…

It’s more than a word to me. Even thinking it makes something rip through my chest, sowing a burning searing pain. What the hell is this feeling? I can’t remember.

No one—not since this damned immortal life—has ever made me feel anything. Not once. No matter how many I pleasured for him. No matter how I performed for him.

I never wanted it. Never wanted them. They were all stupid toys.

I can’t fucking think around her. There is no desire to fuck her and seduce her into joining the collective. I want to pin her down, slam into her for my own pleasure. Rake my fingers through her hair and grip her skull. I want to mount her. Mate her.

Sink my teeth into her throat and dare her to give me the one thing I never ever gave Cassius…

“Wait.” Her voice is a wail trapped between clenched teeth. I assume she means wait. Don’t fuck her. Not yet.

Too late. I’m reaching for the buckle of my pants. I undo the clasp. My finger inches back inside her, and even as she shakes her head, I feel her grow wet all over again. Melt. “Wait,” she whispers. “Wait. Wait!”

She’s warning me of something. Someone. The bastard male fae. I can hear him tiptoeing back toward this corner, oblivious that the one he desires is already mine. I could fuck her in front of him. Make the fool watch. I want to…

“Please,” she insists, her hand flat against my chest. She tries to push. I let her, taking a step back. She crouches and scrambles into her robes. Wide and fearful, her eyes meet mine as the idiot draws near. “Please,” she whimpers. “Please. Please.”

I don’t hide, but I let her run, slipping past me to greethim. I hear her voice, false and high-pitched.

“Greetings, Day.”

Day. That’s what they call each other, all the fae. Numbered like the days of the week, or in this case their age. The youngest born are sunrise, then dawn, day, night, elder, whatever-the-fuck. Don’t care.

It’s not the name that irritates me. It’s how she says it. Fearful and worried. Hopeful and afraid.

She’s uneasy around this stupid fae, not like how she is around me.

She fears him. I wonder if she even knows it.

CHAPTER12

Niamh