Page 63 of Chasing the Night

“And that makes you happy?”

“What? No! I don’t know why I was smiling.” It seemed I would never be able to focus with her around. I reached for her, grabbed her waist and slid her toward me, pinning her once again but in a much more personal way. “You make me happy… but you also fucking terrify me.”

“Why… what about me could possibly intimidate you?” She mockingly laughed.

I stared at her with the same skeptical expression she had held me to. I started to release her, suddenly keen to sit back, but she wrapped her hands around my neck and forced me closer.

“Chalice,” I warned.

“Ender,” she mocked. “What? What about me could possibly leave you shaking in your boots and hiding from me in the night?”

“I hide from shit and nothing in the night,” I quipped, flaring up a bit. “He will use anything I love against me. I can’t risk—”

“Can’t risk... Are you really going to blame your fear of commitment on House Krypt?”

“I’m not afraid of commitment. I’m afraid he will throw you in Lake Last just like he did his own daughter. Do you know what he would do if he suspected?”

“If he suspected what?” she cried, thumping her hands against my shoulders.

“That I fucking love you!” I hissed back without thinking about it. A knock thundered at the door beside me. I felt the fucking blood drain from my face, about the same time as her nails sank into my shoulder.

“Ender,” she whispered, all but curling against me. We both knew there was no way Isabella could rattle the door like that.

“Open up. Now!” Atticus barked on the other side, confirming what we already knew.

She hid her face against my chest as I stared at the shadow of legs that peeked from beneath the door. Her hand spanned my cheek, pulling my face down toward hers. Her lips began to brush and plant against my own. A faint flicker of her tongue inspired me to kiss her back, but I couldn’t have taken my eyes off the door if I wanted to. Not in that moment, anyhow.

“It’s too late. He already knows we’re both in here,” she whispered against my ear, engulfing me in that heady perfume of hers. I turned toward her and the truths that she was spilling, but before I could reason, she began to graze her teeth along my throat. “Are you going to let me go to Lake Last over a kiss?”

My hand shot to her throat, before I could stop myself. I didn’t think, I just reacted, I wanted no part of those thoughts. Her lips and scent had kept them at bay for a minute. The door rattled with what sounded like all his weight, but it hadn’t splintered. She was right. He knew we were both in here. I didn’t know how, but I knew one way or another, we would be made to pay.

She was his. We all were.

Chalice

Atticus raged against the door, and Ender’s hand pumped at my throat, every so often I could feel the tremble in his touch. I watched through glossed eyes as the storm played behind them. It made a smile stain my lips, and my breath quicken.

I saw him in that moment. Not the slick criminal or the drug peddler or even the warrior he had proven to be. In that instant, I saw the caged creature Atticus was tormenting. The terrified child he had hidden in there, the browbeaten young man, and the love-starved monster he had been made into as an adult.

That creature who had been made as cold as the darkest crevices of House Krypt, was cornered and bared. It was what convinced me his words weren’t some rhetoric the Krypt had taught him. The louder and more profane things became on the other side of the door, the higher my hem travelled.

With his hand still on my throat, he guided me back until the pillows of the sofa caught me. His body swam over mine. He bit and licked his way across my neck and chest. Every stolen moment and caress spiked my pulse and heightened my senses in a way that only the forbidden could. The same hand that had done so much damage down at the Sip Room caressed and clutched my ass until I was squirming against him, oblivious to the still present hand on my throat.

A quick flicker of his tongue against my thigh made my pulse soar until it kept time with the manic thundering of the door. All I could do was gasp when the same quick stroke found its way up the center of my folds and planted a kiss at the top. My legs instinctively clenched and hugged him into a headlock.

His thumb feathered over the pulse point on my throat reminding me to breath and to allow him to do the same. The door rang with a final snap, and I screamed a high-pitched sound that turned into a poorly muffled moan.

Atticus stomped down the stairs, and Ender’s magical mouth gently sucked my core. I knew Painted Ladies knew tricks. This had to be one of them, not that it stopped me from lifting my hips against the lashing of his tongue. They could call me whatever the fuck they wanted, as long as he didn’t stop.

Somehow, I forgot about Atticus. I lost track of my surroundings and everything except the foreign delicious things he was doing to me. My legs had begun shaking some time ago. His hand slid from neck to my breast where he claimed and crushed it while lapping against my clit with firm, merciless strokes.

I began to buck, chasing a maddening sensation that I had no name for, my body quaked from the excruciating yet exquisite overload. His hands anchored my hips, forcing me to yield to his mouth and whatever dark art this was.

I cried out, likely promising him the moon and the stars while I melted against his mouth and shattered beneath his grip.

I couldn’t open my eyes. Everything felt like it was spinning. Even when it had stopped, I didn’t know how to look at him. Not that it mattered. As soon as I opened my eyes, my entire attention shot to the shadow on the balcony across the street.

It was Atticus, with that fucking looking glass.