Page 196 of Fallen Stars

She swung a leg around him, straddling him.

“Make love?” the stranger finally asked softly, a large hand snaking around her waist. “What happened to that filthy mouth?”

Merissa narrowed her eyes. “Okay,” she replied, leaning closer. “Do you want tofuckme?”

The stranger inhaled again, his breath fanning down the column of her neck. It was strange the first time and stranger the second time as his smile spread.

“Say it again,” he murmured, his hands tightening around her.

“Do you want to fuck me?”

His eyes flicked to her lips, as he wet his own. She pushed herself against him, tired of the talking. She wanted tofeel. In this moment where she had no guilt, no shame. Before the charm wore off, before she became Merissa again.

She brought her face closer, mesmerised by those lips and the set of his jaw—the way he clenched it when she got closer suggested restraint. The man had a lot of it. And the cut of his lips was harsh, defined. Almost cruel.

She closed her eyes as she breathed in the moment. She had never felt so alive, drunk on charm and in the lap of a stranger.

“How does it feel to ask for what you want?” the demon murmured against her neck.

His nose trailed up to her ear, and she gasped, arching into his touch.

“How does it feel to demand what you desire for once?”

“It feels…incredible,” she breathed, pressing herself further into his lap.

She tipped her head, giving the stranger better access to her neck, but he simply trailed his nose back down it again, shuddering slightly.

His lip brushed against her pulse, and she felt the scrape of his teeth over the sensitive skin, setting her pulse pounding.

“Tell me a secret, little nymph.”

She paused, thinking of one that only her trusted few knew. “I’m cursed in love,” she replied.

The stranger chuckled, pulling his mouth away from her neck. Merissa opened her eyes, catching on the grin of his plush lips. She wanted to kiss them, had had enough of the foreplay.

They looked at each other’s mouths a moment before she leaned in to kiss him.

A hand whipped out and caught her chin, stopping her.

Frustration rippled through her as she looked at him, but his eyes were fixed on her mouth. The mask was too dark to make out the true colour, but they seemed purple to her.

There was less than an inch of space between them as he gripped her chin. He breathed in and out, and Merissa registered that his breath smelled like cinnamon.

They stayed like that. Minutes went by, just the two of them breathing each other in heavily.

The stranger kept his eyes on her lips, the thumb that had been gripping her cheek dragging her bottom lip down.

She had never in her life felt such want before, and they hadn’t even kissed. She didn’t even know his name. And yet a fire was sparking through her entire body, an ache settling between her legs that she desperately needed to fix. She rocked against his thigh, and the sensation was so delicious she couldn’t stop grinding herself against his trousered leg like an animal as her pleasure chased her. As she dragged herself down him once more, she moaned out loud, and it seemed to break the stranger out of his stupor. He brought his lips closer, and finally, Merissa thought, he was going to kiss her.

But instead, he whispered onto her lips, “I am many, many things. But I’m not in the business of fucking women charmed out of their heads.”

He released her, pushing her off him as he stood, brushing down his clothes. Shock doused Merissa like iced water, forcing the charm to shy away for a moment. She thanked the Stars for it being there though, for not letting her feel the embarrassment that would consume her if she had been herself.

“What?” she spluttered.

The stranger looked back to her once, reaching a hand out to her. He stopped it at the last moment, curling it into a fist in the air.

“I have to go. Just…don’t get yourself killed, please. Anddon’tgo trying to fuck strange men you don’t know,” he growled.