Page 46 of Scary & Bright
“And I think we should give ourselves some space,” he said playfully as he positioned himself in front of me on the now entirely vacant table.
We were both absolutely, ferociously starving for one another, despite having had a full and delicious dinner. My hands immediately reached for his shirt and began to fumble with the buttons, desperately trying to find his bare skin as he searched the back of my dress for the tiny zipper keeping it on my body.
He found success before me, and I felt his massive hands delicately remove the green straps from my shoulder as if he were carefully unwrapping a present. I leaned back once my arms were free to allow him to pull my dress down over my chest just as the letter I’d stowed away fell out of my dress and onto my lap.
“Oh?” he asked, clearly unable to decide if he’d rather focus on my naked upper half or the mysterious document that presented itself to him.
Shit, I thought. I totally forgot I had hidden it in the event that I lost my words. If I could go back in time, I would smack myself upside the head for thinking I would need it.
“It’s nothing,” I insisted, trying to grab the note quickly before he had a chance to get his own hands on it, but I wasn’t swift enough to beat him to the punch. Krampus plucked the note from my lap and pinched it between two fingers.
“It’s really nothing,” I promised, hoping he wouldn’t embarrass me by trying to translate my insane ramblings. “I brought it in case I needed some help to get the words out that I wanted to say.” I clutched the front of my dress, feeling a little foolish that the heat of our moment was disrupted by something so silly.
“Well,” Krampus mused as he passed me the letter and began to un-tuck his shirt from his pants, “did you get the words out that you wanted to say?”
“Most of them,” I said with a smile.
“Most?” he asked, prying for more information.
“I can tell you the rest if you’d like.” I started unfolding the paper but kept my eyes glued to him.
He nodded as he shrugged the long-sleeved shirt off from his shoulders, showing off his pale, perfect torso, which looked especially tantalizing in the cool light.
I cleared my throat and began to read aloud, skipping over the parts I’d scribbled out or the doodles in the corner that I’d penned to try to keep my thoughts moving.
“I don’t know what will happen to you by sparing my life—I didn’t when I wrote this, obviously—but I know that I won’t be able to live with myself if you place me over the joy that Christmas brings all the children of the world.” I paused, and Krampus moved closer to me, placing his arms on either side of where I was sitting. “You may not see yourself as others do, and you may be unwilling or unable to see through the viciousness of your actions, but it takes a very special sort of person to do the things that are hard so that others may thrive. You’re a hero, Krampus, whether you want to admit it or not. I love you.”
I dropped the paper to the floor and heard it land softly. The silence between Krampus and I was suddenly deafening.
“You were going to say it?” Krampus pulled me in for an embrace, and I gripped the skin on his back, in awe of the warmth that radiated from his body. “You wanted to tell me you love me?”
“I was planning to, but you did it first,” I said with my voice muffled against his chest. He buried his face in my neck, kissing up and down the side of my throat and down onto my shoulder.
“As for the rest?” he continued between kisses. “There’s nothing you could say to convince me to take you out of this world. A world without you in it would cause me as much pain as the collar would.” I dropped the dress again, allowing my upper half to be exposed to him. “I won’t do it, Holly. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”
This wasn’t the time for me to argue his point, not when he was beginning to stand firm between my legs with the bottom of my dress pushed up onto my thighs. So, I just moaned in answer as my hands explored the small of his back and my thumbs hooked into the sides of his pants.
We were quickly approaching the point of no return. He’d touched me before. He’d tasted me before. But outside of the occasional kisses to his chest and on his lips, his body was a mystery to me—but it was one that I wanted to know every detail about. I could feel the space between my legs begin to pulse with want as my thoughts got filthier with every expertly placed kiss.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he huffed as his hands found my breasts and began to massage them gently. I could feel his length harden under the prison of his slacks. “I don’t want to disrespect you or your boundaries.”
“Please don’t stop,” I urged.
He flicked one of my nipples and gently grazed his fangs over my shoulder. I could tell he was holding back. Perhaps he was scared to hurt me? But I wanted him to. I wanted him to hold me in the balance of pain and pleasure. I wanted him absolutely unhinged and unleashed and at his mercy. If this time between us was limited, and one of us doomed to death or torture, then each of these moments had to be worth it. There was no more time for being vague, and no more time for nervousness.
“Harder,” I pleaded as he took his time carefully circling my nipple, running the serpentine end of his miraculous tongue over my throat. “Touch me hard enough that I can still see the marks in the morning.”
I must have said the right thing because, immediately, I could feel the swelling in his sex double as he growled against my skin. He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and tilted my head up to face him.
“Be careful what you ask for, Holly,” he said through gritted teeth. The yellow in his eyes was practically glowing. “I am still a monster underneath it all. There are parts of me that will always desire a touch of violence.”
“Show me,” I said before biting my bottom lip in a stern challenge.
He let go of my neck and reached for the bunched-up dress around my waist with both hands and ripped it in half as if it were nothing more than wet paper. I watched the muscles across his shoulders tense as a vein bulged in his neck. His nostrils flared with every inhale, and he looked both viciously sexy and terrifying at the same time. He was the villain in every movie I secretly rooted for, and I had set him free.
Unlike my previous wish to smack Past Holly in the back of the head, this was the moment I wished I could go back in time and give myself a proper pat on the back for choosing not to wear panties. As soon as he’d ripped off my dress and threw it to the floor, I was entirely naked and on display for him like a Thanksgiving dinner.
“Lay back for me,” he instructed as he raked his hands down my thighs, forcing goosebumps to erupt from my skin, “and I’ll show you what I mean.”