Page 98 of His Darkest Desire

Something fluttered in her belly.

I burn too.

Kinsley’s lips parted, and her brow furrowed. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“I see the same yearning in your eyes. Why should we not take what we both want?”

Her chest constricted. “The pact. That’s…that’s all this is about.”

“My desire for you has naught to do with our pact, Kinsley. I want you. I’ve wanted you since the moment I set my gaze upon you.”

“But that’s only because of what you want from me.”

“No,” Vex growled through his bared fangs. “It is because you are mine. Pact or no, I want you. You were always destined to be mine.”

Kinsley’s heart quickened.

Pact or no, I want you.

She swayed, taking a small step toward him before hesitating.

“What do you want, Kinsley?” he asked. “For what does the fire in your eyes burn?”

“You,” she whispered. That single, simple word resonated through her very soul.

His chin tilted down, and he crooked a clawed finger. “Then come to me, my moonlight.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Spellbound by those crimson eyes, Kinsley stepped toward Vex. He held out his hand, palm up. It was an offering, an invitation, a temptation. All she had to do was take it.

You want this, Kinsley. You want him.

She did. She’d been cast aside, made to feel unwanted, unworthy, unloved for so long. She craved the connection and intimacy promised in Vex’s smoldering gaze.

Dismissing her hesitation, Kinsley placed her hand within his.

A slow grin spread across his lips as he curled his fingers around her hand. He drew her closer until she stood between his thighs. Though his hold was gentle, she couldn’t have resisted even if she’d wanted to.

“Were I given the choice”—he hooked the low neckline of her nightgown with a claw—“there is but one memory by which I’d be tormented.”

Wisps of green magic flickered beneath his claw. His hand dipped, and that claw sliced through the fabric without resistance. Kinsley’s eyes widened as she looked down.

“Your body”—he moved his hand lower still, and the magic spread like green flames from the edges of the tear, the fabric vanishing in its wake—“bared to me, yet out of reach.”

Tingles arced across Kinsley’s skin, making her shiver, as the nightgown dissipated thread by thread, leaving her naked. Exposed to both the air and Vex, her nipples grew taut.

Vex captured her chin, drawing her gaze back to his. “Never again shall you be beyond my reach.”

Kinsley lifted a hand and lightly traced the scars near his eye. “I’m here, Vex. And I am yours.”

An appreciative growl rumbled from him. One of his hands glided up her arm, while the other slid down her neck. The darkness in his eyes expanded even as their heat intensified; they would swallow Kinsley up, and she welcomed it.

His thumb caressed her throat before his hands reached her shoulders. He followed her collarbone with his fingertips, his claws teasing her and stoking the fire at her core. Then he moved his hands down. The backs of his fingers swept over the swell of her breasts and, with maddening, deliberate delicacy, brushed her hardened nipples.

Sensation jolted through Kinsley, and her breath caught in her throat as her hands flew to his shoulders.

“This is perfection,” he said, voice low, thick, sultry. “You are perfection.”