With every swat of his illicit tongue, a warped version of myself comes to life and takes flight. My hands rove higher into his hair, my arms roping around him. Instead of returning to my ass, his palms sink from my skull to my tailbone.
The kiss intensifies from carnal to conscious. It deepens and explores, our lips splaying around each other. Not slower but much deeper.
That’s scarier. A cold draft of fear passes through my heart.
Yet the dawning sun combats that response, drizzling warmth over my toes and nestling into my shoulder blades. I sigh into his mouth. Cerulean hums, lapping up the sound, the movements of his jaw calming down. That only intensifies the sensations, the breeze buffeting his trousers and my nightgown.
I’ve never been kissed like this. I’ve never known anything close to this confused passion, this profound aggression. I’m surrendering and setting myself free all at once. I’m kissing a nemesis who’s also a friend, as if we were always supposed to be here, as if we set this in motion a long time ago.
Heaving my mouth from his, I struggle for breath. For a pent-up moment, our eyes stumble into one another. His angular features go slack, his lips a dark swell of blue. There’s no trace of mockery staring back, no riddles braced on his tongue.
For once, we’ve shut each other up.
Maybe I’m as monstrous as this Fae. Why else would I let this happen? Why else would I be ready for more?
Later, I’ll curse myself for this. Until then, I break another rule: Never fall for the enemy.
Cerulean opens his mouth, likely to say something catastrophic. Instead, I grip the fine slopes of his cheeks and mutter, “You fucking vice of a Fae.”
His amused lips twitch as my mouth snatches his.
22
By the time we come up for air, the sun has risen fully. It’s a great big mouthful of butterscotch hanging overhead and gilding the world. For once, it’s the kind of view I’d see back home.
Not that I’m paying it much heed. My eyelids flutter open, and I catch merely a glimpse of the vista beyond the thatch of Cerulean’s hair. Over his shoulder, I blink into the shaft of light, then at him.
His arms entwine my middle, his palms imprinting themselves into my rump, which he must have gripped again sometime during the maelstrom of our kiss. My arms are slung around his neck, hooking on to him as if I’ll collapse without the leverage.
On second thought, not as if I’ll collapse. As if I’ll levitate into the forsaken sky.
Our bodies make a cage of one another. My heart pounds so hard it threatens to crack through bone. His own riotous heart does the same, if its drumming rhythm is anything to go by. What would happen if those organs crashed through the barricades and collided?
Mouths parted and hovering an inch apart, we pant moist air against one another. Cerulean’s nostrils grapple for oxygen. With each of his intakes, I suffocate a little more.
We kissed. This isn’t a dream or a nightmare. It’s a bit of both, sensual and disturbing.
I see my face reflected in his pupils, my body a pinprick, a distortion of myself. In other words, I’m being dramatic. And I don’t do dramatic, because I leave that to Cove, because she’s better at it. My sister can swoon without compromising herself.
Then again, she wouldn’t have kissed a Fae. Juniper, either.
The thought of them has me wiggling from Cerulean’s embrace. But it’s no use, because he’s got me trapped inside arms welded from steel.
Fussing only causes my tits to bump into his pecs. Bumping only leads to visions of us tangled and chaotic, naked and sweating up against a cliff wall.
Our lips are too close for comfort. The bows of his mouth tickle mine, even as clarity returns. His gaze narrows, mutating from lust to skepticism.
“What trickery is this?” he grates out. “What have you done to me?”
I release a breathless scoff. “When will you learn? To have an effect, mortals don’t need magic.”
“Then what is this nonsense?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you feel it, too.”
“Come on. You know I do.”
