“I know.” He cups my cheek, thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “But if I go further…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to.
I pull him back down. “Please.”
He groans, low and rough and ruined. His mouth finds mine again,and then we’re moving together, breath in sync, limbs tangling. His tail tightens again, around my thigh, across my hip, like it wants to help pin me in place.
I can’t stop laughing. “You need to train that thing.”
“I have tried.”
“Try harder.”
“It only misbehaves when you’re involved.”
“This is our first time meeting Caziel.”
He shakes his head. “No, it is your first time meeting him.”
That shuts me up. The way he says it—not like a joke, but a truth. A confession.
“You’re different,” he murmurs, his forehead resting against mine. “You make every part of mefeel—worse, better, too much—like I’m going to split open if I keep holding it in.”
“Then don’t.”
He stills at that. “Kay…”
I kiss him before he can ruin it. I want this. I want him. And even if the world ends tomorrow, tonight I get him. I’m still trying to catch my breath when I drop back against the mattress. My skin is flushed, my lips tingling, my pulse pounding in places I’d forgotten could feel this alive. Caziel braces over me, panting softly. The glamor’s gone, but even if it weren’t, I think I’d still see him clearly now.
He’s flushed too, ruddy and bright and watching me with that raw, reverent hunger. His hair’s come loose, curling wild around the curve of one horn. One of his fangs catches on his lower lip before he releases it, tongue flicking out to soothe the bite. I wet my lips, too. Swallow hard.
“Can I…” My voice trails off, not because I don’t know what I want, but because the words suddenly feel too big, too loud in this room. His gaze darkens, but he doesn’t move.
“What is it,sâl?”
“I want to taste you.” The words tumble out before I can second guess them. “I want all of you. But—”
I don’t get to finish. The look on his face changes. Not to amusement or pity, not even surprise. He goes still. His eyes shimmer, his tail flicks once, like a snap of tension behind him.
“Say it again,” he murmurs.
I lift onto my elbows, heart hammering. “I want to taste you.”
Caziel stills above me. His hand, which had been slowly tracing the curve of my hip, freezes mid-motion. He lifts his head, eyes wide and black and stunned. Then something flickers in them—heat, yes, but something gentler beneath it. Like reverence. Like restraint.
“You do not have to do that,” he says, voice rough but steady. “You owe me nothing.”
My lips curve. “It’s not about owing. I want to.”
His throat bobs as he swallows. His fingers brush a lock of hair from my cheek with the kind of tenderness that makes my chest ache.
“Say stop at any point. You only do what you want.”
“I know.”
I sit up, slowly, and he shifts with me, pushing up on his knees. I watch as his hands move to the waistband of his breeches, undoing the clasp. He hesitates for the barest second before peels them down the thick muscles of his thighs.
Gods.
