The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,25

hands were tense at my sides, fingers digging into the blanket. It was the only way I could stop myself from punching him. “And in case you don’t know, you look like the Human Torch right now.”

“But I am still Luc.” He dipped his head just the slightest, and I had to lower my gaze to shield my eyes from the brightness. “I am still yours.”

My heart gave a happy little flop as my fingers eased off their death grip. “Yes. You are.”

One of his hands shifted to the space beside my shoulder, and the heat he threw off should’ve been unbearable but wasn’t. “I wish you didn’t fear me,” he repeated. “Because I want to remove the taste of what your memories held with something beautiful.”

What my heart did next put the silly flop to shame. Filled with the bitter sweetness of his words, it swelled so much I felt like I could float off the bed. He wanted to erase what I knew he felt, because it had been in me first, and honestly, I wanted nothing more than to wash that taint away. I was scared of what he was right now, but not of him.

Never of him.

I couldn’t count how many times he’d intervened and saved my life, only because I was sure there were times I didn’t even know about. I couldn’t fathom how he’d walked away and stayed away from me, because I knew I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I was entirely too selfish, and that was where Luc was wrong about him and me. He’d do anything to make sure I lived, and I would do anything to make sure he stayed by my side.

Luc started to pull back, and I stopped lying there and I stopped thinking, because Luc needed me. I lifted my hands, knowing that the Source surrounding him would not harm me.

Electricity traveled across my fingers and down my arms as my hands slipped through the heated glow. I pressed my palms against his cheeks, turning his head back to mine. Tears crowded my eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the light or something else, but I closed them as I raised my head to his.

The moment our mouths touched, a much stronger current of energy washed over me, leaving my lips and throat tingling. I didn’t pull away from the strong sensation or from the heat that now flared around him. I parted my lips and deepened the kiss, proving to Luc that I didn’t fear him and doing my best to erase what we both felt, what we both now shared.

But then he slipped a hand to the back of my head, seeking for control of the kiss, and I happily handed it over.

A low rumbling noise came from the back of his throat; it curled my toes and twisted my stomach into tiny delicious knots.

Evie.

I swore I heard him say my name even as his lips moved over mine, and it had been his voice, not the frigid, apathetic one that had worried me—but that wasn’t possible, and then I wasn’t thinking about that at all. A hand on my hip tugged my body under his, and I gasped at the riot of sensation. The heat and the hardness pressed into me, obliterating all thoughts except for how he felt—how I felt.

Wherever he touched, static followed, dancing after the hand that slid down my arm, over my waist, and then lower, stopping to clutch my hip in a way that left me breathless, and then he gripped my thigh. His hips settled into me, and when he lifted my leg, I hooked it around his.

He didn’t taste like bad memories or haunting nightmares. He tasted of sunshine and summer midnights. I was falling and falling into his warmth and in him, and when he moved against me, I gasped, “Luc.”

“The way you say my name like that? It’s going to kill me,” he said, his tone still that strange, power-heavy, cold one, but his words? They were all Luc as he caught my lower lip between his teeth. “You have no idea.”

I didn’t think he knew what he was doing to me as his mouth blazed a path of kisses down my throat. He dragged his teeth along that incredibly sensitive place just above my shoulders, causing my back to arch.

Okay.

Maybe he did know exactly what he was doing.

Luc chuckled as one of his hands slipped under my shirt, his