a dark seduction on its own. I rose on my toes, held his gaze until the last, until I was too close, my nose brushing against his jaw. Pausing, I exhaled, my heart hammering in my chest.
Even though he stood perfectly, inhumanly still, he didn’t feel passive. More like a predator lying in wait, luring its prey closer with the pretense of motionless silence.
Stubble rasped over my lips, the heat of his skin searing my mouth as I pressed it against his throat.
The faintest tremor went through his frame.
Parting my lips, I touched the tip of my tongue to the pulsing vein along the column of his neck, licked a short line up toward his jaw. The slight aroma of sweat and the fading echo of iron richness tingled on my tongue. I pressed my lips once more to the spot where the dagger had drawn blood, then withdrew and came down from my tiptoes.
A lightning storm raged in his eyes, almost concealed by his half-closed lids. Smoke tickled my nose, and I turned my head to the side, raised my brows at the sight of his hand against the wall. The surrounding area was blackened, tentacles of soot spearing out from his palm and fingers.
I turned back to him, softly sucked in air. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
It hurt to look at him for long, the ethereal cut of his features too intense, too raw and refined at the same time. I focused on his lips, on the perfect curve of his mouth, just full enough to be a sensual promise.
“You may,” I whispered.
He exhaled roughly, cupped my cheek and tilted my head back just so. A brush of his thumb over my lower lip, his breath a hot brand on my skin, and then his mouth moved over mine.
I’d expected a possessive claiming, a harsh explosion of passion in the meeting of lips and tongues and teeth. A growl-turned-kiss.
What I got was a dance of seduction in sinfully light steps, a lure for my senses with touches that teased, dared…coaxed. His lips would graze mine, ever so lightly, barely more than his breath whispering over my mouth, and he’d withdraw as soon as I pushed for more, until I would chase him in his retreat.
It turned my blood to lava.
With a snarl, I grabbed the back of his neck, yanked him closer and claimed his mouth with the unbridled force I wished he would use. He laughed—laughed—into the kiss, lifted me with his hands on my waist and shoved me against the wall.
Yes.
Without missing a beat, I wrapped my legs around his hips, and—good God—the pressure on my core when he pushed forward, pressed his entire body against mine. Diabolically divine.
I trembled, gasped into his mouth as he devoured me lick by torturous, delicious lick, his hands on my thighs, fingers digging into my jeans. I burned, burned, burned.
The astringent aroma of smoke in the air, scratching my lungs.
With a sigh, he broke the kiss, set me down and stepped back. I frowned and wanted to protest—
“Were these,” he said, waving at my jeans, “your favorite pants?”
I glanced down and jerked back. The dark blue fabric sported the smoldering outline of a handprint on the outer side of either thigh. A few blackened threads barely held the material together, with skin peeking through the gaps.
Skin that didn’t show a single burn mark, contrary to my ruined jeans.
I made a sound of dismay and glared at him. “Did you do that on purpose?”
He had the good grace to look sheepish. “I can burn off the rest and turn them into shorts?” he offered.
I raised a brow, poked a finger through the soot-stained holes. “Why didn’t my skin burn?”
“I would guess,” he said, crouching down in front of me, his hands encircling my thighs right over the seared marks, “you’re fireproof.”
Flames ignited from his fingers, closed a ring around my jeans legs until the material below fell down to my ankles, leaving me standing there in short shorts with Azazel’s hands still resting on my now mostly naked thighs.
I inhaled harshly, grabbed his shoulders to balance myself on wobbly legs. I studied the skin where he’d just singed away my jeans, and wouldn’t you know it—not a single burn, the skin not even reddened.
“How?” I pressed out, my chest tight, the skin where he touched me aflame in a completely different way.
“The bond.” His fingers stroked up and down on my thighs, just a few inches below the line where my legs met my