Pretty Perfect Toy - Angel Payne Page 0,26

other desire but a thousand tethers to him. They would be but physical markers of the bonds inside me, already twined into him like platinum cables. Enduring. Unending. Sealed by the surety of him in my soul…

A soul I throw open to him now, letting him in to learn it, know it, taste it, feel it—all the same ways I let his mouth reclaim mine. I open thoroughly, giving him the length of my tongue, the cavern of my mouth, every sigh in my throat. I hold nothing back, flowing it all to him, giving my gratitude in return for his anguish, my passion in answer to his pain, my hunger as a call to his lust.

And still, I want more.

He does too. I feel it in his tongue’s deepening thrusts, his chest’s violent moans, and then—oh yes—in the hands raking down, cupping my backside, commanding my body to slot perfectly against his. His throbbing shaft spreads my trembling core, even through our clothes. I break our kiss only to set my outcry free, afraid my arousal will make me bite through his lips. Not that it still isn’t a possibility…

Especially when he wheels around, still carrying me, and rams me against the door we have just walked through. Air leaves me in a stunned rush, captured again by his mouth’s dominant force, sucking everything from me but the need to hold him, the longing to let him in deeper…to be anything and everything he needs right now.

Even if all he needs is to lose himself in my body.

Maybe it is all I need right now, too. An excuse to abandon the anguish. To forget the loss. To celebrate life instead of mourn for it. To break free into perfection, connection, completion. Passion as perfect as the heart of a flame…

Our flame.

His shoulders flex as he hitches my thighs higher around his waist, angling my buttocks down…driving his groin the same direction. He plummets his mouth back in, forcing my tongue to accept his hot, ravenous licks. Our noses collide. Our foreheads crash. He rolls his hips, eliciting my shudder as his cock rubs new parts of me—echoed in the powerful quake overtaking his body. My tissues expand, softening as he grows against me…then pulls back to stare deeply into me.

And once more, it all bursts between us.

Magic.

Awareness.

Desire.

Revelation.

Everything that has always been so good and right for us—only better now. Drenched in a new light. Awash in a sunburst made possible only by razing the forest that has blocked it. The sorrow, pain, self-doubts, and fears left behind in the blood on a shattered windowpane, by a woman without the courage to live for her family instead of dying for her addiction.

Not anymore.

I lift my arms, gripping Cassian by his nape, sending those two words from my psyche into his. But his eyes slam shut anyway. I lift my fingers into his hair and twist. Hard.

“Cassian. Look. At. Me.”

He growls in protest. Digs his own grip in harder, making me wince—but I do not relent my own hold. A leaden gulp expands his throat.

He opens his eyes.

“She does not win anymore.” I may but whisper it, though will gladly proclaim it from the tops of the turrets if he demands. I promise it again with the grit in my teeth and determination in my eyes. “She does not get to win anymore, Cassian.”

His jaw compresses. The harsh lines in his face almost look like pain—but in every spike of green glass in his gaze, I behold the truth. In order to banish death, he has moved beyond pain—and now struggles with something more excruciating.

Redemption.

He tautens again, seized by the wraiths that would hold him back from it. So many ghosts—many of them dispatched from his own spirit.

“Ella.” He shudders, gripped by a motion bordering on a sob. If only the universe would be merciful and grant him that.

I wrap him closer. Bloody the lining of my soul to give him every layer of love it holds. “I am here.”

“I know.”

But does he? His voice is a grate, his body a coil. He is held back, caught in an invisible cage—and I cannot stretch far enough through the bars to reach him.

“I am here, Cassian.” I slant up, sliding against him. I lift my mouth, nearly pleading for his kiss—and that, at least, he heeds. His tongue lunges back inside, conquering and sliding and possessing, wrenching a moan up my throat. The need to serve him. To heal him.

To redeem him.

His