The Isle Of Sin And Shadows - Keri Lake Page 0,136

she spreads her legs for me, like a soft, pink velvet carpet, inviting me in. “If you say so.”

Staring down between us, I notch myself inside of her. Just the tip, but when her brows come together, I don’t push, even if I have a sudden need to be balls deep. As much as she tries to play this game of unrequited feelings, she’s still young. Perhaps inexperienced. Emotionally fragile, in some ways.

I push further, feeling her warm walls clamp hard around my shaft, and I’m chewing my tongue to keep from ramming myself up into her.

“Thierry, wait.” The worry in her voice has me glancing up to see her biting her lip, brows pinched tight. Struggling to take me inside.

“You’re not a virgin, are you?” She never bled in the woods, with the knife, but perhaps she’s never had an actual dick inside her.

She shakes her head. “I’ve just not …. It’s been a while. Since I’ve done this.”

Instead for forcing my way in, I wrap her legs around me and lift her up, carrying her down the hallway to the bedroom. Once there, I set her on the mattress, and I edge in a little deeper, watching her eyes shutter.

“I’ll take it slow, ma belle.”

Her eyes flip back open, and it’s then I realize what I just said. She doesn’t even have to speak French to know I essentially called her mine. Christ.

The moment she surrenders herself to me, a strange feeling fills my chest. With her hair fanned out over the white sheets, those green eyes staring back at me, a pink blush to her cheeks, she’s my undoing. A willing sacrifice. The magnificent aftermath, when a demon corrupts an angel.

With slow and tiny thrusts, I work my way inside, her soft sheath squeezing my shaft. I pin her to the bed, taking in the hint of fear in her wide eyes that stare back at me. The same look that prompted me to go easy on her out in the woods.

The rapid rise and fall of her chest draws my eyes to where my borrowed shirt stretches over her breasts. With my free hand, I circle my thumb over her nipple with every nudge of my dick, in an effort to distract her. “Relax.”

Green eyes flutter shut, and she shudders a breath, as if she’s consumed by whatever’s going on inside her head. I drive my hips a little further, and her brows come together in what looks to be a cross between pleasure and pain.

“Open your eyes. You wanted me to look you in the eyes when I do this. So open them,” I grit out, holding back the urge to plow into her like a battering ram.

When she does, something stirs inside of me. Everything that she is, every lie, every truth—it’s laid bare and naked. I see her as much as she sees me. No pills. No barriers. No boundaries. In this space, there is only Céleste.

The real Céleste.

Slowing my pace to long, languid thrusts, I continue to study her. The tiny scar at the corner of her eye. The much larger one across her jaw and throat. The way her top lip curves over a slightly crooked front tooth. A small freckle on her cheekbone, and the dewy glow of her skin. Everything that makes her so fucking beautiful, it hurts.

Turning her head to the side, she wears her discomfort like an innocuous shield. One thinned by her own design when she insisted that I look at her.

A tear slips out of the corner of her eye, and I brush it away with my thumb. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, you’re not hurting me. I don’t know what’s wrong. I wanted you to look at me, but I didn’t expect it to be this intense. This personal.”

“You’ve been used.”

“Yes.”

I don’t know why the thought of that makes me want to hunt down anyone and everyone who ever tried to hurt her. To avenge her honor against whatever insipid little prick tried to run off with a piece of her heart. Doesn’t make sense, given my own selfish pursuits and desires, but that’s the nature of humanity, I guess. To confuse the ever-loving fuck out of us.

For one brief moment, I allow myself to slip into the unknown. The what if. That improbable void between giving in and walking away. She’s the first I’ve allowed to step inside that dark and empty hollow, where terrifying possibilities hide in the shadows. The reality of my