Edge Of Darkness

57

From the living room, Asher shouted, “Five minutes!”

Ember blew out a heavy breath. She muttered, “I should probably go do something about that.”

Christian propped himself up on his elbow and stared down at her, his green gaze penetrating. “Does that mean I’m staying?”

She tried to slip out of his arms to stand up, but he held her there, too strong to bother fighting, and grasped her chin. “Does it?” he murmured.

In a barely audible voice she asked, “Do you want to stay?”

His brows drew together, and for a moment he looked almost angry. “Why do you ask me questions you already know the answer to, little firecracker?”

Pinned in the intensity of his gaze, Ember bit her lip and stayed silent.

He shook his head slowly, back and forth, his eyes scorching hers. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want…I want…” She swallowed, trying to buy time. Ultimately, she chickened out entirely and buried her face in the pillow, hiding from him. “I don’t know what I want.”

He lowered his head next to hers, brushed his lips across the exposed skin of her throat. Whispering into her ear, he said, “Let me give you a piece of advice, Ember. Never, never lie to yourself. It’s the most self-destructive thing you can do. Be brutally honest about who you are and what you want, even if you never reveal it to another soul. If you’re not, if you pretend things are different than they really are, if you try to sweep your true feelings under the rug, you will be miserable, and you won’t even know why. You will be powerless. Lie to everyone else if you have to, do whatever it takes to protect yourself from all those bastards who will tell you what to do, how to be, what you should think or feel. But own your truth. Own it. And never be ashamed.”

He grasped her jaw firmly in his hand and turned her face back to his. Looking deeply into her eyes, he said, “Do you want me to stay?”

Haltingly, she said, “Yes. And no. And that’s the truth. It’s so much to take in…I need to think—and I can’t when you’re so close…” She trailed into silence because his gaze had drifted to her mouth, and his eyes had begun to smolder.

“Don’t think, then,” he said. In one swift move, he’d turned her over so they were chest to chest, thighs to thighs, their bodies pressed close. He took her hand, placed it flat against his bare chest, and whispered, “Just feel.”

Beneath her palm, his heartbeat was as fast and erratic as hers. As it did whenever he looked at her as he was looking at her now, heat exploded in her body.

Looking straight into her eyes, he murmured, “Shall I tell you what I want?”

Her head made the slightest of up and down motions.

He bent his head, lowered his lips to hers, and gave her the softest of kisses, raising goose bumps on her arms and legs. “I can’t tell you all of it because we’re not there yet and it will scare you, but right now…” His tongue traced her lower lip, the faintest, gliding pressure, and she made a small, involuntary sound of pleasure. “Right now I want your mouth. I want this beautiful mouth all over my body. I want your beautiful body naked under mine, and I want to spread your legs, and bury myself inside you, and hear you scream my name.” Ember’s heart had seized, but he wasn’t finished. He curled a hand into her hair and pressed them both back against the mattress, one of his legs thrown over both of hers so she felt his erection, hard as steel, at her hip. His voice grew darker, more gruff.

“I want you to learn what pleases me, and I want to learn what pleases you, and I want to watch you come apart at the seams for me, over and over again. I want all of that and I want it so f*****g badly it’s taking everything I’ve got not to rip all your clothes off right now because I know you want all of that just as much as I do, only you’re scared, which kills me, because I’d rather tear out my own heart than do anything to hurt you.”

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her again, this one longer, harder, more demanding than the first. Ember moaned into his mouth, already coming apart at the seams with just the taste of him. Trembling, her hands drifted up his back, skimming his heated skin, exploring the hard, sculpted muscles. She reveled in the little shivering tremor that went through him when she lightly scored his back with her nails. She parted her legs and he settled his weight between them with a growl in his throat, pressing his pelvis into hers as she rocked up to meet him better.