Gabriel grabbed her wrists and lifted them off his chest.
“Find what you were looking for, Moonshine?” he asked, his eyelids at half-mast.
She was going to answer, but something on the inside of his wrist caught her complete, unblinking attention. “What is that?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything, so she twisted one of her wrists out of his grasp and grabbed his hand. Slowly, she turned it over and saw a tattoo.
It was a little half-moon that perfectly matched her pendant.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. It was the other half of her pendant. If she put her pendant up against his tattoo, the shape of the full moon would be complete.
“When did you get this?” she demanded.
“Day after you left,” he mumbled.
See, this was the kind of thing she found so utterly vexing about him. He loved her. He’d loved her six years ago. He hadn’t wanted her in a sexual way for as long as she’d wanted him, but he did want her now.
And still he pushed her away, kept her at arm’s length, out of some sort of…what? A misguided sense of chivalry? What kind of messed-up bullshit was that? “Goddammit, Gabriel, we’ve wasted so much time. Why? Why can’t you just let me decide what’s right for me?”
“Because you’ll make the wrong choice! Six years ago, you would’ve stayed if I’d asked you to. You would’ve given up everything for me. And I’m not worth it! I wasn’t then, and I’m not now.”
She was pretty sure flames might be rising in her eyes right now. That’s how mad she was. “And you don’t think that I’m the best judge of who is and isn’t good enough for me? You domineering asshole! How dare you try to control me like that.”
Adrianne squealed as he flipped their positions and settled his weight on top of her, pinning her wrists to the floor above her head.
“You don’t get it,” he said through clenched teeth. “The way I want you? You should’ve run as far and as fast as you could and stayed away. Because the flames will consume us both now.”
She had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t really sound all that bad to her, especially not with his body pressed so tightly against hers.
She didn’t have much time to think about that, though, because he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her with everything he had.
The first time Gabriel had kissed her, she’d been shocked. She hadn’t really had time to properly enjoy it. Plus, it had felt like he was only kissing her to shut her up, so that definitely pissed her off, which lessened her pleasure.
But this time…oh, this time…
It wasn’t the kind of romantic, tender kiss she dreamed of when she was younger. And it wasn’t a movie-perfect kiss. It was far too hot and urgent for that.
It was still the best kiss of her life by a lot.
He kissed her with a kind of desperation that stole her breath. It was like he was pouring all the anger and frustration and fear of the past week into this kiss and his whole life depended on getting is just right.
But Adrianne wasn’t about to give up all the control, either, because she needed this every bit as much as he did. Hell, she’d been waiting for it way longer. So, she gave as good as she got, and even gave into her impulse to finally—finally!—snag that plump lower lip of his between her teeth and give it a good nip.
With a growl that sounded damn near feral, he let go of her hands so that he could tighten his fists in her hair. He angled her head just so, deepening their kiss until she was practically vibrating with need.
He tasted like whiskey and heat and the promise of everything she’d ever wanted but had been denied.
She was done being denied. He was going to give her everything she wanted, and he was giving it to her tonight.
He pulled back and stared down at her with such lust in his eyes that she nearly came on the spot. “You’re all I think about, Moonshine.” Dipping his head down, he nuzzled her neck and inhaled deeply. “I love your scent.”
She held in a moan, but just barely. “What do I smell like?”
“Mine,” he said on a ragged breath. “You smell like you’re mine.”
“I’ve always been yours,” she whispered.
He rejected her once, and it broke her heart. If he rejected her again? Now? She wasn’t entirely sure she’d survive it.
But it was time to find out. More importantly, it was time to make a radical move.
Reaching up, she grabbed his hand, pulled it down, and gently pushed it beneath the waistband of her shorts.
The sexiest groan she’d ever heard in her life tore its way out of his throat, and her stomach muscles clenched in anticipation.
He looked up at her, lips glistening from their kiss, and she saw in his eyes what she’d known from the second his lips met hers.
There was no turning back now.
“You’re sure?” he asked, his hand still resting against her.
Seriously? They were going to have a consent conversation? After she’d been chasing him for years?
“I’m sure.”
At this point, she’d sign a consent contract if he wanted. Pay with her left kidney and firstborn if that’s what it took to get him to finally touch her like he meant it.
“There’s still time to change your mind,” he whispered, dipping down to trail his tongue over the sensitive spot below her ear.
It was almost as if he was begging her to take the out he was giving her, all while sounding like he might die if she did.
“Touch me, Gabriel,” she whispered. “Please.”
The “please” must have been his undoing, because he slid his hand farther down until his rough, calloused fingers were—oh, yes, God, right there—exactly where she wanted them.
Adrianne had always hoped that Haven was right—that she and Gabriel were somehow fated to be together. But it wasn’t until this moment that she was dead ass sure of it. Because he touched her like he’d trained for this moment his whole life, like he had the one and only user’s manual for her body, like his one job in the world was touching her until she was nothing but a quivering, whimpering, woman-shaped puddle right there on the floor of her safehouse.
Coherent thought was a distant memory. Her eyes rolled back in her head. And then, as if his touch wasn’t devastating enough, he grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt with his teeth—with his TEETH!—and yanked it up over her breasts.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
She had no idea if he was talking to her or her breasts, and honestly, she couldn’t possibly care any less. As long as he kept moving his hand, everything was perfect.
Adrianne let out a moan loud enough to wake the neighborhood when he sucked one of her nipples into his hot mouth. Then she let out another one when he shifted his attention to her other breast.
She might have blacked out for a second or two when his teeth closed around her nipple and gently tugged it to meet his tongue. She definitely blacked out when he pushed two fingers inside her and expertly curled them to unerringly find her g-spot.
She was so, so close. Her thighs were trembling, her breathing was huffing in and out of her lungs like she’d just run a fucking marathon, and she was biting down so hard on her bottom lip that she tasted blood. And then…
He stopped.
Adrianne whimpered. “You can’t stop. Please don’t stop,” she begged.
“I’m not stopping,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning over her ear, his fingers deep inside her. “But the first time I make you come, it will not be with my fingers.”
Before her brain could process what he’d just said, he slid down her body, dragging her shorts down with him. And when his mouth joined his hand and his tongue stroked over her throbbing clit, she broke. All it had taken was one stroke of his tongue, and she was nothing but a shaking, wet, orgasmic mess.
“Again,” he growled against her quivering flesh.
She would’ve protested, claiming she needed more recovery time, but he wouldn’t be denied. He kept at her, fingers sliding in and out, tongue applying just the right amount of pressure to her clit, that she came a second time, so hard it bordered on painful.
And still he showed no signs of stopping. His plan tonight was obviously to make her come until she didn’t remember her own name and lapsed into a sex-induced coma she may never recover from.
She was more than halfway to a third orgasm when she was starting to wonder if all her visions had been wrong, if this was how she was going to die. Because how could one little human body possibly withstand that much pleasure?
And that’s when an explosion of gunfire in the distance ruined everything.
Blaring alarms, screams, shouts, calls for help and barked orders over walkies…even from where they were, it was clear the compound was under attack, and that Section 8 was not going to go down without a fight.
The war had started. Roan and his father’s army were here.
Wasn’t it just like a bad guy to show up to kill her at the exact moment when everything was finally going her way?
Sometimes being a misfit of magic really sucked ass.