Lexi’s head spun as Cole’s scent and the feel of his body bombarded all her senses. She stopped feeling the cool counter beneath her ass and stopped hearing the rapid beat of her heart as everything in her became focused on him.
Beneath her palms, the corded muscles of his biceps bunched and flexed as the vast amount of power thrumming through him vibrated against her. That power prickled her skin and made her pulse race. The scruff of his beard tickled her face, but she welcomed the delicious sensation.
She’d been around many powerful beings in her lifetime, but she’d never touched one like this before. And she’d never been kissed like this before. His kiss demanded more, and she willingly gave it.
Every thrust of his tongue, every touch of his hand, was designed to make her crave more, and it worked. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so destroyed yet so found by a kiss.
It felt as if he was breaking every part of her down to the most basic element and recrafting it into something else, something made entirely for him. Was this what it meant to be shadow kissed?
But no, despite the name, she knew someone had to offer up a lot more than a kiss for that kind of complete possession to occur. Still, he was changing her on a fundamental level that left her shaken and alive in a way she’d never been before.
She couldn’t get enough of him.
Her hands slid under his arms and pressed against his back. She tried to draw him closer even as his arms crushed her against him. His hand entwined in her hair and pulled her head back to give him better access to her mouth.
This was going too fast. She’d never been touched in such intimate, knowing ways before, and she had to slow down. He was a dark fae, if she didn’t get control of this, she might never regain control, but her body completely disagreed with the rationale of her brain.
She jumped when a booming knock on the door reverberated throughout the bathroom. When she tore her mouth away, his forehead fell to rest against her temple as his hands possessively gripped her ass.
“Lexi!” Sahira called. “Is everything okay in there?”
Lexi’s chest heaved as she labored to catch her breath. She tried to wiggle away from Cole, but his arms remained locked around her, and the sound he emitted froze her. When he lifted his head and their gazes met, she blinked at the sight of the pure silver eyes staring back at her.
She’d never seen a lycan on the verge of losing control. However, those silver eyes were a clear indication the beast was close to the surface. It should terrify her, as an out-of-control lycan was one of the deadliest creatures in all the realms, but she couldn’t feel any trepidation with his arms locked securely around her.
For the first time, she felt his claws against her ass and saw the faint hint of a cipher at his temple. The outline of his fangs was visible against his closed lips.
If she wasn’t mistaken, he was on the verge of transforming. But as she stared at him, the cipher vanished, and his claws retracted.
She wondered how many ciphers he truly possessed. Immortals whispered that the dark fae hid some of their ciphers from the outside world. The more ciphers a fae had, the stronger they were, but many claimed they only revealed a small percentage of those ciphers to the world so they could conceal the true depth of their power from their enemies.
It made sense to her, but this was the first time she’d seen evidence of it. The emergence of that cipher was as much a sign of his loss of control as his silver eyes.
When his erection pressed between her thighs, she resisted rubbing against him. For a minute, they simply stared at each other. Then her gaze fell to his mouth, and yearning tore through her.
“Lexi!” Sahira called, and a note of panic tinged her voice.
Struggling to breathe, she stammered out a reply. “I’m fi-fine! I’ll be right out.”
His arms squeezed her, and she sensed his irritation as Sahira sighed. Then her aunt’s footsteps sounded against the rug as she strode away
She waited for him to release her, but he remained towering over her with his body locked possessively around hers.
“I should….” Lexi swallowed the lump in her throat. “I should go.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but finally, and with a reluctance evident in his slow movements, he released her and stepped away. Lexi tugged her robe close around her as she wiggled off the countertop.
She resisted the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, but it was a losing battle. With her cheeks burning, she finished tugging her clothes into place.
“I must admit, you are a bit irresistible in this,” he murmured.
When he gripped the lapel of her robe and his fingers played with the material, Lexi frowned. She didn’t own anything she would consider irresistible. She glanced down at the pink fabric, and her eyes widened when she spotted the tiny bunnies on it.
With her face burning hotter, she closed her eyes. In her rush to grab clothes from the closet, she hadn’t snagged her new, white, fluffy robe. Instead, she’d taken the robe she’d practically worn threadbare as a kid.
Unwilling to part with it, she stashed it in her closet when she outgrew it at twelve. And now she was wearing it in front of him.
“I was in a rush,” she muttered. “Someone woke me in the middle of the night.”
His burst of laughter caused her eyes to blink in surprise. The sound rumbling from him made her toes curl as much as his passionate kiss. It was such a vibrant, warm sound, so much like the man who issued it.
He was still laughing when his head lowered. His eyes were that piercing blue again when they met hers.
Lexi bit her lip as she gazed at him. He was gorgeous, and she longed to run her fingers over the angles of his face before entwining them in his hair and kissing him again. But if she kissed him again, she wouldn’t stop, and she was not prepared for where it would all lead.
“It’s adorable,” he said before releasing the robe. “I should return to Brokk.”
“Yes, of course.”
She started to edge away from him, but his hand on her face stopped her. He wiped something from her cheek. When his hand moved away from her, she realized it was some of the salve she’d put on his palm.
“Your hand—” she started.
“It’s fine,” he assured her as he held it up between them.
Some of the salve remained on his palm. Beneath it, she saw the healing edges of the deep gash in his hand. “What caused it?”
“I grabbed the blade.”
Her eyebrows rose at this statement. She couldn’t imagine doing such a thing, let alone the agony accompanying it, but it didn’t seem to affect him.
“Until later,” he murmured as he clasped her chin and kissed her once more.
Before she could melt into his kiss again, he broke it off, opened the door, and left the room. She gazed after his back as she pondered his parting words.
What exactly did they mean? Would they continue what they’d started later, or was it just a parting comment?
An uneasy feeling grew in the pit of her stomach as she lifted her trembling fingers to her swollen lips.
Now that the confusion and chaos of the night was settling down, she recalled his brother—a traitor that Brokk and Cole were hunting earlier—was hidden beneath her manor.
The heat Cole’s kiss evoked vanished as her blood ran cold.