Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Heat flashed through me, and my body ached with longing. Casey hadn’t been my only lover. I’d been with my ex-fiancé for far longer, but I could barely remember Scott’s face now. It had been Casey who’d haunted me all these years, whose memory had cut through all the others.
He hadn’t been able to burn away Casey and Kelsey. Wasn’t that what Dean had figured out that day the royals had returned? He’d been in my head that day, too. He’d been there before I’d let the master take over.
Before I’d let him bury me away and do what he wanted to with my body and my magic.
I rolled us over, moving on top of Casey. He was a gorgeous beast, with his fangs out and his eyes going full-on light blue. It was the color of the sky in wintertime, but there was nothing cold about how he looked at me. His hands moved up my thighs to cup my ass.
“You need to be in control, baby?” He squeezed my cheeks, sending a wave of lust through me.
“Yes.” We didn’t play the way Kelsey did with Gray. We hadn’t done a ton of kinky stuff, but I suddenly understood the impulse. I couldn’t be the submissive partner today. I needed to be in control.
His hands came back and away, offering himself to me. “Take what you need, baby. I know you won’t want to hear this…”
I knew exactly what he was going to say, and five minutes before I would have stopped him. The words would have turned in my gut, but I wanted them now. “Tell me.”
“I love you.”
I couldn’t say it back. I couldn’t, but it was there in my heart. It was there in the soul I still had left.
I started to pull my shirt over my head but remembered the veins he would see. They weren’t as dark as they’d been before, but they were still a map of everything I’d done in the last dozen years, physical proof that I’d taken a darker path, one that hadn’t included him.
“Don’t. I still love you. I still think you’re beautiful, Olivia. No matter what.”
I dragged the shirt over my head because I believed him. Because I wanted nothing between us in that moment. The walls would come up again soon enough, but for now I wanted to pretend we could be together. I wanted the world to make sense for an hour or so before I went back to plotting, and those veins, that map of betrayal on my body, led me further and further from him.
Lucky for me someone had already gotten me out of my pants and shoes. Likely because Evan had wanted to take anything off that was constricting me. My underwear was doing a damn fine job of that. “Tear them off.”
I didn’t care that I might not have another pair. Kelsey was now the queen of a whole Hell realm. She could order some new ones. She would likely be thrilled to because she would take this as a good sign.
It wasn’t. It was pure desperation, but in the moment it was the perfect solution.
He had those bikini panties off me in a flash, and then I tore open his shirt, sending buttons flying all over the room. I let my hands find his chest, caressing the cool flesh I found there. Casey had a beautiful chest, all lean muscle and alabaster skin.
I used to love to cuddle with him. He would wrap his body around mine and listen to my heartbeat. He could do it for hours, and I would feel safe and relaxed and loved.
I’d never told Kelsey how well Casey took care of me. I’d never shared that with her because I’d been trying to hide how much care I’d needed. I’d been hiding how much I’d needed her. I’d smiled and lied and resented her when she didn’t see through it.
“Don’t, baby. Stay with me,” he pleaded. “Just for a little while. Let it be us and nothing else in all the planes. We’re safe here.”
Safe. How long had it been since I’d felt safe? Loved? Like I belonged?
I practically ripped open his slacks, freeing his cock, and I could feel his magic starting to pulse through the room. Vampires fed off sex magic, and he hadn’t in a long time. I no longer questioned him. He wouldn’t lie to me about other women.
Had I lied to him? Had there been others that I couldn’t remember because my body had been used even as they discarded pieces of my soul?
I shoved the thought out of the way as I lowered myself onto his stiff cock. I was already wet, but I loved the feel of him stretching me wide. His hands came up, gripping my hips.
I fucked him, wanting to dominate and take back something that had been lost to me. But somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized what had been lost was the softness I felt.