Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
The echo of the conversation hung on that word. Is she a wren? Are you? She didn’t know what it meant. But she’d done enough research now to know that holly and wrens were intertwined. One a symbol for the other. The end of winter. The beginning of spring. They belonged together.
Then by all rights, she was his.
She straddled his tall frame, settling herself onto his lap. Her hands came up around his neck. He was searing. Hot as fire, but not in the way the wish powder had burned through her. In the way she wanted him to burn through her. She could see in the quirk of his mouth and the storms in his eyes and the tilt of his head that he was intrigued.
“What are you doing?”
“What we should have done the night you kissed me.”
Then she dropped her mouth onto his. His hot, perfect mouth that tasted like every deadly sin. His lips were decadent, soft and smooth, unlike the hard lines of his personality. He tasted like bourbon and cinnamon. A potent combination that made her head spin. She knew his magic didn’t work on her, that she was immune to him, but for a moment there, she could also taste his magic on her tongue. She shivered at the contact, wanting nothing more than to be devoured whole.
He pulled back roughly, breaking the kiss with a disgruntled noise. “I can’t give you what you need.”
“Oh, I think you can,” she said coyly.
“Deserve,” he corrected.
She scoffed. “That word is meaningless.”
His hand brushed a lock of her hair out of her face. “Little wren, I am a monster. A monster in a suit, but one with claws nonetheless.”
“I don’t care,” she told him. “That’s what I want.”
“You don’t want . . .”
“Don’t tell me what I want. I’ll tell you what I want. I want you.” Her hand came to the tie on his suit, dragging him in closer to her. Their mouths were a hairsbreadth apart as she commanded, “Let the monster off its leash.”
He groaned. He had been contained for so long—had held back nearly every bit of what made him him—that at her word, he erupted.
Their lips crashed back together, hungry and wanting. It was nothing like that kiss at the party and yet, somehow, exactly like it. Maybe he hadn’t been pretending any more than she had. That night had been an awakening, and here they were, reaching for completion.
Graves’s hands landed on her ass. That night at Imani’s, he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of her ass at the party. And now he was getting his fill. He gripped her hard. Hard enough to bruise. And fuck, she liked it. She couldn’t hold back the groan against his lips. Because it had been a long time since she’d felt like this. A long time since she’d been comfortable enough to let go of control and just exist in the moment. She never would have thought it would be with Graves, but fuck, he felt so good.
This was what she’d asked for, what she wanted. Sex. Plain and simple. None of those pesky emotions or complications. This was the easy part, and she wanted it all. All of him.
“Wren,” he growled as his lips ran across her jaw.
“Yes,” she gasped.
He pressed a kiss to the pulse at her neck, the very point that was beating furiously. It was where he’d first touched her when she thought he might be a vampire and want to drain her dry. She’d considered then that she just might let him. And now, she was putty in his hands. Willing, very willing to do whatever he requested.
When his tongue found her collarbone, his hands slid up and under her top. Those gloved hands weren’t enough. She wanted to feel his hands on her, and yet the heat coming from him was hot enough to burn. Would she even survive his hands on her?
She rolled her hips against him with an urgency she could hardly suppress. She didn’t want to suppress it. Not anymore.
“Fuck,” he snarled.
He hoisted her into the air and crashed her back down onto the couch, putting him in the dominant position. Her eyes flared wide at the abrupt change. She should have been afraid with him over her like this, but when had he ever not been in control? Never. And even this sliver of release, the sensuous word fuck out of his lips, was a more powerful aphrodisiac than wish powder.
He thrust forward, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head at the hard length of him against the thin material of her pants. She arched backward, meeting his rhythm beat for beat. Her body tightened and went loose all at the same time. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and she just wanted him to shred her clothing. Tear it to pieces with his hands and own her.