Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128374 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
He shivers, and his chest rises and falls quickly, over and over, as if he’s running. “Don’t love my tattoos,” he whispers. “Don’t romanticize something you know nothing about.”
“There’s my grumpy shadow prince.” I let my fingers graze the hard planes of his abdomen and all the markings there. “You don’t like them?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then why do you get them?” I lift his shirt and study one that dips beneath his waistband. It looks like a five-pointed star with a swerving line through the middle. I press my thumb against it and lift my eyes to meet his. “I want to taste this one.”
His nostrils flare. With a low grunt, he takes me by the wrists and pins my hands to the shower wall above my head. “Brie. Be still.”
“Why? Finn . . .” I whisper his name like a secret. With my hands trapped, the only way I can touch him is if I arch my back to press my body against his, so I do. “Please. I want to be wanted. With no strings, no expectations. A kiss without demands for a promise I can’t make. Just once.”
He frowns at me. He looks younger when he frowns like that. Less serious, which is bizarre. Who looks less serious when they frown?
“Sebastian wanted the girl he was kissing. He doesn’t want me, though. Not like that.”
“Trust me. Sebastian wants you. Desperately.” There’s a sneer on his face at these words, but when I circle my hips to press my body closer to his, it disappears almost as quickly as it appeared. His throat bobs as he swallows.
I shake my head. “Everyone wants something from me, but nobody wants me. He always leaves when I kiss him. I think it’s because I won’t promise to be his bride. But he didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to keep kissing her.”
His jaw ticks. “He’s an idiot.”
That makes me smile, but I try to bite it back. “But you . . . sometimes you look at me like you want me—that is, when you’re not looking at me like you hate me. Finn . . .” I let out a breath and it sounds like a whimper. “Touch me.”
“I’m not going to take you to my bed just because your prince hurt your feelings.”
I try to free my hands, but he tightens his hold. “Can you just pretend?” I ask. “For a minute? Kiss me like you kissed her.”
“Who?” His chest rises and falls with his heavy breaths, and his gaze returns to my mouth no matter how many times he tears it away.
“The human girl Kane brought for you. The tribute. I saw her in your arms and . . . I wanted it to be me.”
Finn freezes for a long beat, his only movement the bobbing of his throat as he swallows.
My skin is so hot. Too hot. And the water is too cold. And the only places on my body that feel right are the parts that are touching him. And if Sebastian knew these things I feel for Finn, if he knew that part of me wants Finn, he’d never forgive me. But what’s one more transgression against him? Would it matter in the end? He didn’t choose me tonight. Why would he ever choose me after learning the truth?
“He’d still choose you,” Finn says, frowning. How much did I say out loud? I can’t bring myself to care about any of it right now, not when my skin tingles like it was made for touching. Not when Finn’s adjusted his grip on my hands and his thumbs are lightly stroking the insides of my wrists.
“Let me touch you.” I squirm against him.
Finn uses his body to press me against the wall to stop my movement, one powerful thigh thrust between my legs. He lowers his mouth to the crook of my neck. My skin is so hot, his breath is a cool caress. “Just . . . be still. This feeling will pass.”
I rock into him, needing release. “I ache.” I don’t care that I sound pathetic. Desperate. Nothing matters but the coiling heat low in my stomach and the need burning in my blood.
“I know.” He keeps his face buried in my neck, and I can barely hear his muffled words over the roaring in my ears.
“Is it me?” My voice cracks. It’s me. I’m not enough.
“Never.”
“Prove it.”
The sharp sting of his teeth against my neck makes me gasp, but then his tongue flicks across my skin, turning the pain to pleasure. My blood pulses there, silently begging for more attention.
I let instinct take over—instinct and this need to escape my own spiraling thoughts. My hips move, rubbing my center against his muscled thigh, begging with my body for more, but his grasp remains firm on my wrists, his mouth and tongue moving up my neck to nip my ear, hot and delicious. I focus on that point of friction between us with every ounce of my awareness, chasing my pleasure until it pulses through me.