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“Yeah. Good idea. Talking is so overrated.” And yet I still wasn’t shutting the hell up.

Why was I so nervous anyway? I only ever babbled when I was nervous. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen him all day and had no idea what was going on in his head. Was he freaking out? Were his memories still safe and sound? Had he gotten in touch with that mysterious Caster friend of his again?

Or maybe it was because of what Tessa had started to tell me tonight. About our mother looking for answers about my bloodline. About me being able to do so much more than what any of us had imagined, whatever that meant.

Or maybe I was just nervous because of the way he was looking at me…all predatory and starving, like he wanted to melt me down into a puddle of sex and then drink me up until the last drop.

“Come over here,” he said suddenly, his voice low and gruff and filled with need.

A need I wanted desperately to fulfill for him.

Familiar warmth flitted low in my belly as I pushed off the bed and walked over to him. Without saying anything, I flattened my hands atop his shoulder and then sat down on his lap, straddling him as I had done the other night. There was no point in holding back anymore—in running from what we both wanted. The line had already been spectacularly crossed and it was so much better on this side.

“You looking for a do over?” I whispered as he clutched my hips and then dragged me against his hardness, slow and deliberate, with only the thin fabric of my underwear safeguarding me.

“Something like that,” he said and then slid me back the opposite way, grinding my body against his.

Leaning forward, I pressed my lips against his and ripped a kiss from his lips as he continued to rock me back and forth, making me writhe with nothing more than the feel of him between my legs.

“Take this off,” I said, tugging against his shirt.

Reaching back for the collar of his shirt, he tugged it up and then off his head before throwing the shirt on the floor behind me. My hands splayed against his chest, reveling in the heat of his body under my fingertips, in the solidity of his chest as I racked my fingernails against his skin.

Kneading my hips, he pushed me down harder as he continued to grin my body against his, letting mefeelevery single generous inch of him beneath me. “Do you see what you do to me?”

My thighs clenched as warmth pooled low in my belly.

“You drive me crazy, Jemma,” he murmured huskily, his eyes glazed with desire as he watched me roll my hips against him. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

Smiling down at him, I said, “You’re doing good so far.”

“I’m serious,” he said as he reached down and grabbed my shirt before carefully peeling it off my body, drawing back only enough to allow the fabric to pass between us. “I want to protect you, and fuck you, and devour you all at once.”

My stomach rippled as I looked down at him and then paused for dramatic effect. “So, do it.”

Primal need flickered across his eyes as he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my mouth to his like he was going to make good on his promise. And I so hoped he did. With fiery electricity racing over my skin, I weaved my fingers into his hair and tugged. It wasn’t enough. I needed to feel him against me, around me, and inside me.

As if hearing my needs, his hands dropped to my hips, clutching as he pushed me back enough to unzip himself. My heart skipped with anticipation as he reached between my legs and pulled my underwear to the side, lifting me up until I could comfortably sink down against him.

The sensation was almost too much, the inferno within me running so deeply that I was sure it would ignite me from the inside out. Burn me to ashes right to the ground. Trace dug his able hands into my hips and moved me, painstakingly slow at first and then a little faster as my body acclimated to having him inside me at this angle.

Leaning my chest against his, I continued to move my hips as I had done before, rolling them against him as he slipped his tongue between my lips. Nothing else existed in that moment but the two of us and the unquenchable need we had for each other. The never-ending pull of our bodies and souls.

I realized then that somewhere along the way, he had slowly and without my knowledge put me back together. Every touch of his hand had been healing. Every kiss from his lips had been patient. There was no pain in the pleasure he gave me. No darkness in the things he filled my heart with. He was the sun to my rainstorm; a promise of a better tomorrow and it only made me want for him more.

Desire flooded my veins as that familiar feeling coiled from low in my belly, snapping me back to the here and now. My skin hummed as I took in the Reaper watching me with those loving eyes of his, moving me against him like it was his mission, knowing my body like he had been born to please it.

“Come for me,” he whispered as he cupped the base of my head and pulled my mouth down to his.

And I did.

Over and over again until I could barely remember my name.

37. DANGEROUS WOMAN

The rain fell from the sky like plummeting hatchets as I met Tessa in the school parking lot the next day at lunch. Judging by the incensed look on her face when I’d climbed into her black Cadillac, the impromptu rendezvous wasn’t going to be a joyous one. She had a bone to pick and something told me it was going to be one of mine.

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