Page 48 of Saint of the Shadows

He sighed, his shoulders tensing up to his neck.

She had to make sure. “Vincent. Come here.”

He sidled to her, close enough to graze the top of his hand at her hip. Marisol reached out and pressed her hands against his face, forming the shape of a mask with her fingers. He looked away from her. The blue shimmer of his irises poked through the space between her fingers. Stained glass in the sun. She knew.

Vincent Varian was the Patron Saint.

“It’s you.”

He drew in a quick breath, as if he was about to say something. Yet he remained silent, managing a shrug.

She moved her fingers down his neck. “I think... I needed him to be you.”

The corners of his mouth turned up. His darkened eyes searched her face, stopping at her lips.

Marisol lifted her head to meet his mouth. His true identity was all the more clear to her as he tasted like a thunderstorm: petrichor and air thick with static charges. Goosebumps dotted her arms as her skin sang from little electrical jolts. She pushed her tongue against his, and his arms encircled her waist. The strength of his embrace released her startled gasp. Soon she hummed with delight. She aimed to entice him further, changing the pressure of her tongue to a light flicker and then a strong lunge that he returned. The thrills she chased running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop didn’t match her high now.

A twinge from her bad knee warned her. A little too high.

Marisol caught her breath. She rested her forehead against his shoulder. Vincent ran his fingers through her hair and pulled it away from her neck. He kissed behind her ear and down her neck, sucking gently against its tendon, down to her collarbone. His hands slid her flannel from her shoulders. The thin fabric of her undershirt did nothing to block the sudden chilled air pulling her nipples taut. Too high. Her body clenched like a fist, resisting the loss of control. She pursed her lips together and closed her eyes.

He kissed her eyelids, as if starting a reverent ceremony. “How may I please you?”

She popped open one eye. Oddly formal question, but one no one had asked her, even casually: What do you like? She liked the tender sensation of silk braided with the potential energy of leather and shredding power of barbed wire. She liked complex. She liked breaking and reconstructing; a burn followed with a balm.

She opened her other eye and ran her fingers over his belt. “Give it to me bone deep.”

He bristled his knuckles against her cast. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But what about what she needed? She needed to feel everything—groped, slammed, pounded into. Everything times a thousand just to know she wasn’t dead inside. She pressed her lips to his ear. “Pain will remind us that we’re alive.”

“Hm,” he answered like she offered him the sweetest foretaste of pleasure swirling with pain. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her through the hall. As he entered her room, he kicked the ottoman by the chair, and it slid to the foot of the bed.

He lowered her onto the edge of the bed; her bad leg extended on the ottoman. He kneeled before her as if she was his altar. She rubbed his torso with her free thigh, hoping to lure him closer. His body felt so hard and warm between her legs.

He raised his arms above his head, surrendering himself to her. She peeled the sweater from his body. With alabaster skin, he appeared as a monument of strength and symmetry.Unblemished. Perfect. How? Didn’t she pull a blade out of him? But as he looked at her from his place on the ground, the time for answers would be later. Much later…

She wanted to savor him with her mouth and to worship his body. She wanted to kiss the brawn of his shoulders and to run her tongue over the ridges of his abdomen. Yet she was stuck on the altar. Damn him for kneeling. She wouldn’t be able to touch or stroke her favorite parts of his body without falling off the bed.

She could only receive his attention. He pulled the black sock from her good foot and traced his fingers up her calf and thighs. At her hips, he pushed her undershirt over her curves, his touch careful of her yellowing bruises. Hot kisses chased after the hem of her shirt. A little skin, then a kiss. He set the pattern forth up her flank and to her shoulder, continuing down her arm to the tips of her fingers. There, he untangled her from the undershirt.

With his face at her hands, she caressed his square jawline and pulled him to her naked body to offer her breasts to his mouth. He indulged her desire by coaxing a nipple between his fingers. His kisses were like a trail of gasoline, and his kneading hands at her breast lit the match. Another pluck. A fire raged inside her, so much so, she arched her pelvis toward him.

“How may I please you?” He took a nipple in his mouth, but his gaze remained on her.

Marisol flung her head back and moaned. “That’s good.”

“Does it please you when I do this?” He nibbled the inside of her thigh and kissed where his teeth indented her flesh, anointing her with his tongue.

Her muscles wound tight behind her belly, forming into a hollow ache. She sucked in a breath. “Depends.”

He nestled his head on her thigh and looked at her with wide eyes. His fingers traced the edges of her shorts. “Depends?”

She nudged his chin with her thigh. “Is that mouth of yours going to go any higher, or are you going to tease me to death?”

He curled his lips into a wicked smile. He kissed her thigh and breathed hot air against her apex. Twisting away, she was unsure if she’d survive. She’d have to demand release. She’d have to tell him to put that wicked mouth to work. She’d have to order him to make her come.

What was that? That inner voice couldn’t be her. She closed her eyes, squeezing away her desire. In her self-made darkness, she saw herself in the mask, running through the flames. She was becoming her—a power-drunk creature demanding to be worshiped on her altar. And he was an excellent supplicant on his knees, stroking her through the fabric of her shorts. Oh God.

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