Page 50 of Flirting with Darkness

My voice was rough, low. Vale lowered his head a little when I spoke, like he wanted to feel the words over his lips—stopping just shy of meeting them.

Neither of us moved. Not meeting that almost kiss, not pulling away, our hands both at the buttons of each other’s clothing but not unbuttoning them.

I watched Vale’s face, the panes of his features outlined in blue-silver licks of light that reminded me of the outlines of the roses I gave him. Even with the wounds remaining, he reminded me of a statue—a work of living art, carved from stone, subject to none of the atrocities of time or nature. He was eternity while I was impermanence—a being that embraced the mysteries I spent my entire life stifled by.

How could a being look so similar to a human and yet so stunningly different?

And yet…

Yet…

The corner of his mouth tightened. It should have been a smile, but the expression was so sad it gutted me.

“I always wondered what you were thinking,” he murmured. “When you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a formula to be solved, and you’re very intrigued about the answer.”

At this, I couldn’t help but smile. “Intriguing is the word.”

A wrinkle formed between his brows. “An acceptable one?”

The question struck me hard—struck me because I wasn’t prepared for it, for him to ask it that way, shy and tentative.

Like the answer meant something to him. Like the answer meant everything to him.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s remarkable.”

I could never solve Vale and his many mysteries, but I loved them all the same. And in these complexities, I saw a mirror held up to all the things that did not make sense within myself.

For the first time, I saw beauty in all the things I did not understand. And I knew that Vale saw beauty in all of those things within me, too.

I slipped my palm up his abdomen and relished the way his muscles twitched beneath my touch.

“I’d like you to kiss me again,” I said. “And I’d like this off.”

“Hmm.” He hummed feigned reluctance against my mouth, but only for a moment, because it was quickly swallowed by his next kiss—and this one was brutal, hard, demanding. He kissed me like we didn’t have any time. Like he was mortal.

His hand slid up my shirt, large palm flattening over my stomach, as if not sure if he wanted to go up or down—gods, I wasn’t sure where I wanted him to be, either. I wanted both, and quickly.

I broke away from his kiss just long enough to tear my shirt off over my head. A rush of cold air hit me as Vale pulled slightly away, despite my rough exhale of protest.

Those amber eyes moved over my body, taking in my bare skin. The hunger in them was unmistakable now.

You should be afraid,a voice whispered in the back of my mind.

But I’d never been afraid of death.

No, that hunger just fueled my own. My breasts were peaked with desire, begging to be touched—my core slick, begging to be filled. His eyes drank me in for what felt like an age and an instant.

Then, like his own desire had overwhelmed him, he reached for the buttons of my trousers and yanked them open. I lifted my hips to help them off, and I had barely kicked off the fabric before his hand was between my legs.

Pleasure sparked up my spine. A whimper escaped me. My fingernails dug into his back, and my body, of its own accord, jerked to be closer to his—even though he held me down to the bed.

He let out a low groan.

“I was right that night.” His mouth curled into a smirk against mine. He sounded satisfied with himself. “You do want this.”

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