Page 29 of Can't Bite This Feeling
A portal opens behind him, and he vanishes.
My legs give out, and I collapse.
Rapha is beside me in an instant, holding me, whispering my name.
“He still has control,” I whisper. “Not with chains or spells, but withfear.I froze when I saw him. I became that terrified girl again. But I can’t be her anymore. Iwon’tbe.”
Rapha cups my face, brushing hair from my cheek. “You won’t be. Lucifer’s games have gone too far this time.”
But something in his voice falters.
And I know he’s not sure Lucifer can be reasoned with anymore.
Chapter 8
Rapha
I almost lost her.
The thought circles my head in an endless loop. And the worst part? I barely noticed she was slipping from me until Lucifer threw it in my face.
I could blame him. Iwantto blame him. His sick little games, the way he puppets the dead and dances on the ruins of what we once were. But the truth is, the darkness didn’t take me by force. I let it in.
I becamegreed.
The hunger crawls up my throat again. Not for blood. Not for food. Not even for her, though the echo of her moaning my name still lingers.
No, this is worse.
This hunger is slick and insidious. It tastes like power, like punishment, like the thrill of soul-trading and the lie that I’min control.
What I should feel right now is a sense of peace. The slow, aching love of what it means to be hers and that she’s safe. I should feel reconnected.
But the gnawing need still rakes at me.
I take her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. Her brow furrows, lips parting to speak, but then I’m kissing her mouth, soft and slow. She melts against me in the space of a breath, her arms winding around my neck.
I scoop her into my lap and carry her to the bedroom.
The moonlight spills through the tall windows as I lay her down, worshiping every inch of skin I once feared I’d never touch again.
I undress her slowly, reverently, brushing my knuckles along her collarbone, my lips tracing the curve of her throat. She shivers beneath my hands, beneath my mouth. Her breath catches, her eyes searching mine.
“Rapha…” Her voice is soft but strained. “We need to talk. About Cassian. About what’s happening to you.”
I press my lips to hers before she can say more, swallowing the rising worry in her tone. “Words can wait,” I murmur. “Let me show you what you are to me. What you still are. What you’ll always be.”
She shivers beneath me, eyes locked to mine, and I see the question there:Do you still see me? Still want me?
I answer with my body.
The moment my mouth finds the tender peak of her breast, her body arches into mine, her fingers digging into my back.
I kiss down her sternum, over her belly, easing her thighs apart as her breath grows ragged. She tries to speak again, but I silence her with the drag of my tongue along the heat of her, slow and deep, my hands anchoring her hips.
She gasps, her head falling back, one arm flung across her forehead as she begins to tremble. I stay there, tasting her, worshipping her with every stroke of my mouth. I drink down the sounds she makes, the broken moans, the way she clutches my hair as if she’ll fall without me holding her together.
Her thighs tighten around my head. Her breath catches.
