Page 114 of Her Dreadful Will
Soleil jerked herself upright, and Achan rolled aside, his mouth a flash of moon-white teeth.
“You idiot bastard!” she half-sobbed, half-screamed, smacking his cheek. “I thought you were dead!”
“Ow. I was only mostly dead.”
“Is—is that a movie reference?” she said tightly. “Because if you’re quotingPrincess Brideright now I’m going to kill you myself. This isn’t a joke, Achan. You—you were—” She couldn’t suck in enough breath. Her lungs constricted, and stars pricked across her vision, which was growing alarmingly dark around the edges, like the vignette filter in her phone’s camera app—
“Soleil. Love.” Achan’s hand, warmer now and strong, curved around the back of her neck. “Look at me. I’m all right.”
“You went too far,” she gasped.
“I did. I wanted to show you how I felt. How far I would go for you. But I overshot, just a bit.”
“No kidding.” She pressed two fingertips to the line of his throat, where she could feel the blood pumping through him. “Don’t ever do that again. Just tell me how you feel, like a normal person.”
“Why should I? You never do.”
She pulled back, averting her gaze. “What do you mean?”
“That, right there. You won’t say what you feel. You lose your words. You turn away, or you get angry.”
His right hand cupped her hip, his thumb stroking the hollow there, crinkling the thin cotton of her panties. Soleil’s body heated. His fingers were way too close to her mound, and if he kept doing that, she was going to be in a very embarrassing predicament soon. She could feel herself going lax and liquid at his touch, while her anger softened, turning foggy and indistinct.
Her eyes drifted to her jeans, lying several feet away. If she could move away from him and put them on, maybe she could pull herself back together.
But all she really wanted was to shift her body so his fingers would slide from the hollow of her hip and press at the apex of her thighs.
She glanced at his boxers, noting the tell-tale prominence tenting the fabric. The evidence of his desire made her clit pulse. A warm, vivid rush of pleasure traced through her folds.
Cool night air wafted between them, but Soleil could taste the humid haze of the day, settling back in after the violence of his chaos. She could taste the heaviness of lust, too, a tantalizing glamor, tempting her tongue, her skin, her fingers, summoning her closer to him.
“Use your words,dorogoi,” he whispered. “Tell me how you feel.”
He’d saiddorogoion purpose, to distract her, to rile her—it was disconcerting how well he knew her pressure points. But then, he’d been learning her for years.
“Whydorogoi?” she asked, breathless. “You’re not Russian. Are you?”
“My mother was a Russian actress. She emigrated to the United States and moved to California to try her luck in Hollywood. She met my father there. When I started being Lucibae for the Institute, I decided to use a hint of my heritage. Girls like to use cute pet names for each other, and this was one I could stomach. Plus it made me more mysterious and interesting.” He winked, leaning closer.
“Mysterious and interesting? You chose a blinking pink snowflake as your message cursor!”
“Such depravity!” His tone was soft, edged with mock horror. “Honestly, it was the only available symbol close enough to the Chaos Star. You know, with the eight points?”
He was still stroking her, but his fingertips had slid inward, to her lower belly. Right above the spot where she wanted, needed, craved his touch. Soleil frowned deeply, trying to distract herself from the fact that the hand at the back of her neck was now gliding up and down her spine, coaxing ripples of sensation from every inch of her skin.
“You told me you were studying cleansing magic,” she murmured.
“Officially, I was. Chaos is just the flip side of that coin.”
She mustered enough willpower to shrug off his hands and put a little space between them. “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”
“Oh come on. Just because I was convincing enough to be part of your secret girls’ club?”
“Yes! I feel violated, okay? You admitted to catfishing me. Faking your gender online so you could be part of ‘girl talk.’ It’s creepy.”
His lashes drooped disdainfully. “That’s so last-century, Sol. Binary gender means next to nothing nowadays.”
His cavalier attitude sent a sliver of annoyance through her. She wanted to see him unsettled.
