Page 56 of Grotesque
“I read. I cook too, but there isn’t anything I do around the house that will entertain you.”
I sat up, pulling her with me. “Everything you do demands my attention, Sorcha. Allow me to savor you in the sunlight.”
I relished the precious minutes we spent lying tangled in the sheets, one creature of many limbs, before I rose, dragging Sorcha into the shower. The water carved pathways across her body, crisscrossing in rivulets that I followed with my tongue. Soft sighs fled her lips as I kneaded her skin with soap and ran my claws across her scalp and through her hair. The simple act of washing together gave me a sense of intimate pleasure not even sex could provide.
As she stepped out into the morning light to dry off, a ray of light cut across her shoulder, obscuring a bite mark I had left there, and I stared. Her soft skin was luminescent, her eyes flashing like cut gems.
I tipped her chin up as I leaned down to kiss her.
Sweet, sweet Sorcha would be coming home with me.
The sound the page made as I turned it seemed obscenely loud in the comfortable silence of the library. I peeked up at Corban over the top of my book. He looked so out of place against the burnished leather chair. His grey skin had a smooth polish to it beneath his fitted t-shirt and slacks. The black chain he wore around his neck, which I’d only just noticed – had he glamoured it on recently?– glistened the same way his horns did, as if they had both been dipped in oil. He’d glamoured his wings away but he was still much too large for the space he occupied. The library was one of the larger rooms in the manor, but with him inside it felt cramped.
His attention remained downcast, lost in the five books he had been sifting through for the last hour, but I could tell his focus had never left me. Whenever I wasn’t looking at him, I’d catchhis gaze on me from the corner of my eye. Drinking me in like I’d quench his thirst.
He’d been so gentle this morning that I’d wondered whether the spell had something to do with his cold and ruthless demeanor. If binding him to the house had somehow made him cruel and aggressive. Wishful thinking, considering he’d already told me his kind ate people. As those jade eyes lifted to me, I had the good sense to be scared shitless again. The way he ogled me made me wonder if he was weighing the benefits of eating me, versus not.
It gave the phraseif he wanted to he woulda whole new meaning.
It was strange seeing him in the daylight. In a way it made him seem less real, like the kind of monster he clearly was should only be able to exist in the deepest hours of the night, or lurking in the shadows. But here he sat, in broad daylight. Reading.
“What is running around in that little head of yours?” he crooned.
I shut my book. Corban leaned forward, setting his own book atop the stack, and rested his elbows over the top of his thighs. The movement was so sudden, so calculated it almost made me flinch.
“You’ve been trapped here for decades. You’ve finally told me the incredible thing that you are and all you want to do is watch me… read?” I waved my book at him.
Corban frowned, his brows pinching to the point they touched.
“Don’t you want to…. Leave? Go out somewhere? See anything other than these walls?”
He blinked slowly, his frown deepening. Sitting back, he stretched his long arms over the chair. “Leave.” The way he said it was like he was testing the weight of the word on his tongue. “Leave,” he said again.
“Yeah like… I don’t know, we could go for a drive into town. See the water. Why spend another second here if you don’t have to?”
His fingers drummed over the top of the armrest. In a single smooth movement he rose to his feet and strode out of the room.
“Corban?”
I hurried after him. Shadows flared down the stairs, whipping my hair around my face. By the time I got to the bottom he was gone. It had taken me only seconds and yet there was no sign of him. I padded through the living room, into the kitchen, and back again. All the doors and windows were shut tight. And all of the rooms were empty.
I felt torn. Something like relief had flooded my system as soon as I’d felt his presence fade away, some kind of relaxation of my fight or flight reflex I guessed. But in the same breath, I was desperate for him to return. Certainly he wouldn’t leave me, after finally revealing what he was. Letting me see him in all his glory.
I don’t know how I was supposed to go on with my life after experiencing him. He’d ruined all other men for me.
I scoffed. He wasn’t even aman.
Daylight was fading again by the time he finally returned. I was pacing the front porch, my nails red raw from how much I’d bitten them down. When I turned on my heel for the thousandth time he was striding up the driveway, his long legs eating up the distance between us. My heart lurched.
Fuck. He looked absolutely lethal – and the way he was looking at me!Nowthiswas relief. Relief that he had come back. Relief that he looked at me like I meant something. A cruel wicked smile tugged the corner of his mouth, revealing his fangs.
“Miss me?” he purred.
“I thought I finally had the place all to myself.” I tried to will confidence into my voice. I hoped he thought my tone was teasing instead of desperate.
“And leave you in peace?” Corban stood in front of me, his face tipped down so the fringe above his brows cast shadows across his reflective eyes. “I had to get something.” At the snap of his wrist, a silver chain fell out of his palm. I recognized the locket from the first night we met.
“You tried to give it to me before. What is it?”
