Page 26 of A City of Smoke and Demons
‘I’m sorry,’ he pushed her hair off her face, tucking a chunk behind her ear. She shivered and he dropped his hand. ‘For now, and for earlier. I didn’t mean—’
‘You shouldn’t touch me like that. I could have killed you.’ Analise spoke without thinking and once the words were out, she couldn’t take them back. She bit her lip, watching his face for any hint he knew what she was talking about.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked quietly.
‘I mean … I couldn’t really but … touch me without permission again and I’ll end you. You’d best believe I know how to carve up a body.’ She shifted off him to lie on her side, facing him, needing to change the subject before she said something so obvious even a gangster’s prize boxer couldn’t miss it. ‘I touched a nerve earlier, didn’t I?’
Ezra flipped onto his side, the action bringing them close together. ‘You did.’
‘Which one? Tell me so I can touch it again.’
His chuckle was low. ‘I’ve got other nerves I’d rather you touch.’
Analise’s breathing hitched against her will. ‘Oh? I’m not sure about that.’
‘Why not? You were sure about it a week ago.’
‘That was different, you were there.’ Like the man in the dream, she couldn’t see Ezra’s face, but she could feel his eyes burning a hole through her.
‘I’m here now.’
Her throat tightened. ‘I’m not sure I want to know what tricks you’ve learnt in the skin market.’
‘What makes you think I visit the skin market? And anyway, those ladies are highly professional.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ Analise managed. His lips were right there. If she leant forward, just a little …
‘If you don’t want me to touch you, tell me now,’ he whispered.
Analise said nothing. His hand brushed her hip and when she didn’t move or push him away, Ezra’s gaze fell to her mouth. She licked her lips, heard him bite back a groan, before his lips grazed her jaw. She gasped as he traced a path down her neck with the tip of his tongue, so languid and slow that she wanted toscream at how easy he was undoing her. Heat coiled between her legs and her muscles slowly liquified.
It was the dream, she reasoned. She was rattled because of the dream, not because of his bloody tongue. Not because she remembered he knew how to use it. Analise moaned and tipped her head back; the hand resting on her hip tightened at the sound.
‘You hate me, don’t you?’ Ezra whispered against her throat.
‘I wasn’t supposed to see you again.’
A pause, his mouth lifting from her skin. ‘One of your rules?’
She nodded, then shivered when she noticed what other part of him she could feel. Her mouth went dry, her brain emptied and her fingernails pressed into his flesh as his knee edged between her thighs. She was on fire.
‘Rules are made to be broken,’ Ezra murmured.
Analise took a deep breath, and pushed him away. ‘Not this one.’ She waited, not sure what to expect. Something flitted across his face but it was gone so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. She almost apologised, then remembered she owed him nothing.
‘Right,’ he said eventually. ‘Good night, I guess.’
Analise shifted onto her back to stare at the ceiling, barely able to breathe. A wildfire raged in her chest. She squeezed her thighs together and dug her fingernails into her palms. After a moment, Ezra got up.
‘Where are you—’
‘I need at least fifteen minutes, maybe more, alone,’ he said, voice tight. He was gone before she could say anything else, and didn’t return.
Ezra’s back was stiff. He’d spent the rest of the night on the parlour floor. Jem came by, saw him there and said nothing. Ezra was looking into the bag Jem left when Analise breezed into the kitchen, dropping onto a chair at the table. She drummed her fingernails on the table-top, but didn’t say a word and he couldn’t look at her, not yet, not when he wanted to run his tongue over her skin.
He shouldn’t have touched her last night but he couldn’t help it.
Ezra cleared his throat and indicated the bag. ‘I’ll make you something to eat.’
