Page 14 of BRATVA'S Poisoner Bride
Her fingers twist in my lapel, pulling me closer, like she wants to crawl inside my chest and burn there. I swallow her soft sound, a broken little sigh that tastes like years of silence giving way to a single moment of want.
I break away only when I feel her lungs straining. I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in.
Her lips are kiss-bruised and her eyes are blown wide and dark.
Elizabeth looks at me like she’s trying to decide if she should slap me or drag me upstairs.
“You feel that,” I say, my voice rough. “Stop pretending you don’t.”
Her answer isn’t a word. It’s another kiss.
This one slower.
Deadlier.
Elizabeth
My mind completely empties when he kisses me. The kind of silence I haven’t experienced since the night my mom was killed. For the brief moment we were connected, I could justbe.
And whatever it is, Idofeel it. I might not want to, I definitely don’t understand it. But for this reckless, stupid moment, I’m not Lukan’s dutiful daughter or the daughter of a brutally murdered woman. I’m not even the woman who slowly poisoned a man to death. Deserving or otherwise.
I’m just a woman kissing a handsome man who sets her pulse racing and her core throbbing in ways she has never felt before.
And it’s electrifying.
My body is still humming with the intensity of it when he pulls back just enough to make me feel the sudden loss of his mouth like a wound. His breath skates across my lips, rough and uneven, and I realize I’m trembling with a hunger I’ve never experienced before.
The thought tried to break through to the sensible part of me. There’s an inner voice telling me I should shove him away, retreat back behind the walls I built brick by brick over years of surviving this house. But his hands are still on me, steady and claiming, and instead of making me flinch they make me feel safe.
No, not just safe. Seen.
I swallow hard, but the taste of him lingers, dark and intoxicating.
“I shouldn’t…” I whisper, though I don’t pull away. I can’t.
His fingers trace the line of my jaw, slow and commanding, turning my face back to his. “You should do whatever you want.”
The words land like a spark to dry tinder.
Want.
When was the last time I wanted anything just for myself?
He leans in again, but this time he doesn’t kiss me. He hovers, lips a breath from mine, eyes locked on me like he’s letting me choose. My heart slams against my ribs.
“I don’t know how to want,” I admit, my voice barely making a sound over the thundering of my heartbeat.
His thumb sweeps across my bottom lip, and I feel it everywhere.
“Then let me teach you.”
Everything inside me clamps tight and then unfurls at once.
No one has ever offered me anything that wasn’t wrapped in obligation or fear. No one has ever looked at me like this.
Until him.
“Elizabeth.” The way he says my name carves heat down my spine. “Show me where your room is.”
