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“A beast who wants to kiss your pretty mouth until it bleeds.” “Why?” The question both betrayed and assisted me, a little breathless as it fled between my tingling lips. Wrapped in silk and delivered with slowness, his answer wasn’t what the foolish part of me longed to hear. “So I can lick it clean until you heal, only to kiss your lips raw again.” A rumbled noise coated his harsh exhale. “And again.”
His presence was a flare of heat at my back, and his voice low and scathing. “Remove your hands, or I’ll remove them from your body and make you eat them.”
“I want to fuck you.” The gritted words burst between his teeth as though he’d been biting them since he’d arrived.
“You truly do want to, and I think you hate it.”
“If you so much as think about playing with anyone but me, I will tie you to this bed with their entrails and paint you in their blood while I fuck you.”
“What isn’t fair is your existence,” Atakan seethed, his mouth leaving my forehead and moving closer to mine. “The way you make me crave and loathe you in equal measure.”
But it softened the longer he looked down at me, and disappeared entirely when he murmured, “Enough to make me miss the creature I loathe the most.”
“I want you. I want you as much as I loathe you—so much, it feels like I can’t breathe.” His parted lips dragged across my cheek, his whisper scathing near my ear. “Give me back my fucking breath.”
“Atakan.” My voice croaked. “Tell me what really happened.” He halted before the door. Without looking at me, he dragged his hand through his hair, pushing it back over his head as he exhaled roughly. “We mated.”
“You’re right. You’re not my lover. You’re now my wife, yet that doesn’t seem quite enough either.” I nearly swayed when I rose, and he went on. “What do you call the only creature you want to watch and touch endlessly?”
“You must put your mouth on mine and kiss me until I tell you to stop.” My foolish heart skipped. Still, I taunted, “But what if you never do?” “Trust me.” He dropped his forehead to mine. “I never fucking will.”
Swallowing, he blinked drowsily. “Have I ever told you that you’re beautiful?” Stunned, my hand stilled. Another game, I determined. So I rubbed him again and smiled against his lips. “You would never.” “You are,” he said, voice thick. “Everything about you, even your tiny hand fluttering over my cock, is maddeningly perfect.”
His eyes closed. “I want your unyielding defiance, your mischievous curiosity, your ceaseless muttering in your sleep.” His eyes opened. “Your buttery hair in my hands.”
The conviction roughening and firming his voice held me utterly still. “I want you, Mildred. Always and incessantly, I’ve fucking wanted you.”
“I might not care for much of anything outside of my desires, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely heartless.” Her hand settled on my hip, and my clinical tone roughened. “That doesn’t mean I cannot love you.” I clasped her chin, my head lowering. “That doesn’t mean I don’t need you to be as obsessively in love with me as I am with you.”
Atakan was more than my mate—he was the edge I sharpened my armor upon and the safety I surrendered my softness to. I’d survived him because he’d allowed it. But I truly lived because I’d allowed him to prove he wasn’t heartless.
