Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(123)

She took a step back toward the door, choking on a sob as she sprinted away, but she didn’t make it far. The Villain was at her side, slamming the door shut in front of her, grabbing both of her cheeks, cradling them in his hands.

“No,” he rasped out, eyes searching, fear and agony in his gaze. “Damn you. I couldn’t”—he shook—“I couldn’t stand by and allow my mother to say I wasn’t capable of feeling. Not when the truth is so blatant it would be an insult to you to claim anything else.”

Her eyes burned, and she sounded like a rusty door hinge when she said, “You love me?”

His lips drifted closer, his eyes closing as his forehead pressed against hers, a rightness in every place they touched. “If that’s what this awful feeling in my chest is, if that’s why I can’t imagine my life without you, if that’s what love is—then yes, Evie. I love you so much it’s terrible.”

She let out a broken laugh.

“What is funny?”

She laid her lips to his in answer, and the world turned into something new, something colorful again, something without pain, or worry, or betrayal. Just lips touching, just electric waves through her body, shooting straight for her pounding heart.

Just his hands, clutching her face like a lifeline, moving her head so he could kiss her deeper, breathing heavily when their lips parted. Her fingers glided over his jaw, and if looks could physically grip a person, his touched her all over in response.

The glaze in his eyes spoke to a sense of hopelessness within him. “Sage, what about destiny? The prophecy—”

She put a finger over his lips to stop him from talking, and the heat from his breath sent a chill down her neck. “All I need to hear is that you love me. That you want this. Forever.”

There was no hesitation in his voice when he said, “I want you. Forever.”

Everything inside Evie was white-hot. “Then let’s pretend none of those other things exist right now.”

He frowned. “I am The Villain. I do not pretend.”

She kissed him deeply, holding his cheeks gently in her hands, gliding her fingers up and down as she touched her tongue to his lower lip.

He jerked back, staring at her, wide-eyed, for several long seconds before saying evenly, “I was pretending when I said that.”

She was swept off her feet seconds later, tossed onto the cot with a squeak and a small bounce as he came down on top of her. The storm thundered on, lightning flashing through the small window, gifting Evie with a quick view of Trystan’s stomach muscles as he pulled his damp shirt over his head. His bare chest brushed her damp, corseted one and she said a small prayer of thanks that at least, in this moment, Rennedawn’s curse seemed to be keeping Trystan’s death magic at bay. It was nowhere to be found.

She wasn’t cold anymore; she wasn’t sure she’d ever be cold again.

Her sexual experiences, in practice, were limited, despite how imaginative her books could get—so she really had little to which she might compare this feeling of her world shifting at every point their skin touched. But there was no possible way anything could feel better.

Every missing piece of her felt like it had come home.

He went to her corset strings, and his fingers slipped. He frowned at the tightly bound laces. “This is difficult when you’re wet.”

“I thought that was supposed to make it easier,” she said cheekily.

He looked so scandalized, Evie cackled. “I meant your corset, little tornado.”

“Why do you call me that?” she asked softly, slowly pulling her corset strings free. He watched, enraptured by the movements of her fingers.

“Because, much like a cyclone, you sweep everything up, leaving it all in a different place.”

Somewhere in the process of pulling the corset strings, he’d taken over. Her breaths came easier as each string was loosened. “In other words, I leave everything in the wrong place?”

“No,” he whispered, spreading each side of her corset open, nothing but her chemise covering her now. He bent to say the next words right into her ear. “You make everything right.”

They were kissing then; she didn’t know who moved first, couldn’t tell, as they’d both reached for each other in a frenzy, not knowing how much time they had before one of them stuck their foot in their mouth and got in their own way. It was a finely honed skill that neither wanted anything to do with in this moment.

“Until the rain stops.” She sighed as he pulled the chemise downward, revealing her breasts. He immediately covered them with small kisses, making a trail of them down her sternum. “We can stay in our bubble until the rain stops,” she reasoned.

“I’ll pray for a torrential downpour,” he replied with a small grin, his mouth finding hers again as he lifted the hem of her chemise with one hand, the fingers of his other grazing her thigh. “I’m going to regret telling you this later, but I’ve spent a humiliating amount of time thinking about your thighs.” He squeezed her right one, and she felt warm all over.

She blinked down at them, blushing when she saw how high the chemise had moved. “My thighs? You think about my thighs?”

“Yes, because I’m depraved,” he said gruffly, his fingers drifting higher, giving her a jittery feeling with every inch he moved.

“That’s—” She was beginning to have trouble thinking or speaking. “That’s hardly depraved, Evil Overlord.”