Calladia poked him in the chest, a jab he felt through the fabric of his robe. “Well, let me tell you something, Casanova. I don’t think you’re a misogynist, for the record, but you clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed and are determined to make it my problem. I have zero interest in that bullshit, especially when I haven’t had coffee yet, so you and your attitude can go meet your hand in the bathroom and work it out.”
Lucifer, she was mean. Agitated emotions churned inside Astaroth’s chest like leaves in a cyclone. His skin tingled where she’d poked him, and the fury in her expression was sending mixed signals to his body. He wanted her to yell at him some more, pull his hair, maybe even slap him, and then he wanted to shut her up with his mouth and taste the full force of her passion.
Succumbing to instinct, Astaroth grabbed her hand and pulled until her finger hit his pectoral again. “Harder,” he said.
Calladia’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me. Do it harder.” He licked his lips. “Make me feel it.”
Calladia’s breath hitched. Complicated emotions flitted across her face. This wasn’t just anger; whatever madness had gripped him had her in its claws as well.
He had a premonition: This could destroy me.
She could destroy me.
Astaroth didn’t care. “Come on,” he said, low and challenging. “Hurt me.”
Calladia hesitated, but not for long. She was a creature of passion, after all, and she never retreated from a fight. “You,” she said, jabbing him in the chest, “are obnoxious.”
“More,” he said, leaning in. He grabbed a handful of her golden hair, winding it around his wrist, and Calladia’s eyelids grew heavy as her lips parted.
She drilled her finger into his chest again, harder this time. Not hard enough to bruise, though he wished it would. “You’re an arrogant, volatile prick, and you drive me insane.”
“Same,” he gritted.
Another poke. “You’re a conceited know-it-all.”
“Takes one to know one,” he shot back.
She glared as she delivered the coup de gr?ce. “Your cane sword is tacky, and you have horrible taste in hats.”
Astaroth bared his teeth. “Take that back.”
“Make me,” she said, a challenging light in her eyes.
He would enjoy trying, but that wasn’t what he wanted now. Watching her blown pupils and flushed cheeks, the rapid heaving of her breaths, he wanted to push her. See what would happen if she snapped. “Why would I do that,” he asked, tightening his grip on her hair, “when you can just take what you want?”
Her eyes flared. The shared memory hung suspended between them, his words an echo of another time, another place. That time, she’d declared herself his enemy. This time . . .
Calladia made an incoherent screeching sound, fisted the lapels of his robe, and hauled him in for a searing kiss.
TWENTY
Astaroth’s mouth was hot against Calladia’s. He kissed her furiously, and she matched his aggression with her own. They licked and ate at each other in a mutual devouring. When Astaroth’s tongue sank into her mouth, Calladia sucked on it, then bit his lower lip.
Astaroth groaned, then bit her back just as hard. There would be no quarter given on either side.
Calladia didn’t want mercy. She wanted to make him feel the same churning, burning need eating her up. Anger and aggression had melted into a lust so powerful, it scalded her skin and sent need pulsing through her.
She wanted to hit him, bite him, leave her marks on his pale skin. She wanted to hear him moan and know it was for her.
Calladia was half in his lap already. She straddled him fully, wrapping her arms around his neck. His hands landed on her ass and squeezed, encouraging her to rock against him. Even through her pajamas and his robe, she could feel the hard length of his cock, and she ground against him, gasping as sensation jolted through her. Her clit was sensitive and swollen, begging for a direct touch.
There was too much fabric between them. Calladia tore at his robe, struggling to get it off, but she only managed to get the fabric over one shoulder before giving up and hauling him close again, too greedy for his mouth.
He tasted like smoke and spice. Like pure, distilled sin.
“You drive me mad,” he said against her lips.
“Same, jackass.” She yanked on the short strands of his hair—careful to avoid the healing cut near his left temple—and was rewarded by the surge of his hips, nearly lifting her off the bed.
Arousal pooled between her legs, soaking her underwear. This was madness, but she couldn’t bear for it to stop. Not now that she finally had her hands and mouth on him.