Thanatos makes a noise low in his throat. “I cannot get over how soft you are,” he breathes. “Or why I find that so damn alluring.” As he speaks, his thumb sweeps over my nipple.
I hiss in a breath, my skin so sensitive.
Death grins and runs his thumb over my nipple again. Unthinkingly, I arch into the touch.
“You like that?” he asks.
Before I can answer him, he begins drawing circles around my nipple, staring intently at me. And damn him, but I can’t not react to those deft fingers of his, my chest rising and falling faster and faster.
“I know I like it,” he continues. “And I really like that look in your eyes.” Death’s voice has gone rough, and this is a wholly unfamiliar side to him.
What look do I have in my eyes?
“But,” he adds, leaning towards me once more, “I want those wicked lips of yours back on mine.”
That’s all he has to say for me to rise up to meet him once more. My arm wraps around his neck as I resume the kiss. Thanatos falls into it eagerly. His lips part my own, and then his tongue sweeps against mine, claiming every last inch he can.
His hips rock against me, and Jesus, I want to do bad, bad things to this horseman.
I bring a booted foot up, in between us, forcing him back. The man looks half feral as he gazes down at me, lust thick in his eyes.
“What could possibly make you wish to stop?” he asks.
“Take the rest of my clothes off,” I demand softly.
If there was heat in Death’s eyes before, it ratchets up now as his gaze descends on my lower half. Without responding, he grabs the foot holding him back and, casting me a wicked look, he removes my boot, then the sock beneath.
He glances down at my foot. “Even your toes delight me, Lazarus. What a wonder you are. What a wonder this is.”
This.
That last line has my heartrate jackknifing.
I want to tell him that he’s the wonder, with his glowing tattoos and wings and deadly magic. But I’m afraid that if I speak, if I give into the churning mass of thoughts that he elicits, I’ll slide right into my feelings for this man and I’ll never get myself out.
Death removes the other boot and sock, and then his hands are traveling up my legs and just that sensuous touch has me panicking.
How have we gone from enemies set on destroying each other to this?
The thought has barely crossed my mind when I feel Death undo my jeans and begin to pull them down. His fingers snag on my panties, and those come along too. Inch by tantalizing inch, he removes the last of my clothing. He tosses it all aside, his gaze feasting on me.
“Lazarus.”
Looking like a man possessed, he prowls onto the bed. His lips and a few locks of his hair skim along my skin as he moves up my body. Death doesn’t stop until the two of us are face to face.
His eyes search mine. “You rob me of breath.”
“It’s you who robs me of breath,” I say. I can’t not admit that at the very least. Death is the most beautiful, unearthly thing I’ve ever seen.
Death’s gaze lowers to my lips. “I have wanted to kiss you from the moment you first ambushed me and demanded I end my ways,” he says. “It drove me mad, this need I felt but didn’t understand—a need I still don’t understand. I thought my brothers were weak for succumbing to it.”
I exhale slowly, trying to process all of that. “You’ve wanted to kiss me this entire time?” I ask.
His eyes fill with mirth. “Among many other things.”
“What other things?” I say curiously.
He trails a finger down the slope of my nose, over my lips and chin. “I wanted to steal you away the first moment I laid eyes on you. I wanted you completely. It was an agonizing, awful experience. I thought it only further proved how wicked humans were, to have desires like that, desires I was now forced to feel.”
My heart thunders to think he’d wanted me even then. I can hardly imagine it, given how everything between us played out.
“And when you didn’t die—” Thanatos continues, his fingers skimming down my side, stroking my bare flesh, “when all my power proved useless against you—I knew you were mine, kismet. Knew it as surely as you know your own name.”
This should be terrifying—especially in light of the fact that even after he had these realizations, he hurt me, again and again.
But I’m not terrified. Not at all.
There is no one like us.
“Why did you finally give in to your … human desires?” I ask.