He carried her across the floor while she searched for his mouth again, whipped her around, and tossed her over the arm of the couch near the fireplace.
Fabric brushed her belly. She grunted and bounced against the soft arm.
He kicked her legs apart. “No more waiting. This is what I want.”
She pushed up on her hands, tried to look back, but his palm between her shoulder blades shoved her back down. Then, before she could even open her mouth, he lined himself up and thrust in so deep, every thought rushed from her mind.
“Oh god. Yeeeeessssss...” Her fingers curled in the cushion beneath her. He didn’t give her time to adjust as he had before. Just drew back and shoved in even harder.
Ecstasy ricocheted through her body like a pinball. She arched, lifting her hips higher so he could drive deeper. Delirious, she moaned, “Fuck me. Fuck me hard. Don’t stop.”
He growled, braced one hand on the cushion near her arm, then leaned over and bit into her neck. And as that wicked-hot mixture of pleasure and pain streaked down her spine, as his thick cock pounded her G-spot again and again from the new angle, her vision clouded until it was nothing but a pinprick of bright light. Right in the center of her universe.
“Like this?” His hot breath ran down her neck as he fucked into her. He grunted at her back. His fingers closed around a handful of her hair and yanked so his lips grazed her earlobe. “Is this what you want?”
Oh god, yes… She opened her mouth to answer. Couldn’t make her lips form words. All she could do was press back against him, taking everything he wanted to give her.
“Nod, mono mia.” He thrust faster. Tightened his grip and yanked her head back harder, until pain raced over her scalp to mix with the pleasure scoring her sex. “Show me this is what you want. Getting fucked by the monster we both know I am.”
The orgasm he’d denied her built until it was almost too much to bear, but his words, the malicious way he said them, drew her back from the edge. Made her remember what he’d said before. When she’d kissed him and told him she wanted this. That she wanted him.
She gasped in a breath. Tightened every muscle so she wouldn’t come. Then shifted her hand beneath her to the side and closed her fingers around his braced against the cushion. “I want you. Just you. However I can get you. I’ve always wanted you.”
His muscles jerked. Deep inside, his cock lengthened and swelled. And against her ear, she heard him whisper, “Fuck.”
But the pressure grew too great for her to focus on his release. Before she could even suck in another breath, a pleasure she hadn’t known possible ignited in her core and exploded outward through each cell, sucking up every bit of light and sound and air and space until there was nothing.
Nothing but darkness.
A darkness she’d been seeking all her life. A darkness that lived in him.
A darkness that drew her home.
Chapter Fifteen
Zagreus wasn’t sure how they’d ended up on the floor, but he was too weak to think right now.
He rolled off Talisa and dropped to his back on the plush rug in front of the fireplace, breathing deeply to slow his still raging pulse as he stared up at the beamed ceiling above.
That… was not the smartest thing he’d ever done. She was supposed to be going home. Not doing—that—with him.
And why in the hell had she said those words? I’ve always wanted you. They weren’t true. They both knew they weren’t true. She’d hated him up until yesterday. In fact, in most of her lifetimes, she’d been scared shitless of him. On top of which, she never remembered him.
“Mm…” Talisa shifted his way then perched her elbow on the rug and rested her head in her hand with a wicked curl of her lips. “Now, that was a lot more like I expected. Not that I’m complaining about last night, mind you. I enjoyed that, too.”
Shit. Last night…
He still wasn’t sure what had really happened last night, but he knew now the sultry images pinging around in his head all day were real.
“I enjoyed it very much.” Her warm hand landed on his bare chest, sending tingles all through his flesh. “Both times.”
He rolled his head on the rug and stared her. At her wild hair, swollen lips, sated eyes, and the freakin’ glow coming off her that told him she’d definitely enjoyed it as much as he had.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “I can’t fucking read you at all.”
She laughed and slid her hand lower, to his abs. Just the casual touch lit him up all over again. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes, it’s a bad thing.” His eyes popped open. “I could always read you before. Which is how I always knew what you were going to do next.”
“Which was…?”
“Run.” He gently brushed her hand away, tugged his pants up, and pushed to sitting. A quick look over the room and he spotted his boots—which he didn’t even remember kicking off. “You never wanted to be with me, which is why it’s so fucking insane I can’t get rid of you now.”
“Interesting.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees while he stood. “Never?”
“Maybe the first time. But then only until you realized I wouldn’t let you leave.” He grabbed his boots and dropped into a high-backed chair so he could pull them on, thankful she was covering those tempting breasts that made him lose his fucking mind. “Every other time you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“So we weren’t in love?”
He huffed and loosened the laces on one boot. “Love is an illusion. It’s not real.”
She was silent for several seconds, then shifted to her knees in front of him and slid her palms along his thighs.
He glared down at her, trying not to look at those breasts and the sexy barbells through her delicious nipples. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Distracting you.”
He rolled his eyes and went back to loosening his boot.
And why the hell couldn’t he even be irritated with her now? He needed to pull his head out of his ass, stop obsessing about sex—something he was perfectly fine surviving without—and remember what truly mattered here.
“Did it ever occur to you that this time things are different,” she said softly.
“Yeah, no shit they’re different.” Holy hell, who tied his laces in a knot? “It’s still going to end the same way, though. Which is why you need to get the fuck away from me while you still can.”
A tiny voice in the back of his head told him he should be surprised she was not only discussing the fact they’d been together in her past lives but that she’d accepted it—that she believed it. Only he was too irritated with himself to go there.
She tugged the boot from his hands and dropped it on the floor behind her.
His brows snapped together. “What the—”
“Nice try, Grumpy Prince.” She pushed a hand against his shoulder, forcing him back into the chair, then climbed up and straddled his lap. “I’m not going anywhere. You need me.”
Her words warmed a place inside he wasn’t willing to acknowledge. Sighing, he closed his eyes and fought it as her heat seeped into his legs, his hips, his chest where everything was supposed to stay cold. “I don’t need anyone.”