Page 143 of A House of Gold
I take a breath. Center myself. Grab my blade to cut my hand, then as gently as possible, hers.Then I pull.
The absorption is immediate and devastating.
Eighty-three years of lust slams into me like a freight train. Not the diffused, mostly manageable desire I've purged before, but concentrated need, raw and hungry and absolutely overwhelming. It burns through my veins, settles in my core, and suddenly I'm aware of every inch of my skin, every breath, every sensation magnified a thousandfold.
I gasp, my hands fisting in the fabric of my shirt. The contract disintegrates beneath my palms, the sin transferring completely into me.
Margaret takes a deep, shuddering breath, the first clear one since we arrived. The golden chains vanish from around her, and through my lust-hazed vision, I see her face relax. Peaceful.
Free.
But I'm burning.
My body temperature spikes. Sweat breaks out across my skin. Every nerve ending comes alive with hypersensitivity, the brush of my clothes against my skin feels like torture, too much and not nearly enough.
I need… I need...
Through the haze, I'm aware of the angels watching. Can feel their attention like soft touches. Seraph's fascinated curiosity. Idris's analytical interest. Kael's heat answering the fire in my blood. Lysander's hunger recognizing its own sin reflected back. Dorian's wanting. Even Caspian's attention, pulled from his usual apathy by the sheer intensity of what's happening.
And Croesus. Croesus, who's already moving toward me, who knows exactly what I need because we're bound and he can feel the lust burning through me like wildfire.
"Raven." His voice cuts through the roar in my head. "Look at me."
I force my eyes open. He's kneeling in front of me, I didn’t even know I’d fallen, gold eyes blazing even though he can't see. But he doesn't need to see. He can feel everything I'm feeling through the binding.
"I need–" The words catch in my throat. "Croesus, I need…"
"I know." His hands cup my face, and even that simple touch sends electricity racing across my skin. "Let me help you."
"Here? In front of–"
"Yes." His thumb brushes my lower lip, and I barely suppress a moan. "Right here. Right now. Before this kills you."
Through the binding, I feel his possessiveness flare. He wants this. Wants to claim me in front of the other six, wantsthem to see that I'm his, that when I need someone it's him I turn to.
And maybe that should bother me. Maybe I should care that six fallen angels are about to watch me fall apart.
But the lust is too strong, and I need him too much, and I stopped caring about dignity somewhere around the time the sin started eating me alive.
"Yes," I whisper. "Please."
He pulls me closer, his mouth finding mine in a kiss that's both gentle and claiming. I kiss him back desperately, my hands fisting in his shirt, trying to get closer, closer, never close enough.
The lust approves. Wants more. Wants everything.
Croesus breaks the kiss, his breathing ragged. "We're going to do this slow. Controlled. I'm not going to let this sin control you."
"Can't, can't be slow."
"Yes, we can." His hands slide down to my waist, steadying me. "Trust me."
I do. Through the binding, I can feel his determination to keep me grounded, to help me through this without letting the lust consume me completely.
His hands go to the hem of my shirt. "May I?"
The fact that he's asking permission even now, even with six angels watching and eighty-three years of lust trying to tear me apart from the inside, that does something emotionally visceral to me.
"Yes."
