Page 134 of Librarian

Her eyes flash. “You’re worth more than that, Pierce.”

She’s wrong. She’s so wrong. Before I can correct her, she raises herself onto her tiptoes, pressing her warm body into mine in a shock of heat. Her hands tangle in my hair, pulling my head down the last few inches so that she can fuse our mouths together.

Kyrith’s lips are just as warm as the rest of her, and her kiss banishes the last of the cold from my bones as I give in and cradle her against me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as she draws away. “This was supposed to be a?—”

She’s trying to put us back on track, to return to the conversation where she asks me to teach her necromancy and let her shoulder the burden of killing Mathias. The one where she tells me I’m too raw from grief to fuck her.

I don’t want to hear it.

My grandfather’s final moments are burned into my brain. I see his final, agonised expression every time I close my eyes. More than that, I see the spells he taught me every time I open my grimoire. My buttons are etched with runeforms that are supposed to bring him running when I need him. I see a hideous coat, or hear a too-loud laugh, and I remember.

Loss is wrapped around my throat like a choke chain. I can’t breathe.

So I dive on her like she’s my oxygen. Desperately. Pleading.

Make me forget.

Let me slip the leash until I forget what it feels like to exist in a world without him, even if it’s just for a moment.

My hands drop to Kyrith’s ass and squeeze. With her caught off guard, I twist us until she’s perched on the banister before me, her legs wrapped around my waist and my hand around her throat as I lick across her lips. Her taste washes over me, and my cock stirs in response.

Magic, I love kissing this woman. I think I could happily do it every day for the rest of my life.

She submits so beautifully under my touch, her whole body relaxing against mine like she knows how much I need her right now. I indulge in her mouth a minute longer, muscles relaxingas it becomes clear she’s not going to deny me. Her shiver when I ghost my lips up to the spot beneath her ear is intoxicating.

“I was going to take you to dinner at a vineyard in Italy,” I apologise against her throat. “I was going to wine you and dine you.”

“Fuck wine.” The words come out on a moan as I suck the skin between my lips hard enough to mark. “Pierce. I want you.”

I inhale her ice-and-lily scent like a drug. “I wanted to carry you home and make love to you for hours on a bed for our first time.”

She pulls back, trusting me to keep her from falling. “Do you want to stop?”

No. Stars, no.

I force a smirk, take her hand, and press it into the erection that’s trying to break my zipper in an effort to reach her.

“Does it feel like I want to stop?”

She shakes her head.

“I’ll do all of those things,” I promise, kissing her again. “But right now I need it fast and hard. Is that okay?”

Part of me expects her to tell me no. To tell me that this isn’t healthy. Instead, she fumbles with my belt.

My next kiss is full of gratitude.

I reach beneath her skirt, smoothing up the soft skin of her inner thigh until I find the silken heat of her weeping in welcome for me. Good. I plunge two fingers inside her, glorying in the way her lips fall open in shock and her walls ripple around my invasion. My thumb finds her clit while I pump in and out of her, trying to focus past the teasing brushes of her fingers against my cock. When she frees my length and takes it in one hand, I hiss.

Stars.

I knock her grip aside, swiping a scrap from my pocket as I notch myself at her entrance.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

Those beautiful pale eyes widen slightly, her pupils already blown. “Yes.”