Page 85 of Decimation

His hand finds my ankle beneath the covers, and his fingers circle the delicate bone. “For the right to come home to you.”

Home.

The word lands somewhere in my chest and takes root, though I refuse to admit it.

“Do you expect me to be grateful?” I ask. “Do you expect me to…” My words die as he draws the sheet down.

Slowly. Reverently.

The cotton drags across my skin and I feel every fibre of it, every nerve ending waking up and reaching for him. I’m wearing only a thin silk shift, something the servants left in the wardrobe, something that belongs to a version of me I haven’t figured out how to be yet.

His eyes trace the outline of my body with the same intensity he’d give a sacred text.

“I thought about you every night,” he says as his palm slides up my calf. “Every moment I wasn’t actively planning someone’s death, I was thinking about you. The way you breathe when you sleep. The sound you make when I touch you here.” His thumb presses into the soft flesh behind my knee, and I gasp. “The way you look at me when you forget you’re supposed to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” The words escape before I can stop them.

Something flickers in his eyes. Something dangerous, tender, and utterly unhinged.

“Good,” he says. “Because I’m going to worship you tonight, and I’d prefer you didn’t hate me while I do it.”

He pulls the sheet all the way off.

The cold air hits my skin, and I shiver but he’s already there, his body covering mine, his heat sinking into me like water into dry earth. His mouth finds the curve of my shoulder and I arch into him without meaning to, without wanting to want it, but wanting it all the same.

“Lazarus.”

“Shh.” His lips move against my collarbone. “Let me taste you. Let me remind myself what salvation feels like.”

I know I should say no. I know I should fight this, should push him off and tell him where to go, but that look in his eyes, it’s fucking lethal, and I want it. I want that pain, that violence, and I want every horrific thing he is offering to me. I want it all. I want the rage and destruction that will come with accepting this man. And in truth, I want him. I fucking want, for the first time in my entire life.

He works his way down my body with the methodical devotion of a man reciting prayers. His mouth maps the hollow at the base of my throat. The swell of my breasts above the silk. His tongue traces the edge of the fabric, and I feel the wet heat of it through the thin material.

“Seven days,” he murmurs against my sternum. “Seven days of planning, politicking, and pretending to be someone I’m not. Seven days of sitting in rooms with men who would kill us both if they knew what I was really thinking.”

His fingers find the strap of my shift. He doesn’t pull it down. He just hooks one finger beneath it, resting it there like a question he hasn’t asked yet.

“And what were you thinking?”

He lifts his head. His colours flare; gold, amber, and that unnamed blue.

“I was thinking about the way you taste, the way you feel when you come apart around my fingers. The way your colours must look when you’re fully, truly mine.”

My breath stops.

“You- you know about that? About the colours?”

“I know everything about you, Leandra. I know you see things other people can’t, I know you saw the difference between me and my brother before you even understood we were two separate men.” He dips his head and presses a kiss to the fabric covering my nipple. “I know you see the truth of people, which means I know you see exactly what I am.”

“And what are you?”

“A monster.” He pulls the strap down. “But I’m your monster.”

The silk gives way. His mouth closes over my breast, and I stop thinking about anything at all.

There is only sensation. Only the wet pull of his lips, the scrape of his teeth, the way his hand comes up to cup what his mouth can’t reach. He sucks hard enough to leave a mark, and I grab his hair and hold him there, my hips lifting off the mattress, my body begging for something I don’t have words for.

He moves to my other breast and gives it the same attention. The same focused, devastating worship. His hand slides down my stomach, over my hip, and I’m already wet, already aching, already so far gone I can’t remember why I ever thought this was wrong.