Page 44 of A Reckless Indulgence

Thud. She’s not sure if the sound is the dart or her pulse. His bicep flexes when he throws. Hunger stretches within her. She wants to hear more, to know why, to dig her teeth into his muscle until he continues.

“I like to be consumed by the experience.” Thud. “To be consumed by someone else.” Thud. “But my biggest fantasy is the most boring thing you can imagine.”

It’s so hard to breathe with him next to her, but it’s worse when she realizes he missed all three of his shots.

He returns from the board with the darts in hand. “You’ll laugh if I tell you.”

She swallows roughly. “From the sound of things, you’d get off on that.”

His lips twitch upward. He keeps her in suspense when he steps away for her to play her turn. She hadn’t realized the game is almost over. It takes all her focus to land her throws, but she manages to catch up to him. It hardly feels like a victory. Cav retrieves the darts without complaint, and she wonders if there’s more than one game going on here.

Twilight settles around them. Creatures whir and call in the trees, surrounding them in a dull hum that seems to preempt something. It vibrates through her toes and the tips of her fingers, a reminder of the secret Cav still hasn’t shared.

She can’t ask again. She can’t show him how curious it’s made her, how desperately she wants to know the singular, dullest fantasy that occupies his mind. It’s as if he knows it, lifting his tankard and taking a long drink. His throat bobs when he swallows, and then, he licks his lips, like he’s waiting to see how long she’ll wait. Did he take his turn already? She can’t be sure.

Perhaps he’s taking mercy on her. Perhaps that’s why he finally speaks. “I dream about things you don’t believe in.”

Her body buzzes like she’s strung up over the Great Abyss, preparing to take the deepest plunge. Cav is still, like watching her is enough to sate him. Anticipation coils inside her, a screaming need that threatens to shriek out of her. She wants to know more, she wants to hear it, she wants —

“I dream about love.”

The word jolts through her. She doesn’t speak. It’s too risky when her throat is this tight, like a pitiful sound might slip through if she opens her mouth.

Cav presses her darts into her palm with a heavy look in his eyes that drag her in deeper. “I dream about knowing someone fully. Every intricacy. Every secret. Every regret. I dream about giving myself to someone, and trusting what they’ll do with me.”

His palm is hot over hers, warming the metal between them.

“I dream about fucking like that. Slow. Deep. Languid. Staring into each other’s eyes so that we see everything.”

The word is little more than a breath. His face is so close that she can see the wound still healing on his mouth from the indentation of her teeth. By her feet, his tail flicks back and forth, never quite brushing her ankle.

His gaze trails over her face. “Learning every inch of each other. Every fluttering eyelash, every trembling lip, every hitching breath.”

Only then does she realize her lips are parted, her heart thrumming in her throat. Everything around them fades as the light begins to glow through the cracks of Cav’s scales.

“We don’t stop when we come.”

A white-hot image ignites in Lyx’s mind. We. You and me. Like the two of them are as connected as she’s always hoped and feared, her obsession roiling inside her and mirrored in him.

“We keep going,” he murmurs. “We fuck through the mess. Ruin the sheets. Work ourselves past the point of breaking. We can’t take any more, but we don’t want to stop, so we just go so…fucking…slow.”

A sound blooms in the back of her throat. She clamps her mouth to keep it from escaping, legs shaking as her fingers curl into fists. The darts are trapped between them, stabbing into both of their hands in a reminder she doesn’t want to let go of.

Then Cav retracts, leaving her body searing under his eyes. “That’s what I dream about.”

EIGHTEEN

Lyx

Slow. Deep. Languid.

Heat branches through Lyx’s body. She doesn’t know why the words get to her. For a moment, she lets herself imagine it. Cav’s hips rolling against hers, their bodies pressed together, gasps hot against each other’s mouths — but it’s too simple. Too mild. Too tame. It’s nothing compared to what she wants to do to him.

The thought splashes her face like ice cold water, her teeth digging into her cheek to taste the blood. No matter what Cav says, he doesn’t understand the words he says. Not like she can. She is a creature born of extremity. She has seen how slowly the ocean devours a shipwreck, keeping it suspended in time. She has swum deeper than any land dweller can, until their lungs would collapse and their hearts would burst. Even then, she’s never reached the bottom of the sea.

Cav cannot imagine her hunger. It would be too much for him.

Resolutely, she turns back to the board. She knew better than to entertain these thoughts. The darts dig into her palm, a reminder forcing her to focus. There is a purpose to this game, and it has nothing to do with Cav. Winning will give her the information she’s after. Everything else is secondary.