Page 81 of A Reckless Indulgence

Lyx’s pupils blow wide, two black holes drowning out the violet of her iris. It’s a hunger unlike anything Cav’s seen, seeping through her until she trembles. “I — can’t.” Even denying it, she trails her tongue over her lips. “You would die.”

“You could take pieces.” He guides her hand toward his chest and sets her fingers against one of his scales. The tip of her fingernail eases beneath it. “You could pry it off.”

Intently, her gaze follows him, a predator tracking prey. He moves her nail under the edge, hissing when the scale barely lifts away from the skin. It stirs magma between his legs.

Lyx watches the heat of his vent. “Why would you offer that?”

Laughter strains out of him, his chest arching into her palm. The reckless part of him wants to provoke her, pushing and pushing until she closes the space between them. “Because I want to be inside you.”

Her finger flexes.

“I want you to know my flavor.” He sucks in a breath. “I want to plague your dreams.”

It’s only fair. Cav has spent the last two years looking for Lyx in everything, searching for something to move him as strongly as she does. If he made her give him something real, he can do the same. When she came aboard, he was kidding himself. The experiment would never have been enough to satisfy him. He wanted Lyx’s obsession. He wanted her to hunt him down and make him pay for his mistakes. He wanted her to take as much of him as she desired.

When Lyx digs deeper, Cav’s head tips back. He groans and grits his teeth, but he refuses to look away. “I want you to savor me. Do it.”

She pushes him onto his back and lowers her mouth to his chest. She meets his eyes, easing her tongue under the scale and tormenting him with the slow spread of pain.

It’s a game of nerves. Cav refuses to lose. Not when he’s waited so long for this, when he wants to be engulfed by her in every way, when all his baser instincts cry out to know her carnally.

She doesn’t push further. She’s still holding back, teasing the tender flesh under his scale. She’s trying to scare him, to make him reconsider what this means, but he wants it as badly as she does.

More.

He pushes up onto his elbows. “You think I’m a fool. That I’m doing this just to please you. You think this will leave a mark on me, but what about you?”

Her brows knit when his head tilts toward her. He fights the urge to moan when her teeth graze him.

“You want to devour me,” he pants, “because it’s all you can think about.”

He knows it’s true the same way he knows where north is, an instinct worn into the core of his being. He is pulled to Lyx like the magnetic needle of a compass. He always has been, and he always will be.

“And once you do…” His lips brush her ear. “You’ll never get the taste of me out of your mouth. You’ll crave me the same way I’ve craved you. You’ll be hungry for me, until nothing and no one else can sate you.”

Lyx surges toward him, pinning his hands beside his head. Her teeth dig under his scale until he’s writhing, gasping, throbbing with need. No longer does Lyx taunt him. She uses her teeth to work under his scale, scraping the raw skin beneath.

He moans out a cloud of smoke. Lyx laves at his blood, smearing her lips until her eyes sink closed and her hand moves between his legs. His eyes roll back when she finds his wet, hot center. His scale is still in place, but Lyx laps her tongue under it. She works her fingers and mouth in the same rhythm, fucking his cunt and wound in time.

“Please don’t stop,” he begs.

She sinks blunt teeth into his scale and tugs. His head swims, torn between pain, pleasure, and the sight of her looking up at him. “I’ve never done this without fangs.” The words come streaming out of her while her fingers work deeper inside him. “I’ve never taken my time. I’ve never wanted to.”

She looks as dazed as he is, her skin glowing beside the vibrant ember in his chest. It’s hypnotizing to watch her slowly pulling him apart, staining her mouth with him, getting drunk on his taste. She doesn’t rush through any of it. She keeps them both suspended, soaking in every sight and scent and sound.

Slow. Languid. Deep.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. All he knows is the exquisite scrape of her teeth bound up with the stroke of her fingers. Every time he gets too close to the peak, she eases back, making him moan and plead for more. He loses track of how many orgasms she steals away from him, leaving him shivering while she soothes her tongue over his growing wound.

“Not yet,” she murmurs. “Not until I’ve had my fill of you.”

He nearly comes right then. With her fingers inside him, the lava never cools, dripping over her hand and the sheets. Tears streak Cav’s cheeks, and she licks them away, kissing his own blood back into his mouth. It’s divine. It’s ecstasy, the two of them mixed together, a clash of hot and cold melting on his tongue.

She could have ended it far sooner. She could have ripped the scale away, but she draws it out, letting blood dribble toward his collarbone. It keeps him hanging in this rarefied state, brushing back her hair to get a better look at where she mouths at him.

Finally, the scale hangs loose. Pressure builds deep in his gut, but Lyx still doesn’t allow him to find release. She keeps fucking him over three fingers, stretching him while she licks at the bloody mark. She presses her teeth into his weakened shoulder, leaving behind an indentation that she kisses tenderly. He wants it to scar. Gods, if he could spend the rest of his life being picked apart by her, he would.

She picks up the pace between his legs. He whines and grasps at her, but he doesn’t want her to stop. His hips keep working against her until he shudders, muscles tensing in his legs as his toes curl.