He flips it in his hand, raises his arm, and throws it hard.
It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to gasp out loud during our practice, and I manage to hold it back just in time. The knife bites into the wood next to my right forearm. I can feel it quivering in the wood.
Cale throws the next four knives in quick succession, his movements clean and confident. The sixth knife is in his hand. He raises his arm.
Then he stops.
The seconds tick by, and he’s frozen in place. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. He’s not going to do it. We’re stuck, him and I, close to each other every day, but irreparably apart, restrained, unhappy. I gaze into his eyes, begging him silently to try, but he won’t look at me. He has that black, hollow expression again, and I know that we’re never going to get through this. He can’t forget the past, and he’ll never be able to move forward.
I squeeze my eyes shut in despair, and tears trickle down my face. I hear a short, low growl. A deep intake of breath.
The thunk of a knife hitting the board.
My eyes fly open. There’s a knife right by my head, just an inch from my ear.
Cale closes the distance between us with long strikes, and then he’s standing right in front of me. He lifts his hand to grip the knife by the handle, but instead of pulling it out, he puts his hand flat against the board and leans closer.
“I can’t think when you look at me like that,” he murmurs.
“Me, too.”
He dips his head closer to mine. I’m trapped by his arm, his knives around me. A current runs up my body, licking at all the sensitive places. Everywhere I want him to touch me.
“How do I look at you?” he asks.
I can feel his warm breath on my mouth. His expression is so dark and intense that it’s almost frightening. But he doesn’t scare me. His intensity is what makes me want him. This is the Cale I’ve glimpsed in his most raw moments. When he throws knives at me. When he protects me.
When he needs me.
I barely breathe the words, but he hears every single one. “Like you might die if you don’t kiss me.”
He cups my jaw with his hand and brushes his lips against mine. “I think I might, Ryah. I’ll die.”
My eyes briefly flutter closed at the sensation of his mouth just touching mine. I feel like I’m going to die, too, but it’s not so strange, the sensation of my life being in his hands. The feeling that the world’s ending.
Let it end. I just want him.
“I thought it was me at your mercy,” I point out.
Cale wraps an arm around my lower back and pulls my hips tight against his, an unmistakably sensual gesture. “Oh, no, sparkle. You’ve held all the strings of my heart since the day I met you.”
“I have?”
He tilts his head the other way, his mouth almost-kissing me. In this heightened state, it feels like he’s already pressed the fiercest kiss against my lips.
“Every. Single. One.” And then he does kiss me.
I was wrong. I didn’t know what it was like to be kissed. My whole world is him. I feel nothing but his mouth on mine and his arms around me. As his lips move hungrily over mine, my body melds into his. I open my mouth, inviting him deeper, and his tongue flicks across my lips. His large hands squeeze my waist as he presses me against him.
Keeping the heavenly feel of his body against mine, he breaks the kiss. “You’ve nearly stopped my heart with just a look, more than once. I’m completely at your mercy, Ryah. What are knives, compared to that?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cale
I press my lips to hers again, desperate for more. Desperate for all of her. Her plush, yielding mouth. Her body. I groan in the back of my throat as I gather her to me. My sweet girl. My sparkle. Mine.
The sweetness of the kiss quickly becomes darker, hungrier. She opens her mouth between mine and my tongue slides against hers. Giving herself up to me. I feel heat surge in my cock and press her back against the board, imagining that I’m sinking into her tight, wet heat.