Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

“So give me a loaded answer,” I suggest, and my words surprise me and Dare.

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

His eyes widen, then narrow.

Dare practically growls as he yanks me to him, and he’s hard against my body. I sigh into his mouth and he groans.

Sensations blur and conscious thought ceases.

Consequences be damned.

Sweet Lord.

Dare’s tongue plunders my own and I’ve never felt so sexily invaded in my life. God, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him.

So much,

So much,

So much.

It’s like every nerve ending in my entire body has exploded, like I’m standing on fire, like I’m fire itself. I’m ore, I’m magma, I’m lava. I’m melted, I’m the sun.

He’s ignited me.

His hands clutch me, big and strong and splayed against my back, and I somehow feel like I’m balanced in his hands, like he’s holding me steady.

Maybe he is.

Maybe he always has.

My head falls back and he slides his lips along my neck, grazing the soft skin, inhaling my scent.

“You smell like apples,” he tells me again, his voice husky in my ear. I feel urgent and rushed and desperate, yet his voice is even, controlled. I don’t know how he’s managing.

I pull back to ask, my hand on his rock hard chest, and suddenly the world spins.

Fragments, scents, sounds… so many things swirl together in my head and I’m not living in the present anymore.

I’m in the past,

And the past is a prison.

My eyes flutter closed because I can’t take the overwhelming sensations, and even though I hear Dare’s voice, asking me if I’m ok, I can’t respond.

Because I see him.

Not in front of me in the moonlight, but in my head.

He’s real, and he’s familiar, and he’s mine.

His face is twisted in pain, and he’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t want to listen. He’s bloody, he’s dark, he’s broken.

He wasn’t supposed to be there.

My memories are wrong.