Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

Suddenly his lips were at my ear, and I couldn’t breathe.

“I promise…” He spoke the words of our game, trailing off as his teeth grazed my ear, barely a bite, the pain a shiver of its own promise for more. “I’ll take all night fucking you.”

He ended on a growl that vibrated through me. My hands shook. His breath was hot on my skin, his body hard against my back.

“I promise by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be ruined for everyone but me.”

Breathe. Remember to breathe.

When his tongue caressed the tip of my ear, I dropped the box entirely. He grabbed it, reflexes so fast, but didn’t cease licking me, kissing me, sucking on me, until the room faded, and all I knew was him.

When he was done devouring my ear, and I was sufficiently putty, he handed the porcelain box back to me.

“But we’ll go at your pace, nice and slow.”

He grinned, then made his way to my bed. Feathers from my massacred pillows lingered on the floor, and my mattress was askew on the frame, but he lay on it without so much as a blink, and something about that made him even hotter, sitting among his carnage like nothing.

There was something in my hands. I looked at my jewelry with foreign interest. Why did I have this? What was my name again?

Oh. Right.

I took a seat on the edge of my destroyed bed, afraid my legs would stop working. Jewelry, I said to myself, show Theo my jewelry. I repeated it like a mantra.

“Do you know why I want to go slow?” I didn’t respond, but he didn’t care. “Seeing you like this is fucking hot, Abigail. It’s the greatest foreplay. Wide-eyed and without walls. No more lies. But that lip.” He zeroed in on it. “Bite it again and I might change my mind.”

My eyes met his as he adjusted himself. There went my thoughts again. Even through his jeans, I could see the outline of him.

I wetted my lips. “Aren’t your jeans wet?”

“Are you trying to get me naked, Abigail?”

“No,” I said too quickly. He was still drenched in wine and it had to be uncomfortable—maybe a naked Theo crossed my mind.

His grin spread. All white teeth. Somehow both sweet and vicious, carnal and loving. All Theo. I nearly sighed. I missed his smiles.

Theo slid his zipper down—an act that was far too sensual—then slipped out of his jeans and tossed them to the floor. I briefly thought about all the stains. Dark wine on my perfect white satin sheets, now on my plush feathery rug. I loved it. A dark, twisty part of me wanted the memory of him forever.

Theo grabbed a joint from his discarded jeans, and with the snick of the match, something inside me lit ablaze as well.

A joint.

I swallowed, trying not to read too much into it.

He was in nothing but satin-looking gray briefs, and once again I was distracted. They clung to roped thighs, and if I thought he was hard in his jeans, it was nothing to now.

My throat dried.

His laugh filled the room like the butterflies in my stomach.

I forgot showing him my jewelry. I forgot everything. Theo had one arm folded behind his head, bicep popping and carved, muscles I didn’t even know catching the fading sunlight. Wine drenched strands of hair, dripping down onto his full lip, as he smoked with his free hand.

He blew out a puff, watching me with an intensity that stunned me, drew me in, until it was nothing but us.

Theo Hound was art.

Hedonist. Hellish. Art.

I dropped my jewelry, and it fell with a clatter of beads and sea glass and silver to the floor. I crawled atop him. He kept smoking, blowing in and out, but if it was possible, the look in his eyes sharpened further. Musky smoke enveloped us in a warm haze, softening us, but through it all, his eyes were clear.