Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

She goes on to tell me about various other things, straying from all things sexual with other men while in the rings. Smart girl. I still want them dead as well, irrational as it may be.

Day fades into night again, and we’ve not moved from the bed. A tangle of naked limbs under the sheets, we continue to talk, forgetting the rest of the world exists.

Finally, I decide to trust her with our biggest secret.

“Alyssa is defenseless right now.”

Her look is perplexed. “Makes sense. She’s from a powerful bloodline. Her child is going to be powerful too, so it’s draining her. The more powerful the child’s future, the more taxing on the mother it becomes until birth.”

“We don’t want Slade to know.”

Her eyes widen. “That’s the big secret?”

“She can’t come to the meetings because just exerting herself to join us is becoming too much. You can see it in her tired eyes and her shaky hands. If Slade had that information—”

“Slade has that information. I was under the assumption something much more intricate was being done behind the scenes and that was the cause for all the secrecy. Slade is no fool. He’s known your queen was pregnant, and I never told him. But

logic dictates the child would be exhausting her magic.”

I frown, studying her face.

“Despite what you think, Slade isn’t in the market to hunt down defenseless, pregnant women. He’s into self-preservation, anyway. His attacks are always provoked from his drive to survive. After the hell he’s been through, he wants to finally enjoy freedom. But for now, all that’s guiding him is vengeance. The same is true for many of us.”

I draw her closer, brushing my lips over hers. So all that drama for no reason at all. I could have lost her over a not-so-secret secret that she already knew.

“What drives you?” I ask her, twirling a lock of her soft, dark hair around my finger.

Her eyes slant toward mine, and her bare leg rides up higher on my hip. My cock springs to life, hardening painfully at the scent of her arousal and the barest touch of her slide.

“It isn’t the vengeance that once did.”

“So what is it?” I ask, moving my hand up her leg and reveling in the way she shivers against my touch, pressing closer.

“An emotion.” She releases a shaky exhale, and I lean forward, flicking my tongue across her lips.

She parts them for me, and I take advantage, tasting every bit of her that I can, exploring her mouth with the worshipful attention her entire body deserves. My arms move around her, drawing her impossibly closer.

She whimpers when I break the kiss, leaning my head back just enough so I can study her eyes.

“What emotion?”

Her eyes move to my lips then meet my gaze again. “I’m not sure yet, but for the first time in my life, I feel alive. It’s because of that emotion... because of you.”

My lips are on hers in the next breath, and she moans into my mouth as I spin her to her back, moving between her legs.

She’s ready for me, drenched in need as I continue to kiss her and thrust in, burying myself as deep as possible. Her fingers tangle in my hair, her legs shake against my sides, and a soft keening noise bubbles from her throat as I deliberately draw out my strokes.

Every varying angle offers me a new form of ecstasy, and I take all she has to give. The tempo moves from agonizingly slow, to relentlessly brutal, back to the tormenting languid pace again. Every time she’s on the cusp, I pull back, denying her the release she wants... craves... needs.

It’s as tormenting to me as it is her, but I want her clawing at my back with so much desperate need that she can’t stand the thought of me ever moving from this position again. I want her screaming my name until her throat is raw. I want everything she has. I want to own everything inside her.

I’m the first immortal to never want to own another person... Until now. And I want her to own me just as much.

That way when I claim her, she’ll have already been mine, and there won’t be any questions about it.

She curses me and praises me in every breathy word. She tugs me, claws me, and gives me the preface of what I want. But I need more.

As she writhes beneath me, I fight hard against my own orgasm, staving it off, trying not to focus on how tight each drag of my cock in her pussy is. She moans and cries out, and her attacks get more violent as her nails draw blood.