Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Maybe a broken heart too.
No use thinking about that. No use thinking about anything at all. Not when Thane has wrapped me in himself. He shifts his hands from my face to my shoulders and nips my bottom lip. “If you want this to stop, say stop.”
I might laugh if he wasn’t so devastatingly serious. This isn’t the time to joke. If I say “stop,” he’ll do exactly that, and I need him too desperately to tease him. I chase his mouth, but he stays just out of reach. “What if I don’t want to stop?”
His tentacles hook the backs of my knees and jerk me down, sealing us together. And . . . holy shit . . . there is his cock, and it’s as massive as he is. We’re too close for me to see properly, but it feels just as human as his torso. I don’t know if that’s a relief or disappointment; it’s hard to feel anything but pleasure with his tentacles wrapping around my limbs.
And then it moves.
I gasp. “Is your cock prehensile?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No. Oh god, absolutely not. Do not stop.”
“If you don’t want to stop . . .” Thane bends down, his voice rough in my ear. “Then you say please.”
Oh god. I shiver. He hasn’t done anything to me yet, but the promise is right there in his touch, in his voice. This time, we’re not stopping. He’s going to give me everything I need. “P-please.”
“That’s a start.”
I should leave it at that. But I know myself well enough to understand I’ll continue to bash myself against the cliffs surrounding his heart. The more unreachable he makes himself, the more I’ll want his approval. The more I’ll want him. The only way to combat that is to ask for nothing.
But I . . . can’t.
I draw back a little and worry my bottom lip. “Thane.”
He stills. “Yes?”
It would be so easy to play this safe. I almost laugh at the thought. I flew right past safe the moment I made the demon deal. But that was different. Azazel promised me safety, and maybe I was a fool to believe him, but I haven’t had any cause to doubt his word since.
But this? This is the equivalent of putting my heart in Thane’s hands and asking him not to toss it into the trash. I know how that goes. I’m never enough and yet always too much. If I couldn’t make my own mother love me, how could I possibly make anyone else? Every romantic partner I’ve had has washed their hands of me, and Thane will as well. He has more reason to than most. I heard the sorrow in his voice when he talked about his dead husband. That was a once-in-a-lifetime romance.
How can a fuckup like me compare?
My chest lurches, and my throat tries to close. I swallow hard and try to kiss him again. Thane, being Thane, holds me back just enough that I can’t make the contact that will end this conversation before it starts. “Tell me, Catalina.”
I don’t want to, but I know him well enough by now to recognize the stubbornness in his tone. My sigh is silent but feels like it takes all the strength from my body. We’re doing this, and I have no one to blame but myself. “Don’t leave. After, I mean. Don’t just fuck me and then bolt like you’re afraid I’m going to tie you up and shove a ring on your finger.” The sudden longing for just that hits me like a rogue wave, and I have to pause to get my breath back. “If we’re doing this, I want you to stay the night.” There. That’s a reasonable request. Isn’t it?
Thane doesn’t answer immediately. In fact, he’s quiet long enough that I start to doubt how reasonable my request actually is. He wants me—we wouldn’t be in this position if he didn’t—but wanting to fuck and wanting to cuddle are two very different desires.
I almost take it back. My body throbs with thwarted desire, and I need him to make me cum, to fuck me until I can’t string a single thought together. If he calls a halt to this now and takes me back to my room, I might actually die.
But it hurts when he leaves. I’m not naive; him staying might only mean he wants to fuck me enough to agree to the rest of it, but . . . surely I don’t deserve to be so blatantly used.
If he’s going to use me, the least he can do is lie to me a little to soften it.
Aren’t I using him too?
I would love to say I am. That all I want are this man’s tentacles and his clever hands and his stern commands to provide me with a temporary escape. It feels like a lie, though.