เข้าสู่ระบบThe first inch of him stretched me open, and the magic answered like a struck match.Heat raced up my spine in a bright, electric rush that forced a broken cry from my throat. Vesper held still, only the head of his cock inside me, giving my body a moment to adjust while the bond under my skin flared wide and hungry. I could feel it spreading like warm ink flooding every vein, rewriting the spaces between my ribs, settling low in my belly like a second heartbeat that matched his.“Breathe,” he murmured against my mouth.I tried but the attempt came out as a shaky exhale. My fingers dug into the hard muscle of his shoulders. The moss was cool beneath my bare back, but I registered it only distantly. Everything that mattered was the thick, hot pressure of him poised at my entrance and the magic already beginning to lock.Vesper pushed deeper.Another inch. Then another. The stretch burned in the best way, a slow, relentless claiming that forced soft, helpless sounds out of me with ever
Vesper kissed me like he had been waiting years for the exact shape of my surrender. There was no more patience in it, only hunger held under tight control. His hand in my hair tightened, angling my head so he could take the kiss deeper. The taste of him flooded me—sweetness and smoke and something darker that made my toes curl inside my boots. I made a soft, broken sound against his lips and felt him answer it with a low growl that vibrated through my chest.The fallen oak pressed hard against my back and the bark caught at the fabric of my jacket. Vesper’s thigh slid higher between mine, solid and deliberate, and the pressure against my center dragged another helpless noise from my throat. He swallowed it and pressed closer, until there was no space left between our bodies that did not belong to him.The bond under my skin pulsed in time with my heartbeat, no longer a suggestion but a living heat that spread with every stroke of his tongue. It felt like warm ink moving through my v
My boots stayed rooted in the soft earth of the clearing while every warning I had ever been given screamed at me to turn and run. Vesper remained exactly where he was, patient, as if he had already measured the exact distance between my fear and my curiosity and found the latter heavier.The warmth from his earlier touch still lingered under the skin of my arm. It had not faded the way ordinary heat should have. It sat there like a slow-burning coal, spreading in thin threads up toward my shoulder and down into my wrist.“You said you would not stop me,” I said.“I will not.” His pale eyes caught the moonlight and held it. “But I will not make the path easier either.”I took one step backward. The root that had nearly tripped me earlier caught at my heel again. This time I stayed upright without his help. The small victory felt thin.“What happens if I stay?”A quiet breath left him. Almost a laugh, but softer.“You already know. Your blood remembers even if your mind pretends otherw
Tammy's POVThe warnings started before I was old enough to understand them.My grandmother would catch my wrist if I wandered too close to the tree line behind the house. Her fingers were always cold as she would look past me into the dark spaces between the trunks and say the same words every time.“They wait where the light ends. They wear beauty like a skin. Once you let them speak to you, the path home grows longer.”My mother was less poetic and more direct.“If you ever see something in those woods that looks too perfect, you run. You do not speak to it. You do not let it touch you. And you never, ever follow it deeper.”I heard the stories so many times they became background noise. An incubus lived in the deep woods beyond the ridge that fed on desire. It could look like whatever would make a person stop walking. Once it had you, the bond was permanent. You could be lucky to walk out of the trees, but some part of you never left.I stopped believing the details years ago but
The knock came again, sharper this time.Roman’s hand tightened on my hip. We both froze.“Roman?” Liam’s voice, slightly muffled through the door. “You in there? Diana’s looking for the extra bottle of that whiskey you brought.”Roman closed his eyes for half a second, then called back, voice remarkably steady, “Yeah. Give me a minute.”We heard his footsteps move away down the hall.The second they faded he sat up, dragged a hand through his hair, and reached for his pants. I found my underwear and the black dress in the tangle of sheets and pulled them on with hands that still weren’t completely steady. Roman zipped his pants, picked his shirt up off the floor, and looked at the missing buttons with a grimace.“This is not subtle,” he muttered.I almost laughed. The sound came out thin.He crossed to me, cupped the side of my face, and kissed me firmly.“Stay here. I’ll deal with Liam and come back.”I nodded.He slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind him. I sat on the edg
Chapter 5Diana turned and walked back toward the house without waiting.Roman and I stood in the open air with the lanterns between us. My hands were still unsteady and the ache between my legs had not faded.We carried them across the driveway and set them on the patio table where she had pointed. The sun was dropping fast now, turning the water below the bluff a hard, metallic blue.I went upstairs to change because standing near him in the open air felt dangerous.My hands shook while I unzipped the dress I had worn to the rehearsal. I stood in the small bathroom in my underwear for a full minute, staring at the faint flush still high on my cheeks and the slight mark his mouth had left on the side of my throat. I pressed my fingers to it. The skin was warm.I changed into a black dress with a lower back and fixed my hair. When I came downstairs the patio had been transformed. Long tables. Candles in glass hurricanes. The extra lanterns already lit. Someone had put on a softer play







