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“I like fictional danger,” she shot back, voice shaky but still sharp enough to cut. “Fictional danger has chapters. And editors. And usually a warning page.”

I lowered my head until the mask nearly brushed her nose. “You read my warning page and kept going.”

Her legs had wrapped halfway around my hips during the fall, entirely of their own traitorous accord.

Her gaze followed mine.

She went red.

“You are unbearable.”

“You’re under me and still arguing.” My thumb moved once over the inside of her wrist, feeling that wild beat there again. “Adorable.”

I leaned forward. “It’s time for you to pay for kissing Kalon.” My mask brushed her cheek, my grip firm but loose enough for her to pull out of if she wanted me gone. “I know you kissed him because you were starving. I know your body panicked and reached for power. I know he was convenient. Safe. Kind.”

Her wrists flexed under my hand.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to hate the taste of him on you until I rot,” I whispered. “Not because I blame you. Because I left you hungry enough to reach for someone else.”

Her lashes fluttered.

I let her hear the ugly part. “That will never happen again.”

“You were hurt . . . You—”

“I’m not now,” I pointed out. “And that doesn’t mean I won’t teach you who to call when you’re hungry. You don’t need to be ashamed of needing too much. I was built for too much.”

Liv swallowed.

I loosened my grip slightly and revealed the small vibrator hidden in my hand.

I glanced down only to see a pink tail curling against the sheets behind her thigh. A perfect little heart at the end. She had sprouted a tail sometime between swallowing me and now, and she had no idea. She could freak out about it later. For now, I didn’t want her distracted.

My flower was blooming under me, wet and furious and hungry, and I wanted to be the thing she devoured.

I lowered my mouth to her throat. “Use me, baby. Take what you need.”

I kissed the side of her neck because if I didn’t put my mouth somewhere, I was going to start saying things that sounded too much like pleading. Her skin tasted clean from the bath, salt under soap, heat under all of it. The mark pulsed harder, a red glow beneath her skin, and she made a soft sound she tried to swallow.

I heard it anyway.

“My shirt,” I said against her skin. “My bed. My pretty little disaster under me like she was made for it.” I turned on the vibrator and slid it under the hem of my shirt, against bare skin now, over the slick heat of her. She cursed and tried to move away. I held her right where I’d put her. The fight she put up ruined me. Those hot little pants went frantic as I swirled the vibrator over her sensitive bud.

“There’s my hungry girl.”

“I am not—”

I moved the toy in a slow circle. Her words broke apart.

“Not what?” I asked. “Hungry? Wet? Mine?”

Her thighs shook. I dragged the toy lower, teasing, letting the vibrations kiss where she wanted it before taking it away.

Her arms remained above her head, fingers curled in the sheets, eyes fixed on me while I kissed down the line of her throat.

“Tell me who you call when you’re hungry,” I said against her neck.

Her nails scraped the sheets. “You.”