Page 169

His grin gets wider. “Had weeks to think about it.”

And God, there it is again.

His voice.

That deep, wrecked rasp rolling over me while he stands there looking entirely too pleased with himself.

I laugh harder, tears spilling over now because apparently my body has completely fucking given up trying to separate emotional responses. “You nearly died. We just fought the Devil. You sealed a doorway to Hell.”

He steps closer. “And yet… my dick’s still out.”

“I noticed.” I waggle my brows at him.

“Yeah.” His eyes drop briefly to my mouth. “You definitely fucking noticed.”

I laugh and step into him anyway, flattening my palm against his chest. His skin is hot beneath my hand, hellfire still humming under it with that faint trace of Sentinel’s Grace, but everything feels steadier now.

More settled.

His.

Carnage’s grin fades as he looks down at my hand and his fingers close over mine. When he looks back up, something in his face has changed. “You called me back.”

Hearing that rough voice does something painful to my chest. “I almost gave you to him.”

His hand tightens over mine. “But you didn’t.”

“Carnage…”

“You found me in fucking Hell, Echo.”

My throat closes, while his other hand slides around the back of my neck, bringing me closer until his mouth is only inches from mine. “Do you have any idea what that means to someone who spent half his life being told where he belonged?”

The humor is completely gone now, and so is mine.

His thumb moves once against my neck. “Hell had me. The Devil had my power. And I heard you.”

Jesus.

Tears sting my eyes again. “I’d call you back from anywhere.”

His eyes close for half a second, as if that one got through somewhere he wasn’t prepared to let me reach. When they open again, the cocky bastard is gone. “Yeah,” he says, voice dropping into that deep rasp I’m already discovering is going to be a serious-fucking-problem for me. “I think I’d come.” My breath catches. “Every-fucking-time.”

That breaks me.

I grab his face and kiss him. Carnage catches me around the waist and pulls me hard against him, his mouth opening beneath mine.

Then he growls.

Actually. Fucking. Growls… into my mouth.

The sound runs straight through me. My siren lights up so fast I make a sound of my own, my fingers tightening against his jaw as that deep vibration rolls through his chest and into mine.

Jesus Christ, he can do that now.

Carnage feels my reaction and does it again, lower this time, the bastard already figuring out exactly what that voice does to me.

I break the kiss just far enough to breathe. “You’re going to be insufferable with that thing, aren’t you?”