18

W hen the dizziness from him materializing us into his room subsides, I contemplate real-life murder for the first time ever. There have been multiple moments where I’ve wanted to hurt Dane, but right now, as he holds me up against his door completely naked, I think I might end his life.

Yet my body sings with the proximity—the closeness, and the way my legs are wrapped around his waist and his hands grip my thighs. My skin tingles with his breath on my neck, and I can’t pull my gaze away from his silver eyes as he lifts them to look down at me.

Would it be acceptable for him to be inside me while I slap him?

Among the confusion of building heat and my tightening nipples rubbing against his shirt—as well as wishing I could hex him—I listen to him give a deep chuckle, and then my inner dirty thoughts are incinerated to dust as his lips come down on mine.

The kiss is sudden and catches me off guard, yet I respond the only way I feel is right and melt into it. Dane feasts on my mouth like he hasn’t eaten for days, a starved animal ravaging its prey with brutality. He’s sucking on my bottom lip and biting while his hands keep me against him. I can hear his thoughts—they run wild between us—and I can barely latch on to one as I kiss him harder.

My fingers capture the curls at his nape in a fierce grip as I yank his head to slant to the side, our tongues moving together for this fifth and last kiss. Tasting and teasing. I can feel him between my legs, my bare and open thighs, and I rub against his very clothed, very muscular body.

I sink my teeth into his bottom lip and tug, making sure it hurts.

He hisses and presses into me harder, the ridges of his cock to my core, and I battle the urge to slip my hand down his chest and rip his pants open, to stroke him until he swells in my hold, to grind against just the head and smear him with my arousal.

Dane groans into my mouth, most likely seeing the image I’ve made, what a very dark, very irresponsible version of me wants from my enemy.

This is all for the assignment of course.

Then I remember how nasty he is, the way he spoke about me to his friends, how he wants to kill me when we get off the island, and I drag my mouth away from him. He attempts to bury his face against my collarbone, assuming that’s what I want, but as he sucks on the flesh there, I pull his hair hard and tug his mouth away from my skin.

“That’s… that’s enough,” I say, panting, still keeping a fist of his hair in my grip. “That’s enough.”

His eyebrows furrow. “That was only fifty-one seconds.”

I gape at him, silent as I inhale through my nose, keeping my lips parted. They’re swollen from his mouth on mine. Our gazes are locked, neither of us breaking it.

“Nine seconds more and this could’ve been done with,” he says finally searching my face, my forced blank expression. “Was that intentional?”

“You can read my mind. You tell me.”

“That’s not how it works,” he replies, the silver in his eyes flickering back to his ordinary green.

I flatten my lips and glance away from him, studying our surroundings, pressing my chest into his to hide my breasts. He watches me as my eyes travel around us, to the four-poster bed with red sheets, the perfectly stacked books—probably in a certain order—and a rack of weapons. Some I’ve never seen before in my life. He has a walk-in closet, most likely full of three-piece suits and shiny shoes, and a cage for all his victims.

My eyes lift back to Dane, and I cover my chest with one arm. “I have no clothes on.”

My treacherous pussy pulses as he flexes his fingers. They’re still holding me up by my naked thighs, my legs still wrapped around him. He crushes into me, and my core vibrates, throbs, and begs for more. “I know.”

I let go of my breasts and grab his chin before he can dip down and look at my body. My other hand grips his shoulder for dear life. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’ve kissed you, and I had my arms wrapped around you in the lake while you were in this exact state, remember?”

“This is different.” I keep my hold on him. “I don’t give you permission to look at me.”

Shit. I’ve read all of this—and her—completely wrong.

The intrusive voice in my head is from Dane, and I frown.

His cocky expression falls, and he lowers me to my feet, setting me safely on the ground. “Very well. I apologize.”

Huh? “You… apologize?”

Dane ignores me and keeps his eyes above my head as he waves his hand. One of his white shirts appears, and he slides it up my arms to hide my nakedness. He doesn’t glance down as he fastens each button, although my heart accelerates unhealthily when his fingers graze my heated skin. It’s long enough to nearly reach my knees, the sleeves like parachutes on me. He rolls up each sleeve to my wrist before finally lowering his gaze to me.

“I would never force myself upon you.”

I gulp. “You tried to drown me.”

“I wouldn’t have let you actually drown. I was teaching you a lesson.”

If that’s Dane’s way of teaching someone a lesson, I fear what would happen when someone actually annoys him. I was late for a kiss and gave him a little attitude for talking crap about me, and he dragged me through a dirty lake and teleported me to the other side of the castle… naked.

He won’t last an hour in my world.

“I don’t plan on lasting an hour, mortal. It will take me seconds to obliterate your precious world, including you.”

I glare at him and slap his arm, but I might as well have slapped a wall. “You’re an asshole, do you know that? Take me back to my room.”

He laughs with no expression as he backs away from me, loosening his tie, pulling it from his neck, and dropping it on his desk. “Not yet. We have a task to finish. Unless you want to keep stopping it before the minute is up.” He pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue to stifle whatever hilarious point he’s trying to make. “Be my guest. I have nowhere to be.”

“For someone who can’t stand me and finds me disgusting, you have no issues jamming your tongue down my throat.”

He falters in his cocky charade for a second but then shrugs. “What can I say? I want to pass the assignment.”

I shake my head and walk into the middle of the room, trying not to make it obvious I’m enchanted by it. One may say that he sleeps like royalty, but then again, he is the Prince of Darkness and the heir to the Shadow Realm. It’s no wonder the place is perfect.

Dane watches me as I explore, running my fingers over the dark oak of the footboard of his bed, the candle holder made of pure gold, and the book spines, their titles in an unknown language. “Can I ask you something?”

He leans back on the desk, crossing his ankles and arms. “If I say no, will you still ask me?”

“Yes.”

He fights a smirk, eyes glued to me. “Go on.”

“And I want the truth.” He raises a brow in response, so I keep going. “Why am I here?”

Silence—deafening silence as Dane finally breaks eye contact and looks to the floor. “I have no idea. That’s why I asked you before.”

“Your mother hasn’t once mentioned why?”

He turns away from me, hands in his pockets as he pretends to look at the art on his wall. It’s a portrait of an angel surrounded by black mist, with flames and lightning and blood. “She went to extreme lengths to find you. That’s all I know.”

“Did she say why it was important for us to stay paired?”

He shakes his head, but his shoulder tense a little. “No.”

Too soon. It’s too soon.

“What’s too soon?”

He spins to scowl at me. “What?”

“You said it’s too soon. What is? And why can I hear your thoughts when I’m human? Does it have something to do with the tattoos?”

“Let’s just get this final kiss out of the way,” he says, changing the subject. “Then we never have to do it again. Don’t stop us before one minute or I’ll get the wrong idea.”

I scoff. If he thinks this conversation is done, he’s greatly mistaken.

He quirks a brow, as if to challenge me on what he said.

“It’s ridiculous that you brought me all the way over here when you could have ended it when you bombarded me in my bathroom. You kissed me then, and in the changing rooms after class. We could have finished up this task on several occasions. Instead, you dunked my head into my bath, kissed me, and then kidnapped me.”

“You were being annoying.”

“Do you usually kiss people who annoy and disgust you?”

He fists both hands. “It might come as a shock to you, but kissing isn’t something I do. In my realm, it was viewed as an act of pure romance and love, so forgive me if the thought of pressing my mouth to yours violates everything I believe in.”

“That explains the hard-ons you keep getting then. You’ve never been in that position, so you have no idea how to control yourself.”

His jaw strains as he clenches his teeth. “I’ve been in that position plenty of times.”

“You’ve been in love?”

His eyes light up with something unforgivable. “Yes. Countless times.”

I look intently at him, unsure how to approach the next question but asking it anyway in a whispered-out voice. “How many times have you fallen in love?”

“Fifty-seven. Are you done with your questions? Or do you plan on telling me about your love life too?”

Fifty-seven times? He must be as old as Hell itself. Why does he look my age?

“Do you have children then?”

Dane’s eyes grow dark, and I feel like I hit a no-go zone. “Don’t ask me things like that unless you’re willing to tell me your history.”

“I have no history. I’ve never been in love. And you’re a lot older than me if you’ve been in love fifty-seven times. I kind of feel weird kissing you now. I’m not into age gaps.”

“You say you’ve never been in love, yet you have a boyfriend. You said so yourself a few weeks ago. Is he aware of your infidelity?”

I tip my chin. “He’s not my boyfriend. I was messing around with him. His name is Grayson, and he’s nice, unlike you.”

The corners of his eyes crease. “Messing around?”

“Sleeping with him,” I clarify. “Anything else you need to know about my private life?”

Dane stiffens, his hands fisting. “Do you care for him?”

“As a friend.”

I feel the slight relief coming from him. It confuses me enough to relax my shoulders, until he speaks again.

He snorts at himself. “I expect nothing less from you. Commitment issues. Shock.”

Maybe I can run to the bench full of weapons and cut his head off with an ax. Would it grow back, or would he just be headless and still an asshole?

Dane’s sour mood shifts as quickly as it appeared, and he tries not to laugh. “Sometimes hearing your thoughts can be entertaining. You’re strange, mortal. Very strange.”

“Stay out of my head.”

“Stop letting me in then,” he says, crossing his ankles as he leans against his desk again. “Most of the time, it just happens, but then when you’re mad, your thoughts run wild. I find it amusing, listening to all the ways you’d like to hurt me.” He rubs the back of his head, and my eyes are drawn to the stretching of his large bicep. “Then there are the dirty thoughts.”

“Stop it.”

He doesn’t stop. “I’m a little surprised how many times an image of me bending you over has flashed across my mind while doing schoolwork. Tell me, human, is that what you want? For me to rip that shirt off your dying body, bend you over this desk, and fuck you until your pussy is raw?”

“Funny. But if I’m not mistaken, those images are coming from you. I prefer to be on top.”

Dane falls into silence, staring at me with his jaw tensing once more. It’s so easy to get under his skin. He looks like he wants to maul me again, not breaking his glare while I wait for him to fight back. He doesn’t, and it’s like the atmosphere is slowly altering, as if the room is shrinking to push us together. I don’t move, but my body begs my feet to go forward, to press my half-naked body to his and order him to slide his hand up my thigh and thrust his fingers deep within me.

Instead of pleading with him to do just that, I scoff. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen anyway. I have self-respect, and when someone calls me disgusting, the last thing I’m going to do is bend over a desk for them.”

I sit down on the edge of his bed, keeping my legs closed tightly, not only to create an ounce of friction, and to hide me, but to make sure he can’t see how slick my thighs are with my own arousal at the thought of having him touch me so intimately.

Dane gives me a death stare before he straightens, pulls off his belt with terrifying slowness, and tosses it. The strap of leather floats into his walk-in closet. He begins unfastening his shirt buttons, starting from the top. “You talk too much.”

“If you’re not going to get this over with, I’m leaving,” I say, hurrying to my feet and reaching for the door handle.

Dane uses his power to appear beside me, his towering height throwing a shadow of black over me, his chest and the ink littering his skin on show. He covers my hand, dwarfing it, and I throw my own death stare at him. “Let go.”

“You aren’t going out there dressed like that. You’ll be eaten alive.”

I try to pull the handle, but he’s too strong. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

I laugh. Really laugh. “Are you joking?”

“Do I appear to be amused by any of this?”

“No. All you seem to be doing is getting undressed.”

He blinks. I don’t—I keep staring at him, waiting for a reply.

“Nothing to say?” I push.

“We need to finish task three,” is all he says, his hand still over mine.

“And you need to take me back to my room,” I retort. “I’m done with this stupid assignment.”

His eyes narrow a fraction as he steps forward, and we’re back at square one, with him pressing me to the door. When my heart rate spikes, he notices and quickly backs away. “You’re not done with the tasks.”

The door is locked when I try again. I try more than once then give up and beat the wood with my fists, turning to lean my back to it, catching my breath. “I hate you.”

“Is that why you’re wet?”

My heart stops. My eyes widen, and my cheeks are probably a bright shade of red. “Excuse me?”

“I’m an immortal with heightened senses, plus I can feel everything you’re feeling right now. Lust and desire are practically radiating from you.”

“Go fuck yourself, Dane.”

He studies his cufflinks with fascination as he unhooks them. “No. That doesn’t seem enjoyable at all.”

“Unlock the door.”

“No. You have no idea what lurks out there.”

I groan and turn to him, barging my shoulder into his chest as I make my way to the other side of his gigantic room. “Then I’ll jump out of the window.”

“We’re at the top of a tower.”

I throw my arms up. “Great! Maybe the fall will put all of this to an end.”

He stops me, grabbing my wrist before I can even get close. “Stop acting like a brat.”

“Stop acting like you own me,” I snap, snatching myself away from his grip and putting distance between us. “Whether you like it or not, I’m leaving this room.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re intolerable.”

“And you’re annoying!” My insults need a boost. “I wish I was partnered up with someone else.”

“The feeling is fucking mutual.” He’s eliminating the distance between us. “If you can’t handle this, how are you going to handle the rest of the tasks?”

“I can handle them just fine. What I don’t appreciate is you not even giving me a chance to get dressed! You’re bossy and rude and controlling!”

“I gave you my shirt.”

I sneer. “How caring of you.”

“Are you done?”

“Are you?” I retort.

He grabs the collar of the shirt I’m wearing and yanks me to him. My perfidious hormones light up like sparklers. “With you?” Dane’s eyes burn into my soul. “No. Not even close.”

“Because of the assignments.”

Without responding, he turns us, pressing the bottom of my back to his desk. I grip the edge, white-knuckled, waiting for his next move. What will it be? Another dip in the lake? A head dunk in the bathtub? Calling me names, or maybe he’ll go one step further and actually cause me some sort of pain?

He can see it in my eyes—my unsureness of his movements, of the way he holds the material of the collar in his fist, of the rigidity of his jaw and every muscle while he lifts me onto the hard surface.

Dane confuses me. How he blows hot and cold, the soft way he caressed my skin as he tasted my mouth and then claimed me as his own—by saying he doesn’t share—yet proclaiming behind my back that I’m disgusting.

A body is a body, he said earlier.

Fine. Then that’s all he is to me. He’s nothing but an assignment.

Before he can take control of our last kiss, I snatch his jaw and pull his mouth to mine. He doesn’t stop me or do anything but kiss me back with equal measure. My legs fall open on instinct, and as Dane settles between them, I use my free hand to tug down the shirt to cover myself while I part my lips and let his tongue slip against my own.

Something snaps between us, like the first time we kissed, and the world blew up around us. A crack in the island. A wave high enough to swallow the entire castle in seconds. It’s like a stress ball exploding, a group of fireworks lighting up the dark sky while a crowd cheers, and a rush of adrenaline spikes in my veins.

I can sense it all through him too, amplifying the exhilarated, powerful feeling. It bounces from me, to him, then back to me, again and again and again. I almost moan from the intensity. My hand slips into his hair, bringing him even closer to me, and the deep groan he releases vibrates through my entire being.

All previous thoughts of protecting my self-respect are slowly simmering away, but I clutch at them fiercely, the same way my other hand shoots up and tangles in his hair, pulling his mouth from mine.

I whisper against his lips, “I don’t like you. In fact, I hate you the most out of all the immortal creatures in this school.”

“Is that why you’re enjoying kissing me so much? You intentionally stopped us again before the full minute again, didn’t you?” he asks, snatching my bottom lip between his teeth. “My shadows are hiding from you.” His palms slide under the shirt concealing my body, stopping at my hips. “They quiver when you’re around, and nothing scares them. They think you’re sadistic and evil, and that you’re going to be my end. If that’s the case, and you’re really here to kill me, then you might as well get full use of me, am I right?”

I swallow, the coiling sensation at the base of my spine like an enraged snake, trying to slither into my veins with a hiss of its tongue. A veil of darkness creeps under his door, through his windows, gathering around his shoes. “I’m not here to kill you.”

“But you would like to kill me…”

“Sometimes.”

He smirks. “Do I have permission to do this…?” He lifts his hand from my hip, taking the side of my face in his palm. He strokes my cheek with his thumb, a lot more intimate than he probably planned. Slowly, so slowly that goosebumps take over, Dane curls his fingers at the nape of my neck. The other hand squeezes my hip, caressing the naked skin there. “To hold you like this?”

Somehow, through the nerve endings exploding, I manage, “Do you want permission?”

“Yes.” Fuck, yes, I need your permission. I’ll always need your permission. “But only if you want to give it.”

I let go of his shoulders and press my hands to his chest, where his shirt has unfastened, so his naked skin is on display. His heart rattles against my hand, and a wave of nerves smashes into me. His nerves. “One last kiss?”

Dane doesn’t blink as he searches my face. “If that’s what you want.”

My palms slide down to unbutton the rest of his shirt, his pupils dilating in the middle of the sharp silver. His breaths are labored as I untuck his shirt from his pants to get the last two buttons, and he adjusts his grip on me so I can slide his sleeves off before placing his hands back on my body.

“Once this task is done, I want to know more about the Shadow Realm.”

He licks his lips, pulling me to the edge of the desk, his hardening cock pressing against my inner thigh. His shirt bunches at my hips, and I’m fully aware that if he looks down past my face, there’s a chance he might see me. It scares me more that I don’t care. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Dane, using his grip on my nape, pulls my mouth to his once more and doesn’t wait around to slip his tongue past my lips. I don’t pay attention to the shadows appearing, though I’m fully aware they’ve returned, maybe to see if I’m going to slay their master. To see if my sadistic and evil ways will result in me slitting open Dane’s throat and watching him bleed over my naked body.

Instead, I kiss him with a hit of desire, tilting my head for better access and to feel the softness of his lips more. He tastes like the dark he weeps in, frantic as he sucks on my tongue and takes my bottom lip between his, then the top one, pulling back to look at me when we pass the sixty-second mark. Only we go in for another kiss as I let out a pleading moan.

My lips move with his as he slowly unbuttons the shirt with one hand, keeping the other firmly on my neck to control each thrust of my tongue and the angle he kisses me. I whimper as he abandons the buttons halfway and palms my breast, pushing me back on the desk as he rolls my tightening nipple between his thumb and finger.

He tries to remove his hold on my nape, but I scream.

Something violent and painful ricochets all over me as the room flashes with light, and it feels like my brain is on fire, like my skin is splitting as I gasp into Dane’s mouth. He hisses and manages to yank himself away completely.

“Fuck!” he yells, gritting his teeth and clutching his wrist “What the fuck?”

Speechless, I grab the back of my neck and grit my teeth through the pain, unsure why it’s burning and throbbing—far more intensely that before. I look down to see his palm is completely skinned, the flesh bubbling as if he dipped it in acid. I wince and lean forward when another unbearable wave hits me, my spine twisting in agony.

Dane catches me before I hit the ground, and as he moves my hair from my neck, his eyes go wider than I’ve ever seen them. “Shit.”

“What is it?” I ask, breathless, wincing again as another shock rushes through me like haunting wildfire. He looks genuinely concerned. “Dane? Oh God. Please. Make it stop—it hurts.”

Our surroundings grow extremely cold, and I can see my breath in puffs, all the candles snuffing out. A low hum reverberates around us as Dane looks up before swearing to himself.

“Your tattoo. It has tendrils coming from it, like black ink in your veins.” He lifts me into his arms, waving his damaged hand, and a pair of extremely human shorts appear on me. “I need to get you back to your room.”

His room warps into nothing then as Dane’s shadows rally around us, and I hear whispers that make no sense, about kings and queens and wars and revenge.

Before my mind closes off and the burning at my nape stops, the last thing I hear is Dane muttering in a different language.

But for some reason, my mind translates each word.

Why the fuck is this happening so soon? We should have more time.