Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(20)
By the subtle nod of her head, I could tell she’d expected as much, but the pain was still there. In her eyes and in her colors. Deep blue. In the way her breath hitched and her eyes glistened. Sam took a deep breath. “Then do it.”
“Huh?”
She pushed against me, stopping a few inches from my lips. “Kiss me good-bye.”
My gaze dropped to her mouth, lips ruby-tinted and inviting. Shit…
Inside, the demon rumbled, but instead of the usual images it fed me—blood, violence, and rage—it showed something else. A flash of the kiss the night I left. Then, another of the one at the bottom of the lake. It wanted me to kiss Sam. The want fanned into something stronger. Need. It needed me to kiss Sam.
So I did.
It wasn’t a slow, sweet kiss. It was the dive-right-in-before-you-lose-your-f*cking-nerve kind. Arms winding around her waist, I pulled her close and covered her mouth with mine. Soft, warm, and eager, she tasted faintly of vodka and cherries. It was sensation overload. A veritable shock to my system. I was a lightning rod in a hurricane. Pushed to the brink, but happy, because it’s where I was meant to be. Always riding the line between pleasure and pain.
This was need. A primal, dark, animalistic force that screamed in every one of my limbs. Being here with her now, after having been away for so long, made me desperate to take as much of her as I could. Devour what I could get and savor it.
I ground my hips against her, groaning into her mouth when the sensation threatened to send me crashing over the edge. She gasped and pushed back, riding the high as eagerly as I was. There was nothing gentle here. Nothing chaste. The moment was about something forbidden and raw. The curse had taken my life from me, but I wasn’t the only one. It destroyed everyone it touched. Breaking and shattering until there was nothing left but emptiness and anger.
Sam’s fingers clutched my shoulders, digging into skin like she was trying to keep me there forever. The energy radiating from her was a humming vibration setting every part of my body on fire. I tasted her sadness and regret, and the pain she’d felt for every day I’d been gone. Breathing deep, I took it in, giving the thing inside what it craved and easing some of my pain. It drove the demon crazy. The monster scratched and writhed to get a bigger taste. I pushed it back.
She couldn’t feel the emotion like I could, but I wanted to make sure she understood what I was unable to put into words.
That I missed her.
My lips moved with hers as I roughly grabbed either side of her face. Sliding my hands back, my fingers tangled through her long hair, then settled to cradle the back of her head to keep it away from the brick wall. A contented sigh rose in her throat at the contact. It was the most fragile, delicate sound I’d ever heard and it drove me crazy.
That she was the single most important thing to me…
She deepened the kiss, rising up onto her toes and licking at my bottom lip. Her cheeks were warm and wet, tears falling freely now. The debris of the broken past between us momentarily washed away.
That everything I was doing was to keep her safe…
We were approaching the danger zone. The demon, restless and itching for the surface, pushed harder. It flashed a succession of images, all variations of Sam, naked beneath me and moaning my name. Breath ragged, I grabbed her arms and pinned them above her head.
“Oh my—” Her voice cut off as she arched violently into me, ending in a desperate whimper that almost made me come right then and there. The fire blazed between us, raw and dangerous, and it was only when my fingers moved to slip beneath her skirt and remove the satiny barrier between us that I was able to stop and pull away.
The ache that had plagued me for the better part of the day was quickly building toward blinding pressure. Pressure that would only be released by feeding the demon. I needed more than the tiny bits of the anger, lust, and sadness I’d pulled from her. I needed something bigger. Something darker.
Sam stared. From the thick mist of orange lust swirling around her head and shoulders, it seemed like she’d push forward again, but to my relief—and disappointment—she didn’t. The spark in her eyes dimmed, and she moved sideways along the wall and toward the door, breath coming in jagged, uneven pulls.
When she spoke, her voice was low and sad. The anger was gone, replaced by nothing short of devastation. Despite the fact that we’d both wanted it, that kiss had been a mistake. As big a mistake as the one in the woods three years ago. “Now that was a good-bye.”
Fuck. I’d come out here to get closer to finding out who was trying to run her down, and instead I’d driven the space between us wider.
“Have a nice life, Jax.” She slipped back into the club, and even though every instinct screamed for me to follow, the thing inside prevented it. I was on fire. The demon’s need left me an exposed nerve, raw and bleeding. Taking from her had only further ignited the monster’s hunger. If I didn’t feed it something violent soon, it would take matters into its own hands. Or, rather, my hands.
I stumbled around the back corner of the building. Kissing Sam made the demon hungrier. My elation at being so close to her was a drain on the thing. I’d known better, and yet I’d done it anyway. Now someone else had to pay the price. Violence. The demon would take what it needed from some poor bastard and leave me stuffing back the guilt.
Sucking in a breath, I held it, trying to zero in on the strongest source of emotion. There was a banquet of lust and greed in the area, still lingering around the club, but something else caught my attention. A sweet scent that made the demon go wild with anticipation. It was coming from the east side of the building.