Chapters (64)
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Pronunciation Guide
- Prologue
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Part Two
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Part Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Part Four
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Epilogue
- Excerpt from The Sun and Its Shade
- The Night and Its Moon Playlist
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Cover
Ash didn’t need further encouragement. Whatever arguments he’d been ready to have were gone. He closed the space between them in a flash, pressing his body into hers, his mouth on hers. It wasn’t the gentle kiss of a lover but the hard, anger-tinted kiss of a man who had thought she might die tonight. He gripped her to him, the contrast of his rough, tan hands against her soft, milky skin heightening her arousal. She kissed him back with equal ferocity, desperate for the healing closeness. She gasped as endorphins and dopamine swirled into the wound, moaning lightly at the alchemy of pain’s transformation into pleasure.
He put a hand beneath each of her thighs, hoisting her naked body up against the wall. Her back hit the wall with a thud as she pressed into him. She wrapped her legs around him and reveled in how it spurred him on. Every touch, every movement, every brush of lips or flex of each muscle heightened as he pinned her against the door.
They weren’t close enough. She needed more. Amaris wanted to pull the reever into the pain, into the fear of rejection, into the sense of abandonment and use his body, his love, his hands, his mouth as a promise, a bandage, a sense of forgiveness. She dug her nails into his back, arching her spine as she pulled him in. His body pressed into hers, air rushing out of her lungs. Her movement left her throat exposed, and she inhaled sharply at the sensation.
“Take me to bed,” she breathed against his cheek.
He growled in response, a positively animal sound at the opportunity.
Ash carried her across the room, tossing her thin, white body onto the bed. He tugged his shirt over his head in one swift movement. She propped herself up on her elbows, watching. He moved on top of her with an intensity she only saw in him when they were sparring in the ring. Amaris wrapped her legs around him once more from where she’d remained prone, attempting to flip him as she would if they were in hand-to-hand combat, but he resisted the flip, asserting his place on top. She leaned into the pressure, wanting him to crush her. The more she felt Ash, the less she could feel anything else. He throbbed against her skin until she was ready to let him in. She craved the fullness of it, the forgiveness, the love and understanding and absolution she’d feel if he was inside of her. Her heat, her thirst was pounding down her veins. She wanted—no, needed the intimacy—to feel enveloped by acceptance.
She arched her hips to meet his, and the motion seemed to bring him back into his body.