Free Beautiful Misery (Miss Misery) by Tracey Martin Page B

closed. Are you too tired, little siren?”
    In another lifetime and with anyone else, I’d have said yes. “I’m waking up.”
    “Are you?” Amusement laced his words.
    His finger left my chin, slowly gliding down my throat and onto the patch of exposed skin above my shirt’s neckline. He traced that, too, mere inches above my breasts, and oh, were they aware of the neglect. I inhaled more deeply, my chest rising higher as though encouraging him to take that finger farther.
    Instead , the light pressure on my skin disappeared. Fully awake and disappointed, I opened my eyes at last.
    Lucen kneeled on the floor, his face and chest hovering over me, one arm braced against the sofa back to hold himself up. “Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    I started to get up, but he placed his free hand on my shoulder, letting me sink back into the sofa cushions. I held my breath. His eyes had locked mine. His lips were so close I imagined I could taste them. Just a tilt of my head…
    But he didn’t move, and I realized h e was waiting for me to decide if this was really what I wanted. Mentally and emotionally.
    Physically , he could tell as well as I could. I was getting hot from no more than a mere touch of his finger. The last time I’d come this close to him, during my time in hiding, I’d lost control. It had partly been the result of my pent up frustration, but also because of his satyr magic. And it hadn’t been fun, or even hot. Or pretty much anything good sex ought to be.
    For that matter, it hadn’t been sex. I tried to tear his clothes off. He’d tried to slow me down. Then I’d freaked out and fought an internal struggle to regain control.
    Even though I was beyond freaking out now, I still couldn’t afford to lose control this time. I was too broken—bruised ribs, a sprained wrist. I couldn’t throw myself at him, however tempting it would be.
    I had to be strong enough. Brave enough. Willing to risk not merely damaging my body more, but wounding the most fragile organ of all. My heart.
    That’s what Lucen was really waiting for—for me to commit to taking this strange friendship of ours and heating it up to a strange relationship.
    Well, I was ready. He wasn’t the only one who’d risked his life recently. If I could risk that much for him, I could risk my heart. It was probably too late to worry anyway. Once I’d admitted to myself what I felt for him, I was a goner.
    I reached up and drew my hand over his cheek, stroking the blond hairs of his scruff. “Yes.”
    “You understand why I’m asking you,” he said. “You told me before that b eing around me takes away your ability to say no.”
    And if I couldn’t say no, then how could I say yes? I had asked him that. That realization had been part of my freak-out. But it was a non-issue now. I could tell him no because magic played no part of it.
    If I explained that, however, he’d demand an explanation about why, and that would be a long, complicated conversation. I wasn’t in the mood.
    So I answered more simply, though still truthfully. “That was before. My answer now is yes.”
    “Truly?”
    “Yes.”
    “Say it again.”
    “ Yes, damn you.”
    The fierceness of my reply must have been what he was waiting for. He grabbed my hand and slowly placed my fingers in his mouth. I swallowed hard as he sucked on them, and it wasn’t just my fingers that felt it. The nerves in my hands seemed directly connected to the ones in my groin, and it was every inch of me between the two being pulled taut. Gasping with surprise, I shifted on the sofa as his tongue slid down me until my hand was free. My fingers glistened with moisture, far from the only part of me now wet.
    His blue-green eyes were bright, their usual mischievous expression replaced by one so hungry in its intensity. “Do you know how much I want you, Jess? Do you know what torture it’s been like all these years, knowing I could have made you want me too? But I couldn’t do that to you. I had to