Free Candlemoth: A Holy City Romance by Pauline West Page B

How does that happen?"
    He reached out to try to touch my hair and I jerked back.   "Why do you dye your hair black?" he said.
    "Go away."
    He just sat there, looking at me.  I was about to jump up and leave, but then Ry came back.  For a moment he just stood there politely. I could tell he wasn’t sure if was is a guy I knew, and he didn’t want to be rude, but-
    The kid looked up at him, and his smile went all rubbery and weird and kind of flat.  He wanted to get in a fight.  He wasn’t out looking for girls- he was looking for a fight.  He leered. 
    I stood abruptly, and went inside.  Ry followed.  We put our drinks down at the bar and stood close together, our hips nearly touching, grinning at each other. 
    “What was that?” he said, softly.  He ran his hand through the underside of my hair, cupping my face.
    I put my hand over his, pressing my cheek into his touch.  His hand was so warm and firm.  “That,” I said, “was a freak.”
    “What’s the world coming to these days,” Ry said.  But everything outside he and I had disappeared; the dimensions of the night and the bar and the room had all fallen away.
    “You want to get out of here?” he said.  His voice was low, deliciously scratchy.
    He grabbed my hand.  Suddenly, we were running, laughing hysterically.  We were outside, the sound of our footsteps echoing all around us and I could see the flickering flames of gas lamps at the corners of my awareness like tiny fallen stars, and all at once we were back in the cobblestone alley outside his house where I’d stood just a few days before talking with Chef. 
    We stood there still giggling, catching our breath. 
    Then Ry pulled me close.  He pressed his lips to mine, closing his eyes.  I was spun up in his kiss like glitter whirling through a shook up snow-globe. 
    “You make my knees weak,” I murmured.
    He dipped me back, laughing, and my body responded to his as naturally as if I’d been made just for him.  Our kiss deepened; my hands tangled in his hair as I pulled him down to me, wanting more.  He pressed me back against the stone wall, one of his hands at the side of my neck and the other at my waist, and then his touch began to drift down, his thumb pressing my hipbone. 
    I swooned into him.  “God, I want you so much,” I said.
    “You,” he said, caressing my cheek, “are the most captivating woman I have ever met.”  He pressed his lips together a moment, studying me in the dark.  Watching my expression hungrily as his hand stroked down over my ass, feeling the shape of me fill his palm and fingers.  I couldn’t help but arch back into him, wanting his touch between my legs.   
    “Oh, Lily.”
    I fitted my leg around Ry’s so that there was nothing between us but my thin panties and his linen pants.  I pressed into him, keening with want, exposing my weakness to him.  I could feel how swollen he was with desire, how huge and hard.  As I felt the hot, hard length of him there in my most vulnerable place, Ry kissed me so savagely it sucked the air from my chest. 
    Oh, I wanted him deep, deep inside me.  I needed him- badly- all my senses felt inflamed.  Ry broke off his kisses to stroke over my earlobe roughly with his teeth.
    “I want to get on my knees for you,” he murmured. 
    Everything in me tightened at the cultured, raspy purr of his voice.
    “I think I’d like to see you on your knees,” I said, my voice made raw and strange. 
    Ry, paused, smiling, his eyes slitted with lust.  “That oh just so slightly evil grin of yours, Lily, and the spark behind those pretty eyes tells me your intent may differ as to why…”
    He kissed me differently then, with slow, lush slides of his tongue that made me ache to feel his expert mouth between my legs.    
    “Mm…”
    His fingers curved roughly down around the front of my thigh, pushing the silky fabric of my dress up as they hunted towards my panties, lingering there at the hem