Time After Time (Cora's Bond) Read Online Free PDF Page A

dared to think through completely until that moment.
    “I didn’t cry downstairs. I wanted to, but not like before. A man had just died in front of me, and...God, I was sick and shocked and disgusted and upset, sure. But my hands—they’re not even shaking.” I held them up to demonstrate, and they remained rock-steady in between us.
    Dorian caught them both in his and raised them to his lips, kissing the backs of the knuckles and sending a shivering reaction through me.
    “I know,” he said, and there was a shadow of regret in his voice—but also an echo of pride.
    “Why not?” I demanded. “If this had happened three months ago, I probably would have started screaming and I wouldn’t have stopped for hours. Today, I worried most about how it will impact your cause, and then I messaged my friends for half an hour.” I laughed hollowly. “And I didn’t even tell her that I saw a man die.”
    “Your circumstances have changed,” Dorian said. “And you’ve changed. I won’t say that you’ve grown stronger, but your strength is being revealed. In a better world, you’d never have to find out how brave you really are.”
    “But have I changed for the better? Am I really braver than I was? Or have I actually changed for the worse because I’ve stopped caring like I once would have?”
    “The fact that you can even ask that question means that you do care, Cora.” He positioned himself squarely in front of me. “Your eyes have been opened to the world, and your heart, seeing a greater view, had three choices: to break instantly and forever, to become resilient and strong, or to become callous and indifferent.” His gaze swept over me, leaving prickles of heat in its wake. “You are anything but callous.”
    “I don’t feel very strong,” I said in a small voice.
    Again, the quirk of those sinfully full lips. “The strongest never do because they are too wise about their own weaknesses.”
    I giggled and pushed him away gently. “Yeah, that’s too deep for me. All you need now is a long beard and a pointy hat, and you’re all set to be my wizard guide, talking like that.”
    I stepped past him, and he caught my arm so fast that he jerked me up short, pulling me hard against his body. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. His mouth came down over mine as he twisted the hooks on my bra loose and slid it from my body. All that we’d been through that evening was in his touch—the darkness and the frustration and the despair. And I needed it every bit as much as he needed me.
    “What am I to you?” he demanded when he finally pulled back. “Tell me, Cora.”
    The answer was pulled from the depths of my soul. “Everything.”
    “And that’s what I will do to you,” he vowed.
    Then he bent and took my nipple before it had the chance to fully harden, and the shock of it tightening in the heat of his mouth sent a jolt through me that made me rock against the hard grip he had on my hips.
    He lavished my breast, suckled it, stroked it with his tongue until I whimpered under the onslaught. And then he pulled back, leaving it suddenly exposed to the cool air of the bathroom as he took the other in turn.
    My hands threaded in his hair, skimmed under the collar of his shirt as a desperate ache began between my legs. As if he could sense it, he moved one of his hands to the small of my back to hold me against him, and the other one he raised to my mouth, pushing two fingers inside. I sucked the saltiness from them to the same rhythm of his mouth on my body, as if he controlled my lips and tongue with his own.
    Dorian pulled his fingers free and dragged the wet tips down my belly to my entrance, where he slid them deep inside. I clenched hard around him, biting down against my moan as he moved them inside me, matching strokes with his tongue. My legs were shaking, but he kept going, pushing me over into a spiraling climax until my whole body tingled and I gasped for air, hardly able to keep my