Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4)

by Laura Thalassa

  He sets me on the bed, backing up only to watch me as he begins to remove his silver armor bit by bit.

  “What are you doing?” I ask breathlessly, pushing myself up on my forearms.

  His eyes gleam. “Claiming what I should’ve long ago.”

  Arm guards, off, breastplate, off, greaves, off. He removes it all, and then he reaches for his clothing.

  “You can always tell me to stop,” he says, echoing my earlier words. It draws a smile out of me, even as my nerves buzz.

  He pulls off his shirt, casting it aside.

  My breath catches as I take in all of his glowing tattoos. They cover his skin like leopard spots.

  With his armor on, Death looks like an angel of God; without it, he looks like something more. More than angelic, more than otherworldly. It’s hard to believe he can even somewhat pass for human most of the time; it’s so obvious to me right now that he’s something else entirely.

  His hand moves to his boots, and he pulls them off one by one.

  I almost think that he’s going to stop there.

  He doesn’t.

  His pants—and whatever lies beneath—come off, and he is completely, gloriously naked.

  Thanatos returns to where I lay on the bed, still fully clothed. He places a fist on either side of my head, bracketing me in.

  All I can see are miles of rippling muscle and tattoos, and I can’t think straight. My hands twist in the blanket beneath me. I feel like everything between us has been flipped on its head, and all that power and control I collected last night has been siphoned away.

  He leans in close. “I have given you so much pain, kismet. Let me give you pleasure to match.”

  As the two of us stare at each other, his hands move to the collar of my shirt and—

  Riiip.

  I suck in a breath as he tears the fabric apart, exposing my bare skin beneath. My heartbeat is quickening. Pain and pleasure will always go hand in hand with Death. I have too many memories of fighting him for it to be otherwise.

  I begin to sit up, an action the horseman takes advantage of. He leans in and kisses me roughly. Despite myself, I laugh a little at how exploitive the horseman is.

  He groans against my mouth, nipping at my lower lip. “If I could, I would devour that laughter of yours. There is nothing sweeter.”

  My smile fades away. Every time Thanatos says something like that, an unnerving warmth blossoms under my sternum.

  To distract myself from it, I break off the kiss and undo my bra, sliding the undergarment off. I lounge back against the bed, though there’s nothing relaxing about this. I’m taut with tension.

  Death has a wild look about him, and his eyes are transfixed on my breasts. Reaching out, he cups one.

  Thanatos makes a noise low in his throat. “I cannot get over how soft you are,” he breathes. “Or why I find that so damn alluring.” As he speaks, his thumb sweeps over my nipple.

  I hiss in a breath, my skin so sensitive.

  Death grins and runs his thumb over my nipple again. Unthinkingly, I arch into the touch.

  “You like that?” he asks.

  Before I can answer him, he begins drawing circles around my nipple, staring intently at me. And damn him, but I can’t not react to those deft fingers of his, my chest rising and falling faster and faster.

  “I know I like it,” he continues. “And I really like that look in your eyes.” Death’s voice has gone rough, and this is a wholly unfamiliar side to him.

  What look do I have in my eyes?

  “But,” he adds, leaning towards me once more, “I want those wicked lips of yours back on mine.”

  That’s all he has to say for me to rise up to meet him once more. My arm wraps around his neck as I resume the kiss. Thanatos falls into it eagerly. His lips part my own, and then his tongue sweeps against mine, claiming every last inch he can.

  His hips rock against me, and Jesus, I want to do bad, bad things to this horseman.

  I bring a booted foot up, in between us, forcing him back. The man looks half feral as he gazes down at me, lust thick in his eyes.

  “What could possibly make you wish to stop?” he asks.

  “Take the rest of my clothes off,” I demand softly.

  If there was heat in Death’s eyes before, it ratchets up now as his gaze descends on my lower half. Without responding, he grabs the foot holding him back and, casting me a wicked look, he removes my boot, then the sock beneath.

  He glances down at my foot. “Even your toes delight me, Lazarus. What a wonder you are. What a wonder this is.”

  This.

  That last line has my heartrate jackknifing.

  I want to tell him that he’s the wonder, with his glowing tattoos and wings and deadly magic. But I’m afraid that if I speak, if I give into the churning mass of thoughts that he elicits, I’ll slide right into my feelings for this man and I’ll never get myself out.

  Death removes the other boot and sock, and then his hands are traveling up my legs and just that sensuous touch has me panicking.

  How have we gone from enemies set on destroying each other to this?

  The thought has barely crossed my mind when I feel Death undo my jeans and begin to pull them down. His fingers snag on my panties, and those come along too. Inch by tantalizing inch, he removes the last of my clothing. He tosses it all aside, his gaze feasting on me.

  “Lazarus.”

  Looking like a man possessed, he prowls onto the bed. His lips and a few locks of his hair skim along my skin as he moves up my body. Death doesn’t stop until the two of us are face to face.

  His eyes search mine. “You rob me of breath.”

  “It’s you who robs me of breath,” I say. I can’t not admit that at the very least. Death is the most beautiful, unearthly thing I’ve ever seen.

  Death’s gaze lowers to my lips. “I have wanted to kiss you from the moment you first ambushed me and demanded I end my ways,” he says. “It drove me mad, this need I felt but didn’t understand—a need I still don’t understand. I thought my brothers were weak for succumbing to it.”

  I exhale slowly, trying to process all of that. “You’ve wanted to kiss me this entire time?” I ask.

  His eyes fill with mirth. “Among many other things.”

  “What other things?” I say curiously.

  He trails a finger down the slope of my nose, over my lips and chin. “I wanted to steal you away the first moment I laid eyes on you. I wanted you completely. It was an agonizing, awful experience. I thought it only further proved how wicked humans were, to have desires like that, desires I was now forced to feel.”

  My heart thunders to think he’d wanted me even then. I can hardly imagine it, given how everything between us played out.

  “And when you didn’t die—” Thanatos continues, his fingers skimming down my side, stroking my bare flesh, “when all my power proved useless against you—I knew you were mine, kismet. Knew it as surely as you know your own name.”

  This should be terrifying—especially in light of the fact that even after he had these realizations, he hurt me, again and again.

  But I’m not terrified. Not at all.

  There is no one like us.

  “Why did you finally give in to your … human desires?” I ask.

  Now his expression softens, and I’m finding it hard to breathe.

  “All those lonely months on the road, the monotony of my task only interrupted by your meager attempts on my life—”

  “They weren’t meager,” I say, forgetting for a moment that a very naked horseman is pressed against me and that we’re about to do filthy things to each other.

  He flashes me an indulgent grin like I’m being cute.

  “Fighting you became hard, and then it became agonizing,” he admits his smile slipping. “But as bad as the fighting was, the parting was worse. I spent months wondering about who you were, and what it was about this miserable human existence that you found so worthwhile.

/>   “And then, eventually, I wanted to know other things, human things, about you. Things that even now, I struggle to name because everything about living is so very different than dying. I wanted—I still want—to know about you—what brings you joy, what makes you sad. Wilder still, I want to be one of the things that brings you joy.”

  My throat tightens at his confession, and I cannot look away from the dark depths of his eyes. He’s told me some of these things before, but in the fading light of dusk, with my body held against his, it hits me differently.

  “Somewhere between all of our confrontations, Lazarus, I came to care about you, and leaving you behind became unthinkable.

  “So I stopped fighting that wicked desire to take you, and I gave in. And here we are,” he says.

  “Here we are,” I echo.

  The moment stretches on, until finally, I can’t stand it any longer.

  Moving beneath him, I let one of my legs fall open.

  The horseman lifts his body a little to look down between us. I see his nostrils flare, and after a moment, he runs a hand down my flesh—down, down, down—until he gets to my pussy.

  Now he moves back to his haunches, his black wings hanging over the edge of the bed as he studies my sex, his eyes burning.

  His gaze returns to mine as he deliberately runs his finger down the seam of my slit.

  I suck in a breath, my hips moving against him.

  “Do you like that?” he asks.

  I part my lips to answer, but he’s already running his finger back up my folds again. The moment his finger strokes my clit, my hips helplessly move once more.

  His eyes alight and his touch backtracks to my clit.

  “What is this?” he asks, brushing it once more.

  “My God, Thanatos,” I gasp out. His light touch is driving me mad.

  I reach for his cock, which already looks painfully hard, his strange glyphs glittering along its shaft. The horseman catches my hand and pins it back against the bed.

  “No, Lazarus. Let me learn you.”

  My body is taut like a bowstring and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who looks agonized. I shudder out a breath and reluctantly nod. He’s never explored another body before. I can be patient with this. I just have to calm down my own raging libido.

  Death’s fingers continue to explore my body. They travel down my clit, right to my core. Almost by accident, one of them dips inside me, and I let out a gasp.

  Really have to calm down that libido.

  In an instant, the horseman’s eyes have honed in on me and my reaction. His finger, meanwhile, retreats—only to slide back in, this time a bit farther.

  I writhe underneath his touch, and Thanatos’s expression darkens with desire.

  “I think I’m beginning to figure out how this works.”

  After several more tantalizing strokes of his finger, it slips out of my core and his hand continues traveling back until his finger finds something else altogether.

  “Please don’t make me tell you what that does,” I say breathlessly as he traces my other opening.

  Death’s eyes gleam, his expression somehow both intense and amused. “I don’t really care what it does—only whether you like me touching you there.” As he speaks, he presses a finger against it.

  I bite my lip because that is my asshole. Despite myself, I’m still aroused.

  Thanatos watches my expression, his gaze searching mine. “You do like that.” But then his hand retreats and he turns his attention back to my pussy.

  His hands slide over my legs, his attention fixed between my thighs. All at once, he grabs one of my legs and hoists it over his shoulder, his feathers tickling the pad of my foot.

  I swear I see a shiver rack through him at the contact, but he pays it no mind. Instead, he places my other leg over his other shoulder.

  I stare up at him, somewhat confused by this particular turn of events.

  “What are you … ?”

  Before I can finish, Death leans forward and places a kiss against my clit.

  My body jerks at the sensation, my hips rising to meet those lips of his.

  “Thanatos.”

  He smiles against my flesh.

  I nearly die at the sensation of that grin against my skin.

  “You like that,” he says, a note of wicked triumph in his voice.

  “It’s—”

  But he doesn’t let me finish.

  His mouth returns to kissing my clit, only now he begins doing something with his tongue that—holy shit. My hips buck against him, the sensation so sharp it’s almost painful.

  I reach for his head, my fingers threading through his black hair. I mean to push him away, but there is no budging this man. And that tongue of his …

  I go from moans to panting real quick.

  How is he even doing that? He’s had no practice.

  Death pauses, “I was wrong earlier when I said there was nothing sweeter than your smiles,” he says. “This is sweeter.”

  I’m not going to muse on the fact that the man won’t eat bread but he’ll gladly eat me.

  I make a senseless, pleading noise because he got me all worked up and then he stopped.

  The horseman’s eyes blaze with masculine pride. And then his mouth is back on my clit, his tongue laving over it again and again.

  “You have to move around,” I beg him. “Please—”

  “I’ll do what I want, kismet,” he murmurs against my flesh. “And you’ll endure it.” And then he’s back to devouring me.

  Filthy, bossy man. I’d hold it against him if it wasn’t my pleasure he was demanding.

  The pads of my feet slide against his wings as I writhe, and the horseman makes a satisfied sound as though he enjoys the sensation.

  He moves down a little, his tongue slipping into my core.

  I yelp.

  Oh, that is dirty.

  “Death.” It comes out as a moan.

  I am aching.

  He gazes up at me from between my thighs and he drinks in my expression. Whatever he sees there causes him to flash me a wolfish grin. Thanatos pauses his work to rest his chin on my pelvic bone, looking infinitely pleased with himself.

  “What happens if I continue on like this?” he asks, a spark of knowing curiosity in his eyes. “Will you unravel just as I did?”

  Yes, and probably within the next thirty seconds, too, if he keeps on doing whatever it is he’s doing with his tongue.

  “It’s called an—”

  Thanatos dips down and nips me, causing me to yelp again.

  “I know what it’s called.”

  “Please,” I gasp.

  He glances back up at me. There’s an inferno in his eyes, yet I can also see his hesitation.

  He’s never done this before.

  I begin to sit up.

  It’s as though he knows where my mind is at. Moving up my body, he captures my hands and pins them on either side of my head, his erection brushing my thigh.

  “You are to stay here,” he commands me, his expression fierce.

  “But—”

  “Must I bring down the rain and lightning or draw the roots and the dead up from the ground? Or make the earth quake and buildings fall to remind you who I am? I set my sights on you a year ago, but I haven’t fully taken you—not yet. So lay back, kismet, and let me show you what it means to be mine.”

  Chapter 47

  Hallettsville, Texas

  July, Year 27 of the Horsemen

  Death is magnificent then, his wings spreading wide behind him, his tattoos glittering in the candle-lit room, his blazing eyes promising things that even I know nothing about.

  I hold his gaze, then subtly, I sink back into the bed, relaxing.

  His expression doesn’t seem to change but his gaze looks oh so pleased.

  His hands are still holding mine down, and now his fingers thread through mine. Death leans in, his mouth taking my own once more. Only, there’s no mistaking the carnality of this k
iss as his tongue slips between my lips. His mouth is searing. It’s like a fire has been lit beneath my skin. And I’m kissing him back, and the two of us are going from gentle and sweet to hot and heavy real fast.

  Rain begins to patter against the house, just like he threatened only moments before.

  Thanatos releases one of my hands and grabs my thigh, aligning our bodies. I feel his cock then, right at my entrance. Thanatos breaks off the kiss, his hand tightening.

  This is it.

  The two of us gaze at each other as Death shifts his hips and begins pushing in.

  He’s big—really, really big—and even though I’m plenty wet, it’s still an adjustment. My fingers tighten around his, bracing myself against the sensation of being stretched.

  Death goes still, his cock throbbing as it rests partially inside me.

  “Tell me to stop and I will stop,” he reminds me. His pupils are blown wide, and his jaw keeps clenching and unclenching with the effort of keeping absolutely still, and I’m sure the horseman would learn what true suffering is if I did take him up on the offer.

  But I don’t. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I feel as though this must be what electricity was like—sharp and blindingly bright.

  “Don’t stop,” I breathe, dreading the thought as much as Death must. Already, my flesh is adjusting to his girth.

  No sooner have I spoken then he simply gives in. With a groan, the horseman thrusts forward, sheathing every last inch of his cock inside me.

  My lips part and my fingers squeeze his to the point of pain. I’m throbbing—or maybe he’s throbbing. It’s hard to say; there’s so much more sensation down there than I’ve ever felt before.

  Death’s gaze devours mine. There’s a sharp edge to his features and a muscle in his cheek keeps clenching and unclenching. Outside, the rain pelts down, and in the distance, thunder rumbles.

  I pull my captive hands free so that I can hold him close to me. “This is living.”

  He gives a soft laugh, though his features quickly sober up, especially as he withdraws, only to thrust back into me a moment later. My hips rise to meet his.

  I let out a moan at the intensity of it all. Death does it again, a shudder coursing through him at the sensation.