His mouth was hot and wet, his tongue a relentless, circling pressure that pulled a ragged cry from her throat. The sensation was a direct line to the molten core between her thighs, each suck and graze of his teeth making her hips jerk against the hard muscle of his leg. He switched to her other breast, his hand claiming the first, his thumb mimicking the rhythm of his mouth. In the firelight, she saw the raw, desperate need in the clench of his jaw—this wasn’t just a king taking, but a starving man remembering his only sustenance.
Her fingers scraped through his dark hair, clutching. Her shift was a tangled band at her waist, the fire warm on her bare skin, his breath hotter. Every pull of his mouth sent a corresponding throb deep inside her, a slick, aching pulse that had her pressing her thighs together for any relief. He groaned against her, the vibration traveling straight to her cunt, and her head fell back against the wall.
He released her nipple with a wet sound, his breath coming in ragged gusts against her damp skin. His hands slid from her hips to the backs of her thighs, gripping, lifting. She wrapped her legs around his waist without thought, the hard ridge of his erection now pressing directly against the soaked silk of her smallclothes. The contact made them both still, a shared, fractured gasp hanging in the air.
His storm-gray eyes found hers, pupils blown black. "Tell me you feel this." His voice was ground stone.
She could only nod, her chest heaving. The evidence was a hot, insistent weight against her, and the answering flood of heat from her own body was a betrayal she wore openly now.
He carried her the few steps to the rug before the hearth and lowered them both down, following her, never breaking that devastating contact. He braced himself above her, the firelight gilding the sweat on his temples, the corded strength in his arms. His gaze traveled over her face, down her throat, over her breasts, his own hunger naked. "You're wet." A statement. An accusation. A prayer.
"Yes." The word was a shard of glass in her throat.
He lowered his head, not to her mouth, but to the hollow of her throat. His lips moved against her pulse. "For me."
It wasn't a question. She arched under him, a silent answer. His hand slid from her thigh, over her hip, his thumb pressing into the sharp crest of bone. Then lower, tracing the edge of the silk. He hooked a finger under the waistband. The look he gave her was pure command, stripped of everything but need.
Her own hands went to the laces of his trousers. Her fingers, usually so deft, fumbled. He watched her struggle, his breath hitching, until she finally loosened the ties. She pushed the fabric down over his hips, just enough. His cock sprang free, thick and hard, the head flushed and leaking. He hissed at the contact with the cool air.
He shifted, settling between her legs, the hot, smooth length of him pressing against her mound through the silk. He rocked once, a slow, torturous grind that made her cry out. "Adrian—"
"This," he growled against her mouth, capturing her lips in a searing kiss. "This is what you hid." He rocked again. "This is what you took."
He took her breast back into his mouth, his tongue circling the peak with a wet, deliberate pressure that was less a caress and more a reclaiming.
Seraphine’s back arched off the rug, the worn wool scratching her shoulders. Her hands fisted in his dark hair, holding him there. Every pull was a direct, vicious tug at the core of her, matching the slow, grinding roll of his hips against her.
He switched, his mouth moving to her other nipple, his hand taking its place, his thumb and forefinger pinching the wet, sensitized flesh in the exact rhythm of his tongue. The dual sensation shattered her.
“Adrian—” His name was a broken thing, half-plea, half-curse.
He released her breast with a low sound, his forehead dropping to rest between her breasts. His hips stilled. His breath burned against her damp skin, coming in harsh, open-mouthed gusts. The hard length of him pulsed against her, a hot, insistent promise through the soaked silk.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice was raw, scraped from his throat. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
Her thighs tightened around his hips. An answer. The silk between them was a maddening barrier, the only thing separating his flesh from hers. She could feel the slick evidence of her own wanting, a damp heat that had nothing to do with the fire.
His head lifted. Firelight carved the desperate angles of his face, shadows pooling in the hollows of his eyes. He looked ruined. “You don’t get to be silent now.”
She brought her hand between them, her fingers brushing over the back of his where it gripped her hip. Then lower, over the tense plane of his stomach, until her fingertips met the hot, smooth crown of him. He jerked, a full-body flinch.
She traced the slit, spreading the moisture beaded there. His eyes slammed shut, his jaw clenching so tight a muscle leaped in his cheek.
“I want,” she whispered, the words ash in her mouth, “what I took.”
A groan tore from him. He caught her wrist, pulling her hand away, pinning it beside her head. His other hand shoved between their bodies, fingers hooking in the waistband of her smallclothes. The silk tore with a sharp, final sound.
He entered her in one punishing, claiming thrust.
The sound she made was ripped from a place deeper than breath—a sharp, shattered gasp that dissolved into a moan. The stretch was a bright, burning ache, her body yielding to the invasion with a slick, desperate welcome. He buried himself to the hilt, his hips flush against hers, and went utterly still. His head dropped, his forehead pressing into the rug beside her temple, his entire body trembling with the effort of that stillness.
Seraphine’s vision blurred. Her thighs locked around him, her heels digging into the small of his back. The fullness was absolute, a searing heat that seemed to scorch away every thought, every plan, every year of separation. The torn silk of her smallclothes lay in ruins beneath her, the wool scratchy against her bare skin. He was inside her. Adrian was inside her.
He lifted his head, his storm-gray eyes black, his face a mask of agonized restraint. A bead of sweat traced from his temple down the strong line of his jaw. “Look at me.”
Her sapphire-blue eyes, wide and unguarded, found his. In them, he saw the firelight reflected, the shock, the unbearable pleasure, the ghost of her betrayal. He began to move.
It was not a gentle rhythm. It was a reclaiming. Each withdrawal was a slow, deliberate drag that made her whimper, each drive home a hard, deep stroke that punched the air from her lungs. His thrusts set a relentless, pounding pace, the force of them sliding her shoulders against the rough rug. The only sounds were the wet, rhythmic slap of skin, the crackle of the fire, their ragged, mingled breaths.
His hand left her pinned wrist, skated down her arm, over her hip, gripping the flesh of her thigh to angle her deeper. His other arm remained braced, the corded muscle standing out. He watched where they joined, watched her body take him, his jaw clenched so tight she heard his teeth grind.
“Mine,” he growled, the word raw and guttural. It was not a question. It was a truth he was hammering into them both.
Her careful control was in ashes. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her nails biting into the fabric of his tunic, then into the sweat-damp skin of his neck. Every thrust hit a point of frantic, blinding pressure deep within her. A coil tightened, vicious and sweet, winding tighter with every snap of his hips. She was chanting his name, a broken litany against his skin. “Adrian—Adrian—”
His rhythm fractured. His control splintered. He drove into her with a final, desperate urgency, his own release tearing through him with a choked, ragged cry that was more pain than pleasure. She felt the hot pulse of him deep inside, and it was the last key turning. Her climax ripped through her, a silent, shuddering wave that locked her body around his, her back arching off the floor, her mouth open in a soundless scream.
He collapsed onto her, his full weight pressing her into the rug, his face buried in the curve of her neck. His breath scorched her skin. His heart hammered against her chest, a wild, frantic echo of her own. The heat between them was a living thing, slick and spent.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The fire’s heat on her side. The prickle of wool. The cool air on the damp skin of her back. The heavy, spent weight of him. The scent of sex and sweat and something like grief.
He did not move. His fingers, tangled in her chestnut hair, tightened once—a spasm—then went slack.