Mine!A voice rang inside her head, roared in her blood during the act. Under clear-minded conditions, she would’ve balked at the claiming. But she wasn’t within her right mind and thus that single word—Mine!—became a furious refrain inside her head. It wasn’t until she heard it snarled against the tender skin of her throat that she realized it wasn’t entirely emanating from her fogged mind. She pathetically whimpered when Malachi’s incisors fully retreated from her vein. Then, she shivered when he licked the wound before sealing a kiss to the spot.
“I want to strip you bare, spread you out like a feast, taste every delectable inch of you, and then bury my cock inside you until you’re screaming my name. And I want to do it all right here, an audience be damned. I’m barely holding myself back,” he rumbled into her ear. “If you object to that, you should say so this instance.”
Every cogent thought eddied out of her brain. She had been reduced to a being driven purely by need and desire and a rabid, feral demand that she continue claiming the male before her. “Is the ceremony finished?” she managed to ask.
“As finished as it needs to be,” he growled, palming her ass. Everywhere his hands touched left a scalding brand behind. And she wanted none of their offending garments between them.
“Transport … take us away.” She wanted what he wanted, but not in front of anyone else. No—he washers, and she didn’t want to share even the tiniest bit of him right now. Malachi didn’t give her time to sputter the entire sentence out before he’d hoisted her into the air and locked her legs around his waist.
“As you command, wife.” His response was a dark promise, an all-consuming rumble of thunder as he transported them away.
Chapter Thirty-Six
HE TELEPORTED THEM TO HIS ROOM. KADEESHA’Swedding gown—shit.She might as well have been poured into the cursed dress; it hugged every lush curve that Malachi’s mouth watered to lick and bite and kiss. He almost lamented his future intent to shred the bewitching thing when he ripped it off her. But heburnedto see her naked and bared completely to him. He thought about carrying the wife he’d gained to the sofa and bending her over the back of it while driving into her until she came apart. But his ego—and something more furious, something that was entirely primal—demanded he take his wife for the first time in his bed. He didn’t fight the urge. He strode to the bed and dropped her in its center. He smiled wickedly when she reached for him. He stepped back out of her reach. His grin spread at her eager snarl.
“Patience, wife,” he taunted, even though his sanity was hanging on by a sliver-thin thread. But he was operating on more than pure animalistic instinct now. Whatever heightened bonds the blood-exchange ritual of their ceremony had caused—and he couldn’t deny it had created stronger tethers—it made him unable to ignore a truth that had run between himand Kadeesha from their very first meeting in her pleasure den. He was drawn to her, and there wasn’t any fucking chance he’d be letting her go now that he’d had a taste of her. Once, or even hundreds of times, would never be enough. But Kadeesha still looked at him as if she was dead set on their eventual separation.
That stopped tonight.
He wasn’t letting her out of the room, out oftheirbed, until she assented. He’d drive her delirious with need and pleasure, wringing that consent out of her. To that end, he started his seduction, moving to claim her body in a way he’d mostly formerly refrained from doing. He manifested tendrils of shadows. Kadeesha gasped when they glided up her body, across her breasts, over her arms. She swore viciously when they locked around her wrists and anchored her arms to the bed. His newly gained wife even called him a bastard, or three.
Good, he thought.Because that’sexactlywhat I am.
He undid the clasp of his silver pelt, then shrugged it off. He hooked his thumbs beneath his waistband, saw her eyes gleam with wanton need when they fastened on the bulge in his pants. “Do you really want me to unbind you? Or do you want me to undress both of us and lick you until you’ve forgotten your own name?” he asked silkily.
Kadeesha tugged against the shadows binding her wrists, but her legs fell open and her back arched off the bed, handing Malachi her answer. He got rid of his pants and climbed onto the bed between her thighs. He took hold of her legs behind the bend of her knees, drawing circles against her flesh with his thumbs until she quivered.
“Stop fucking around,” she hissed, squeezing his head between her thighs. It was a prison he’d gladly remain locked in for the rest of eternity. He inhaled her heady scent of wildviolets. She could squeeze him until he suffocated and he’d die a happy male. He turned his head and nipped the inside of her left thigh, licked it, then delivered the same treatment to her right thigh.
He looked up and locked eyes with his wife. “What do you want me to do, Kadeesha? Be a good girl and use your words.”
She gritted her teeth in defiance, and …
No, that shit isn’t going to fly.
Her dress was already bunched up around her waist, but it didn’t bare her nearly enough to him. He needed all of her. He needed every inch of her, outsideandin. Becauseshewashis.
He left the spot between her legs that was utter heaven and slid up her body. He grabbed the neck of her wedding gown and tore it off her. “Much better,” he decided. He cupped her pussy, sank three fingers inside, stretching her while brushing his thumb across her clit. Fuck, she was wet. She hadn’t even come yet and she was gushing all over his hand. Her legs locked around his hips and she arched hard against his fingers. He hadn’t even started fucking her with them yet. He simply held them in place deep inside her while working her clit. The urge to taste her already clawed at him. He knew it was agony for her too.
But first, she had to say the right words.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he ordered roughly.
“Fuck … you.”
“Wrong answer,” he said, putting more pressure on her clit.
She moaned his name—music to his ears—when he spread his fingers wider and pressed down harder on her clit.
“I asked you a question, Kadeesha. Tell me what you want. Tell me what youneed.” The words rumbled from his chest, and it wasn’t a question anymore.
He was king, and he gave commands.
She gritted her teeth, and in response, he curled his fingers, hitting exactly where her screams were kept.
“Celestials! I want you to do everything you threatened at the ceremony,” she cried out. “Taste me and … and fuck me mindless.”
He sucked on her full bottom lip like he wanted to do to her clit. She whimpered when he withdrew his fingers from inside her. He understood—and agreed. Because he was done fucking around; it was time to give them both what they desired.
