His tunic, pants, and boots were quickly shed. If he was beautiful and wildly sensuous clothed, this man was sex incarnate when she beheld him nude. Every inch of him—his chest, his abs, his deliciously thick thighs—rippled with corded muscles beneath brown skin that was a shade of mahogany that left Kadeesha’s mouth watering to taste him everywhere. Dimly, she recalled the fact of how he’d moved toward her like an alpha predator while she continued to drink in his honed physique, and questioned why a merchant would need to be built like a warrior. Perhaps she’d misjudged his occupation. He might not have been a pirate unattached to any kingdom, but perhaps he was a royal naval officer of a trading ship that flew the flag of one of the Six Kingdoms and was passing through the Aether Dominion while ferrying goods. If he was that manner of soldier, his build made sense. As did his supreme arrogance and need to control a situation. She recognized the traits of a kindred warrior spirit when she saw them … and wanted that spirit inside of hernow.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, sitting up and reaching forhim now that he’d been a good boy and had ditched the clothes. She twined her hands around his neck, then pulled him down and on top of her in a position where they both lay on the bed. She locked her legs around the smooth flesh of his waist. She reveled for a second in the feel of his rigid, massive erection pressing against her stomach. “Since we seem to be cut from the same cloth and desire to have our way in this encounter, you can fuck me however you like, in any way you like, if you consent to me doing the same back.” It’d be like mutual submission and mutual dominance, she mused, turned on more than she should be by the thought.
The male’s answer was to gather her braid in one hand and roll her hair around his closed fist. He pulled on it, not violently, but mercilessly nonetheless. “Deal.” The word came out as a growl that made Kadeesha’s entire body vibrate.
She moaned with pathetic abandon when he slipped two fingers inside her, thrusting hard. They were much bigger than her own, and stretched her deliciously. When he added a third and curved them to hit the right spot, he kept his stare locked with hers, studying every little reaction and tell she exhibited to the waves of pleasure rippling over her. In fact, it was like he was committing her responses to memory, filing them carefully away. It wouldn’t be an odd observation if they were actual lovers who planned on seeing one another again in the future, but this was a one-night tryst. He had to know that, right—
The next thing the male did obliterated any thoughts Kadeesha could muster, leaving no time to untangle the oddity. His thumb ghosted over her clit, and she’d never known so light a touch could elicit such forceful pleasure. She moaned louder. He grinned wickedly and broke eye contact long enough towhisper in her ear, “When I make you come this time, and every time tonight, you’ll scream my name when you do it, love. Understand?”
“What’s …” she gasped. “What’s your name?”
“Malachi.”
He peered down at her, the delicious weight of his body pressing hers into the mattress. His thumb kept flicking over her clit that seemed too sensitive now and yet he was wretchedly not applying the exact stroke she needed. His smug expression said he knew the torment he caged her in, and he was taunting her as he waited for her agreement. No, this wasn’t just taunting. What he was doing was being a bastard. Not sticking to the mutual rules they’d established. He was forcing, dragging, wringing a thorough submission out of her.
And it was working.
Kadeesha’s breath hitched as he increased the ferocity of his pumps and brought her to the precipice of what she knew would be the best orgasm of her life. Yet, he didn’t help her over the edge. Great Celestials, she needed to come so badly that the torture he exacted turned excruciating. Every part of her body thrummed and vibrated and burned with the need. He grunted at her extended silence, clearly displeased. His body weight left hers and she would’ve whimpered at the loss of his heat if she were a weaker soul. Thank the heavens, his hands didn’t stop their ministrations. He settled his head between her legs, and she lost their battle of wills when his tongue joined his fingers inside her and began a relentless assault of its own. The pressure built enough for tears to sting her eyes. “Yes!” she cried out. “Yes! Yes! Celestials above, whatever you want, the answer is yes! Just make me come already!”
“Sayplease,” the bastard drawled, his warm breath skirtingover her sex. “And none of the gods are between your legs right now, love. They’re a realm away. Your gods have no stake in this matter. Don’t call out to them. Call outto me.”
Kadeesha knew she’d been defeated. She no longer tried to fight anything. If she was going out so pathetically, this was the most glorious way to go, she supposed. “Please,” she whimpered. He’d reduced her to begging, an insult she didn’t have time to truly feel. His tongue swept along her inner walls. His thumb strummed her clit while asserting the sweetest pressure. Then she was screaming “Malachi” over and over and over, the bastard drawing her orgasm and the refrain of his name out as long as he could manage.
Afterward, she lay on the bed boneless as he inched up her body and captured her mouth in a kiss. He gripped her hair, forcing her head back so she opened for him, granting him optimal access. His tongue plundered her mouth as much as it’d done between her legs. His hand stroked her lightly through the aftershocks of her orgasm, and his touch reignited a fiercer fire than before. She squirmed beneath him, shoved his hand away from her center, and angled her hips to grind against his cock. The orgasm had been as mind-shattering as she’d imagined, but the maddening burn between her legs hadn’t eased. Nothing would ease it except Malachi sinking into her.
“Fuck me,” she breathed, rubbing against him. But each time she tried to take matters into her own hands and tilt her hips so he slipped inside her, he readjusted himself to block her efforts.
“You know the magic word,” he crooned. He placed a massive hand on her right hip and stilled her movements, then dragged his cock over her folds and positioned it right at her entrance, but kept her from letting the head finally slip inside her.
Kadeesha was worse than pathetic. Because she breathed, “Please,” shamelessly begging for him to be inside her already.
“That’s not it.”
What? What did he mean—
“Myname,” he commanded.
“Malachi,” she said with urgency and was actually able to move her hips up enough to feel him spread her apart.
He needed no more urging, feeding her a few inches of his impressive length. And just that much had his width stretching and filling her in a divine way she knew would leave her sore later. She moaned his name again and got rewarded with a hard thrust, Malachi burying himself inside her to the hilt. It wrung out a shriller moan—no, she had to be real, it was a scream—from Kadeesha. He was hard as granite and enormous. Once he was fully inside her, he didn’t give her time to adjust. The pace he set was relentless. Pitiless.
She loved every moment of it.
“Harder,” she gasped, tightening her legs around his waist, scoring his back with her nails. “Fuck me harder.”
There were no dominance games this time. He snarled, then immediately complied. She met him brutal thrust for brutal thrust, giving as good as she got for what seemed like an eternity that stretched on, and Kadeesha never wanted it to end. When Malachi stroked her clit, his touch was maddeningly sensual, intimate even. It was enough to once more get her there. The shock coursing through her body traveled up and down her spine, almost ready to explode from her core.
“Scream my name while coming all over my cock now, love,” he ordered. The stark contrast between his silky touch and the hard screw made her see stars. When she came, she didn’t even consciously make the decision to follow his latestcommand. Screaming his name like this after he’d fucked her out of her mind was as natural as breathing—and inevitable. Malachi followed her over the edge, speeding up to a furious pace and roaring as he came. She expected him to at once collapse on top of her like her myriad of past lovers would’ve done. Instead, Malachi continued, powerful, heavenly stroke after stroke, suspending them both in pure bliss, drawing their mutual ecstasy out.
When he finally did cease moving, he didn’t withdraw from her. He rolled them so he lay on his back and she was on top of him with Malachi remaining firmly inside her. He palmed both her breasts while she straddled him, his cock staggeringly still rock hard and stretching her wonderfully. “Earlier, you said you wanted to fuck my brains out all night. Have you still got that in you, or have I worn you out?” He boasted, “It’s all right if you can’t take anymore. The one round was fantastic.”
Oh, fuck no. His drawl was full of smug, self-satisfied male arrogance, and that wasn’t how she playedanything.
Kadeesha snorted and followed it up with her answer: She rolled her hips slowly, riding his cock but taking her sweet time to drive him insane. “I can go as long as you can go,” she informed him.
As far as last hurrahs went before a detestable marriage, this topped anything she had in mind. It surpassed everything she could’ve hoped for.
And it did so all night long.
