“We do not need that,” she said.
As he watched, she glowed, filling the tent with warmth and light. No need for candles at all. None at all when his wife could create fire, light, and heat with her thoughts alone. Remembering the hungry expression in her gaze when she’d found him naked in his bedchamber, he decided that was the best way to begin. Will reached up and loosened the ties of his tunic.
“Wait!” she said, her voice a bit breathless. “I should undress my husband.”
“I want no ‘should’ between us, Brienne,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “Only ‘would’ and ‘want.’ ”
She leaned against his hand as he turned it to cup her face and stroke her cheek with his thumb. “I want to undress my husband,” she said.
“Then do so, wife.” He relaxed his arms and waited on her.
She reached up and untied the laces of his shirt. Then she took the hem of it and slid it up his body, pushing it over his head. Tossing it on the floor, Brienne turned her attention back to him, and he could feel her heated gaze touching his skin.
He watched as she moved closer, studying his chest and his stomach, before she reached out and touched the curly hair on it. She lightly grazed it, sending waves of sensation through his skin. He stood motionless as she traced the outline of his male nipples with her finger. But he lost his ability to breathe when he saw the tip of her tongue and realized her intention.
Imitating his own caress of her breasts, she stroked with her hands while her tongue licked the sensitive skin. Pleasure coursed through his blood then, and his body grew hard and ready for her. Her mouth moved over his chest, tasting and licking his skin, but her hands did not rest idly by. She embraced him, sliding her hands around to his back and then down until she held him as he’d held her.
“You have too many garments on, wife,” he said. It came out sounding like a plea.
“Worry not, husband,” she said. “I am not done undressing you yet.” Meeting her gaze, he noticed that she was brighter, as though more light and fire raced through her blood. He worried then, not at her power but at the wicked glimmer in her gaze as she came closer to him.
She moved around him then, kissing and licking her way to his back. Her hands continued to touch and stroke him, and he let his head fall back, enjoying every touch, every caress. If it pleased her to pleasure him, he would, he decided, allow her. But he questioned the wisdom of that very thing when her hands slid around his waist and began working on the ties of his trews.
“Brienne, love,” he whispered, placing his hands on hers to stop her. He learned the foolishness of his intention when she let the fire in her heat her skin, burning him long enough that he let go.
It took little effort for her to unlace him and allow his prick out, for it stood hard, long, and begging for her touch. She leaned her face on his back and slid her hands under the fabric, pushing it down away from his waist and over his hips. Brienne took hold of his flesh and sighed against his skin as it lengthened in her grasp.
He was going to spill his seed if she continued to touch him and make those noises that she probably did not even hear. But he did. They echoed through his body, increasing the need within him. “Brienne,” he whispered harshly as she stroked his needy flesh. “Brienne.”
She moved again, slowly releasing him and coming around to stand before him. She studied his erection much as she had that first night, and his hardness twitched under her gaze. But when she licked her lips and leaned over closer to it, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her up to his mouth.
And ravished her there. His tongue thrust deep until she suckled it the way he’d shown her. He undressed her without even lifting his mouth from hers, and when her naked skin was against his, she seemed to melt into him. William scooped her up and carried her to the blankets. She sighed as he laid her there and came down on top of her.
The warblood inside him urged to conquer, to take, to have, pushing power into his blood and pushing his body to change. But William tempered the warrior and contained him as he loved his mate, his love, his wife. She felt him struggling to keep his warblood inside, much as she was barely holding on to the fire within her. Each touch, each caress, each kiss pushed her closer and closer to losing control and bursting into flames. But as he controlled himself, so did she. She held tightly to the boiling power as he unleashed a different kind of heat on her body and her heart.
Brienne had thought she knew what to expect, but when his goal was unlimited, unrelenting pleasure that would end with them as one, she lost the ability to think and almost forgot to breathe as he began his attack. And it was an attack—on her senses, on her skin, on every part of her—as he began using his mouth and tongue and teeth and hands as the weapons they were. Her skin burned as he rubbed his face down her breasts and across her belly. She arched as her body throbbed in anticipation of what was to come. Knowing the waves of pleasure that would result from his hands, she urged him on.
“Impatient now that you’ve remembered, love?” He laughed deeply in his throat as he raised his head and looked at her.
His mouth now poised so close to the place between her legs that she grew wet just seeing him there. When he moved to kneel between her legs, her flesh between them tingled with want. He stroked her legs, taking her ankles and guiding them apart. Then he kissed and tasted his way along each leg as she gasped and shook from the sheer pleasure of each touch.
He reached the top and she waited, waited for what he would do next, and when he did nothing, she rose onto her elbows and looked at him. Wicked did not do justice for the expression on his face now as he leaned down and kissed the inside of her thigh. He glanced at her once more and then licked the other side before putting his mouth fully on the place that ached the most.
She screamed then and fell back, part of her wanting to pull away from such intensity and the other part wanting to rock against his mouth. The other part won out. She pressed against his hot mouth, and his tongue darted along the swelling folds. Her body shuddered with each caress, and he laughed against her—the sound and feel of it going into her blood.
When he teased with his teeth, nipping to make it ache more and licking to soothe it, she reached down for him, sliding her fingers in his long hair. He did not slow. Using his fingers to open her, he dipped into her with his tongue, sucking in the moisture that flowed from her body. She could not breathe then, only feel as he took control of her body and soul.
He slid his tongue along the folds up until he touched a spot with its tip that sent her reeling, shaking and keening out his name as he pushed her free of any control she had and into some mindless creature of his doing.
“Come for me, love. Let go. Let go,” he urged.
And she did.
Flying free as her body came undone under his sensual assault, she could feel herself shattering and being remade from the pieces. Over and over, breaking and forming, breaking and forming, until she was empty and then refilled in the next instant.
She was panting in shallow breaths and still throbbing when he moved over her, spreading her legs wider and seating his body there. Brienne felt his hardness and knew that this was the moment that they would become one. She opened her eyes and met his.
She had no idea of how beautiful she was to him. It almost hurt to stare into her eyes when she was still shaking with pleasure, but seeing the love in her gaze captured him. Will slid a hand down between their bodies to spread the folds and find the place that would stoke her desire again. Her body reacted to his every touch.
