“Words, Wife.” I gripped her hair, arching her neck slightly, and took one of the rings pierced in her ear between my teeth.
“Damn you,” she cried out. “I want you inside me.Now.”
I kept one hand tangled in her hair, the other on her hip, and thrust inside in one fierce motion.
Skadi sobbed my name, a sound I would never tire of no matter how many centuries I lived. There was nothing slow, nothing calm about this. I bucked and pounded into her hard. The desk legs scooted along the floorboards with each push.
Skadi cried out, sitting back into me, knees weakening. Her fingernails dug into the wood top, seeking something to hold to as I leveraged one of her knees onto the edge, opening a new angle.
“Jonas, too much.” She gasped. “It’s . . . it’s . . . don’t stop.”
I was frenzied. Sweat dripped onto my lashes. Fire burned in my veins, pooling low in my gut. Another thrust and Skadi fell apart. She writhed and trembled, her cries shattering the quiet of the room.
Before she caught her breath, I quickened my pace, head lost in a fog.
My heart felt as though it might snap free of my ribs and spill out on the table, bloodied and hers for the taking. My release came in a rush. I couldn’t see straight. Hot, endless streams spilled into her. Both legs felt like they might buckle; I braced on the table’s edge until the haze in my mind lifted enough to keep upright.
With care, I eased out, helping her off the table, and took her in my arms.
“I can’t . . . breathe,” she said against my chest.
All I could manage was a nod. Words were too difficult to gather in the moment. I pressed a kiss to her hair. She smelled of sweet spice,and me, and us.
It took a few more moments of standing there, half-naked and sated, before we managed to stagger to the bed. Skadi folded her dress from where it was tossed on the ground while I readjusted the table back into order.
I tugged my trousers back on, but hesitated before taking off my tunic. There was a pathetic piece of me that thought she might think it too much.
“You going to sleep standing up?” Skadi had the quilt tucked over her nose, and her eyes sparkled over the hem.
I let out a rough breath and stripped my tunic.
“Are you wounded?” As expected, Skadi sat up at once. She took a match stick and lit the candle on the bedside table. Her fingers covered the cloth bandage over my heart. “Jonas, what happened?”
“Nothing. While I was out this morning, I visited the inkist.”
Skadi let out a gasp. “You got another one. May I see it?”
Jaw tight, I peeled off the cloth, wincing when some of the irritated skin pinched and split.
Skadi looked to me, then back to the design. Gingerly, her fingers touched the area around the new tattoo. “A flame?”
I pressed a kiss to her palm. “It’s you.”
What I knew of Skadi, I expected her to flush, perhaps grin with a bit of shyness, but I did not anticipate her kiss knocking the air from my lungs.
She kissed me, destroyed me was more like it, as though she might never get another taste. With swift movements, Skadi leveraged over my hips. “I would vow with you again and again, Jonas.”
I would never get enough. She was branded on me, not only on the surface, Skadi was imprinted on my damn soul, and I never wanted to be rid of her.
I ought to have known the stronger we grew, the fiercer others would want to tear her away.
Chapter 45
The Nightmare Prince
The woman did not knowhow to sleep after dawn.
I sighed, my cock already stiff, when she trailed slow kisses along the new flame over my chest, her fingers teasing the edges of my hips. “Woman. Do you ever take joy in sleeping?”
