Alaric suddenly pulled away from her, and she whimpered at the loss of such closeness. “Beth,” he said in a tight voice. Sweat beaded his forehead. “Not slow this first time. I won’t last for slow. Later, I will savor you.” His hands gripped her hips, fingertips pressing into her buttocks. He ground against her, his cock nudging, seeking the slick entrance to herbody.
Elsbeth couldn’t agree more. She slipped her hand between them and moaned her approval when her fingers wrapped around his shaft. He was hot, hard, and smooth to her touch. Trickles of semen smeared her fingers as she stroked the head of hiscock.
Alaric sucked in a breath before lying back on the flat rock, a portrait of shadowed planes and moonlit angles. “Ride me, Beth,” he ordered in a guttural voice. “Hard.”
She did as he bid and sank down on him, her palms braced against his chest as he filled her. They groaned in unison. Alaric gripped her hips in hard hands, guiding her until they set a quick rhythm. There were few words exchanged, only the occasional gasp, and the slippery sound of skin sliding along skin as she rodehim.
Alaric coaxed her head down for a kiss, mimicking the thrusts of his cock with his tongue in her mouth. His hands roamed her body, stroking her breasts, her shoulders the curve of her waist. “Gods, Beth,” he said between short breaths. “Two days. I need more than two days. I need that lifetime.” With that, he rolled them both until it was she on her back and he above her, still insideher.
Elsbeth whimpered and clutched him closer when she felt him withdraw. “No,don’t.”
He reassured her with a hard thrust that he was going nowhere. She eased her legs over his shoulders, the position tilting her hips to bring him deeper. They gasped inunison.
He slowed his pace and turned his head to kiss each of her knees. One hand drifted down her leg to map the contours of her midriff—the hollow of her belly and tracery of her ribs, the undercurve of her breasts and the dip of muscle leading to her navel. His eyes blazed silver. “You are beautiful, Elsbeth. Soul and flesh. All of you.” His fingers dipped lower, teased and tantalized, stroking her most sensitive spots until she writhed in hisarms.
She arched her back, heels digging into his shoulder blades when he suddenly quickened his rhythm and deepened his thrusts. His features drew tight, eyes rolling back as his lips flattened against his teeth. Sweat sheened his body, and her own skin glistened in the feymoonlight.
The heat pulsing throughout her centered low, burning hotter as she neared her climax. “Now,” shewhispered.
Low sounds erupted from his throat. He thrust twice more, his grip on her hips sure to leave bruises the next day. Elsbeth tightened her legs and held on as he moaned out her name and came hard insideher.
His fingers continued to play her like a harp until she heaved against him, twisting and crying out as her breath burned in her throat and nostrils. Her legs slid off his shoulders, and she lay on the rock, a boneless heap of quivering muscle. When Alaric lowered himself on her, she made only a token protest. He adjusted his position so as not to crush her. He stared down her, face wreathed in a satiated smile, eyed dark asslate.
Elsbeth smiled and tucked back a strand of hair away from his cheek. “You look like a cat who’s found the crock of cream.” She caressed his back with lazystrokes.
“I believe I just put cream in the crock.” He clutched her hips when her laughter threatened to push him out of her. “Careful, lass,” he warned. “It’s a touch of paradise in there. I’m not ready to leave it justyet.”
He sobered and stroked her face with gentle fingers. “Two days, Beth,” he said softly. “I hope you have nothing else to do because it’ll be me occupying your time. Take care of Angus, weave your rugs, but I’ll have you to myself every spare moment.” He glided a hand down her side and hip. “I’ll have my cock in you in every way, too.” His kiss was hard, possessive. “A claiming. I for you, you for me. I need the memory to carry withme.”
Elsbeth shivered in his arms. She wanted him the same way, needed a memory as much as he did. She caressed his hair, never tiring of its silkiness against her palm. “Then why are we talking? You’re wasting precious time, storyteller. Give me that lifetime youpromised.”
She playeduntil her arms ached, and her jaw throbbed from pressing so long on the fiddle’s chin rest. Perspiration dampened the hair at her temples and made her neck itch. When the tune ended, she lowered the instrument and took a deep breath. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping onto her dusty boots. She wiped them away with a grimyhand.
“I will offer you the wealth of kingdoms if you but play one more time,” a resonant voice said from the infinitedark.
Elsbeth screamed and dropped the fiddle and bow. The voice surrounded her from all directions, thrumming through the soles of her boots to dance up her calves and rifling the stray hairs that had escaped her braid. She dove for her crossbow and shield, sliding over bits of gravel and tanglingvine.
Dragon. Dragon. Oh gods, the dragon. It washere.
The plan, so calmly discussed, so neatly laid out in the safety of a solar and again in the council hall, burned to ash in the fire of her terror. Pure, screaming instinct shrieked in her head toRUN! RUNNOW!
Her leg muscles automatically flexed, and she went up on her toes, ready to sprint away. Only her reason, nearly drowned out by her panic, stopped her from rushing headlong over a cliff edge or straight into the gaping maw of whatever monstrosity lurked invisible in theshadow.
Run where,Elsbeth?
She labored to inhale more than a half breath and pointed the loaded crossbow in a slow sweep around her while she crouched behind the shield. It was a futile exercise. There was no true target for her to aim at, no solid shape emerging from the night’s treacle shadows. Even with the moon illuminating miles of farmland, she saw nothing beyond the periphery of her campfire. That gloom carried a distinct scent, sharp like the morning after the first frost and tinged with the acrid bitterness of charred wood. For some odd reason, the first smell reminded her ofAlaric.
“You’ve not much respect for so fine an instrument when you drop it on the ground in favor of that sad toy. What are you hoping to kill? Avole?”
The question reverberated off the rocks and made her teeth rattle. A blacker shape in the darkness moved with a sibilant hiss, like sand sliding againstsand.
It still sounded as if the creature surrounded her from all sides as well as above and below her, but Elsbeth swung the crossbow in the direction where the voice seemed loudest. “Who are you?” She cringed at how she warbled the question. “What do youwant?”
Growling laughter made the ground beneath her shiver. “I might ask you the same.” The sand-slipping grew louder. “What is a solitary woman doing on the cursed cliffs of Maldoza in the middle of the night, dressed in armor and playing afiddle?”
A gust of smoke-scented wind barreled across her campsite, blasting the meager flames of her campfire into a bonfire. Elsbeth leapt back, cowering behind both rock and shield. The greater illumination revealed a sinuous length of black-scaled hide, twice the circumference of the old oak tree in Byderside’s square. The scales, shaped like teardrops, overlapped each other and made her own dragon scale shield look no bigger than the saucer for ateacup.
A scream bubbled up her throat to hum behind her clenched teeth as a monstrous reptilian head partially emerged from the nebulous dark to loom above her and regard her with eyes the size of servingplatters.
