The sheets were silky underneath her, bathed in a fragrance of bergamot and cedarwood.
Acacius’s gilded eyes darkened. “First time for everything.” He sat back on his knees, drinking all of her in.
She’d seen admiration in many others’ eyes. The way Ronin regarded Naia came to mind, and the envious surge of emotion that always followed from the matched affection. It wasn’t that she cared about being seen by the witch the same, but that she craved to experience such sentiment.
And as she watched Acacius study her body, an odd feeling invaded her heart—an entanglement of happiness and fear and exhilaration merging all at once.
She locked her legs around his waist and rolled him onto his back.
Straddling him, she flung her hair behind her shoulders. “Better make it memorable then.”
He looked up at her, jaws flexing, pressing his fingertips into her waist with restraint.
She grinned, running her palms over his stomach. His muscles rippled under her touch as she explored down his torso to his waistband, slowly unzipping his pants.
Before he could reply, she sank down and took him into her mouth.
His hips jerked up, and a dark rumble vibrated in his chest. “Oh, Rina,” he groaned as her tongue swirled, “keep this up and there will be no bed left standing when we are finished.”
She watched him over her eyelashes, biting his bottom lip, his chest rising and falling quicker, eyes rolling back. Arousal pulsed between her legs, proud to give him this pleasure.
She took him all the way in, the back of her throat hugging him like the flesh of freshly cut fruit.
He shuddered underneath her. “Fuck, Rina.”
Her body hummed with power as she grazed her teeth around him on the way out, playing with the tip in between her lips.
The muscles in his stomach spasmed and he rose halfway up, enough to thread his fingers through her hair and tug her head back, his length leaving her mouth.
She licked her shining lips as he fully sat up. His golden irises were eclipsed as he hauled her forward by the back of her head.
“Gods, the things you do to me.” He punctuated his statement with a rough kiss, tangling his fingers in her hair.
She ground her hips against his length, the movement bunching her skirt up her thighs. The friction blazed hellfire under her skin.
Her hands journeyed up his abdomen, over his chest and shoulders, memorizing every ridge and cut of his body, insatiably hungry for more of him. “I don’t know how much longer I can entertain this foreplay.”
He slid his hands under her lace blouse. “I have to say, Rina, I enjoy seeing you ravenous for me.”
He tossed her shirt and devoured her breast with his mouth, flicking and biting at her hardened nipple.
She wiggled against him to try and assist as he fumbled with the zipper of her skirt, frustration mounting in her.
He grumbled low against her sternum, sliding his fingers between the waistband of her underwear and skirt.
His biceps flexed around her, and a loudripechoed. The fabric fell away from her waist.
Acacius threw the tattered pieces aside. “I apologize. I’ll replace them.” His mouth came down on her other breast.
Marina arched into him, throwing her head back. “It’s been days,” she said, breathless, understanding his urgency.
“Since you’ve had me,” he finished, licking up the curvature of her throat, lightly nipping at her chin. She could feel his smile against her skin.
Not once had anyone sounded so honored to win her affections. She could hear the pride in his voice, feel the devotionin the way he held her close. It was becoming harder for her to resist him; to keep the barriers she’d built around her heart from collapsing in his embrace.
Love had let her down too many times.
Marina cupped his cheeks and lowered her head to kiss him. She set the pace—a slow breath through the nose, breaking apart and dragging lips together; a quiver straight down her chest, kneading in her stomach; time slurring like a fever dream. She kissed him again and again like he was water and she’d gone a lifetime without it.
