I wet my lips, admiring his strength and physique. A flush of heat warmed my cheeks, and a coiling desire shot straight to my center as yearning came over me.
Looking up and catching my blush, Neirin stilled in his task. Though the egg whites had yet to form stiff peaks, he set the bowl aside, a hunger in his eyes. I sucked in a breath, the sensations of desire, of need, intensifying.
“This was not in my plans,” he said, voice lowered as he stepped closer and braced an arm behind me on the table, caging me.
My eyes flicked to his lips, then back up to the silver of his eyes. “What was not in your plans?”
Neirin drew my hair over one shoulder and traced his thumb beneath my ear. “This.” He brushed his lips against mine, the kiss faint, shooting a need for more through my veins. Before I could speak, he sighed, a hesitation, despite the yearning that seeped through the bond. “You are the only woman I’ve lain with, and the effect you have on me makes it very difficult to—” He swallowed. “To hold back, when every instinct, every desire—”
“I want you too.” Arching my hips off the table, I encouraged him. “I don’t want you to hold back.”
He withdrew from me and held my gaze. A muscle flexed at his jaw. “I do not want you to think I only lust for you, that I seek only your body.”
“I do not think that.”
Again, he hesitated, and his body shuddered. Knowing that I was the only woman he’d been with, that he belonged to me alone … I raised my chin, baring my neck to him.
“Tease,” he rasped.
Unable to gain any friction from him like this, I hooked one of my legs at his upper thigh. “You are being the tease,” I retorted, impatience lacing my voice.
He growled, low, rumbling, and the tension snapped.
Neirin took my leg by the crook of my knee, and in a single movement, lifted me and stepped to the table. I landed on it roughly; the desperation in Neirin’s reactions lacked fluidity, his actions portraying his raw need.
He hooked both of my legs at his hips and leaned into me, bracing himself with one arm behind me on the table and wrapping my waist with his other as if he could somehow draw me closer to him, though our bodies already aligned. Through the cloth of his trousers, I could feel the firmness of his need.
Head hung, Neirin panted hot breaths on my neck. His hips rocked, thrusting against me, measured at first, then quickening as he moaned. The table rattled, and behind me, something fell over and rolled. The trickling sound of milk spilling over onto the floor followed a moment later, but neither of us made any move to right the pitcher.
“Kiss me,” I pleaded through whimpers.
Neirin purred a growl against my neck and halted the movements of his hips. Trailing kisses up, he nipped at my ear, eliciting a sharp pinprick of pain. I gasped, then his mouth was on mine, stealing my breath and taking advantage of my parted lips, the exploration of his tongue almost forceful. The raw need alone brought me to the edge of release, and I ran my fingers through his hair, meeting his passion as our tongues danced.
He broke our kiss, rasping. “Ineedmore.” He groaned.
I swiveled my hips and hardened my tone to a command. “Then take more.”
His grip at my waist tightening, he thrust hard against me. With my skirts bunched and the length of him right where I needed it, separated only by the cotton of his pants, I shuddered and cried out.
“Someone will hear,” he panted, repeating my statement from the tower as he rutted against me once more.
Whimpering, I bit back my cry.“Let them listen.”
“Maerel will have my head if she returns to this,” he said against my lips. “Or is that what you want, love? For her to find us in the kitchens with my cock buried deep inside of you?” He nipped at my bottom lip. “Is that what you need to ease your jealousy?”
Too hazed by my lust, by the effect his words had on me to dispute him, I gripped tighter at his hair. “Yes, yes, that’s what I need.”
Breathing heavily, he worked quickly at the ties of his pants. I kissed and nipped at his neck, and when he shifted the cotton down, I grasped for him eagerly.
“Fuck,”he hissed, thrusting into my hand.
I whimpered, working him, imagining the thickness of him inside of me. Wanting him, yet at the same time reveling in this control, in the power I had over him. “Tell me what you want.”
Head hung, his hair brushed my neck. “You know very well what I want,” he growled, nipping my shoulder.
“Say it.” I quickened my strokes.
“I want …” His words came in ragged gasps. “I want to be inside of you, I want your warmth, your slickness.” Suppressing a moan, his body stiffened. “Evera, I need you now. I can’t—”
