“So that was the day you were left with the Ahknim?”
Ranth nodded.
“So, it wasn’t planned?”
“No. My family led a simple life. To rise to the Ahknim was a rare privilege for a few. I learned later it was the blood spill which had alerted the healer to something in me that she felt could be trained. It was fate that had brought me to them, they said. Fate that could not be denied.”
He turned my wrist and grazed his lips over my pulse, which fluttered against his touch. His exhale danced across my skin. Tomato leaf and woodsmoke. The wind rattled the window.
“You know what I would like from you. I think you want that too, but it is a mistake to begin what we cannot continue. What must end.” His voice matched the desire in his eyes, raw and visceral.
“It can’t be a mistake. Nothing that feels like this can be a mistake,” I replied, but it came out as a whisper. His eyes were molten pools of brown framed by lush lashes. Neither of us moved as my blood thrummed under his delicate hold on mywrist. “Besides, everything has an end. Tonight, here with you, there is no other world. Let me be your world.”
I tugged his head down to mine, my fingers sinking in his hair, and his lips parted as mine crashed against them.
Arms crushed around me, my curves fitting like puzzle pieces against the hards and softs of his body. The strain of his cock tenting the track pants against my thigh amped the urgency. My need to get skin-to-skin drove me. I pushed back, peeling off his shirt and then taking off mine. He’d been shirtless in the bathroom that first time, but the sculpted abs and broad shoulders that tapered to a trim waist were silk. Satin skin dusted with black hair on his chest. I followed the wiry bits from belly button to waistband, and he shifted, hands on my waist, waiting for me to explore.
“Awfully patient, aren’t you?” I trailed fingers over his cock and grinned.
“You mistake my self-control for patience.” His arms banded me and lifted me up, turning us toward the bed and setting me down. He brushed his nose against mine. “I want to see you, all of you, but we have time, and I like taking my time.” His eyes searched my face.
I traced the line of his jaw, then trailed fingers down his arm to the banded tattoo. He dipped his head and teased a kiss.
He lifted my braid and pulled out the elastic. “What do you desire, beloved of my heart?” he asked, unraveling the weave and clouding us with the lilac oil as he fanned my hair.
My breath caught. “I want all of you, and I hate waiting.” I tugged at my skirt, and he lifted up to pull it off me. His pants were next.
I’d had a preview, but his length was perfect for his size, as if he were built in the likeness of a Greek God. Chiseled. Hard. Ready.
“Wait, we need protection.” I moved to my belt, but he grasped my wrist and pulled me up to him. The movement was fluid, effortless, as if I weighed nothing. “Do you trust me to take care of us?” His eyes met mine. The question caught in my throat. I nodded, my belly flooding with warmth. His hands skimmed my sides and centered over my navel. “I will makeusa charm that will prevent a child.”
That word burrowed in. This man was going to leave me forever. We might only have tonight. My skin flared with heat as he drew an invisible ward across my belly, his fingers trailing down my thighs with the delicacy of a feather.
“Now for me,” he said, gripping the base of his cock. He tipped his chin up to the ceiling, and his cock flexed in his grip.
I imagined the same wave of warmth flowing under his skin. I covered his hands, then stroked the silky length. He moaned and quivered.
“We’ll be safe now,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and drawing me to his chest. The gentle touches were strong and lithe, like him. He dipped his head, capturing my lips. The kiss sweet as mulberries.
“You’ve done this before.” I laughed against his lips, and he pulled back. I grabbed his arms to hold him. “Wait, no. I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t know what your life was like and whether?—”
“I’d lain with a woman? Yes. We do not go chaste to the Garden.” He chuckled, low and throaty. “Don’t worry. I know what to do with you.” His expression shifted from predatory lip-licking delight to narrow-eyed concern. “But do you? I should have asked first. I don’t know your world that well.” He pulled back again, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Come here, you annoying wizard. I know what I’m doing,” I said, roughly tugging him on top of me. We rolled on the bed, and he pinned me beneath him. Skin on skin, each brush ofour lips a whirlwind whipping up the fire that scorched the air between us.
His hands leisurely roamed from my breasts to thighs. “Such beauty,” he said, kissing down my belly as his fingers slipped over the hair between my legs and circled my clit. I squirmed as his fingers stroked, arching under him. Leaving a trail of wetness, he dragged his tongue down my thigh and buried his face between my legs.
Whimpering, I threaded my fingers through his silky hair as his mouth weaved magic. The orgasm twisted in peaks to its final apex, and I melted into the bed.
He settled beside me, stroking my erect nipples.
“I like the sound you make when you see the stars,” he purred.
“Then it’s my turn to make you see them.” I rolled on top of him, straddling his legs, and dragged my palms down his sculpted chest. The man was marble come to life. Caging his balls, I licked a bead of cum off his cock.
Salty, sweet, like him.
His hips arched up. He moaned, “Gods, don’t stop.”
