I forget all about the mess of ink and arch to feed him more of me. He covers my whole nipple with his mouth and kisses it so hard that pain and pleasure collide. The dueling sensation strikes my spine and core, pooling heat between my legs.
He proceeds to inflict the same sweet torture on my other breast before popping it out of his mouth to kiss his way down to my belly button. His fingers come away from my wrists and he drags his blunt nails down the inside of my arms, coaxing goosebumps onto every corner of my being.
He scratches down my rib cage, following the line of my body to my hips. Once he reaches them, he grabs my lace underwear and rolls it off. And then he palms my skinny heels and bends my leg to kiss my ankle. Slowly, he licks a line up to my knee, and I learn that knees are most wondrous places because the pressure of his mouththeremakes all my muscles clench hard.
He drapes my leg over his wide shoulder, then proceeds to show his devotion to my other ankle, calf, and knee before tossing that leg over his back. He draws my thighs wide, then drops into a crouch and buries his face between my legs.
I jolt when his tongue makes contact with that magical nub and sink my ink-stained fingers into his midnight hair. Not to hold him there—I don’t think he needs to be held—but to hold on.
When he lashes me with the flat of his tongue, it feels as though the golden lettering springs off every leather spine and begins to twirl in the dark air over us. I gaze at Lore’s bobbing head and then roll my head back and gape at the shimmering cyclone that seems to twirl faster and—
“LORE!” His name tears from my throat at the very same time as an orgasm erupts in my core, flaying me open.
Before I’ve even recovered, he straightens, lines up his swollen tip, and sinks into me.
I see more stars. They crackle and shine like sparklers, shoot across the stone heavens like comets.
When he’s fully sheathed, a husky growl rips from his chest and unspools across my body. The tenor is so loud and deep that it shakes the wood beneath my back. He pulls his hips back, groaning as the muscles in my core grip him. Though I’m tight, he’s made me so wet, that he glides clean out. Before I can miss his length, he slams back in.
More ink gurgles from the toppled well, splashing my jaw. He releases one of my legs to cup my cheek. At first, I think it’s to wipe the ink, but then he smooths his hand down my torso and paints me, swirling his hand over my sweat-glazed skin, darkening the dusky-pink peaks of my bouncing breasts.
Focà, mo khrà.His eyes are as glazed as his forehead, as shiny as the raven locks that crisscross his brow.How I’ve missed the softness of your skin and the heat of your body.
Every muscle inside my body clenches, from that sex he’s missed, to the heart he conquered by never giving up. “I’ve missed . . .”
Although I don’t want to look away, my lids slam closed because he’s driving the heel of his hand against my tender clit. I explode against him, around him, the tide of my pleasure sucking him in deep before rushing against him and propelling him out.
Except my mate isn’t some little pebble that can be rolled away; he’s a boulder against which ships crash and oceans foam. He narrows his gaze over the chaos he’s reaped on my skin, his pupils tightening in time with his jaw, then slams back into my spasming depths with a feral growl and erupts, decorating those parts of me his ink failed to reach.
By the time he’s spent his seed, I’m dripping, and so is he, and not just from the salt of our combined sweat and pleasure but from bliss. Bone-numbing, heartrending bliss.
Still buried deep, he leans over my body and presses a reverent kiss to the little tattoo beneath my eye before murmuring what sounds like a prayer in Crow. I decipher the names of my parents and the wordsthank youandwind.
I was thanking the winds for blowing your mother onto the shores of my kingdom and into your father’s arms.
I twist a lock of his hair around my fingers, watching the black glide over the blue of my skin. “If only the winds hadn’t torn them apart.”
“The winds didn’t; the Regios did.”
The same way Dante ripped Lore and me apart . . . “I’ll need a sword. When we get back, I mean. Don’t give me one before the trip.” Alyona’s corpse stamps my lids. I hurl the image away. “And I’ll need some training. Once we return from Glace, can you give me both?”
“Yes, but you’ll need no training.”
“I beg to differ, seeing as I’m completely inept at swordfighting.”
“There will be no fighting.”
“Are you planning on trussing up Dante and presenting him to me on a platter?”
“Something like that.” He skims his thumb over the little feather on my cheekbone. “And you aren’t inept with blades.”
My runaway heart holds still. And not from the memory of the dagger I sunk into Dante’s eye, or even the blade protruding from Alyona’s rib cage, but from that of the sword I thrust through Cato’s neck. Nostrils flaring with disgust and shame, I turn my head and stare at the gray floor. Though my friend isn’t sprawled at my feet, I nonetheless glimpse his blood-soaked body.
I tow my hand out of Lore’s hair and ball it at my side. Attempting to crumple the recollection, I shut my eyes, but the memory clings to my lids like a fresh bruise. I wish Lore hadn’t brought Cato up. It isn’t that I forgot about him, because I haven’t—I could never—but with everything else happening, hehadslipped from the forefront of my mind.
He was your jailer, Behach Éan.
My nails bite into my palms.He was also my friend.How many times will we have this conversation?
