She expels a thready gasp.
“If you’ll allow me to worship it.”
She crooks an eyebrow. “Is that a line from theEmpress of Ice, or did you just come up with it?”
“You’ll find out once I get to chapter fifty-seven, though it may take some time to reach the end of the book, considering I’ll most probably want to stop and check the feasibility of the spicier passages.”
Her cheeks pinken then. “You’re the king. You have a gazillion better things to do than read me some romance?—”
“Isla Ríhbiadh”—I bracket her face between my palms—“I willneverhave anything better to do than spend time with you.”
Her throat dips. So does mine. Those words rushed out so fast and with so little thought that I’m caught just as unawares as she is. She bites her lip. Is she dwelling on the fact that I’m not her mate?
Not wanting that contemplation encroaching on the moment, I spout out, “Now be a good girl and remove your trousers so I may become better acquainted with your plump lips.”
She grins. “How on earth did you deliver that line with a straight face?”
“Because it isn’t a line.” I bump her nose with mine. “It’s a pressing need.”
That flattens her smile and ratchets up her breathing. Since she’s yet to roll off her leather trousers, I seize them at the waistand help her out of them. And then I fall to my knees in front of her, debating whether to remove the scrap of black silk or leave it in place.
Even though it’s fucking stunning, as far as undergarments go, I want to see her bare, so I hook my thumbs into the fabric and tow it off. And then I just stare, first at the birthmark that is well and truly shaped like my continent, and then at her eyes that glow as she tracks my every movement.
When I lick my lips, she shudders.
When I spiral my hands around her legs that are as smooth as her beautiful sex, she bites her lip.
When I lift one of her thighs and hook it over my shoulder, she sinks her fingers into my hair.
When I press a kiss to her center, she moans.
I chuckle.
My breath must hit her glistening slit, because she’s suddenly pulling on my roots and rasping, “Holy shit. Breathe on me again…”
I indulge her, keeping my mouth just off her pulsing core. A tremor shakes her body.
“I think”—her throat clenches—“I think I could come from your breathing alone.”
Her words mixed with her scent and the softness of her skin have made me so hard that I, too, think I just may come without any manual stimulation.
“I haven’t even tasted you yet,Yegmenka.” Even though my tongue longs to gather her honeyed heat, I lift one hand and send a steady stream of air-magic against her hooded bead.
Her fingers jerk. All of her jerks. And then she’s moaning, gasping, and then moaning once more, her clit throbbing, her lips dampening from the wave of her climax.
She leans her head against a painted bloom and lets her lids drift shut. “That was…” Her throaty timbre wraps itself around my cock.
“Too brief.”
“Butsogood.” She slaps an arm over her face and releases a contented sigh. “I love air-magic.”
“Good, because it’s yours to use and abuse.” As she drops her hand back to my hair, I ask, “How’s your forearm?”
“It’s been healed.”
I deduce from the passive tense, that she didn’t heal the lacerated skin herself, the same way I deduce curative sigils must be amidst the more challenging ones. Like the privacy sigil she tried to draw in the library. I’d sensed her frustration but hadn’t grasped its root.
I kick myself for putting her on the spot.
