They were immune to the ash. But they weren’t immune to the storms.
“What are you thinking?” His thumb slid down her neck, tracing a sparking line to her throat.
She shuddered. “I don’t remember. You’re distracting me.”
He shot her a devilish grin. “You said your shoulder has healed. What about that wound in your stomach?”
“I’m all patched up now,” she said, voice hoarse. She watched him stalk across the room and quietly shut the door to her bedchamber.
“How fortunate for us both,” he murmured.
Her heart pounded so hard that her chest shook. She had not been alone inside of a bedchamber with Lorcan like this since…well, there was one time back at the Air Court when she’d still thought of him as an enemy. He’d only come in to stand guard, thinking she planned to sneak out her window to catch assassins in the night.
He had not been wrong.
The time in Oxgrove didn’t count either. That had been an alchemist’s healing room, not a bedchamber, and she’d been half out of her mind from pain while the other half was high in the sky from the rowan berry brew. This time, it felt very different. She could scarcely breathe.
With hooded eyes, he prowled across the room. Reyna’s pulse trembled in her neck as she curled her fingers around the silken bedsheets. He looked like a lion stalking its prey, and if she wasn’t careful, he might take a bite.
“What are you doing?” she managed to whisper, her voice warbling along with the rest of her.
“You know what I’m doing.” Eyes sparking with heat, he came to a sudden stop beside the bed and ripped back the sheets. Her eyes went wide, breath catching. “Stand.”
She lifted a brow. “Do you seriously think you can command me to—”
“Stand,” he growled.
“Hmph!” She threw her legs over the side of the bed, stood, and then poked a finger at the center of his armored chest. “I didn’t make a vow toyou. You can’t order me around.”
His lips twitched with the hint of a smile. “And yet you’re standing.”
Before she could come up with a suitable retort, Lorcan grasped her arm and inspected her shoulder. He poked at it, and then pushed firmly with his fingers. Seemingly satisfied, he leaned down and lifted the bottom hem of her nightdress only to find that she wore nothing underneath. She froze, scarcely breathing, as his fingers slid across the faint scar on the lower half of her abdomen. Her skin buzzed from the heat of his touch, and warmth blazed between her thighs.
“Lorcan.” She whispered the words since that was all she could manage. “Since when did you become an alchemist?”
“Since you kept recklessly throwing yourself into danger?” He snapped back his hand, and the hem of the nightdress fluttered back down around her hips. “Since I want nothing more in this world than to throw you onto that bed and claim you as mine.”
Her breath hitched. Heat stormed through her chest, and any last remnants of the ice wall she’d built around her heart shattered in an instant. She wanted to be his, she knew, regardless of what he’d done, who his father was, and what that might mean when all was said and done. She just wantedhim.
As if his words were a promise, he wrapped his strong arms around her and tossed her onto the bed. Her back bounced against the soft, feather mattress as Lorcan unbuckled his belt and dropped it to the floor. She drank in his every movement, anticipation thrumming through her veins. His trousers came next, and then his tunic over his head.
Heat spread through her core as she took in his raw masculinity. He was already hard and bigger than she remembered. Wetting her lips, she scuttled back on the bed.
“Where are you going?” he murmured, wrapping his hands around her knees and spreading her thighs wide. He leaned forward between her legs and braced his elbows on either side of her hips.
She could not bear to stay still but she didn’t dare move at all. His mouth was agonizingly close to her core, and a sudden wave of need crashed all around her. Softly, slowly, she wound her fingers through his raven locks and tugged him toward her.
With a smile, he glanced up. “Is there something you want?”
“You’re teasing me,” she whispered.
“No,thisis teasing you.” His mouth dropped onto the skin just above her navel, and his searing tongue drew a line all the way up to the peaked nipple of her right breast. He pushed the nightdress over her head, and then tossed it halfway across the room. Shuddering, she clung to his hair as he dragged his tongue in a circle and then sucked hard.
“Oh god,” she moaned, arching her back. Heat sizzled between her thighs. She tucked one leg around the back of his hips and tried to tug him forward, but he growled and clasped her wrists between his hands. His mouth continued its long, excruciating tease, from nipple to nipple and back down to her navel again. By the time he dragged his tongue closer to her core, she was a shivering mess of anticipation beneath him.
“Let me ask again,” he murmured, his tongue darting closer and closer to her core, where she could feel she’d begun to soak the bed. “Is there something you want?”
She squirmed beneath him. He was enjoying this, having stubborn-as-hell Reyna Darragh practically begging for his touch. But she didn’t care. She did want him. Sheneededhim, unlike anything else in the world.
