Shadows snaked up my stomach and braced me against the ladder before he parted my core with his fingers, and his mouth followed, tongue delving into my now exposed center.
“Fuck,” I cried out as my hips ground against him and my thighs scrapped against his stubble. I wanted to reach down and pull his hair, push him down off the ladder, and take him there on the floor. He brought me toward a desperate peak, and every muscle in my body tensed.
Then he abruptly pulled away and left me whimpering without any relief. My core clenched as he trailed kisses up my navel.
“Keep going,” I demanded.
“No,” he growled into my stomach. He continued to trail kisses up between my breasts. “Better idea—this time I want to feel you tighten around me when I watch you come undone.” He stepped up between my legs, positioning his length right where I needed him. He lingered there a few moments, dragging himself through the evidence of my yearning.
“Do you need a map?” I gasped out impatiently.
“No—I need to take my time.”
After sliding into me an inch, he stopped and drew my chin up to meet his gaze again. My hips sought more of him, but his Shadows braced me like vines, binding me to the ladder.
My body turned to putty—hanging by that Luz-blue ribbon, hanging by a thread of my own desire.
I craved the fullness of him and gasped as he pushed in another inch. My vision was spotting white with adrenaline-fueled pleasure. “Krait, all of you. Now.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do while I’m inside of you,” he said, in between biting at my earlobe. As if I got to tell him what to do when hewasn’tinside of me.
Just when I thought he might make me wait forever, he thrust himself into me to the hilt with a satisfied groan.
Pulling my wrists against the restraint, I longed to dig my nails into something other than my own palms. He stayed there, completely still, his forehead pressed against mine for a moment too long. I grew impatient, overtaken by the heat that filled my veins.
“Movenow, or we are done,” I commanded. A terrible bluff.
A gruff, dark laugh escaped his lips, just inches from mine, before he said, “We will never be done, Sybilla.”
The blue ribbon gave way above me as though his Shadows had untied it. I fell into him, wrapping my legs around his waist. My fingers dug into his silken, wet hair as they’d so desired. The rungs of the ladder might leave bruises, but I felt no pain.
The sounds our bodies made against one another were a vulgar symphony that I’d gladly listen to until the end of time. He’d lied—he did bite. The skin of my shoulder held proof of it.
“Fuck,” I gasped.
“Such a foul mouth,” he answered before he grabbed my lower lip between his teeth. “I’m learning to love it.”
With my head thrown against the ladder, I crested over the edge of my desire with the intensity of cannon fire. Screaming out, I clenched down around him.
“Yes, Sybilla,” he breathed out before a guttural sound escaped him, too. He slammed into me to the hilt once more. Then, just as I thought he’d spill into me, he abruptly pulled away. Warmth hit my inner thigh and ran down my leg.
Surfacing from my desire-infused fog, I reeled back out of his arms and found my own footing on the ladder. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
With his lips swollen and hair mussed, he looked boyishly confused.
“Why would you do that? Why pull away?” I asked.
“It...it is a habit. And I didn’t know if you were ready to—”
“Oh. So then youdoknow how heirs are made—well,that’sa relief,” I snapped. “Why would you not take the opportunity? What did you think we were doing here?”
The harshness of the words felt wrong, but they’d already been said and they eased the hurt of his admission.
I didn’t know if you were ready.
This was still about an heir, about a prophecy, to him, wasn’t it? His doubt in me made my blood boil.
To my surprise, he looked dumbstruck and bashful, but my anger didn’t allow for recognition of humility. “You were adamant about keeping things ‘professional.’ Were you not?” he justified. “You’ve put up so many conflicting smoke signals it’s hard to tell what in the realms you want.”
