This was nothing like kissing Toby, who’d been a friend and a playmate. Kissing Toby had been all innocent curiosity and awkward experimentation. Kissing Gavin had made her feel weak and dirty because he’d tricked her into thinking he liked her until she refused to go further than a kiss and he’d walked away angry. That was it. She’d only ever kissed two men and Toby hadn’t even been a man at the time.
This was completely different, thrilling in a way that consumed her whole body, bringing every part of her alive. It was so recklessly dangerous. Nothing either of them would allow under other circumstances.
Sliding her tongue against his, she lost herself in the feel of him. His hard body pressed against her side, his hand cradling her head. One of his thighs half-covered hers, pressing her down to the ground. A hard weight rocked against her hip.
She gasped, and he lifted his head. His expression had lost its usual calm. His eyes gleamed with plain desire. With raw and open hunger.
“We should stop,” he said.
“No.” As his hand left her hair, she caught it and moved it to her breast. “Please. Don’t stop.”
His fingers tightened and she arched her back, pressing against the warmth of his rough hands. His mouth slid over her jaw, pressed a kiss to the soft spot below her ear.
He whispered her name and there was such a ragged edge to his voice that it sent a shiver down her body. The cold knot in her belly loosened, slowly thawing beneath the heat of his touch. She rolled toward him as he plucked at her nipple. The sharp sensation shot straight to her groin.
He smoothed a hand down her flank, past the curve of her waist, moving slowly, mapping out every inch of vulnerable skin, finally settling on her hip and pulling her up against him.
“Angel.” His voice was hoarse. “I don’t want you to regret this.”
That seemed a laughable idea. How could she regretthis? It was the most wonderful thing she’d ever felt in her entire life. She didn’t want it to end.
“I won’t.” His jaw was tight, eyes as bright as when he’d had a fever. She kissed that notch on his chin, drew her lips over the gritty scrape of his whiskers. “I promise.”
She licked the strong column of his neck. He groaned out a curse and rolled her flat onto her back. He propped himself up on an elbow and jerked her breeches down over her hips. She kicked free of them and he moved his hand between her legs.
Her breathing went ragged as his fingers slid through her folds, opening her. She was embarrassingly wet there, slippery and warm, but he didn’t seem to mind. His fingers lightly traced her entrance and then moved higher to circle the sensitive knot of flesh above.
She cried out and that seemed to please him. His pupils expanded until his eyes were nearly black in the firelight. The planes of his face were stark with restraint.
She didn’t like that he was holding himself back. She wanted all of him.
He whispered her name again and shifted his body slightly to change the angle of his hand while he teased her with that slow, excruciatingly gentle touch. She moved against him, trying to get closer, needing more, but he held back, the bastard, drawing it out, showing her that he was in control, even of her body. He licked at her breasts. His warm smooth lips drifted over the bruises on her throat and then he was kissing her again, deep, drugging kisses that stole her breath.
He pressed inside her with one long finger, gliding in and drawing slowly back. His rough calluses dragged along her sensitive flesh.
Her back arched off the ground and her thighs fell open.
He exhaled a soft laugh against her lips. “God, you’re so fucking tight. I wouldn’t last a minute inside of you.”
He added a second finger to the first. Her hands clutched at his shoulders. She tipped her head back and his mouth drifted along her throat while his fingers tortured her with a slow, languid thoroughness that made her feel completely exposed.
“We should find out.”
He groaned. “Not tonight. One of us needs to keep our head straight.”
She didn’t know why that needed to be true. She very much wanted to get out of her head. She suspected Casrian needed to do that too sometimes. She doubted he ever let it happen. But she’d very much like to see it.
She blinked open her eyes. “But if you could?”
“If I could, I’d kiss every freckle scattered across your skin. I’d bury my face between those pretty thighs and learn what you taste like when you come on my tongue. I would devote hours to finding every sensitive spot on your body until you were begging me to take you. I’d bind you to me with pleasure after pleasure like a witch laying a trap. And then I’d fuck you until you forgot your own name. If I could. If we weren’t out on a hunt. In the middle of the Black fucking Woods.”
As he spoke, he increased the pace until she was writhing against him, her entire body drawn taut as a bow, focused on the thrust of his hand between her thighs and the images he was conjuring. She was a mindless creature drowning in pure sensation. His thumb swept over her throbbing flesh, and he watched her through hooded eyes, drinking in her every response.
“Would you like that?” he asked. “Is that what you want, too?”
“Yes.”
God, yes.
