Page 44 of Given to the Black King

The second climax takes me by surprise because I am watching him, not myself.

His thumb presses once across the place his mouth left raw. His fingers curl. The pleasure catches low and closes around them before I can breathe.

I jerk against his hand. My inner muscles seize in quick waves, each one dragging his fingers deeper. The kiss breaks on my cry of his name. He catches the sound with his mouth, then feels the next contraction and shudders as if it happened inside him.

His body locks.

Venom floods his mouth. I see it in the sudden wet shine along the fangs and in the panic that cuts through his hunger.

He turns his face away from my throat and bites the collar of his own shirt. Cloth rips between his back teeth. Even now, he keeps the fang points clear.

His hips drive into my fist once. Twice.

The swollen root pulses under my hand.

Hot release spills over my fingers and his stomach in several heavy spurts.

The sound he makes is low and broken.

I keep stroking until his claws split the table edge.

Torgan lowers his forehead to mine while the swelling eases beneath my hand. His breath is ragged. Mine is worse.

He pulls my skirts down and tears a narrow strip from his shirt. He threads it through the damaged hooks at my back, knots the dress closed beneath my shoulder blades, and uses another clean edge to wipe my hand.

Then he turns his head and fits his mouth around the bite on my shoulder, keeping both points outside the bruise.

“Tonight was not enough.”

“No.”

“Good.”

The bell rings below us.

One hard strike. Another.

Torgan’s head comes up. “East gate.”

The third strike follows while he fastens his trousers and I test the strip holding my dress shut.

“Rider,” he says. “Urgent.”

He unlocks the door.

Cold corridor air moves over my face. Ghenn stands ten paces away with two scouts and the expression of a man determined not to notice that his king’s shirt is torn, his mouth is wet, and the envoy is standing on unsteady legs.

“Osk?” Torgan asks.

“East cousins opened their hall to him. He has coast silver and hired spears.”

“Whose silver?” I ask.

“Coast issue,” Ghenn says. “Fresh.”

The treaty is no longer racing only Osk. It is racing the people in Serath who profit if the border burns.

“How long before hired companies expect a second payment?”