Page 23 of Ashborne: Defiance

I blinked, but there was nothing to see in the dark except the memories, and so… I closed my eyes again. And let the shirt fall open. And my mind as well. I fell back into the memory of those glorious moments before he’d rejected me…

Vane’s hand, sliding from my hair to my neck, long fingers curling, his nails scraping at my nape, the pad of his palm pressed to my throat, his thumb stroking the side of my neck. Soft, warm lips sliding against mine.

I let my nails scrape against my cheek.

The peculiar thrill of the stubble on his chin scratching my jaw.

Rolled onto my back to feel the stone floor under the fur.

The iron strength of the arm bent against my spine to keep me pinned against him. The broad, flat hand splayed between my shoulders, cradling me.

Panting like I’d been running, I grew bold and reckless, and let my hand drag down…

Tingling pleasure wherever his other hand roamed—my face, my side, my waist, my belly, up to the neckline of my shirt, then with barely a pause, slipping under, his calloused palm against my skin. When he cupped my breast, I actually shook with a tremulous, frantic pleasure.

My hand shook, but my body knew. As I slipped fingers down between my own legs, only to explore, to discover what he’d sought, a rush of pleasure and hammering need battered me, begging for more.

The belt on my trousers gave under Vane’s shaking grip, and he groaned as he slipped magical fingers between my thighs. My blood rushed to meet his touch, and my pulse pounded in my ears, as something drove me forward, to grip him, to cling, to plead. Suddenly, the search was over. I knew it like I knew the sky was blue to match my eyes: This passion, this hunger, would not be sated by anything less than—

I cried his name like a plea as my spine arched until only my shoulders and tailbone met the fur, my breasts strained into the cool air, nipples hard as nails, and my body jangled with an inexplicable, vibrating pleasure that had me shaking and twitching, crying in short, high gasps, and writhing like a fish on a line.

For an eternal, mindless moment, I was nothing but bliss. Heated, shivering, burning, ecstasy stopped my breath in my chest, and turned me into a tuning fork, humming a note—no, screaming it—in harmony with the dragons.

I hung on the precipice of sanity, unbreathing, for longer than I could count.

Then, suddenly, as quickly as that tide had risen to dash me against the rocks of pleasure, so it sucked away, draining out of me, leaving my body trembling, weak, and gasping for air.

“Oh, God,” I cried, for surely only He could save me from this?

But as I lay there, tears building under my tightly closed lids, as that hunger ebbed just a hair with the outgoing tide, to leave my cheeks hot and mind reeling with confusion, I slumped back down to earth with a jolt.

And not the pleasant kind.

I was half-naked, lying on the ground in a cave, alone, because the first man to ever light a fire in my blood was repulsed by the very idea of touching me and—

‘Grace… God, Grace. I need you. Please. This is torture.’

“Vane?!” My eyes flew open and, forgetting my near-nakedness, I sat bolt upright, gasping, looking left and right, eyes wide, but finding nothing but darkness, and the soft glow of the night sky at the cave entrance.

Still panting, I rubbed my eyes and turned in every direction. But, there was nothing.

Then one of the dragons groaned somewhere in the night, and those threatening tears blurred my sight as that low, heated simmer began behind my navel again.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and gave myself one, wracking sob through my teeth, one hasty prayer for mercy.

‘Grace… oh, Grace… please…’

Sucking in one, bracing inhale, I pushed to my feet on shaking knees, and cast around for my clothes.

There was no need for the cloak, I was sweating.

The moment I was decent and booted, I hurried back out, into the night, following that disembodied voice, and the tug on my heart where he’d chained me. Somehow.

I wanted to spit a chain of curse-words at him for this torment.

I wanted to beg him to have me, even if just for this torturous moment.

And I wanted to fall into his arms and weep, plead with him to tell me what was happening to me.